One of the books that made the biggest impact on my whole paradigm of education is Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education, by David Sobel. I re-visit this very short book from time to time and feel a renewed excitement for the road I am travelling. The big take away is that environmental education for children that focuses on oil spills and the terrible things happening to rainforests and glaciers does not create environmentalist. It is too scary for children and too abstract. Children need to fall in love with the natural world, form a genuine empathy for living things and then they will have a stake in taking care of the environment for the rest of their life. This is the bedrock conviction that motivated me to find a campus with a creek, bring in a donkey, goats and chickens.
In the afternoon at The Inside Outside School, children work with their "clan" and their clan mother (modeled on the Northeast Woodland Indian tribes) to care for the campus. One group feeds the animals, offers clean water, gets the chickens back into their coop for the night, and empties the compost buckets. Another group cares for other outside spaces while the third group sweeps, mops and vacuumes the inside spaces. Once the chores are done we put on our waders, grab the goats and head for the riparian wooded areas near the creek. The older students are building an empire at the far corner of the property which they named "Tiger's Treasure" last year. This area of the creek is just around the bend from "Toenail Beach" where the largest Texas toenail fossils have been collected. (I wonder when some thoughtful student will discover that these giant oysters fossils would be an interesting independent study project.) One student prefers the swing in the middle of the property which hangs from a giant old pecan tree. The kindergarten boys leave this nature literacy time soaking wet, muddy and worn out.
"What's important is that children have an opportunity to bond with the natural world, to learn to love it and feel comfortable in it, before being asked to heal its wounds. John Burroughs remarked that "Knowledge without love will not stick, but if love comes first, knowledge is sure to follow." Our problem is that we are trying to invoke knowledge , and responsibility, before we have allowed a loving relationship to flourish." (Beyond Ecophobia)
While public school teachers are worried about test scores our teachers are trying to develop an effective natural insect repellent formula, figure out why the flower seeds didn't germinate and show the children how to do a blanket stitch around the perimeter of their felt number square.
"What's important is that children have an opportunity to bond with the natural world, to learn to love it and feel comfortable in it, before being asked to heal its wounds. John Burroughs remarked that "Knowledge without love will not stick, but if love comes first, knowledge is sure to follow." Our problem is that we are trying to invoke knowledge , and responsibility, before we have allowed a loving relationship to flourish." (Beyond Ecophobia)
While public school teachers are worried about test scores our teachers are trying to develop an effective natural insect repellent formula, figure out why the flower seeds didn't germinate and show the children how to do a blanket stitch around the perimeter of their felt number square.
All of those things are important. It is important to me that children love school, love animals, trees and creeks, learn to sew, cook, grow a carrot, and hammer a nail. It is important to me that our teachers love their job, love children and have become lifelong learners themselves. There were numerous moments in my time as a teacher that I wanted to find something else to do...anything! I never want to feel that way again. That is important. Thank you David Sobel!
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