The last child in the woods, revisited

Since leaving Canada, my "career" as an outdoor educator has come to a standstill. But, over the recent months, I have been attempting to kickstart my outdoor ed brain again. Basically, I did two things. 1) I bought (and read) the book "The last child in the woods". 2) I volunteered for a week at a lavvouke (outdoor week) at Eluin's barnehagen.

Let's start with the book. In (very) short, the book discusses the impact the reduced access (compared to the access the authors had in their childhood) to nature that our children experience has on our children. The authors refer to this reduced access as the cause of "nature deficiency disorder" and use this disorder to explain the much higher occurrence of behavioural and social problems in children and adolescents.

Now, I am too much of a scientist to lose my skepticism over the proclaimed correlation between reduced access to nature and ADHD and autism. I am, however, a big enough proponent of outdoor education to completely and utterly agree with their observation that a) nature has become a distant phenomenon for too many children and b) the fact that it is no longer normal for a child to spend their time in nature, to play, to build, to observe, to learn, to get lost, to climb and to fall is a huge loss.

One reason the book gives for the loss of our children's interaction with nature, is the criminalization of natural play. This refers to the tendency of society to try and box in every single part of our lives, including outdoor play areas. Building a tree fort is not safe, kids might get hurt when the building collapses. They may damage the tree they are building it in. That tree might be an endangered species. If they play in it, they might leave their trash, thus polluting the environment. There is no supervision in the woods. What if drug addicts start using it as a shelter? What if a child molester finds out that children are playing there unsupervised and attacks our children. It is just not safe! And, yeah, as a side effect, this attitude also makes free, natural play for our children next to impossible, but, hey, at least they are safe.

Just this week, two posts on social media caught my eye in this respect. One was a newspaper article that received a lot of praise on facebook. It told the story of how a forest ranger in the Netherlands had dealt with a tree fort he had found in the woods. Although building tree forts in the Dutch national forests is prohibited, this guy decided to turn a blind eye and to not break down the fort. He did, however, leave a laminated page of rules for the kids, that they had to abide by in order for their tree fort to be condoned.

What the peep... I mean, kudos for the dude for breaking the rules. And great to hear that so many people think he did a great job. But, really?! It is not allowed to build a hut and we need a laminated rulebook to "allow" these kids their playtime?!

The second post that caught my eye, was one posted by the Girl Scouts of Canada. It offered a list of "empowering comments" to replace the omnipresent "be careful". It argued that "be careful" is not conducive of kids trying their limits, nor does it offer any assistance in the child achieving the goal she has set herself. When you think of it, being careful actually gets in the way of a lot of cool things you can do as a child (or adult, for that matter ;-) ) . This one rang home in particular, too, because I spent the first part of my lavvouke yelling "forsiktig" (be careful) every 5 minutes and the second part of the week biting my tongue every 5 minutes to avoid yelling "forsiktig" ;-)

So why do I need such a long intro to finally share my excitement about my week in the woods? Well, because I have spent a lot of time thinking about the stark contrast between Norway and the rest of the world in this respect. And also, should there be any Norwegians reading my blog, I want to make them aware of just how special their situation is. And how important it is to foster the outdoor connection they have in a world that is swiftly moving away from that connection.

I am very grateful that as an outsider and an amateur outdoor education fanatic, I got the opportunity to tag along with a group from Eluin's barnehagen. Spending a week outdoors with a group of 2-4 year olds and their dedicated teachers was pretty much the best week I have spent in Norway so far ;-)

Eluin had her lavvouke the week before I went into the woods and it is funny how my perspective on this week changed from the "mom"perspective one week to the "volunteer"perspective the next. As a mom, I am very happy that Eluin gets to spend so much time outdoors. I love the stories she comes home with. I love how her first-day-apprehension turns into last-day-I-don't-want-to-go-home. I am mildly frustrated with the amount of clothes, shoes, lunch boxes, breakfasts and extra coats I have to pack, but let's face it, that is only my frustration about the horrible planner I am. I mean, I have trouble making sure my kids are wearing all the clothes they should an a normal school day, let alone me having to make sure there is extras of everything! Oh, and where at first I found the wood-smoke-and-mud smell of Eluin rather yucky, I now have come to like it because I associate it with the happy girl that climbs into my car after a day outside.

The Monday after, as I took my backpack, my lunch pack and my wool-clad body up the slope to the lavvo, I realized I was experiencing a little of Eluin's first-day-apprehension. Was I really going to spend a week "just being in the woods"? Would the kids not get bored? Cold? What if they did not understand my Norwegian? What if the teachers thought me weird for being so excited about the fact that they took kids to the woods for an entire week? How could you possibly spend so long outside with such young kids?

