How to reconnect children with nature | Life and style | guardian.co.uk

How to reconnect children with nature | Life and style | guardian.co.uk

Excerpts below -the full article can be read from the link above   

" My children – now aged eight, seven and seven – take their rural surroundings for granted. And like all children their age, the rival attractions of CBBC and computer games do sometimes prevent them getting off the sofa and venturing outside. But when they do, they are transformed from couch potato kids into free-range children.

As I watch them racing off, nets in hand, to hunt down unsuspecting insects, I am filled with pride and joy. Pride that my children are rapidly turning into genuinely knowledgable naturalists, able to identify buzzards and bullfinches, catch gatekeepers and grasshoppers, and enjoy rare visitors such as the hummingbird hawkmoth that graced our buddleia bush last summer. Joy that they are, little by little, learning to love the natural world. For me, it was this passion that enabled me to turn my childhood hobby into my life's work as a naturalist.

Yet I am also worried. ..... My concern is for other children up and down the country – in cities, suburbs, towns and villages – for whom the natural world is a closed book.

I've spent the past six months writing a report ....... It's made me realise that the issue is both a lot more complex, and a lot more important, than many people assume.

The world is now divided into two camps, separated by whether you were born before about 1970, or after. When I meet people in their seventies or eighties they often tell me about their childhood nature experiences, sometimes going back before the start of the second world war.

But when I meet younger people, even those who have embarked on a career at the BBC Natural History Unit, I am often amazed at the lack of freedom they had as children. .....Those who, like me, came from a family where we were the first to take an interest in nature, are few and far between.

Why this has come about is obvious to any parent. Whereas we, and previous generations, had the freedom to roam where we liked at weekends and during school holidays, today's children have their lives organised, planned and controlled to a military degree. Even if they do encounter wild animals or plants, this is usually as part of a 'nature experience': a guided walk, a school lesson, or via a TV or computer screen........today's children now know more about the wildlife of the Amazon rainforest than they do about their own backyard. My own children may be avid fans of Steve Backshall and his Deadly 60, but they also enjoy their own hands-on encounters with nature, even if they do suffer the occasional sting, prick or bite.

.... apart from the obvious benefits to their physical and mental health (there aren't many obese naturalists), there is also the sheer joy that these experiences – often unexpected, sometimes scary, but always fulfilling – bring..... There are other, less tangible benefits to getting outdoors. Being allowed to roam free with your friends is a fantastic way to learn about yourself and about risk.....It also teaches children about working together as a team, a valuable lesson for later life.

Getting our children back to nature has to start with us parents. There are lots of ways to help them explore the natural world without feeling tied to our apron strings.....  please don't stop your children touching, picking, catching and collecting what they find; whoever coined the conservationists' mantra "take only photographs, leave only footprints" had clearly forgotten what it is like to hold a frog, pick a bluebell or catch a butterfly.

Finally, as they reach the teenage years, allow them the freedom to explore wild places without adults following their every footstep. Scary, perhaps – for you and them – but incredibly rewarding too. By letting go a little, you will enable them to learn a lot."

“How to Spot a Predator” — Really? « FreeRangeKids

“How to Spot a Predator” — Really? « FreeRangeKids

Excerpts below -the full article can be read from the link above   

Had to repost this piece from Lenore Skenazy at Free Range Kids.

It reminds me that in this global internet age there appears to be nothing more dangerous than someone with very little factual knowledge and computer access. It seems it's more than true these days that ‘a lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on’. [1859 C. H. Spurgeon Gems from Spurgeon 74].

If you have time, read the comments below the article, it seems that in relation to fearful ignorance - one size fits all.

" Hi Readers — Still trying to figure out what part of this Circle of Moms post, “How to Spot a Child Predator” irks me the most. It’s by a lady who was at a cafe and heard a man asking two third grade boys questions like, “What’s your favorite subject?” and “Who do you want to marry when you grow up?” He also asked them some math problems, so the lady immediately “understood” what she was hearing:

…like a thunderbolt, it hits me! Those boys are being groomed.

