This past May, I had the joy of participating in the second International Scientific Conference on Alternative Education and the Ecology of Living, held in Łubniany, Poland. The entire conference took place outdoors at the Fairy Forest, a nature kindergarten on a lovely,
partially wooded lot. What a fabulous location for a kindergarten, not to mention a conference! Sure, there was a big tent in the meadow for lectures and zoom speeches by special guests from abroad. But the conference also featured plenty of outdoor workshops and walks in the nearby forest.
I have attended so many conferences and lectures on learning and teaching and sustainability and nature, the vast majority of which were held indoors, with participants sitting in rows, facing an expert lecturer of some sort. But we can’t learn to think in new ways by staying within the framework of the old ways!
The goal of the conference was to “establish practical strategies for adults to assist children in nature contact, skill development, and connections with others who have a passion for preserving nature.” And this goal was surely achieved just through the outdoor location. We indoor adults definitely need opportunities to spend more time outdoors. Take away walls, chairs, blackboards & books and we are forced to turn to new ways of thinking and invent new tools. Necessity, as we usually say, is the mother of invention.
The Fairy Forest has a dirt hill for digging and running up and down. A pine forest with hammocks and a little shelter. A narrow ditch that runs full of water when it rains, and a pen with goats and one with pigs. This varied landscape – filled with life and bathed in sunshine – formed a perfect backdrop for learning and new ways of thinking. We were inspired and supported in learning about working with children in nature settings. And the environment also facilitated criss-cross contact with others who work in the outdoors, for example with the Japanese art of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) or nature guiding. And two guys spent most of the conference right in the middle of the meadow, building chairs and tables out of poles and saplings. Many of us stopped by to have a chat and to admire (and learn about) their outdoor carpentry skills.
The conference featured a wide variety of content, alas, most of it in Polish. I was lucky to have the help of Magda, a local schoolteacher, who kindly translated a lot of the speeches for me. We heard speeches by local policy makers and teachers, as well as specialists in everything from the health benefits of outdoor learning to the deleterious effects of pollution in Poland. It is interesting to learn how the need to take children outdoors and to teach them to embrace nature can be at odds with the actual outdoor environment. Human activity, either in the form of pollution, or in the form of the looming climate catastrophe, demands outdoor learning AND hampers it.
I also learned a lot from the zoom lectures. It was exciting to hear from Peter Gray, whose research on learning at the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts has been a mainstay of the democratic schools and unschooling movements. His gift was to remind us all that children are built to learn. Grey enumerated the various facets of being human that ensure that we are constantly learning, and called attention to the fact that children don’t necessarily need instruction from us adults!
The greatest gift, however, was the lecture by Amos Clifford, founder of the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs. He pointed out that many of the activities that we undertake in nature are undergirded by the same extractive model that fuels colonialism and capitalism. And he exhorted us – gently – to visit nature as we would a friend, to befriend a special tree, or to take home an attractive rock.
He encouraged us to think of the rocks that so many of us have pocketed and brought home from the beach, say. What an experience it is for the rock, he said, having spent eons washing around in the ocean and up on the beach and back down again, to travel suddenly to a new home, to be surrounded by new, completely unknown objects and to witness all that goes on in our living rooms! Seeing the world from the point of view of a rock (I’ve got quite a few of those at home) opened up new horizons for me, in terms of what it is I want to bring to children and bring children to.
Many of the participants were excited to learn practical skills in the workshops and the conference clearly met a present need. Cooking outdoors with children, how to lead nature walks or practice forest bathing. Classroom management outdoors or linking outdoors learning to indoors schooling (my area of expertise); these are just a few of the workshops that attracted attention and served the conference goals.
However, the focus on practical skills also underscored the fact that the world views of Peter Grey – that children are powerhouses of learning – and Amos Clifford – that we must learn to BE in nature rather than to USE nature – remain beyond the pale. Not only for us participants, but also for the school systems and wider cultures from which we hail.
I was reminded that we have a long, hard voyage in front of us, taking children to nature and living ecologically. But also, that nature has so much to give us, in the moment, with no ulterior motives. So, that journey will also be joyful, if we let it.
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