A Breath of Fresh Air

Find it on Amazon here

I started reading Richard Louv’s national bestseller, Last Child in the Woods: saving our children from nature-deficit disorder, this week which explores the consequences of dwindling exposure to nature. It is a fascinating book and after being here in Hawaii with nature as my main classroom for 4 months, (also having been diagnosed with ADD as a child) I find great truth in his writing. I have am not quite at the halfway point yet, but this book is an instant classic in my mind, and not just for educators and parents either because it’s not just children who are experiencing a disconnect with the natural world, it’s all of us, children just have it the worst. At least we adults have memories of playing in the woods and exploring nature, not enough kids these days get the chance to freely explore their natural surroundings, if they even have them at all.

A friend here at the farm brought this book to me last week, he noticed it sitting on his shelf and thought I’d be interested. Last Child in the Woods has been on my Amazon wishlist for quite some time now but it was always checked out when I looked for it at the Seattle Public Library and I just never got around to ordering it online. Either way, it couldn’t have fallen into my hands at a more perfect moment since I am currently contemplating how to best teach environmental compassion and sustainable innovation. I am in the process of developing my own example curriculum and contemplating how to promote a more harmonious relationship between humans and nature, one that is more reciprocal than the take, take, take variety we have going right now. Louv confirms what I have been building up to in my research and experience, the idea that direct connection with nature as early and often as possible is the direction we need to take in our schools.

view of lava lake below and caldera in the background from the crater rim trail

Anyway, inspired by the discussion of nature and all her powers of restoration and balance, and because we already had the trip planned, Dylan and I spent this past Saturday exploring and hiking around Volcano National Park. As we trekked across the black mass of a former lava lake, looked out over cators with steam billowing from within the earth and wandered through magical tree covered corridors, Louv’s words rang truer than ever. I felt like a kid again playing in the woods across the river behind my house, filled with energy and awe. Perhaps it was the fresh, clean air of the outdoors, or the sheer beauty of it all, but I felt the healing power of being out in nature. This always seems to happen to me, just as described in the book. Whenever I spend a good deal of time surrounded by the green of the forest or field, the blue of the ocean and sky, and the sweet smells and sounds of the earth, I get not only a sense of rejuvenation, but motivation to get to work, start creating and make whatever changes I have been contemplating.

watching the ducks fish in pond behind Punaluu's black sand beach

Most importantly, though, being in nature, weather I am hiking, playing in the waves, or simply watching a few birds fluttering about as the clouds slowly drift by, allows me to clear my head of all the junk that’s been holding me back. This time away from my problems, whatever they may be, is always the perfect remedy, allowing me to get back to working from a position of strength. This time, when my head cleared, it allowed me to see the world, the natural world, from an educator’s perspective. It was as though everything I looked at was showing me how I could use it to teach the various concepts found deep within just about any curriculum imaginable. All of it, all the lessons were right there in front of me and I thought, why the hell are schools paying for textbooks when they could simply step outside expose children to just about anything they could possibly want to learn about? We are lucky enough to have the internet to feed our brains with all the information we could possibly want, all we need is to expose students to things that will provoke their desire to learn. Nature does this better than just about anything found in a traditional classroom, and it doesn’t cost a dime.

Hawaiian red chillies harvested for making hot sauce

I came to Hawaii to connect with the land, to grow my own food, to get away from everything for a while so that I could build better habits, clear my mind, get some direction. I could not have imagined exactly how this place would change me, and I’m sure it will be quite some time before I truly understand its effect on me, but I am different somehow and my path seems clear. I was never a big environmentalist, sure I recycled, I regularly went to the farmers markets, and I lead a pretty low-impact lifestyle, but I never thought of myself as an environmentalist by any means. That hasn’t changed, although these habits have been more deeply cemented in my daily life. What has changed is that I have reconnected with the awe I felt as a child when out exploring with the woods, only now as an adult my interest in nature from an academic perspective is suddenly piqued. I want to learn all I can about my natural surroundings, about how the natural world works and what I can glean from her systems to improve my own life and my own community.

Who wouldn't be inspired stumbling upon this path on a hike in Volcano National Park?

This is the very reciprocal relationship with nature that I hope to harness and facilitate in my curriculum, to help rectify the take, take, take approach and transform it into a wholly gratifying and healthy give-and take between man and nature. The next generation of students are entering a world with few affordable resources for 90% of earners, where jobs are constantly changing and are often unstable, and the effects of climate change are just beginning to rear their ugly heads. We must make serious changes to our schools so that students are prepared for the future they face, and it is not going to look like anything we’ve seen before, though there is much we can learn from the past, as there always is. We need a green generation, one that is deeply connected to the natural world and can tap into all it has to teach us. In order for students to create green solutions, we must rip open our traditional classrooms and schools and both bring nature in and let the students out so that their investigations and innovations may be inspired by the highly effective and powerful systems naturally found all around and within us.