Last night was our first session of Forest Teacher Training certification. Having participated in the Introductory to Forest School course, I already knew some of the instructors and the format of the learning modules. What I wasn’t prepared for was the amazing variety of people I would meet! Our teacher and guide began by saying, “If we only met for 30 minutes, the best way to spend those minutes would be to meet one another and listen to one another’s stories….”
There were over twelve states represented – and one dear Italian woman who now resides in Switzerland. In many ways, the technology offered by Zoom added to this experience instead of only detracting from our meeting in-person. I listened to each person share only their name and location and then, what brings them joy. As you might imagine, with a bunch of naturalist the themes of joy surrounded hiking, nature, gardening, spending time with family and children outdoors, etc. But there were also some creatives in the group that shared their nature journals, pottery they’d created, and even framed maps of beloved National Parks in-lieu of pictures on hand.
As we completed the introductions, and our guide began to transition to the evening’s topic on learning and engagement, he was quick to point out the the kinship we had just experienced was key to BOTH. Indeed, the storytelling, interdependency and sharing of it all is part of the magic that makes the forest school movement so compelling.
I learned so many useful facts about learning and engagement in a forest school setting and how to convey these people I might be trying to “win over.” But my heartfelt takeaway for the evening, was the kinship I kept as I left the meeting.
Occasionally I am asked what I mean by the term “Creation Care.” Unfortunately, many people whose faith traditions are similar to mine simply see no connection between love and care for the natural world and their “spirituality.” And I find that, no matter which side of the “liberal-conservative” spectrum they identify with, when I begin to talk about caring for God’s world I find that those who would close themselves off do so for reasons which seem, on the surface, so diametrically opposed that it makes me laugh. My conviction either causes them to hear a Bible-thumbing radical that wants to indoctrinate children with rigid ideas about Creation, or else the opposite: some liberal, environmental agenda set at hijacking their “traditional Christian values.”
Indeed (and this is a matter of some importance), neither is the case. Because of this, I have found it very difficult to find “my tribe” in between these two extremes. Richard Louv said it well in Last Child in the Woods when he wrote of the precariousness of speaking of, “…spirituality of – or rather in nature – without tripping on biblical vines of interpretation, semantics and politics.” (291)
Perhaps like him, I have found myself on the outside of many institutions, realizing that they take one of many stances on the sticky combination of ecology, the natural world, and creation care:
As aforementioned, many conservative religious institutions view, in Louv’s words, “environmentalism as ersatz religion…a creeping animism” that threatens much of their fundamental doctrine.
Or, perhaps they completely stand by ecological and environmental movements of today, but see them as having nothing to do with Biblical teaching, but rather see them only as an ethic apart from the Bible.
But, sometimes I find myself in a group of people just as disillusioned as I am, without the language or home to convey the feeling of oneness with a Creator whose imprint they see when surrounded by the natural world. These people would often describe themselves as “spiritual” but more than likely, not often as “religious”
For many years I have struggled to find a place, institution or organization where I might share my passion for teaching children the respect for living things, sacredness of place and awe of the natural world. Sparrow’s Nest Play is my sacred ground, on which I hope to share my love for creation and its care.
It’s important to me that we define why the values of Sparrow’s Nest Play (nature play, creation care, and just living) are what they are, and it is important to me that you know it has nothing to do with a soapbox. The truth is, we believe that the problems inherent in the liberal and conservative camps arise from the same misunderstanding: a false dichotomy between nature and spirituality. For a fuller understanding on our beliefs about “spirituality,” see our post Spirituality Means Becoming God-like.)
Our understanding of this is why I am thankful to Richard Louv for his classic work in Last Child in the Woods, which discusses this false dichotomy between nature and spirituality in the next-to-last chapter. He captures the tension by recounting a conversation with a Conservative Christian woman in the following quote.
