Rusty Keeler: This is race and they’re going faster and faster and faster, and life feels like it’s moving faster and faster. And so I am standing for the idea of slower and slower instead of just speeding up and going quicker. How about we go deeper? How about we tap into with our children earth speed, the speed of bugs, the speed of the seasons?
The speed of a tree growing or the wind blowing. The speed of play.
Hi, this is Rusty Keeler and you’re listening to the Play Nature Podcast where we talk about play nature, playing in nature, and the nature of play. I’m glad you’re here. Let’s have a listen.
Hello there. Welcome back to the Play Nature Podcast, and we are back at Six Mile Creek in a nice, in a nice warm spring day. In fact, it’s almost a hot spring day. It’s kind of a summary spring day, but we here in Ithaca, New York will take it. Yeah, we’ve had some cold, some cold days in April, in spring, you know, and, and then now we’re having some very, very warm weather, which is lovely.
As far as signs of spring people. People are out and about in Ithaca doing everything, riding bikes and walking and jogging and eating at the little outdoor cafes and restaurants and college students everywhere, you know? So finally we’re, we can be outdoors and everyone’s working in their yards and tending to this and that.
I saw somebody taking down their Christmas lights today on my way here. And let’s see, landscaping crews spreading, you know, mulch, moving wheelbarrows of mulch. And of course flowers are starting to pop, starting to get some nice spring and still not, we’re still early with the flowers, but they’re starting, you know, daffodils are up, grass is greening.
And then here I am, six Mile Creek and it’s flowing. You know, we’ve had various storms, some, some raging thunderstorms that just had tons of water and electricity and you know, now the creeks are flowing next to the creek is an incredible site. Do you know for cya, you know that plant for CYA is a shrub, sort of bushy shrub, and it, this time of year it turns bright yellow.
Flowers are bright yellow, and you know the famous saying, Ithaca is gorges. So here at Six Mile Creek where I’m sitting, there’s Gorges around all the sedimentary rock and you know, the, the creeks have cut through. So there’s these kind of cliff cliffside, gorges, cliffside walls, and on this certain wall here.
Like 30 feet tall. It is a cascade of bright yellow, uh, foria. Yeah. So that’s quite nice. And it’s only this time of year. So if you’re changing into a season, I always, I mean, that’s one thing I love about the natural play scape concept, is that we, we want to put children in touch with the seasons, the cycles of life.
And so we think about, oh, well what could we plant that will burst into bloom? You know, if you’re in the Northern hemisphere, you’re on my schedule here, so it’s springtime. So yeah, could, could you plant for ctia where you live? Did you put in flower bulbs in the fall? I think we probably talked about that, right?
So now’s the time. I bought a whole bunch as a fundraising thing from my, from my. Older son’s school and we’d stuck them in the ground and now they’re starting to come up, which is nice. So yeah, either fruit trees that you can plant this year that will burst into blossom next year. Apple, pear, Asian pear.
We have one of those in our little yard. One of my favorite trees. Yeah. So yeah, putting kids in the cycle of the seasons, that’s what we’re talking about. And that’s also like a connection to being on earth. It’s a connection to our ancestry, to what’s ancient, like our ancient connection to the land. To the land we live on to our communities.
And I have always felt like that’s a big part of what natural play skate movement is it’s place. Place Scaped. Place Scaping, creating places for children to know their place and to be rooted in reality in the real reality of outdoors, of nature of Earth. So that’s what I’m going to. I kinda get at today in today’s podcast is kind of thinking about, yeah, kind of thinking about our roots as humans and the root of childhood and the roots of nature connections, and who that makes us and what that does for our hearts, minds, bodies, spirits, nervous systems, and how we can be creating that for children.
But also in the context of the modern world. The modern world, and thinking about what our place in this movement is, whether you are working with children, whether you are working with your own children, you have your own children as a parent, a caregiver, or you work with children you know, on a daily basis or weekly basis.
Or if you are, uh, running a program, directing, administering a program, if you’re a trainer, if you’re an, uh, adult educator, if you’re a professor, if you’re a researcher, if you’re an advocate, if you’re in government or a designer. Yeah. Think about what is, what is your role here to support kinda this real play.
