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.

Figuring out the Floorplan

On Friday, Heather and I met to start designing the physical space of the farm preschool cooperative, which will consist of a one-room open schoolhouse and fenced in play yard. In the Reggio Approach, the classroom plays such an important role in students’ education that it was important for us to map out the curriculum first to serve as our guide. This way, we are able to design an environment that best facilitates learning in each of the three areas of knowledge we identified as most necessary for happy, healthy development in an ever-changing, global society. These three areas, Social & Personal Responsibility, Agriculture & Sustainability, and Creativity & the Arts, make up the core curriculum of this Hawaii-based program and thus determine how the space is designed and what materials will fill its walls.

The circles are mango trees which already occupy the space that will be fenced in to make the play yard. The entry gate is at the bottom left corner with the covered classroom at the top right (three walls one open to the covered lunch/art table), and the existing play structure next to the mango trees at the top center with play stations scattering the yard, yet to be placed.

Now that I have a solid idea of the space we’ll have to work with in addition to the objectives and focus of the curriculum, we can begin acquiring and developing the educational tools needed to breathe life into the program. For each component of the core curricula, I am researching and identifying activities and materials to support development and facilitate learning. I started this week focusing on the first area of the core curricula, Social & Personal Responsibility, filling in my outline with ideas for fostering empathy and compassion, gratitude, mindfulness, conflict resolution, friendship, self-awareness, responsibility, management of emotion, etc.. For an emergent curriculum to work, Reggio-Inspired programs like ours must be set up to invite and facilitate meaningful and relevant educational experiences. Because the role of the classroom environment is so powerful, it is designed with great purpose and care; every station, object, and decoration has been thoughtfully selected and intentionally placed.

Books are a great place to start building a Reggio classroom because they naturally lend themselves to the idea of teachers learning with rather than teaching to their students. Having worked in libraries for so many years, children’s stories are of particular interest to me and I have repeatedly seen first hand the value of lessons learned from them, so I always like to start here. To help students understand the importance of community and how individual actions and contributions can have collective power to solve social problems, I read stories like Stone Soup. The more kids hear this story and incorporate its ideas into their play, the more ingrained these community values become. Stories are a powerful learning tool because the lessons are there for students and teachers to learn together, inspiring readers of all ages in endless ways. Stories can be read and referenced when their messages are most relevant and they invite students to think deeply and make connections between their favorite stories and their own experiences. There are so many valuable books out there to choose from, imparting wisdom on every topic imaginable, making them a necessary part of any quality classroom, not to mention the pleasure provided by the beautiful illustrations and stories. Check out my childrens’ literature pinboard for a collection of my favorite stories.

To accommodate a wealth of carefully selected stories, the farm preschool cooperative will need a library, or in the case of a small program like this one, a cozy reading area. Since books are in greater need of protection from the elements of an outdoor/indoor classroom, it made sense to incorporate this all-important learning station into the walled-in structure. In the most private and sheltered part of the room will offer big comfy pillows, a small couch or cushy bench, and a cozy rug to accompany the book-display, creating a homy, calming, peaceful place for kids to curl up and dive into a good story. This cozy spot will also make for a great meeting place when the group gathers together for circle time discussions and activities.

more ideas here

In addition to stories, I have stumbled across tons of educational materials for kids to engage with that can help them practice their social and intrapersonal skills. I tend to seek out DIY projects that fill these needs as well as materials that serve multiple and interdisciplinary aspects of our curricula because this means the program as a whole will require fewer resources and less space to create a quality learning environment. Also, the more uses for each material the more creativity and innovation they inspire as children discover new ways to involve them in their play. For example, to encourage a strong sense of responsibility for their space, while engaging their creativity in dramatic play, the playhouse will be well stocked with child-sized brooms, mops, spray bottles and towels, shelves to put play food, and other organizational tools and play cleaning supplies. By trying on the responsibilities of keeping house in an enjoyable (and self-selected) way, kids can develop a more positive association with caring for their personal property and communal space. This in and of itself will likely not be enough to teach all that responsibility but combined with regular classroom clean-up chores, keeping a personal cubby for their belongings, stories, and many other classroom activities, responsible habits are bound to develop over time.

A look inside the future walls of the farm preschool play yard.

There are countless ways to design a classroom space so that kids can develop the skills they need to grow into happy, healthy, contributing members of the community and there are endless materials that can support their growth. The needs of each community are so unique that what works best for this farm preschool cooperative will likely be very different than those of other schools. As I research I am compiling a wealth of ideas for all kinds of programs and sorting my findings on the various Pinterest Boards I have created. For this specific program, I am selecting the most applicable resources and ideas to make up the three boards (Social & Personal Responsibility, Agriculture & Sustainability, and Creativity & the Arts) representing the core curriculum. This way Heather and I can get a better understanding of what we need to do so that the classroom environment itself best supports the curriculum. It is a long process of scouring the internet, flipping through books, and calling on my past teaching experiences to identify the materials and activities that will be most useful to us and effectively support student growth in a meaningful and enjoyable way.