The Lord created and placed humans in a garden with a mandate to enjoy it, manage it with authority, in subjugation to the Creator,” she says. At the core of the creation story, she believes, is the “truth that humans are made in the image of God, sharing some of the capacities unique to God, such as freedom to choose, creativity, authority over creation.” Without an informed biblical foundation, she believes, concern for the environment falls prey to sentimentalism; idolatry of nature; bioegalitarianism (which ‘elevates animals, devalues humans); and biocentrism (which ‘disregards the biblical notion that where human needs and non-human needs are in conflict, priority goes to meeting the human needs’)”
Last Child in the Woods, 200
I pondered this for a long time after reading, re-reading, and re-reading again before I felt confident that I understood just how different my beliefs and assumptions about what scripture teaches and the beliefs of this woman are. I came to the conclusion that she and I have very differently informed “biblical foundations” when it comes to the Biblical creation account. I’ll need to begin there and then proceed to my account of what I have been led to believe Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection means for our lives here in this world.
The account of creation, in Genesis and elsewhere in scripture, tells us of God placing people inside creation, making them in his image. Rather than see this image-bearing as the authority wielding power to subdue and manage, I see God as inviting us to to become caretaker and co-creators of all he had made. The Hebrew wording used for “rule” and “subdue” also indicate a leadership by “going down” and “spreading out among.” There are other verbs for “conquer” or “have dominion,” but the words used here indicate relationship and caretaking
So our faith begins with the story of how God created a beautiful world and then created people to live in it, to name it, and to do the good work of caring for it. At Sparrow’s Nest Play, we think that means that God’s original idea was for people to see themselves as a part of the world–meaning that even though the world provides our food, God made us to have a responsibility to it and to each other.
At the end of that story we’re told about sin–we think that at least part of what that means is that people started thinking about the natural world as something that was underneath them–instead of a part of them, that it was there for them to exploit and use up. They saw themselves as being outside of the world, rather than being a part of it. We think that’s part of the destructive nature of sin–to exploit and use up the people, animals, and places around us. Ultimately, we think that when Jesus came, he was establishing God’s kingdom on this earth, and he told us that that meant that God’s will would be done right here.
Jesus’ Ministry of Reconciliation
Jesus’ ministry was one of restoration, reconciliation and resurrection. As witness to the exploitative nature of humankind, he continually sought to restore and reconcile wrong ideas, actions and practices, which often involved restoring marginalized people and places. Jesus came to bring peace to a broken world. Part of that definition of peace or shalom is “enough for all.” A scarcity mindset and the belief that there aren’t enough resources (food, water, wealth, medicine, energy, etc) are at the root of greed and exploitation.
Scarcity thinking benefits the powerful and the power systems they have created. I believe Jesus’ restored Kingdom undid the powers and the systems they upheld.
Because we think Jesus came to restore us to being caretakers of this earth, at SNP, we want to help children learn why and how to take care of the soil, water, the plants, and the animals around them. We think that when they do, they’ll also learn that they are taking care of one another and themselves: that this is a way of loving their neighbor as themselves.
Do I believe one can engage in nature without encountering the “spiritual?” Well, I suppose that depends greatly on how one defines the word spiritual. What I can bear witness to are countless instances of both children and adults finding moments of something bigger than themselves while in the natural world. And in these moments, sometimes they had a name for the eternal and infinite. Some might have called it God, or Allah, while others chose to refer to the vastness as Mother Nature. It was this feeling of smallness among the infinite that led native peoples to create stories, handed down generation to generation, about many aspects of nature from a creation account to animal lore.
When speaking about faith-based environmentalism, Paul Gorman, founder and director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, declares, “The extent that we separate our children from creation is the extent to which we separate them from the creator – from God.” (Louv, 299) Conversely, I think it is hard to expose them to nature and not allow them to have questions about how it came about. I enjoy those conversations and being a part of them. I especially enjoy having them with children, whose mind’s eye is still so open and willing to dream and imagine a world with room for shalom.
