Translator: Mirjana Čutura Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
Childhood.
This is one of just a few photos of me playing outside as a young child.
Growing up in the 1970s, people didn't take many photos.
And they certainly didn't take photos of children playing outside,
because it was very common for a child to play outside.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
My sisters and I spent endless hours transforming our backyard
into a cooking-show kitchen, an airport, a hair salon,
or some other imaginary place.
We would pull the contents of our basement playroom outside
where there was more space and greater possibilities.
Often, our play would go to the back alley,
or it would go down the street to our neighborhood friend's house.
I have no memory of my parents being anywhere close by
or calling next door to arrange a play date.
I imagine that these memories sound familiar to many of you
sitting in the audience today.
Think of yourself playing as a child.
Now raise your hand if your play took place outside.
Leave your hand up if your parents were nowhere in sight.
(Laughter)
Unfortunately,
to far too many children today, being outdoors is a far, foreign place.
Kids with an interest in going outside
are often guided by their parents or society
to stay indoors to avoid discomfort and danger.
Or they are distracted by a wide array of electronic devices
that passively entertain them.
According to US research,
over half of preschoolers do not go outside on a daily basis
with their parents.
This photograph of a couple of preschoolers on their iPads worries me.
No. Actually, it scares me.
Research in Canada suggests that children ages six to eleven
spend seven and a half hours being inactive every day.
In the UK,
they found that over 40% of parents
don't believe that children under the age of 14 should go outside unsupervised.
So what is society doing about this?
I want to tell you today about how we developed a Nature Kindergarten
in our community
to connect young children with nature.
My story begins in 2010
when our family took a four-month sabbatical to Munich, Germany.
Our son, Niko, was four at the time.
And given my enthusiasm about connecting children to the outdoors,
you can imagine how excited I was to enroll him in a Waldkindergarten,
forest kindergarten.
Forest preschools have been part of a northern European tradition
for over 60 years.
There is no bad weather,
only bad clothing.
Send the kids outside, rain or shine.
Have you ever noticed that it's usually adults, not children,
who don't want to go outside in bad weather?
(Laughter)
Northern Europeans have long understood
the benefits of taking young children outside,
and so they developed these programs for three- to six-year-olds.
Each day,
a trained early-childhood educator would take the children outside
to learn and play in unstructured ways
and often with limited adult supervision.
While Niko's program took place in a municipal forest,
these programs have also been successfully established on farms and in city parks.
Ironically, Niko and I spent over an hour commuting to his program -
first by bike, then by subway, then by streetcar, and eventually on foot
to arrive at the forest.
While the children in Wurzelkinder Waldkindergarten
spent part of their day in and around these caravans,
it was their daily excursion to the forest or riverbank
that was the part of the program that is unique.
Along the way,
their educators would help them name and notice berries, bugs, slugs.
And when they got there,
they would sit on the forest floor in a circular fashion,
give thanks to nature, enjoy a snack, and then they would play.
Occasionally, I asked for permission to participate.
I was amazed at what I saw.
What a world of difference compared to the co-op preschool model back home.
I was intrigued by how young children walked one- to two-kilometer distances
without complaining
and often out of the sight of an adult,
how puddles became invitations to create makeshift boats and get wet,
and how the educators stood back
and allowed the children to independently struggle
with the physics of getting a stick into the ground
to make a goalpost for soccer.
I appreciated the care and detail
that went into making crafts out of natural objects,
rather than paper and glitter,
and how the change of seasons were celebrated through song and dance.
I was shocked by the risks that were taken
when young children were allowed to swim in the fast-flowing Isar River,
when they tied ropes around trees,
and the children would traverse up and down the hillside in the dirt,
when four-year-olds, my son included, were given sharp knives
so that they can whittle sticks
in order to be able to roast a sausage over an open flame.
"Risk," it turns out, is not a four-letter word
to German parents and educators.
It is a vehicle to independence.
When I wasn't participating in Niko's program,
I took that streetcar a few stops further along,
and I sat in a cafe, and I leisurely read a book or the newspaper.
While this was initially self-indulgent bliss
for a full-time working mom on sabbatical,
the novelty ended, and I became restless to become productive.
I am German after all.
(Laughter)
So I shared my woes of non-productivity with my remotely sympathetic spouse.
And it is he who I should credit with the idea of a Nature Kindergarten
because he shifted my thinking,
and my principled mind started turning over new ideas.
By the time we returned to Canada,
I had not only experienced forest preschools firsthand,
but I'd also read a few books,
and I talked to several of Niko's educators.
As the person responsible for the district's curriculum and programs,
I was well positioned to pitch the idea of transplanting a Nature Kindergarten
to a school district in British Columbia.
My supervisor trusted in my capacity to start a new program,
and I knew where to find collaborators.