How exactly did she know he was up to no good? She trusted her gut. And now she wants the rest of us to trust it, too:

I wrote this so you’d read about the types of questions a potential predator uses so you can prepare your kids.

Please don’t scare your kids, but do talk to them. Use these, or examples like the, so your kids know what bad strangers ask .

…Except that there is no evidence whatsoever that this was a “bad stranger,” or that these are the type of questions a bad stranger would ask! It’s like saying, “I would have been raped by the man in the grocery store today if I hadn’t realized what he was up to! So I’m alerting the rest of you: If a man ever asks, ‘Do you know what aisle the paper towels are in?’ RUN! He is a bad stranger. Don’t thank me — I’m just trying to help!”

Uh…thanks. But no thanks. – L.


How can you tell if a man is a predator? Easy! If he’s male and nice to kids — he is!"

Overprotective Parents May Put Their Children at Risk of Injury at Playground - ABC News

Overprotective Parents May Put Their Children at Risk of Injury at Playground - ABC News:


Excerpts below -the full article can be read from the link above

"For parents who hover, a playground can look like a very dangerous place for their kids. But medical experts warn that parental efforts to keep their young children safe often backfire -- and end up harming them instead.

Nora Abularach of New York keeps her impulses in check. On Wednesday she watched as her 2-year-old son, Sam, scurried up the ladder to a big yellow slide at a Central Park playground. Abularach remained a few feet away near the foot of the slide. Sam paused at the top for a moment, looking to his mom for reassurance. A few encouraging words later, Sam was zipping down the slide, all by himself.

The mother of two says she likes this particular playground because it is specially designed for Sam's age group. She can let him explore and tackle each new apparatus on his own.

"I try not to hover," she said. "I think it's important for him to fall once or twice; he needs to figure out his own limits."

Meanwhile, it's becoming clear that playgrounds are not what they used to be. Towns and schools across the country have been bulldozing the old metal on concrete playgrounds in exchange for softer surfaces, lower platforms and fewer moving parts. The emphasis on safe play zones for children has never been greater. But some question whether these changes are making a difference when it comes to injured kids.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that 2008 saw just over 220,000 ER visits from kids injured on playgrounds. This actually reflects a small increase from their 1999 estimate of 205,000.

The most common playground injuries requiring medical attention were fractures, bruises, cuts and sprains, which made up 85 percent of all visits. Ninety five percent of children taken to the ER after a playground injury were treated and released.

And some parents may be surprised to learn that their efforts to keep their kids safer on the playground may actually be causing more injuries than they prevent.

A 2009 study out of Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., found that 14 percent of fractures to one of the lower leg bones, called the tibia, occurred on slides. Surprisingly, 100 percent of them happened in children who were riding down the slide on the lap of a parent. No children who slid alone sustained the injury.

The researcher, Dr. John T. Gaffney, chief of pediatric orthopedic surgery says he did this study after seeing children come into the ER one after another with a similar history and diagnosis.
"The parents were very frustrated and upset to learn that they had inadvertently contributed to their child's fracture when they thought they were helping," says Gaffney.

Some experts say cuts and scrapes, and even the broken bones will heal, but a playground's effect on a child's emotional development may be long-lasting. There are a number of critics of these new super-safe play areas.Ellen Sandseter and colleagues from Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education in Trondheim, Norway, wrote about the effects of "safe" playgrounds and overly cautious parents on child development in a 2011 article in Evolutionary Psychology.

According to the article, a young child naturally fears the highest bar of the jungle gym or that extra twisty slide. These fears are adaptive, meaning they have a purpose, preventing them from being injured.

Risky play is the process by which children slowly confront these fears as their maturity and physical skill level advances. Upon conquering the new feat, the child is left with an exciting, positive feeling which replaces their former fears. When a child's playground consists of only supersafe play areas or if their parent is overprotective, they do not get to experience these small victories -- and that may ultimately leave them with anxiety that is inappropriate for their age and physical skill level.