And in a world with room enough for shalom, I think there will also be room for the neighbor-love that impacts lives large and small in every ecosystem.
In today’s busy spaces of home, work, school, and schedule it may seem like “too much” to read about one more thing you and your family needs to “fit in” to an already impossible schedule. Recreation out of doors has become a specialty niche, another group you can choose to belong to or “identify with” in order to gain a place in society’s ever fluctuating social order. But that is not what I am talking about.
I’m not proposing week-long excursions, either as a family unit or that you pay precious dollars for your child to experience. I don’t mean that I wish for you to drop the savings account on camping equipment and force everyone to “Enjoy time in creation…damn it! We’re going on this trip even if it kills us and we are going to like it because it will bring us closer to God’s creation!” And I absolutely don’t want to add another thing into a child’s already overloaded schedule.
What I am suggesting is that reconnecting and reorienting oneself with the natural world in an intimate way places us closer to the heart of God.
Where can this be done? A small patch of yard with potted plants can be a great start. For small children, just a few trees is a forest. Public parks, while controlled in landscape and play options, at least provide grassy places for sitting and trees to observe. Spots in the yard to dig in the soil, gather fallen leaves, or just sit comfortably and quietly all serve as great springboards for Creation Care.
In Last Child in the Woods, Louv recounts a conversation with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who was at the time President of the Waterkeeper Alliance and senior attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council. Speaking passionately about reconnecting children to nature, Kennedy said, “We don’t want to live in a world where…we’ve lost touch with the seasons, the tides, the things that connect us – the ten thousand generations human begins that were here before us…and ultimately to God” (200).
“We shouldn’t be worshipping nature as God, he said, but nature is the way that God communicates to us most forcefully. ‘God communicates to us through each other and through organized religion, through wise people and the great books, through music and art,’ but nowhere ‘with such gesture and forcefulness in detail and grace and joy, as through creation” (Louv, 200).
Not only do we feel a nearness to God when we place ourselves strategically in the natural world, we experience a smallness within ourselves, which positions us within the created order as God intended – as caretakers and watchmen of an enormous garden. When we still ourselves to notice things like blooming flowers, birdcalls, watersheds, and the markings of seasons, we see just how much has been going on around us without our notice and attention. And suddenly we are placed within eternity, as co-creators with endless opportunity to partake in a richness we had previously missed.
Nature presents the young with something so much greater than they are; it offers an environment where they can easily contemplate infinity and eternity.”
Louv, Last Child in the Woods, 98
Now step back and look at the person who has themselves been recreated. They have intimacy with God by thinking about how (and perhaps “why”) he made things as he did. They wonder about many of these things daily. These people have developed critical thinking skills like observation, reflection, evaluation, inference-making, problem solving, and decision making. They are able to see themselves as part of whole, yet also as integral to its health and well-being. And they are able to contemplate time and eternity, placing themselves rightly within God’s story.
views from my “sit spot” in our backyard
I don’t know the names of all the flowers or birds that appear in my backyard – yet. Indeed it would probably take me most of the rest of my life to learn them. But I am being changed in the process of learning them. I spend more time in wonder and in awe of a creator with the capacity for such variety, substance, and wit. As I practice sitting and observing, I find myself in dialog with a Creator who created in abundance – not scarcity. This shalom realization, that there is enough for me and for his created order, is something I want to share with children. I believe it will also bring them a “peace that passes understanding.”
Several years ago I had the opportunity to work at a summer camp dedicated to Creation Care and peace-teaching. Since that time, I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that my life’s calling is drawing children to God through this kind of play. I was forever changed by my time as a guide for them, and I believe they, too, were changed by their encounters with God’s creation.
Set on a small church farm in East Atlanta, this camp was a place set aside for inner city children to experience nature and creation. When I say “inner city children,” please realize that our clientele was varied. Some were from a ministry that worked with children that were homeless or recently rehoused. A few children were recently arrived refugees who didn’t speak English and scattered at the sound of a car backfiring because they assumed it was gunfire. And we had a few gentrified white upper-middle class children sprinkled in just for fun.
