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Letter: Kids need natural learning

Editor: For the past half-century, I have been advocating schoolyards as places of learning in nature. During this time, I have coordinated playground renewals in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Australia and New Zealand.

Editor:

For the past half-century, I have been advocating schoolyards as places of learning in nature. During this time, I have coordinated playground renewals in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Australia and New Zealand. These projects have involved thousands of children and adults in the design, construction, and care of newly naturalized school grounds.

Ironically, these new areas have created sparse interest on the part of school teachers and administrators and little actual involvement of theirs in development.

The reasons for this woeful lack of interest are not surprising given the fact that teachers have little, if any, orientation to the benefits of nature and play in their professional preparation. Moreover, their ongoing in-service programs show no commitment to these aspects of learning. Bureaucratic curriculum guides also tend to dismiss places like the outdoor school environments as trivial if mentioned at all.

The overriding irony (and certainly not a poetic one) is that the creation, renewal, and care of school grounds by students, teachers, parents, and the community at large is one of the most profound things that can be done to enhance the learning of young people. Trees, flowers, shrubs, gardens, and the life they bring to schools cannot be overestimated.

It does little to meet real needs when well-intentioned parents and school authorities raise funds, purchase commercial playground equipment, and have structures of steel, fibreglass, and plastic installed in schoolyards. This type of representative realism is bogus in comparison with real nature. By contrast, when children get their hands dirty and learn new skills and appreciations in helping create their own learning grounds by “planning and planting,” what they do will be remembered for a lifetime.

It was Albert Einstein who said, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Let’s heed his words to ensure that our children get this opportunity every day they are at school to experience the awe and wonder which is their due.

Garfield Pennington, Roberts Creek