Although the curriculum is well mapped out at this point and we have a rough idea of what the space will look like, there is still much to be done. There are many details to be nailed down, building projects to start, materials to develop and seek out, and to make sure that every aspect of the curriculum is represented in the classroom space itself. Luckily, this is my favorite part of the process as it puts to use my most developed and preferred skills of brainstorming and researching ideas, organizing information, creative problem solving, and crafting handmade educational materials. This project, more than I could have ever imagined, taps into my Element, the place where my greatest talents and interests converge allowing me to be my most productive self while having the most fun at work. Naturally, I have high hopes for the farm preschool project and how the documentation of its development can offer clarity to others who are curious about the Reggio Approach. I don’t, however, believe for even the briefest of moments that my expectations are unrealistic. Anything is possible with the right amount of creativity, motivation, and dedication, especially when the process is as intrinsically rewarding as program development is for me. The key is to start where you are with what you have and build from there one little step at a time, and never forget to have fun with the process.

Behind the Scenes: Developing a Reggio Preschool

The week before last, while K was away with her friends, I got to start designing in earnest the curriculum for the farm preschool cooperative. Heather, K’s mom, came up with 3 core areas of focus for the curriculum outlining what she wanted the kids in her program to learn and emailed it to me. I had previously been working on a document spelling out the features of the Reggio Approach and how to set up a program that embodied this philosophy. While this is bound to be a helpful in training teachers and parents, I needed to understand what Heather wanted out of this program before I could really get down into the details of curriculum design. Her outline gave me exactly what I needed and the past two weeks have left me exploding with inspiration and excitement. So this week I’ve decided to let you in on what’s been keeping me busy here on the farm when I am not with K. Aside from all the crafting that is. 

Painting alphabet stones, capital letters on one side and lower-case on the other, K loves picking a stone and listing off words that start with the sound her chosen letter makes. Knowing I made them invites her to think about what she could make too.

Curriculum design is my favorite part of working in education. I love it. Researching and developing interesting and engaging learning materials, contemplating the various facets of child development and figuring out how to best support student growth is what puts me in my element, as Ken Robinson would say. I could (and often do) spend hours and hours on Pinterest and Google stocking up on ideas for designing quality classrooms that promote powerful and enjoyable learning experiences for both students and teachers. I love reading articles and books on the subject and talking about it with anyone who will listen. This week, while Heather and K have family in town, I get the chance to pull my knowledge and experience together and build a program from the ground up. Now that the foundation work is done, fleshing out the philosophy, mission statement, and approach, and identifying the core focus areas upon which the curriculum will build, I get dive into the nuts and bolts of how to actually support each child’s development in the areas Heather identified.

Now, when I say that I am designing a curriculum, I mean not that I am mapping out every learning experience, experiment, and lesson that these kids will take part in throughout their many days at school. Rather, I mean that I am researching and pulling together resources to design a well-rounded classroom environment that offers students opportunities to develop their skills in the areas that interest them most. In a Reggio-Inspired program, the classrooms themselves are a crucial teaching tool, filled with engaging materials and tools to explore them with so that no matter where each student's curiosity takes him/her a valuable learning experience is bound to take place. So what I am doing is taking the concepts within each of the three core focus areas Heather outlined and finding as many materials and resources as possible that will help support learning and growth in these ares. Then once the classroom is complete, students will have the chance to explore their environment and engage with the materials and activities that speak them as they are inspired to do so. While this is happening, the Reggio teacher observes and collaborates with students and continues to develop new ways to compliment each student's learning by bringing in new resources and activities to build on their existing knowledge and skills. 

Notice all the different learning stations, the purposeful design and careful organization, and the supportive and welcoming atmosphere of this space that just begs to be explored at Bear Park preschool in New Zealand

Each program is unique because the core areas of focus depend on the values of the community and each classroom is designed with it's particular inhabitants in mind. Here I will share the backbone of the curriculum I am designing here on the farm with Heather. She chose three areas of focus that she thought were most important and together we identified the core concepts within these three. The core focus areas are not the lessons the kids will learn, but more like the context or frame in which learning opportunities are presented. Always, however, it is the children who create their own educational experiences, we teachers and administrators simply cultivate a community and classroom through which to support each students' individual learning style and educational pursuits. For the farm preschool cooperative, this is how the curriculum is beginning to take shape:

The first core curriculum focus is on Social & Personal Responsibility. This covers interpersonal skills, mindfulness, self-awareness, empathy and altruism, civic engagement, community service, self-care and caring for others, and other social and emotional skills. Many schools pay very little attention to development in these areas, either valuing it less than the more “academic” skills or assuming that it is the parents’ job to instill values in their children. First of all, there are tons of academic fields devoted to studying these topics and tons of studies demonstrating the importance of developing social and emotional skills from the very beginning of childhood. Second, kids spend almost as much time (sometimes more) with teachers and peers than they do with their parents, especially with so many single parents working extra just to get the bills paid. It is more important than ever for schools to teach these things. To help organize ideas on how to address this core focus of the curriculum and teach the concepts listed above, I have created a new board on Pinterest called, CoreCurriculum: Social & Personal Responsibility. Check it out for inspiration and resources on incorporating social and emotional development in the classroom.