Divided as heterogeneously as possible by age and origin into three Farm Families, these children would begin their day with a large group gathering under the towering oaks at the front of the property. We’d get a temperature read on on everyone for the day, making sure no conflicts had arisen on transportation to the farm that necessitated intervention, and then sing a few songs and play a game or two. But the children were really just eager to get started on the first set of activities – Farm Family Chores.
You heard me right, chores! Good, old fashioned work. Most older members of our staff would chuckle at the novelty of these activities remembering the dread with which they had participated in the same activities as children. And while the July Georgia temperatures did nothing to bolster the enthusiasm of the adults, the children didn’t seem to notice.
There were three Farm Families and three rotations of chores. Chicken Care involved cleaning the pens, feeding and watering the chickens. Goat Care meant either herding the goats to a new area for feeding that day, or carrying feed in containers from the Feed Barn to their pen and providing them water. My rotation was Sheep and Pig Care, which involved carrying compost scraps to the farm pig and watering the sheep. I should add that all of this was made extremely complicated by the fact that our well pump was out that summer and the children had to carry water about 100 yards in any direction from the kitchen in 5-gallon buckets to complete their tasks.
Those buckets of water were heavy, and skinny six to twelve year-old arms can’t carry a 5-gallon bucket full of water too far. But split between two children, one on either side of the bucket, they could go around 20 yards. Then, they’d swap out for another two kids. In this fashion, working as a team, they’d get the job done – and God forbid an adult suggest they step in and help!
These children, many of whom had never seen a live animal other than maybe a domesticated dog or cat, started out the sessions terrified of the animals – fascinated but completely unprepared to go near a chicken, goat, sheep, or pig. But as the session unfolded, the children began to feel their daily contributions were so meaningful that they connected to these animals and to the land they were on. By the end of the session, I think every child had held a baby goat and a chicken. Many of them were reaching beneath chickens to grab the morning’s eggs without even thinking about it. But that is not the only way the children were changed.
There was a noticeable restfulness of spirit about the children that had not been there before and their pace slowed as they cared for the animals. I remember them stopping to ask me about the “pretty orange flowers” growing at the edge of a field. I can still recall the shock and wonder when I told them that blossom would one day be a pumpkin. Many had never seen a strawberry plant, and learned to harvest them with joy each day. They began to laugh and play. The language barrier was not an issue. And any conflict that did arise could usually be solved by taking them down to the goats and sitting to calm down, watch, and talk.
At the end of each day, the children were encouraged to reflect on the best parts of their experience, what they had learned and where they had experienced peace that day. There responses were often as follows:
I experienced peace when I pet the sheep.
I felt peace when the chickens got loose and we had to make a human fence to get them back in the pen.
I felt peace when I had to stop the baby goat in the strawberry patch.
It was peace giving the pig water and my lunch scraps.
While I know that crafts, stories, and music were also fun, I think what healed those children and brought them peace was God’s creation. Experiencing an intimacy with the creator through creation gave them a priceless gift. It placed them in the story of Creation as caretakers and allowed them to give and co-create. For a child who believes they have nothing to offer the world, this is the gift of a lifetime.
At Sparrow’s Nest Play, we want to give this gift to as many children as we possible can. It may be a while before we have the physical property to house the animals that we had at the farm, but God can use all parts of nature to heal and bring peace. Through our writing, videos, and other resources, we want to be his conduit for that peacemaking.
There have always been a few “fringe philosophies” in education at any given moment. One that is moving from the fringe into a class all its own is the idea of nature play. Sparrow’s Nest Play grew out of a love for teaching creation care, along with the belief that being in nature as co-creators and stewards of this place, is a witness of peace. Angela Hanscom’s bookBalanced and Barefootwas one of the first resources I explored when looking for evidence about why nature seems to heal.