Early-childhood professor Enid Elliot
was my first and most critical collaborator.
Over a course of two years,
Enid and I gathered a community of individuals
from a wide variety of backgrounds
who were generous with their ideas and their time.
We all believed in the value of our own time spent outside
as young children,
the importance of play,
and the need to respond to the factors that were keeping children indoors today.
Together, we envisioned a kindergarten program
at a school that was adjacent to a forest and a lagoon.
And we envisioned children going outside for two and a half hours every morning,
regardless of the weather.
They would follow the mandated kindergarten curriculum
outside in the morning and indoors in the afternoon.
We hoped that nature would become their third teacher,
that their mental and physical health would improve,
that they would become stewards of the environment,
and that they would learn the Aboriginal ways of knowing
of the First Nations people.
Meet Lisa and Erin, kindergarten teacher and early-childhood educator.
Together, they took the idea of a Nature Kindergarten
and transformed it into practice.
Observing great teaching leaves me feeling charged up and hopeful.
Spending a morning with Lisa, Erin, and their students
always leaves me with this energized feeling.
Each day, they go outside, and they create a learning environment
that develops organically according to what the kids are interested in
and the unknown wonders of the natural world.
Through self-reflection, collaboration, and the occasional frustrated tear,
they move their educational practice forward.
To date, 65 children have completed our program.
I am pleased to tell you
that we have hardly used our risk-management plan.
No child has ever been lost, endangered by wildlife,
or seriously injured.
Phew.
(Laughter)
Parents have overwhelmingly reported
that the program has exceeded their expectations.
And when researchers compared the Nature Kindergarten
to a regular kindergarten class,
they found significantly greater gains in four areas.
Those four areas were locomotor skills, assertiveness, cooperation,
and self-control.
So let's go through them one by one.
Locomotor skills.
This log in the background of the photograph
is about 20 feet long, six inches wide, and about five feet off the ground.
Last year,
it sat in the Royal Roads Forest and got noticed by our students.
At first, they hung off of it,
then they bummed along it,
then they crawled along it,
and eventually - you guessed it -
they walked across this very long and skinny log.
Fortunately,
there were no concerned playground licensing officers anywhere close by.
(Laughter)
We need to empower young children to take age-appropriate risks
on their own.
We know that by doing so, they will lead healthier and safer lives as young adults.
These logs provide otherwise clumsy and uncoordinated children
with the ability to prove themselves to be expert climbers.
Picture Nature Kindergarten children moving and playing
for two and a half hours every morning,
and you won't be surprised to learn
that they improve their strength and agility to run, hop, and climb.
Assertiveness.
Every day last year,
the class walked past a couple of anthills.
The children became connected to the ants
as they do to most living things in "their" forest."
As the year went along,
they noticed that people were throwing sticks and rocks on the anthills,
causing them to get damaged.
The children identified themselves as the ants' caretakers,
and they decided to voice their opinions.
"You can't step on the anthills! They're part of nature!"
"We need to take care of them!"
"Ants help pollinate flowers!"
So they got together as a group, and they made signs and posters,
and they taught others how to take care of the ants.
Lucky ants -
four- and five-year-olds taking care of them,
not squashing them with their boots.
Cooperation.
The children soon learn that staying safe and happy in the forest
means cooperating and caring for each other.
Cooperation is a team effort.
"Help! This log is too heavy for me!"
Ava's friends rush over,
and they help her carry the branch down the path.
"You have to walk one, two, one, two, one, two!"
Ava's more confident friend Eli offers up.
And soon, their classmates start walking at a similar speed.
"My arm is getting sore. When can we switch?"
"You have to keep going!" yells Zoe from the back of the log.
No adults - just kids organizing kids.
Self-control.
Using sticks, rocks, and dirt,
the children in the Nature Kindergarten learn to focus themselves
during listening times in the forest.
Being outdoors in the wide, open spaces
makes it easy to accept noises and actions
that may be considered too loud or destructive indoors.
So the Nature Kindergarten children realize that you can bark like a dog,
or you can dig a hole next to your classmate,
and no one will be annoyed with your unconventional ways.
We did it.
We transplanted a forest preschool to a school district in British Columbia.
What we didn't anticipate is how the interest in this idea would grow.
The Nature Kindergarten was at the front end of a wave of interest
in outdoor programs for young children.
There are now over 20 programs like this across the province,
with several examples in different school districts.
(Applause)
You can't do this overnight,
so be thoughtful in your process
and generous in how you support your educators.
Every generation is different, but nature is our constant.
Being outside as a young child helped define who I am today,
what I value, and how I spend my time.
I hope that my own children, nieces and nephews,
and the children who I educate
will develop this same connection to nature.
The future of our planet depends on raising children
who have reasons to protect the world they live in.
(Applause)