Imagine stepping outside first thing in the morning. The air is cool, the breeze light on your face and arms. The smell of moist earth reaches your nose and a bird calls from some faroff tree. You squint up to see it and beams of sunlight warm your face and chest. You take a few more steps and breathe in, the smell of grass and dirt entices you to keep going. A bug catches your eye and you bend down to examine him. You watch, fully engaged until he disappears down a crack in dry earth. How are you feeling? 

Perhaps relaxed? At ease, in the moment? Maybe a slight bit curious?

Now imagine rushing out the door to get somewhere. You shove toast in your mouth as you look for your bag (you know you set it down somewhere). You get in your car, drive through the maze of other cars until you reach your destination. A building, welcoming and friendly, your teacher (or boss) greets you at the door, along with twenty or so others. You sit in a cold hard plastic chair and look up at the screen to see what your ‘job’ is for the morning. It is time to begin and realize you forgot your library book. It was due today; no time to worry, you need to do your daily math review. Your pencil is not sharp, you get to stand – already your bum is asleep and you enjoy the stroll to the sharpener. You sharpen your pencil and smile at a friend, they smile back and whisper something – your teacher tells you to go back to your seat and stop bothering people. You sit again, your tummy rumbles, you do your work; then more work, then more. Eventually you change classes and you try to catch up with your friend on the way; you have to keep your voices quiet so you don’t get in trouble. You go to your next destination; this time someone, a grown-up, talks at you about something you don’t quite understand but it seems everyone else does. It makes you tired and you zone out a little, now you’re really lost and everyone is writing something down. The teacher gives you a slip to give to your teacher: “Needs to stay in from recess to finish work.” 

How do you feel? 

Education, learning, and growing are integral parts of the school experience. We gather together with our peers, make up songs, cultural norms and inside jokes. We learn about our history, we learn to read, write, count and add. We go to assemblies where we get to learn about other cultures, how to raise funds so we can have a playground, and how to be in community. But this is not the only way to learn. 

We can’t forget the importance of the experience of life. 

For thousands and thousands of years children ran and played, discovered and took risks. They failed, they grew, they laughed and they cried with the backdrop  of nature and with a variety of peers of all different ages. For thousands of years we sat by our elders and cousins and friends to learn how to survive. To learn how to belong, how to find nourishment (for our minds, bodies and spirits) and we did this with the support of many.

It is only in the last 200 years (just a blip in time) that we have embraced an all indoor; didactic, one way and very passive learning environment for our youth. We try to teach from our knowledge with very little time for exploration. We give paper and pencil – and more recently computers and expect children to learn in a deep, meaningful way. 

In order to have a lived experience we must have a sense of being in the  body and experiencing something – having a living experience of making something, or moving one’s  body outdoors to run and discover something. Learning from someone telling us information can only get you so far, you can only understand so much. But the feeling you get and the learning that happens from touching, smelling, feeling something on your skin, seeing in real time an experience that heightens your senses, is invaluable. 

Think about when you are using your hands to make something? The neural connections that light up when we engage our bodies get stronger as we use more of ourselves, – our senses, our bodies, our spirits and motivations in an endeavor to not  just know but understand concepts and information. 

Think of all the different parts of you that are stimulating from trying and failing.

School subjects (like math or literacy) don’t have to be taught all outdoors, but they also don’t need to be taught all indoors either. We learn when we connect our learning to practical real life experiences. Like going on a walk and collecting nature objects and coming back and telling the story of how a particular object got to a certain place and a reflection on its journey to get there ; this is a practice in language and literacy. 

We can make more use of  wonder and curiosity in place of flat didactic assignments that are often impersonal and use only one or two senses to stimulate the mind. 

Outdoor learning almost always encompasses not just science, but literature, stories, data collection (math) 

Physically we are moving our  whole bodies

Emotional and Social Skills we gain from being in a group asking us to self-regulate, problem solve, collaborate and often compromise. 

Outdoor learning goes beyond just using our thinking selves, our cognitive selves but actually using that ability to think in imaginative creative ways. And finally,  discovering something that is awe inviting; the noticing. When children are outdoors they are noticing exactly what is in front of them, they are stimulated from the experience and often motivated to learn more. 

We must not forget, there is a whole person who develops and in a wholeness model there are different ways of knowing, of learning. Each person has their own learning styles and understandings.  We are beings that are fully dependent and reliant on our senses and when we are inside it is very hard to have our senses stimulated so the touch of water, the feel of mud on our fingers, the smell of damp earth ; even when we are running and moving through the environment we are moving with a use of all of our senses and this develops a feeling of balance and where we are in the world (all of which builds a sense of confidence and self esteem) 

Finally, adding outdoor education to our schools curriculum honors that there are endless ways of knowing; through contemplation and imagination  humans have a huge capacity to envision the unknown, our purpose, of what could happen in situations, how we contribute in our world, and a sense of  purpose. 

 

 

Written by: Heidi Hoskins