by editor | Jun 13, 2011 | K-12 Classroom Resources
by Glenn Hovemann, Editor
Dawn Publications
Let’s say you are in a library or bookstore and you want to find a book that will inspire a child to connect with nature in some way. Should you head for the fiction or non-fiction section? This may seem like an obvious, straightforward choice (paper or plastic? credit or debit?) so you head for non-fiction because—well, because you want something about nature.
But on the way to the non-fiction section you pause, remembering the attention span issue and how some plugged-in young ones seem prefer to be bedazzled, and how that last book of facts and photographs just didn’t quite catch on. So you turn toward the fiction shelves. But then you pause again. Wait! I really want to inspire a love of nature—an ethic of caring for the Earth, you say to yourself, not wanting to repeat some of the unenlightening fiction that you’ve read aloud recently.
What to do?
(more…)
by editor | Jun 7, 2011 | Outdoor education and Outdoor School
The Social Studies of Spirituality
By Kasey Christian
IslandWood
(photo from silouanthompson.net)
Where are the boundaries between Social Studies, Science, and Spiritual beliefs? Where do these distinct practices intersect? How does a teacher model equal respect for each?
As professional educators, how do we teach about intrinsically interdisciplinary (and sensitive) topics such as the basic foundations of life and death? Both alternative and popular cultures have explored the intimate intersection between natural sciences and spirituality since the earliest discoveries of humankind. Through exploration of cultural customs and beliefs, a similarly fascinating intersection can be found between social studies and spirituality . As an outdoor educator in a formal, non-traditional setting, much of the curriculum I teach is based on the cultural history of the land. As I respectfully acknowledge both the facts and beliefs of particular cultures, I am repeatedly challenged to articulate the similarities and differences between social studies, science, and spiritual beliefs. In my desire to regard each subject area with equal respect and value, I am currently grappling with this dynamic, mysterious and sometimes perplexing crossroads between disciplines.
(more…)
by editor | May 31, 2011 | Outdoor education and Outdoor School, Questioning strategies
For the questioning mind, learning never concludes because it is an endless journey with an infinite number of destinations…
by Chris Helander
Head Instructor
Coyote’s Path Wilderness School
(reprinted from The Best of CLEARING)
There are many people who say our current model for learning is ineffectual. Parents and educators are asking “how do you reach young people who seem apathetic and unmotivated to learn?” In old cultures before schools, books, and grades, people learned by being mentored. Using stories, ceremony, games, and survival skills everyone and everything was a teacher. In the modern model of education, learning is force fed, sitting in chairs, listening to an adult spouting out information to be memorized. Modern children learning this way are trained to get their knowledge by memorization of someone else’s knowledge. They do not learn how to develop the questioning mind or follow their hearts to learn from their own experiences.
Read the rest of this article…
by editor | May 19, 2011 | Environmental Literacy, Outdoor education and Outdoor School
By Saul Weisberg
Executive Director
North Cascades Institute
(reprinted from The Best of CLEARING)
I love knowing the names of things. It makes them familiar, like old friends. I also love to look at patterns in nature. Veins on the back of a vine maple leaf. The yellow and black scales on the wing of a two-tailed tiger swallowtail. The striations in a piece of greenschist. The patterns of nature show us the details of life where the wonder lies.
The landscape is made up of details, too. The ways things fit together — the interactions of living and non-living things — tell a story. In order to make sense of larger patterns, in order to recognize them in the first place, you have to know the details. You have to be able to look at the pieces and pick them apart, understand what this thing is, why this lives here and not there, why things work the way they do, and what has changed over time.
The distrust and ignorance of science that is prevalent in society has made inroads in environmental education as well. It is not unusual to see eager and competent educators with master’s degrees in EE who have no knowledge of natural science, and who are unable to identify common birds and plants. These educators tend to focus on two things: the experience of teaching in the outdoors and the big picture — important processes and concepts. But somewhere between the experience and the process we lose touch with the thing itself — the organism and its world. (more…)
by editor | May 12, 2011 | Outdoor education and Outdoor School
by Tony Deis
TrackersPDX
Remember when Outdoor Education was chopping wood, ghost stories, building log cabins, lighting fires and fishing? Nowadays it’s playing nature games, parroting sanitized and co-opted indigenous lore, taking water quality samples and sitting in a sit spot like you’re eating your vegetables.
We’ve devolved from great acts that require great competency to monkeying what kids do when they play without us. Heck, the same goes for a lot of “Outdoor Recreation” programs that work with adults. The educator follows their school’s philosophy like a zombie.
In my 20 years as an outdoor educator I’ve heard plenty of folks say, “It’s our job to get to kids to play again.” While that’s partially true, its also important to remember, we are the guides on [a] true hero’s journey. We are the adults that show kids what’s possible. Equally missing to spontaneous play is your mother and father taking you fishing. Or the old school scout master showing you how to throw a hatchet.
“Child centered education” can often excuse ourselves from training in real outdoor skills and lore. If you yourself dare a compelling and extraordinary life, that will show through in what you share with kids. Adventure will be second nature. No curriculum, visible or invisible, required.
Remember, all models are wrong and some are useful. All methodologies of outdoor education (including and especially Trackers) are also thoroughly incorrect yet serve a purpose. It’s up to you to make those methods real by being real yourself.
A great outdoor educator is not solely someone who has trained to be so. A great outdoor educator is she or he who has chosen to live an epic life out of doors.
http://trackerspdx.com/blog/posts/2011/05/12/outdoor_ed_is_boring
by Glenn Hovemann, Editor