These, this real connection to the real world. I got a little train of thought we will get into here, but first just kind of contemplate that, like, okay, what is your role? Both, you know, the day to day, but then deeper, like what you stand for with nature and place-based education and play in general, because that is gonna be very important as we.
As we go into this future, this uncertain future as all, as all future is, right? We don’t know. We don’t know what’s coming, but the beauty is we with our hearts and our oomph and standing strong in what we believe in, we can help shape that uncertain future. And we can help shape it to what we want it to be.
So that’s, that’s where I’m gonna go here. Yeah. Yeah. Sound good? Okay. Well, you know, and so a lot of this actually is, you know, stemming from my own wonderings about my own place in this movement, in this world. And kind of reflecting on that in my own new seasons and my seasons of life and that kind of stuff, I always like to kind of have you now and then take a step back and just kinda look at like, well, what, what, what, what’s happening and what’s my, what’s my role in it?
So, okay. Dark times, can I start out with dark times? Yeah. You know, there’s so much discussion about, you know, how. Childhood has changed. You know, children haven’t really changed. They may be affected by what childhood is like and it’s different everywhere you live in every community and neighborhood. And, but we know that there are trends that have had a big effect on children and we know that there are, you know, issues if not emergencies with mental health, like crises, anxiety, depression.
You know, all that stuff. Um, we know that there’s, kids are endorsed more. You know, we’ve listened to Peter Gray talk about why and the changes and schooling. We’ve listened to an Angela handsome from her ot, occupational therapy perspective of like children who have been on screens in their early childhood and what that does to their eye tracking and their balance and their ability to.
Pick up pencils once they hit school. You know, all, all the stuff, right? We know, we know, we know, we know, we know, we know. There’s, there’s definitely issues with what’s been going on in this kind of, this unintentional combination of things leading to kind of a, uh, yeah, a childhood of less freedom and maybe more stress.
And if we really love the idea of children and nature and play and freedom. We kind of feel like they’re missing out. And as we look at research and we look at what’s, you know, how they’re affected, there are some changes that are not great. So I guess that’s, that’s, that’s kind of the thing. And, and, and the trend.
Right. And we’ve seen that. And you can look over the last. 30 years and then the last 20 years and 10 years, and it’s getting, you know, it’s worse and worse. And we may, okay, this is, this is kind of the new idea for me or what, what I’m, kind of, what I’ve been feeling is that we had been feeling like these issues are just getting worse and worse and worse.
And we, we are, we could, we could be pessimistic and just think it’s, it’s only gonna get worse. But what I’m realizing is that I believe that this is a strange blip. In our human history, it’s kind of the advent of technology so young for children in the combination with, you know, fear cycles, 24 hour news and indoors.
And, you know, even though it’s the safest time ever in my country, I’m realizing instead of thinking that it’s gonna continue to get worse, I believe that it. Is it going to about to get better? That those trends is actually a blip. It is like this strange anomaly in our history and that already it is changing because of awareness.
Already we’re learning that kids in screens not so great, especially young, but like kids getting glued to the screen. Instead of outdoors, or instead of just living in, you know, non-screen reality for the eyes, for the for everything. We know that kids in social media, adolescents and social media, teens in social media is not healthy.
The research is out now. The lawsuits are starting to come in, going against social media companies showing that they’re negligent because actually their products were addictive. Are addictive. I mean, come on. We know that. But anyway, so we’re, there’s awareness on a, on a big level, on a worldwide level, and we also know that too much academics, too young is not good.
We’re learning that the conversations are having happening everywhere about that. We know that children have been overscheduled. We know that removing recess, not a good idea. Removing art. Music from schools. Not a good idea. It was an idea, all that stuff to try to have academic excellence, better test scores, you know, whatever humans, that that was an idea.
But we’re realizing that some of these ideas weren’t effective, weren’t great, and had damaging effects on children’s lives, spirits, bodies, and minds. And, and mental health. So, okay, so we realize this stuff. We’ve been now talking about this stuff, and so we get it right. It’s not new, you know, we’re lamenting this stuff and we can lament it, but that part isn’t new.