"Playgrounds are, in many ways, a microcosm of a child's world," says Mark A. Reinecke, chair of psychology and child development at Northwestern University in Illinois. "The lessons learned there reverberate through their lives........"

Nature and the classroom

Nature and the classroom. The two are not necessarily separate places. I believe that you can commence a programme introducing children to nature before you leave the indoor classroom.

In my work I come across a lot of people who believe that naturalistic play and environments are created by simply adding a few natural elements to an existing outdoor KFC environment - the outdoor equivalent of adding wood effect wall paper. Beyond the highly contentious issues of, "Rocks, plants, woodchips, bees, trees....are dangerous, dirty and expensive", they believe that adding (and then generally ignoring) a bit of green matter to their playgrounds fulfils the current requirement for EYLF, i.e. "Outdoor learning spaces are a feature of Australian learning environments. They offer a vast array of possibilities not available indoors. Playspaces in natural environments include plants, trees, edible gardens, sand, rocks, mud, water and other elements from nature. These spaces invite open-ended interactions, spontaneity, risk-taking, exploration, discovery and connection with nature. They foster an appreciation of the natural environment, develop environmental awareness and provide a platform for ongoing environmental education" and the NQF and new National Standards.

Every centre is different. Some are in areas that are climatically inhospitable (e.g. it rains, is cold, is hot), some are situated in built-up metropolitan areas, others simply lack knowledge, consideration and ultimately a philosophy, in respect to introducing these natural concepts and experiences. NO BLAME is attached to the last statement. The current ideology being touted is that this current generation is the first to be affected by alienation to nature, when in truth the process began, depending on when and where you grew up, generations ago. Therefore it is a tad difficult to understand, teach or be enthusiastic about something you've never really fully experienced.  

Some really good examples of centres and services who have attempted to address their situations and introduced nature concepts are listed below. I find their efforts, energy and problem solving inspirational in our otherwise "you do it for me" world. In no particular order they are -

Learning for Life (aka. No such thing as bad weather)

Fagley Primary Forest School
Enriching the lives of children

Sustainability At Croydon West Primary School

Growing greenies

The Nature Teacher

The Outdoor Preschool - Nuture through Nature

Tiny Treks - Unplug with the Outdoors

The Miracle of Childhood

In my travels, both geographically and online, I'm lucky to meet a number of people who share their experience, ideas and passion for nature with me. Dorinda Wolfe Murray is such a person and impressed me so much that I asked her whether she would consider providing a guest post on her ideas. You can read more about Dorinda's fascinating work with healing and therapeutic gardens here.

The Miracle of Childhood  -  Dorinda Wolfe Murray

"Looking back on my childhood I realise how incredibly lucky I was. Not in a romantic, perfect kind of way. No rose tinted glasses I promise you. We were after all not very well off and winters are bitterly cold when there is no central heating and you live in the middle of the UK countryside. We did not have holidays anywhere except at home; we had one television and a radio. If we were hungry after mealtimes, it was bread and dripping (with salt of course!).

As a child, food and love are probably the two most important things in life. Our food came from the countryside and although our parents loved us, they were often busy, so we were allowed to roam over the local farm land (having asked permission of course!). As I said we were not well off so we relied on what my father grew in the vegetable patch, what he shot, and what we got from our local village. I remember in the autumn picking apples and going out into the fields to ‘make’ houses from the straw that the combine harvesters had yet to bale. We went out and about for hours, coming home when our stomachs were hungry. We paddled in ponds; built dams; got soaking wet; fell into nettle patches (I well remember that one); played endlessly in sandpits and ate worms (apparently) and certainly had more than our fair share of earth attached to what we consumed. We stamped on green walnuts to get to the nuts, turning ourselves brown in the process; mulberries with their telltale purple juice (much worse than blackberries) meant we could never escape detection from eating the stolen fruit. And of course we got cold, wet, miserable and filthy dirty. But somehow we got through it all and the countryside entered and has subsequently sustained my consciousness all my life. The way clouds chase each other across the sky; the way water flattens the grass when a stream is in ‘spate’; the feel of mud oozing between your toes. I watched birds strip the berries off the trees in winter; saw how the wrens died in the cold; watched as sparrow hawks took their food from the bird tables, leaving a puff of feathers behind; learned to listen to the call of the wild geese as they flew at high altitudes heralding the start of the winter storms. The cycle of life and death in my childhood was what life was about. Stubbed toes, sore feet, falling over, cuts, bruises and scrapes were what taught us our boundaries. We fell out of trees (not something I did more than once); got stung by wasps – and bees; bitten by red ants and endless mozzies.