Hanscom, a pediatric occupational therapist, began with the question: Why are so many more children struggling to sit still? She goes further to postulate, “Are we simply more sensitive to children’s needs these days? Or is there really an increase in sensory issues in young children? What is causing these problems?”
Research led her to found TimberNook, a nature-based developmental program for children because her conclusions were a resounding “Yes, there is an increase in sensory issues in young children.” Much of that foundational research is included in this book. It is exceptionally well laid out with plenty of specific examples about how certain activities meet sensory thresholds and what happens when those are not reached – or even explored. Just within the first chapter, Hanscom traces decreasing core muscle strength, poor posture, decreased stamina, fragile bones, poor balance, weakened immune systems, aggression, reading difficulties, and anxiety as issues that stem from a nature deficiency.
After laying out the many issues that can stem from a lack of experiences that come from free play in nature, Hanscom spends the next chapter speaking specifically to sensory integration. Her summation is quite dim, “There is a common thread that runs through the development of healthy motor, sensory, social-emotional, and cognitive skills. Any time there is a kink in that thread…your child is at risk for a range of problems, from having difficulty making friends to paying attention in school to controlling emotions to even losing the ability to imagine – not to mention being at risk for a range of physical injuries.” Her solution, however, as a therapist couldn’t be simpler – whole body movement and lots of it.
“When we constantly say no – ‘No climbing,’ ‘No riding your bike to Henry’s house,’ ‘no running,’ ‘There’s no time for that,’ ‘Don’t touch that,’ or ‘Get down from there,’ – we’re likely to see effects on children’s development.
As an educator, my ingrained skepticism comes out in the form of safety concerns. Having served as the Director for several programs, the words “liability” and “safety” are often out of my mouth before I’ve even had a chance to fully process the question. Even so, her chapter on allowing children to take risks (Chapter 5: “Safety First Equals Child Development Later) gave me pause to really stop and wonder how often I have defeated a child’s natural need and inclination in the name of safety. I am coming to the conclusion that while I may never describe myself as a “risk taker,” allowing for calculated risk taking is something I need to make more room for. Don’t miss her “Common Sense Safety List” beginning on page 129 to help you lay a foundation after reading this chapter. While you might not come to all the same conclusions that Hanscom does, I encourage you to read this chapter, along with Chapter 6 about the evolution of playgrounds and playground equipment with an open mind.
One of the most beneficial parts of this book, for me, was the confirmation that children need unstructured, independent play. Her research indicated that the “amount of time children spend in unstructured play has decreased by 50 percent [in the past few decades], resulting in children devoting most of their time to indoor activities.” Likewise with the average child spending as much as 5-6 hours a day in front of a television, computer, or video game screen, she makes a compelling argument for declining trends in creativity and problem solving among children as a result of lack of independent play.
“When children are deprived of both child-led and play experiences, they may struggle with higher-level thinking skills, such as coming up with their own ideas, problem solving, and other forms of creative expression. It is important that we allow plenty of independent play experiences, in which children have ample time and space to explore, create, and play with friends. It is then, and only then, that they will be able to practice the complex cognitive skills needed for a successful academic career and to reach their intellectual capabilities.”
Even if this book doesn’t inspire you to run right out and join a nature play group (or support us here at Sparrow’s Nest Play) I think it is well researched enough to stop and help us understand why we are seeing some of the fundamental changes in childhood behaviors – especially those related to sensory issues. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a different way to reach a child who struggles to sit still and just seems all around “awkward.”
For us at Sparrow’s Nest Play, this book confirms that our bodies were made to participate in creation as caretakers and co-creators. Resources like this one help us articulate why we believe we’ve been wired to our places intimately and belong to and in them.
During my last week as a “mainstream preschool educator” I had an experience that solidified my decision that now is the time to start living and teaching the values I hold dear.