But what’s new is the idea of that passing behind us, that wave and us together working together to create the reality that we want. Okay? Screens, you know, iPads for the toddler. Nah, let’s, let’s not do so much of that. Let’s balance it out. I don’t wanna get too, too much into politics here, but in my country there’s been a lot of our systems, the latest, um, uh, administration’s been breaking down systems, just talking domestically here.
But of course it’s also worldwide. Education systems and social systems and university systems and science systems and research and granting and, you know, all these systems are changing. And of course it, it, a lot of this stuff is shocking when the stuff first happens. It’s shocking. But a lot of those systems, we kind of thought that we should probably make some changes, right.
But yeah, I mean education and social services, there could be improvements in all that. I’m sure you thought it felt it. Right. Okay. I mean, we may have approached the shift differently, but regardless, the break, the shift, the, the systems are breaking down, some are getting destroyed. But what that leaves room for this is, this is us looking forward, looking ahead, is that somebody’s gotta build them back up.
Somebody, some groups, some system, some wave of momentum and movement and communication, and our voices are going to be used to build the reality that we want. In all the systems. Sometimes it takes tearing things down to build back up. You know, if you’re an early childhood person, our beloved Reggio Amelia model of early childhood education that so many people love and are inspired by so much.
I’ve worked with so many people that have been inspired by Reggio, and so Reggio, the town of Reggio Amelia in Italy, they came up with these ideas after World War ii, after systems were broken down and so they thought they reflected how do we build it back the way we want, the way we believe, and so we hopefully don’t have to build it back from that kind of.
Uh, destruction, but we, we get to, we get to build back and we get to visualize and, and we can have it based on what we believe, what we know is right for children is right for their development is right for their academics and their education. So, you know, we may still be a little ways off. From the rebuilding, but it is in our future.
So now is the time to get strong in our beliefs. But you know, in your bones, I think the time for lamenting the trend, the the negative trends is over. It’s still important for some people, if that’s your path, is to push against those. But I believe it’s also time for us to visualize the future and start working towards it, and that can be more play using our voices to support play.
Now again, there has never been a time probably in human history where there has been so much clear research showing the benefits of play. Now, if you’re like me. We don’t need any research. I don’t need no research to prove that that’s play is the way right, the natural way of being. But it’s important to have that kind of research because that’s how we talk to our administrators and our government officials, and our licensing and our, you know, state people and our federal people and all that kind of stuff.
So there’s never been a time in our history that has had as much research. And writing backing the importance of play for children’s development, the natural way. Same goes for nature play. We’ve so many, so much research, so ma, so much writing about it, like it’s not new. We know in our bones it is happening and so we wanna bust it open.
We wanna work together to take it to the next level. And that can be licensing. You know, we think about licensing and what are all the factors that affect children’s play and freedom and mess and risk and all that stuff. And so maybe the future is thinking about how we help shift to bring licensing rules and regulations up to date.
Yeah. You know, a lot of those rules are based on things that were established way back when. Well, we’re here now and we’re going forward, and so well, what should it be going forward? A friend at a Canadian, uh, conference many years ago talked about changing licensing rules simply just because there were policy gaps.
NN nothing, nothing to be ashamed of. There’s, there’s just some policy gaps that need to be filled. And that is just kind of bringing things up to the, you know, the modern age. And then that could be, you know, the forest school or the outdoor preschools or outdoor childcare. You know, there’s different rules and regulations that should be created for those.
And states are doing that. Some states, but not all states. So any, anyway, it’s, it’s the policy gaps. And I think another big part of so much of this with children’s freedom and play and outdoors is community. And so us creating the future is strengthening our communities, and that can be our circle of friends, our circle of neighbors, our circle of coworkers, our circle of the parents of children that we serve.
You know, after COVID, so many of us, you know, we got out of the habit of gathering, of like having people over. Of course we thought it was a matter of life and death, but you know, it tapped the introverted parts of us and you know, we’re kind of out of the habit and I feel like, hey, it might be a good time to get back into those old habits, those things that make us feel good, those community connections.
It’s a whole other podcast talking about the beauty of community and how that can serve childhood. But that’s a big part of it. Community too. So now’s the time. And so we also think about, you know, we thinking about this uncertainty of the future. You know, there’s so much talk about ai, artificial intelligence, and so many people are talking about that as uncertain and Oh yeah, it is.