When I arrived, there were two teachers, one child and a crackling fire. This lavvouke was at a gappahuke (a wooden shelter with a fire pit in front of it) just a short walk from the road, with beautiful views over the fjord. There is a tent for shelter and changing diapers. There is a kids' bathroom, consisting of a potty for number 1 and a potty for number 2. There are some big wooden play structures and some climbing structures built by the barnehagen. The child was checking out the play structures and I accepted her invitation to race on the motorbike with her. Shortly after, she grabbed my hand and asked if we could go and pick raspberries. I asked the teacher and found myself 10 minutes after my lavvouke had started in a raspberry bush with a chatterbox -5 year old. She checked every raspberry she and I picked if they had worms in them and handed me the ones that did.

After breakfast, one of the teachers explained the rules of the lavvouke to the children. She explained that it was fine if they wanted to explore, but that they had to make sure they had a grown up with them. At that point, my new best friend nudged my knee and whispered: "Are you a grown-up?" Me saying yes sealed the deal and from that moment onwards, I was part of their world.

That week, their world consisted of picking, and eating, berries. Of going on hikes in the surrounding forest. Of climbing the play structures, swinging on the swing, gliding on the zipline and jumping off a table. I saw kids challenge themselves to be brave enough to jump off that table without a grown up holding their hand. I saw kids starting up a pretend game one day and continue with it the day after. The kids that still needed a nap slept out in the open in the coziest sleeping bags I ever saw.

Even though the kids were quite young, I was amazed to see how quickly they felt at home outside. They all found that one thing that was the highlight of their day. A couple of kids were completely mesmerized by a dead mouse that was slowly, bit by bit, being eaten by an ant colony. They would just sit and watch the steady work of ants cleaning up a corpse. The teachers told them not to pick up dead animals in general (and this mouse in particular ;-) ) and explained how if an animal dies in the forest, it provides food to other animals and is cleared away. In a world where everything dead is scary and yucky, it was refreshing to see the wonder of these kids while watching nature in progress And yes, as a biologist who sees death, decay and decomposition as normal, necessary parts of life, I felt very smitten when during one of hikes, one of the kids ran towards me, grabbed my hand and proudly showed me another dead mouse. It's a good thing when you can share your interests ;-)

Other kids ate their weight in blueberries, raspberries and tyttebær. Just imagine if we could also just sit down between our food, only having to extend your hand and eat as many berries as you like, while discussing with your best friend which one tastes better...the blue ones or the dark-blue ones. Four out of five days, lunch was prepared on the fire and the kids helped find herbs in the woods to spice up their meals. Eat that, elementary school students who think that their broccoli actually grows in the supermarket...

All kids roamed freely. They played, climbed, sought each other's company or solitude, fought over sticks, resolved said conflict over sticks and decided to play with rocks after all. They needed no "toys", but built their own playground with whatever was lying around. I saw kids that were happy, upset, angry, funny, solemn, inquisitive, sleepy or active, but never, at any point, did I see a child that was bored!

What struck me most, though, was the flexible approach the teachers had. In the email I received before the lavvouke, they told me that they take it as it is and see what the children like to do. That is very little planning for an entire week of being outdoors... It also expresses their willingness to actually put the child at the center and their dedication to follow the children's lead. From what little I know of child-led learning, this is something that a lot of educators aim for, but have little capacity to actually work with in a traditional school setting. The fact that these educators in an early childhood centre grab their chance and run with it, makes my amateur teacher heart sing (because child-led learning was at the heart of the forest project that we did in Canada).

Seeing that particular pedagogical framework in action over the week, made me realize why it is so hard to put that idea in practice in a traditional school setting. And how much HARD WORK it is to stand by that principle. It would probably have been so much easier to just jampack-plan the entire week full with activities, storytime hours and a rigid hiking schedule. Instead they went with the flow.

They followed the kids' pace, while keeping their own schedule in mind. They made sure no-one got hurt, while at the same time offering the kids knives and saws to do some woodwork (yes, that's right. I got to learn knife-skills at 39 that most Norwegian kids learn at 4 years of age ;-) ). They made sure the children's needs were met, while at the same time fostering their independence. Even though all basic child care actions that are part of their daily barnehagen day must have taken at least twice as long as it does in barnehagen, no one was ever in a hurry it seemed.

Come to think of it, this lavvo-uke may very well have been one of those Kung-Fu warrior tests, where you learn how to grow your strength by bending with the wind. Or something. Anyhow, I think I failed that test, because I did not really have a job to do, yet have never been as tired in my life as after that week! :-D

In conclusion, I am yet again in awe of teachers. And in teachers that take kids outdoors in particular. In fact, it has made me realize how much I miss working with children, how much I miss working outdoors and what an amazing opportunity it would be for me to learn from Norway's tradition of outdoor life and outdoor education... So... I am kind of toying with the idea to go back to school. First off, I need to find out if the "outdoor pedagogue" they have at Eluin's barnehagen is actually a Norwegian profession, or if that is just the name they gave to the guy, because he refuses to come inside ;-) If it is a profession, though, I may have finally found out what I want to be when I grow up! Which basically then leaves me with finding out where to apply for that course. And how I will find the time to study. And the money. And yes, that would also mean passing the dreaded Norwegian language proficiency test, but hey, at least I would finally have some motivation to do my Norwegian course homework ;-)