Let me begin by saying I truly esteem the ideology and curriculum of the organization I had been working with for several years. While I won’t mention them by name, many of my close followers will know which institution I mean, which only mirrors the best practices of many early childhood education centers. It is not this particular center that got “under my skin,” but rather the nature (no pun intended) of practical circumstances and concerns that lead them to teach under the restrictions they do.
On the playground with a group of three and four year olds for one of our 45 minute outdoor play sessions for the day, we were encountering nature. It had been a part of the curriculum that month to learn about life cycle of plants, what things are living and non-living, and about the change of seasons. The children were well versed in terms like roots, stem, leaf, and flower. They could tell you that living things need proper habitats. They know that plants needs air, water and light to grow. They had diagrammed and drawn out this process several times and I had even brought in some plants from my garden (non-toxic of course) for them to observe.
photo by J. Mitrione, Unsplash 2020
Just the day before, our lesson plan called for us to take them onto the playground to observe a plant up-close. Just the other side of the fence, honey suckle grew in profusion and the children enjoyed touching it as we pulled it through the chain link fence that encloses our play area. Their faces lit up when they realized that it was this small flower that they’d been smelling for a week or more as they played. They could correctly identify all the parts of the plant, pictures were taken to document the activity and send home to mom and dad. Lesson successful. Until the next day….
Upon going out on the playground where did every single child (and I mean all 27 children) gravitate to immediately? Well to the honey suckle of course! Just yesterday it had been the focus of our lesson. We, the teachers, had pulled it through the fence ourselves for observation! But now the children heard from each adult a constant barrage of, “Don’t touch the nature!” Safety guidelines, you see, prohibit us from allowing children to engage with sticks, leaves, vines, wood chips, dirt or other forms of the playscape.
The children were genuinely confused; and as versed as I am in the Safe School Guidelines, I have to say I was instantly irritated. We want them to learn about these things in isolation? What happened to experiential learning? Learning through play? Or even the goals of yesterday’s lesson?
Later that afternoon for the last half of their outdoor play, they knew better than to touch the items on the other side of the fence. I caught two or three of them, instead staring straight up into the boughs of a pine tree. They started to scatter until they saw it was me (they’d already sensed that I could not betray my value system I guess) and then asked, “What is that?”
I was confused. They know what trees are. Pine trees are not exotic or rare in Georgia. I laughed and decided to play along thinking they were teasing me. “Well, I don’t know. What do you think it is?” A few more joined the sky gazing group. One boy said, “It looks like a tree but those aren’t leaves so we think we must be wrong.”
photo by R. Kraft, Unsplash 2015
It was then that I honestly realized that they were confused because of the pine needles at the end of the branches. Without exerting much effort, I reached up and pulled the branch low enough for them to touch it. Casting wary glances over their shoulders, they approached the branch. One little girl said, “It looks ouchie. Can we touch it? Is it safe?” I pulled a few needles free and began observing them with the children. By now there were fifteen of them all gathered around. The smelled the needles, touched the length and pointed ends, and then smelled them!
In what has become a classic work called Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv writes, “Within the space of a few decades, the way children experience nature has changed radically….Today, kids are aware of the global threats to the environment – but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature, is fading.”
Today, kids are aware of the global threats to the environment – but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature is fading.”
Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods
It wasn’t long before we were found out and the contraband pine needles I had handed them were disposed of by another teacher over the fence for safety’s sake. But for well over ten minutes, we escaped to a place where we could use all of our senses to learn that this was a tree and that there were lots of them just like this all around us. We talked about what it meant to be evergreen and I asked if any of them had Christmas trees in their homes that reminded them of this tree. I think we could have gone on talking for a long time.
As we gathered them in to go back inside, I caught one boy steal a last glance over his shoulder at the pine that had extended it’s graceful limb over our play space. I hope that he spends the next two weeks jumping as high as he can to try and reach that branch. And I pray some kind soul will let him smell the pines once again before he loses interest.
Sparrow's Nest Play, INC. 