It is. But dear listener. I believe that the more things go AI and artificial intelligence, and the more there’s technology and the more, um, there’s a tendency to get engulfed by technology, then there is more and more need for the stuff that we believe in, that you and I believe in kind of getting back to the natural basics.
So in one way, there’s this future, the future of more technology and the future of AI and the future robots. And, and you know, how that will affect everybody and everything in society and all that. But as things do lean in that direction is important, maybe more than ever before to lean in the other direction, to have a maybe a foot in each world, but that other direction is.
Nature is connecting to the earth, is connecting, grounding to the earth and the seasons and the cycles of life. The real stuff. The real stuff. So really as we go further and further into tech, I feel like it’s deeper and deeper, more and more important. To go into the natural basics. To ground in that.
Yeah, to have the depth of the earth, the depth of it all, and the real. How about that? The real reality or reality? Reality, physical reality, whether it’s your mud kitchen or a tree stump. Or a shovel or plastic dinosaur in a sand pit. That’s real reality. And you know, there’s this race, you know, we think about this AI race, artificial reality, right?
That that’s, that’s one of the things about it that just seems is there’s just like, whoa. But it is, it’s this race and they’re going faster and faster and faster, and life feels like it’s moving faster and faster. And so I am standing for the idea of slower and slower, slower and slower instead of just speeding up and going quicker.
How about we go deeper? How about we tap into with our children earth speed, the speed of bugs, the speed of the seasons? The speed of a tree growing where the wind blowing the speed of play. The speed of imagination. The speed of laughter. Yeah. What if we did that? You’re doing it. Another thing. That I’ve heard talk of as AI is building and growing and you know, shifting jobs that people once did, taking jobs, allowing people to work in different ways.
That is, you know, amazing. Like there is a, there is a real revolution of everything because of this technology and it certainly is incredible. It’s one of my little hobbies is to read and study all about it because it is definitely a, I believe, a turning point in humanity, in our human history. But one of the things you hear a lot is as there’s more and more tech, more and more ai, what becomes really important?
You know people have questions. Well, what’s education? If people are going for computer programming, what are they gonna go to school for? Now, what are they gonna go to school for? What is education? So this is also, what do I mean about rethinking, right? We’re rethinking everything because of this. And so like, what should education be?
And a lot of people say because of AI and all the tech in those directions, what is going to be most important? In the future are the soft skills are the human skills, and that’s like the deep stuff that children in early childhood education, in early childhood, that’s what they are learning. That through play, that is where you learn the deep, soft.
Human skills that make you a human. Knowing thyself and being able to work with other people. You know, think about that with play, like all that stuff is through play, collaboration, creativity, compassion, communication. Was it the four C’s? Collaboration, creativity, compassion, communication. The mindfulness, curiosity.
We want to develop and nurture that stuff because that going forward in schools and out of schools, that is gonna be what’s different than ai. That’s the beautiful stuff. That’s the rich stuff. That’s the stuff we want for all children and all people, and that’s what play is all about. Okay, here’s another.
Ai if AI takes care of more things, again, I don’t know how much you’re getting into thinking about ai, but as a nature and earth person working to be grounded in that, I can’t help but be fascinated a little bit by the other and what that means for us. But I think it means that, that all that earth stuff is, is deeper and even more important.
To engulf ourselves in nature. So here’s a what if with ai, like what if AI did take care of most of the techy stuff? Now the little techy stuff that we have to do or people have to do or companies have to do, what if it does take care of all this stuff that we’ve been sitting in front of computer screens for all these years?
For what if that was taken off our plate? What if we hand it over, and then maybe that gives us an opportunity to be more human and maybe more together with some of these seas. Communication community. What if we were, it gave us more time to be connected to the Earth than each other, and maybe most important of all, connected.
To ourselves. Yeah. What if we push the tech aside? It let it take care of itself, but I ai deal with the, the taxes and the emails and the whatnots. Yeah. Give it that, give it that work. And what if we then have spent more time thinking about what’s, what’s meaningful to us?
And I think that’s, that’s what play is about too. Children having the freedom for deep, rich, free play directed by them. ’cause we know that that’s where children discover who they are, what they love. That’s how children find their place in the world. Do you know the Japanese. A kind of life living philosophy.
