Kids in The Wild Woods

We’re halfway into our New Zealand – Australia journey, kicking back for a day in Christchurch, NZ – the biggest city on New Zealand’s south island. After spending our first week on the north island, yesterday we took a 3-hour ferry ride to the south island. All was perfectly smooth and calm for our crossing from Wellington. (which was quite a relief since my last ferry ride a year ago from Puerto Rico to Culebra island was, well, “eventful”.) After the ferry we took the once-a-day five hour train down to Christchurch. Beautiful scenery. Crystal blue Pacific ocean on the left side of the train. Snow-capped mountains on the right side. They even had an open air car where you could get an exciting wind-blown up close view of the passing scenes. Today we are resting in a sweet little “batch” or beach house  in Governor’s Bay (for those of you following along with google maps). Tomorrow we’re working with a local Playcentre to build a water play river and falls with volunteers. Stay tuned!

So, with feet up its time to start catching up on some of the great adventures we’ve been a part of so far. (its been a FULL 12 days so far!) Let’s go way back up to Whangarei and Open Spaces Preschool. Not only do they have a fabulous indoor+outdoor environment for children with fun-loving staff, natural materials, and yes, chickens (!), but the children also have a very very special place to visit and connect with the natural world: The Wild Woods.
[slideshow]

The Wild Woods is a section of wooded grazing land about a 1/4 mile back from the preschool. It is part of the director Cherry Daly’s family farm where they raise horses, cows and sheep on 130 acres of woods, creeks, and open pasture land. The Wild Woods is Open Spaces Preschool’s version of a Forest Kindergarden or Forest School – where the classroom is the woods. The forest kindergarden movement is popular in European countries especially Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Children explore the natural environment in all seasons and all types of weather.  “There is no such thing as bad weather – just bad clothing.” The movement is catching on all over the world.

Two years ago Cherry attended the Nature Action Coalition for Children working forum at Arbor Day Farms in Nebraska where she was inspired by the fabulous Claire Warden of  Mindstretchers in Scotland. Claire runs a number of of nature kindergartens and travels the world inspiring groups to bring more nature to children and to bring more children to nature. (Claire also took the picture on the cover of my book of her daughter and a friend at one of her nature kindergartens) Cherry saw the great things that the children were up to at Claire’s nature kindergartens and a light bulb went off in her head. “Why don’t we do the same thing on a part of our land? I know just the place!”

When she returned home to New Zealand she talked it over with her family and they agreed to designate a 5 acre parcel of land for the preschool’s daily use. Let me just say it is a stunning, sacred piece of land. Ancient trees ring an open meadow. Volcanic rock outcroppings covered with lichen. (remember that a dormant volcano just down the road?) Some of the trees are 500, 600, 700 years old! For you tree buffs look these up: Puriri, Trairie, Rewa Rewa, Kauri, Matai, and Pohutukawa. (we don’t have these in upstate NY!)

The Natural Phenomena conference itself would be held on these grounds. The day before the conference I had the immense pleasure of joining a group of children and teachers on their adventure in the Wild Woods. Every day a group of 8 four and five year old children and 2 teachers visit the woods for 3-4 hours. They take the 15 minute walk along the dirt driveway, horses, mud puddles, and “Miss Piggy” and enter into the woods. From there the children are free to roam. The teachers follow the children’s lead and stand by as children climb trees, help turn over logs to look for spiders, push children on rope swings, apply the occasional band-aid, and get lunch ready complete with wipes for dirty hands. I joined the children on their investigations and explorations and as always I was amazed at how natural it is for children to be in nature. It makes sense, sure: throughout history humans have always been connected to nature and it makes sense that children would feel comfortable and curious as they dig and discover the magic and mysteries of their world. And yet it’s still almost surprising to see these modern children approaching the land and landscape with such curiosity, calm, respect, interest, and depth. Is it surprising because typically children are not allowed to do this? Not trusted? Is there a fear for their safety? Their health? Are adults too busy to slow down with children to do this? Children….in the woods?!?

It renews my belief that children are amazingly competent learners, know their limitations and can be trusted to take appropriate risks, and are deep thinkers with great empathy for other living creatures on the planet — animals, insects, or plants. Traditional Maori culture and ideas are woven into the fabric of everyday life in New Zealand and especially in schools. The Wild Woods kids have been taught Maori concepts of respect and caring for all living things. They are careful not to step on living seedling trees or pull out living plants, and always try to touch the bugs and worms they discover “gently”. While the children were certainly having fun, I sensed the underlying feelings of honor and respect that the children had toward the land they were exploring. It was a sacred feeling. Something deep. Something special. When the children got back to the preschool at the end of the day it was all rough and tumble wildness, block building, running, racing, paper airplane flying and whooping it up. But the time they spent in the Wild Woods was different. It was heart time. Earth time. Connecting somehow with the universe time. Taking place amidst the cathedral of trees it felt holy.

All schools cannot suddenly change to be outdoor-only forest schools like they have in Scandinavia. But how many schools are within walking distance to a natural area that could be used for exploration? It doesn’t have to be a forest of ancient trees. It could be an open meadow. A beach. A vacant lot. A creek. A park. A college campus. A scrubby patch of trees in a forgotten corner of the school grounds.

Imagine that: children exploring nature as a normal daily event.

copyright Rusty Keeler 2010. Please contact me for reprinting this article.