To satisfy her desire to make the world a better place, Miss Rumphius planted flowers all over her neighborhood, this story leads to beautiful and inspiring conversations of how each one of us can help make the world a better place.

 The second core focus is on Agriculture & Sustainability. Being situated on a farm in an agricultural community, it made sense to use agriculture as a means of gathering knowledge about the world and how it works. As far as sustainability goes, Heather and I both recognize that the children of the next generations are not going to be able to rely on the fossil fuels that supported our generation. By helping these kids see our growing world through a lens of sustainability, we aim to prepare them for the future they are likely to inherit. To protect our earth and it’s resources, it is never too early for kids to begin seeking out more creative and sustainable sources of energy and development, not to mention the many intangible rewards of leading a more sustainable lifestyle. Topics making up the bulk of this core focus include the food cycle, the healing power and nutritional benefits of food, ecology, biomimicry, building and design, recycling, self-sufficiency skills, problem-solving, natural and environmental sciences, cooking, harnessing the earth’s natural resources, living in harmony with rather than in opposition to the plant and animal species, and many more. Resources and inspiration for integrating these concepts into the curriculum can be found on my new Pinterest board called Core Curriculum: Agriculture& Sustainability. It is our hope that looking at the world from this perspective will help these kids be prepared to successfully tackle the challenges that lie in wait.

I showed her the new eggplant and now every day K wants to go out to the garden and check its growth. I shared my interest with her, knowing her love of food, her interest is piqued. Now we have countless opportunities to learn about how plants grow, why we cultivate our garden, all the while deepening her respect for the earth that feeds us, and the cycle of life.

The third and final core focus for the farm preschool cooperative is Creativity & the Arts. Problem-solving, innovation, and critical thinking are all highly related to creativity and unfortunately in most public schools, the arts are the first programs to be cut. Art, be it painting, sculpting, dance, interior design, architecture, cake decorating, flower arranging, scrap booking, landscaping, poetry and song writing, acting, and everything else, is a way for people to creatively express their ideas, experiences, and emotions. Art is an engaging and enjoyable way for students to explore every academic inquiry and topic out there. How better to learn the human skeletal structure than to accurately draw or sculpt it, or understand the concepts of geometry by drawing and designing a tree-house and then actually building it? The arts invite students to engage in the creative process, teaching them new ways of thinking and to see the world from multiple perspectives. Art allows students to develop a number of skills and is often the saving grace for many students who struggle to learn via lecture and instruction and would otherwise flounder in traditional programs. For ideas on how to facilitate creativity and the arts in the classroom, check out my new Pinterest board, Core Curriculum: Creativity & the Arts.

Blocks of all shapes and sizes are an excellent way for kids to develop creativity and put their imaginations to work. Not only are the planning and design beneficial and stretch their artistic muscles, but the play that resulting from their creations allows children to try on different roles and work through problems as they speak and act for the characters in their games.

You probably noticed that there are a lot of traditional academic subjects missing from this curriculum. They are there, just not in the way most of us are used to. Rather than separating subjects like history, literacy, math, and others, our curriculum addresses these subjects through the lens of the three core focus areas. For example, exploration of the food we eat lends itself perfectly to talking about the social and cultural aspects of culinary traditions. As students learn to prepare different foods together, they will find out where different kinds of foods grow, how other cultures cook, why they eat the food they do, what the terrain is like, why communities settled where they did, etc. The subjects not listed directly in the core areas are addressed within the context of projects that are born from the core concepts. This is how learning happens in emergent and project-based classrooms, through interdisciplinary projects collaboratively designed between students and teachers that emerge organically from the interests and questions of the students themselves.

This is how learning happens outside of school, and in Reggio-Inspired programs, this is also how it happens within schools. This is why I love the Reggio Approach; learning is synonymous with play, excitement, and adventure, not tests, lectures and boredom. Students follow their innate intellectual curiosities while teachers ask them about their ideas, theories, and hypotheses. Teachers listen to their students and support their interests and pull other students in who have complimentary interests and skills to collaborate as a group to deepen and broaden everyone’s understanding of the concepts being explored. All topics become mysteries that need solving and each child gets the chance to investigate those they are most drawn to alongside peers who are all doing the same. Teachers, in these self-directed classrooms, weave their way between individuals and groups observing, listening, posing new questions and offering different perspectives, joining in their efforts, and continually seek out new ideas to share with their kids. Not only this, but teachers are allowed to be students themselves, not the sole proprietors of information. Alongside their students these teachers pursue the topics that most interest them, modeling how to learn and sharing their enthusiasm with curious students. Together, in a community of equals joined by their desire to learn, knowledge is constructed and celebrated.