Musings of a Forest School Teacher

The sun glistens through the trees in the forest, laying patches of light on the forest floor. The children too seem to glow in its light and warmth, their hair shining, their eyes aglow. They are somehow more alive here, in the midst of trees and pond and frogs and sticks and leaves. Their senses are more acute here, they are talkative, lively, and curious, and yet there is a calmness about them.  They are communicative, even argumentative at times, but these are signs of a healthy social development. They are happy here in the forest, happier than indoors, happier than anywhere I have seen. They laugh, they smile, they tease, they play. They are free.

I think of all the children who are not here today. Those who are sitting at desks most of the day, crowded together, confined to four walls and a bulletin board, a black top play area or chain link fence with plastic play equipment. My heart aches for them, I wish I could bring them here with us in the forest—to watch them run through the woods, canoe on the pond, shout and laugh, climb trees, build forts. I want them to be free too. I want to rescue all the children imprisoned by policies and tradition and misinformation and bring them back to the forest, but I am only one teacher. Still, I can make a difference in our little forest world.

We are building something here in the forest, the pond, the garden. Yes, there are forts in these woods of the children’s own making, frogs waiting to be caught and held in big tubs of water, rocks, and moss, organic food to be grown in the garden. Living things.  These are good. But we are building something more profound than these, something within each child. Wonder. Curiosity. Resilience. Creativity. Things that cannot be had from textbooks and worksheets and instruction. Living things that, once conceived, will develop and continue to grow for a lifetime. Inner treasures that will spark a desire to know, to do, to be. A passion to learn. For a lifetime. What is the cost of such a treasure?

The research is clear. Too many hours in school, too many worksheets, tests, drills, boredom, pressure, homework. The same old thing year after year. Too much time indoors, too little time outside. Stagnation. We are killing the precious spark of life inside each child. Snuffing it out before it even has the chance to ignite. Despite all the efforts at academics and all the money spent we are on a downward trend as a nation in our educational outcomes. Something is not working. Something is wrong. Time to return to democracy when each person had the right to choose how to be educated instead of being told by the government what they need to learn, when they need to learn it, how they should learn it. Those were the days when people chose their own education and knew much, much more than we do today. They were free. They were individuals. They were curious. They wondered about things. They pursued their curiosity and were intellectual giants compared to us today. And they enjoyed the journey.

But the journey is getting more difficult in the academic world of children. Childhood is being left behind for policies and procedures, (ironically stemming from the “No Child Left Behind” initiative of the 1990’s), early learning of letters and numbers before a young child is ready for such things, (as if that was the most important thing in the world), and with it those inner treasures of wonder, curiosity, resilience, creativity--- the underpinnings of adult success. Time in the natural world is all but gone, and with it a rise in mental health issues in children (and adults) today. Add to that the scourge of technology on the delicate child’s brain, and it is no wonder that so much dysfunction exists today.

There is an answer to the madness. It is here in the forest and anywhere that the workings of God, not man, can be seen. Nature is our anchor from the drifting tides of cultural pressures that lead us astray. It leads us to the source of life, the Creator of all living things. “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” God’s word always points the way to nature and His inspired counsel outlines the path to follow. Those who have followed always come out ahead. Finland. Without knowing it they are following many of God’s principles of education and are number one in the world today in educational outcomes. Maybe we could start reading the book Education again. We might even end up on top of the pile, but that would require stepping back from following the secular model of education we have been pursuing and having the courage to be counter cultural.

The children are shouting to each other in the woods. They have made up their own games that they play with each other. They are creative, and I see it growing as the days go by. These children will remember their childhood. It will not be shoved aside and replaced with printed pages and sitting still most of the day, yet the research shows that these children of the forest will do well academically—as good or better than their peers in traditional classrooms. This is because the human brain is hard-wired for nature, and nature makes them smarter, faster learners than those who have been robbed of it. That’s so like God. He gives us the best things---and more besides.

- Melissa Morgan