As I said I was and am lucky. My father and grandfather were naturalists of the best sort. They understood that nature was red in tooth and claw; gloriously beautiful and wonderfully cruel. They respected it. Just as I have learned too to respect it and to respect my children’s ‘take’ on life. Children are far more accepting of death than adults. It is us that make them afraid. Children have a ‘knowing’ about life, an instinctive understanding that as adults we often forget. And in our forgetfulness we become frightened and teach our children to be afraid. Yes, of course we have to set boundaries; we do that because we love and care for our children. But we do not need to stifle them so much that they forget their instinctive ‘knowing’. Life to a child is simply wonderful – take any toddler for a ‘short’ walk down a street or lane, and if you let them, they will take an hour as everything is looked at and examined. Life is a miracle when you take the time to notice it. Nature teaches us so much, and we ignore our connection to it at our peril. It replenishes us, gives us ease and rest and is never above teaching us a lesson or two should we get too ‘up ourselves’. We do our children a huge disservice by stifling them with too much care and attention; by not letting them get dirty in sandpits, ponds and streams. By sanitising their lives so much that the only life they see is on an X-box or on television.

I feel like weeping when I see playgrounds for children made up of astro turf with plastic swings. Not a sandpit or water slide in sight; no grass to play on; no dirt to make into mud pies or chestnut trees to provide conkers to fight with. That is why when I see Tess’ playgrounds (and she won’t mind me saying this) I feel that at last things are moving back in the right direction. They look wonderfully creative with colour and texture; areas in which to crawl, sit and run. Places to explore, get dirty and get (to use a much hackneyed phrase) up close and personal with nature.

Of course we want to protect our children from harm and give them the best start in life. But being a parent is about teaching our children boundaries and teaching them to observe and experience. Nature has a huge place in this – as do the cuts, falls, and hurts of learning to walk and run."

No other animal has divorced itself from its food supplies and its environment and survived, and neither will we. From a talk by Pat Mooney, Executive Director of  ETC Group.

Getting out of the box

Getting out of the box

If you can't contact me in the next hour I'm on my way down to Silverton Primary with some insulated bolt cutters to cut of the power feed to the school. It seems its the only way. An XBOX in the playground........how cosmopolitan.... maybe they can hook the kids up with some games that emulate playing in a playground, running, jumping, socialising, interacting with each other and their environment, or they could stop staring at the screen and turn round....ahhh... there's the real thing. 

Just in case your wondering, the last time  I checked there were suggestions that  twelve different forms of intelligence had been identified and you'd really be pushing the definition to suggest "interacting" with computers was the logical-mathematical aspect.  I do recognise that we live in a world that increasingly requires computer literacy as a basic vehicle for material success.....however, the ability to interact with a computer is a skill, not a life, and is definitely NOT creative.  Focussing solely on computer interaction as a measure of success does the children a serious disservice, although starting to train the potential worker at an early age is great for our corporate world...

Excerpts below -the full article can be read from the link above   

"XBOX is the new hopscotch at Silverton Primary School. Set into the outside wall of the toilet block, along with a Wii, it signals a new approach not just to lunchtimes, but to learning. Uproarious laughter, I just fell off my chair.

There are two rules. Number one: Pass the remote to the next person after your turn and go to the end of the line. Number two: Don't fight. Both are upheld without fuss. After all, these children are digital natives who adapt faster to emerging technologies - and their rules - than their parents and teachers.

