English Audio Request

What if the kids aren’t particularly interested in the natural world—what if they’re indoor kids at heart?
We don’t just do natural stuff; it’s not just for granola-y nature buffs. Sometimes the kids are into PJ Masks, or they make a superhero cape out of fabric scraps. Maybe they’re a construction crew and they’re building an excavator. Nature always comes first, but we use some tools—hammers, hand drills, buckets. Some kids fill the buckets; some sit on them; some use them with pulley systems. They’re trying to figure out the world with their play, and they have many different kinds of brains and learning styles. One kid may want to know about worms, and another kid wants to build the worms a house; another kid wants to talk about the worm’s mommy; another kid’s always trying to eat the worm. Ultimately, it’s a respect for and a confidence in the children. And it sounds sad, but a lot of our education systems don’t start with that. They feel like children need to know certain things, so we’re going to teach them those certain things to check off that box. It doesn’t honor the child and it doesn’t respect the fact that not every kid takes in information like that. There’s also been a thing happening in more and more standardized schooling called push-down curriculums, where kids are being asked to learn things faster and at a younger and younger age, and often to test to prove it, when in fact it may not be appropriate for either their bodies or their brains. And a test, of course, is only one way to measure a child’s understanding, and not everybody tests well.
Is there an easy answer to the proverbial white-knuckled parent who wants to know why their kid came home from “school” crying and covered in mud?
It’s very easy to negate what we do—parents instinctively want their kids to come home filled with facts, not covered in mud and screaming because someone took their stick. But the fact is that they’re expressing their feelings; they’re working at conflict resolution; they’re having an intense sensory experience; and they’ve been allowed to be free to get messy. It’s not about knowing the names of the trees; it’s about being thrilled and excited to see trees. One of our kids called a sweetgum tree the “gumball tree.” We’re not going to correct that. They’re affectionate toward the tree; they’re protecting it; they’re collecting the sweetgum pods; they’re inventing fishing games with sticks and yarn that picks up the sticky sweetgum pods. All of that’s a valuable experience. And, yeah, it takes a ton of energy. There’s a lot of gentle correcting that goes on: “Spiders are not for eating.” “I need you to take your toes out of her hair and put your shoes back on—I hear that you’re a monkey, but…”
But the bigger things that parents want—confidence, empathy, a respect for others; an ability to stand up for yourself and speak your mind even if people don’t agree with you; the ability to work in a group and to solve conflicts and to focus—these are the skills that are going to make them more successful as they grow and learn. We want them to understand that they have power and they have choices.
Have you been noticing an uptick in interest lately—even aside from COVID-related desperation?
Absolutely—though I should note that the broad notion of forest school isn’t a new thing: Scandinavia, more and more of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and the West Coast have been seeing more and more forest schools every year.
At the same time, it’s not something that’s easily quantified, which is something that we all naturally want to see regarding our children. It’s an investment—but you’re not necessarily going to see the return on that investment the very same day. It’s a very organic way of learning, and it’s very difficult in our society to be simple. We live at a time when you pay somebody to take your phone away for a weekend so you don’t look at it. But there’s value in lying on the ground and staring up at the clouds. And my hope is that they keep understanding that value, and that they can come back to that—it’s about taking care of yourself; it’s meditative; it’s about curiosity; it’s artistic. Unfortunately, we’re living in a society where parents feel an enormous pressure to make sure their kids are learning the right things, and we often feel we have to offer more and teach more—but little brains sometimes can’t take in all that information. Sometimes lying in the grass and staring at the clouds is exactly what kids need.