Iki guy,
I-K-I-G-A-I, I think it’s spelled, oh, there’s ducks landing on the creek. That is one of my favorite things. It’s so funny. They bomb in and at the last second they pull up, flap their wings a bunch and just skid right onto the water. It’s a male mallard that just did that right in front of me here. So Iki guy, uh, is this philosophy of where you, it’s kind of this knowing yourself.
It’s finding out your life path, your mission, how to get on that path, and it’s considering four things, what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs. What the world needs, and if it’s vocation, what you can get paid for,
what you love, what you love to do, what you’re good at, how you can contribute, serve what the world needs, what they could, the world could use, and how you could, how you could get paid for it. And again, it doesn’t have to have the pay part, but if it, if it’s your life path, it’s also your profession or vocation.
That’s part of it too. And so when we consider those things, that is kind of trying to know thyself and I believe, and for children, I believe, and they know that. They find out that stuff through play. And maybe we all find out that stuff through play. And for us play could be listening to a podcast, reflecting, thinking your free time could be reading books, it could be doing the stuff that you love to do, your actions, whether it’s drawing, teaching, educating, supporting, play.
Crafting new licensing rules to support, play, whatever it is. But that’s that we find out what we, who we are by living and, and having the space to live and do, and then reflect on our lives. And I believe for children, it’s the same thing through play, they find out what they’re interested in. What, who they are, what they like to do, what they might be good at with the time, space, and materials.
If we’re not pushing down on kids, if we’re not pushing the academics down, you know that blip I was talking about before on academics, we thought that was the way, but when we don’t push down. This kind of learning about yourself and what you’re interested in and what you’re good at. That sprouts up in the child from their own hearts, from their own inner guidance.
So I think we’re on the right track. Dear listener, don’t you? I mean, I think this play thing. I think there’s something about it, but I think there’s something about it that is, I think one of the answers to it all. So the work that you do and the things that you’re thinking about, play on whatever level, nature, play on whatever level you’re doing it.
Keep doing it. Yeah. Keep doing it. ’cause this is making a difference. This is, we’re actively creating the future and the more we talk about it, the more we share the ideas, the more the movement will build. Because we can make the world how we want it. Yes, we may have to have some thick skin and some upset stomachs, but maybe what if that’s a blip?
Our reactions and what if we focus on the rebuilding? Yeah. I think it’s not a time to give up hope. I think it’s a time to ground in our beliefs. Solid. What do you believe about children’s play, about nature? Risk mess, education. Yeah. What is it? What do you believe? Write it down. I was a band with a, with a, a neighbor of mine in the country named Jimmy Popcorn.
And if we had a good idea, he’d say, rat it down Rusty. So yeah. So write it down. I think it’s also time again, the Titan community want you organize a block party. Meet some new neighbors. I think it’s also a time to do what you love and spring forth. Yeah, so let’s spring forth or, I love this another friend and I always used to, when we say stuff like that, let’s, let’s do it.
And then we step back and we realize, oh wait, it’s happening. It is happening. And if you’re thinking it, and I’m thinking it and other listeners are thinking of it, yeah, and we’re doing it. It’s happening. So let’s keep it up. What do you think of those thoughts? Dear listener, I’d love to get an email from you.
What do you think? Are you with me? So not a time to give up hope. Even though it’s a shaky time, but if things are shaken up, let’s take it to the next level. Let’s, let’s think about what we wanna build back up. How can we connect the ancient deep things we believe in that humans have always been connected to?
How can we connect that, those deep things. The natural process of play. How do we connect that and nature to the future? It’s happening. All right. Till next time. See ya.
All right. Thanks for listening. Do you have a comment? Or a question, email me at Play Nature podcast@gmail.com. You know, I like talking about this stuff and maybe we could use your question on a future podcast episode. As always, I have some free goodies for you in the show notes, including my outdoor loose parts guide.
Fun stuff in there. And so I wish you the best in your outdoor play adventures, and when it comes to adding nature to your yard or loose parts, or saying yes to risky play. My favorite motto is dream big, start small and never stop. Oh yeah. Woo, woo, woo. Let’s do it. All right. Have fun out there.