Nor is Xbox the only lunchtime play option for Generation Z  (Generation What???, You're making that  up!, or regurgitating someone else's limited creativity. Also I think the authors trying a bit to hard to sell data masquerading as a story). Silverton Primary also has a television studio and radio station and students are welcome to do some music editing or recording when the suites are free.

Radio station 87.5FM broadcasts within a two-kilometre radius of the school and attracts a fiercely loyal following. Its listeners, aka proud parents, tune in their car radios at the school pick-up. They might end up the talent; interviewed by their children in a ''live cross'' at 3pm. The students have carte blanche to broadcast whatever and whenever they like, although they are taught safety guidelines, such as not to use surnames on air. They chat about life and the future.

Principal Tony Bryant can recall only one hiccup, years ago, when a student jumped into the studio fired up after a defeat on the soccer pitch and went crook about a teacher from the opposing school he reckoned had cheated. ''We trust our kids a lot,'' Bryant says.

If Silverton Primary has a mantra, it's that the curriculum needs to be authentic. ''That's why there is a TV studio, sound recording studios, a big instrumental music program,'' he says. ''Our main aim is to have an actual environment, rather than kids sitting at a desk.''

In 2009, Silverton Primary was one of only 12 schools in the world to be named a ''mentor school'' by Microsoft (that explains A LOT). The computer giant's Innovative Schools program selects schools that are ground-breaking in their use of technology to mentor other schools around the globe. Former British minister of state for schools and learners Jim Knight has described Silverton Primary as ''unbelievably inspirational''. (I would have stuck with unbelievable)''I only hope that we can replicate what you are doing here back in the UK.''

In many ways, Silverton Primary School is an improbable global role model. For one, it is in Noble Park North, a low-socio-economic suburb in Melbourne's outer suburbs. The government school has children from 38 cultures, 68 per cent from a non-English-speaking background. It used to struggle to get kids to show up at school, and when they did they were disengaged and performed poorly academically. But today, Silverton Primary is being used as an international template (why did the word honeypot spring to mind?) of how schools can provide the sort of 21st century skills employers are demanding. A paraphrasing of grist for the mill........

...sorry I can't be bothered presenting any further excerpts. This garbage makes my eyes bleed, my brain recoil......so how about I once again let Sir Ken say it all for me....




David

                          

Introducing the newest interactive resource from the Tessa Roses' EYLF and Outdoor Environment Information Series - "A comprehensive guide to growing vegetables" 


To purchase a book simply contact the Publications Officer for payment and download details.

Each book in the Early Years Learning Framework and Outdoor Environment Information Series is specifically written for educators and parents who wish to help develop high quality early childhood environments that address how naturalistic play and playspaces can be used to meet each of the five EYLF learning outcomes. The primary aim of the books is to enable educators and parents to 'foster children’s capacity to understand and respect the natural environment and the interdependence between people, plants, animals and the land.'

This guide provides specific information for educators and parents who wish to introduce the concepts of the growth and care of edible vegetables to children. The book specifically addresses  vegetation growth, taste, smell and texture, universal access, children's tools and participation, climatic planting zones, positioning plants within your playspace, a global perspective on different types of gardens, construction of the garden, propagation methods, preparation for planting, specific information on appropriate vegetables to plant, organic methods to feed and protect your vegetables, harvesting, preserving  and information about plant and seed suppliers worldwide.

View a preview here. Note: This will take you to another page, you cannot download the document from that page. To purchase the document see above.   

The medium we have chosen for all our publications is as eBooks (.pdf). This is because compared to mass hard cover printings they are eco-friendly, accessible globally via the internet, easily updateable and available to all cultures because of their pricing. The format allows room for greater interactivity, permitting us to provide links to videos, free presentations and forms in addition to websites and organisations that provide expert information and knowledge. We view all our books as living documents and anyone, anywhere who uses them is invited to provide additional information (specific to their geographic location, problems, successes, challenges and solutions etc.) which we’re happy to include in subsequent versions along with their attribution details.

To purchase a book simply follow the link on the preview document.