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I like to go in the forest and see plants a lot. You can smell them by just doing this.
Smell!
Being outside with no walls around you, just that open sky, that freedom, I think is what
children need.
There’s something about that openness that opens them up.
As a classroom teacher I instinctively knew the best way for children to learn with was
to take them out of the classroom.
I think a lot of parents in particular these days are concerned about risk- being outside,
and so one of the foundational principles of outdoor education and forest kindergarten
is that that is an important part of development that children learn how to deal with the risks
that are inherent in an outdoor setting.
I like to consider Wauhatchie School kind of the mother ship.
You know it kind of started here, we were the first forest kindergarten in the state
of Tennessee and so my goal has always been to make this a model.
Teacher: We still need another rock over here
The idea of outdoor education of course is immersion in nature, so children come here
for a full immersion experience that means they stay outside whatever the weather.
Teacher: What instrument is this?
Just about any subject can be taught in an outdoor setting.
The history of outdoor education is really quite ancient.
In more modern times you see it probably emerging around the turn of the 20th century and particularly
in Europe, northern Europe number of countries Scandinavia Denmark; you have the use of forest
education in Germany, even the term kindergarten is a German term and it means child's garden.
My biggest concern right now is the disconnect between nature and human beings that disconnect
is bad for us in every way physically mentally spiritually and so I think this movement to
getting children back into nature has a lot to do with the concern of being disconnected
from it.
What do you see in the trees? I see more trees
The fear is that these kids are going to be behind academically.
People think well anybody you just go outside and play in the park so how is this educational
how is this beneficial?
But when you start looking at the research and saying oh these kids actually do better academically.
This is our favorite soup. We're making it out of our favorite recipe.
In math reading and language arts in all of the hard skills we want them
to gain at those foundational levels, they're always better.
Forest kindergarten runs the whole gamut of structured teaching to allowing the children
to direct the teaching.
The European philosophy is the teacher is the facilitator.
The teacher is not there to give information to the children, to direct their learning
the teachers there to stand back allow the children to explore discover on their own
and direct their own learning.
The teacher is there to support that and then of course they can give information as it's
necessary and to me it's probably the most powerful way for children to learn because
it's their discovery and they're excited about it and they're interested in it.
I experienced firsthand the benefit for children with for instance ADHD in being in an outdoor
setting when I was a teacher the child that had struggled with staying on task in the
classroom and following directions when he was outside when they were outside it was
for some reason they were able to focus they were excited they were following directions.
Our parents tell us that their children are becoming they're much more independent they
can do things on their own.
Socially they get along better together.
It's wonderful that we have a private school here and parents can bring their children
here but every child should have this experience and to see it integrated into public school
curriculum and all school curriculum; that that was my long-term goal was to see it become
a part of public education.
About the time I started exploring the idea of starting a forest kindergarten I was also
working at Gilbert elementary as the consultant for outdoor education and Matt Harris at Gilbert
and I started talking about forest kindergarten and he was also excited about the concept.
It can be done in a regular public school; it just takes a little bit of creativity and
a little bit of freedom.
We’d kind of developed an outdoor Ed program so we knew that we had the space.
We started off with grade-level research projects and each one of those projects had some aspect
to get the kids outside.
He's going to try the orange! He tried the orange!
From there we kind of progressed to trying to get every kid to spend an hour a day outside.
We try to do a lot of the outdoor education concepts that have been around for a long
time but we try to be really connected to the standards and make sure that we're being
efficient in covering the material that we need to.
Forest kindergarten- they spend half their day every day outside, rain or shine.
Curriculum wise, year one was a learning process.
We tried to go exactly by the book and the book was written for public schools.
We have two hours a day usually after lunch; some days we spend all day out and the morning
is more instructional time where I'm actually leading and teaching
Talk about what animals need, and you just did!
but the two hours after lunch is child directed play, child directed exploration.
When's the snail gonna come out of its shell?
Now spread the butter!
At the end of our adventure session they come to the pine forest and they sit at their own
tree and they have their own journals and pencils and that's the time we have them to
write down their discoveries of the day.
You know year one that was a concern of mine are they going to be close to grade level
or are they going to be able to transition into a normal class with their peers and they
came out slightly ahead of their peers.
I don't know that I can attribute that to forest kindergarten because we don't have
the long-term data yet but I can't say that they were not behind.
I want us to kind of be something that can be replicated.
I want to see Gilbert kind of be a tool used to spread it to other schools so whether it's
our county or Chattanooga or Hamilton County.
There’s just so much research and documentation showing that it's effective and showing that
it's the right thing to do.
It's been the most exciting thing for me is to see it actually happening here in Chattanooga,
to see the interest in public schools now.
Chattanooga is a place where people come because they love the outdoors.
This is where people can see it working.
I would love to see at all levels starting with education of teachers and moving right
on through to administrators of schools and administrators in County offices and on through
to principals- understanding enough so that instead seeing this as something fringe or
weird that it's seen as something that is very foundational to the well-balanced development
of any student at any level.
To me probably the joy of learning and the excitement about learning is what sparks lifelong
learning.
So when children are excited about learning when they're really young they can carry that
excitement through school.
What I've noticed is some of the teachers who've been through our program who are utilizing
this method, first of all notice how much more they enjoy teaching and they also are
finding that their kids enjoy school more; so there is just a level of loving to learn
that has come along with this.
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