Teaching outdoors poses interesting challenges. For example, you never know when a deer is going to stroll through the classroom or a bird call is going to interrupt you mid-sentence.
Yeah, yeah. There are far worse occupational hazards.
Anyway, this whole notion of getting children to go outside more often is gaining momentum. And why not? In a sluggish -- if not plummeting -- economy, playing outside can be inexpensive family entertainment.
But it's not just economics. For the past four or five years, this movement also has been driven by fears about childhood obesity rates and fears of the implications that humans' ever-increasing demands on our planet's natural resources have on the natural environment.
Fears, I might add, that originate with adults. The nature movement is largely adult-led. And therein lies the conflict with getting youngsters interested in being outside: Adults, by nature, want to be in charge. Children, by nature, want to follow their own curiosity. And nature, by nature, provides plenty for children to be curious about.
Take, for example, a Russian olive seed. In the Intermountain West, the Russian olive is a non-native ornamental tree that robs native vegetation of its rightful spot along streams, rivers and other waterways. Its pale green seeds are like buoyant little boats that bob along until lodging themselves somewhere downstream where they create more invaders.
But to the children from a local inner-city YMCA who come to a weekly after-school program at the center where I teach, these small seeds were a wonder unto themselves.
The topic for our day's excursion was animal habitats -- what makes one and what different animals need to make one. As we gathered on a bridge to talk about beavers and the wetland habitat they need, one of the girls wandered to the other end of the bridge and bent down to pick up something.
"Look!" she squealed upon examining the small item in her hand. "I found a seed! It's a seed! It looks like a little watermelon."
In seconds, the group of children crowded around to see her treasure, then began looking for their own seeds. My coworker and I stood there holding our beaver-gnawed stick and feeling virtually invisible.
"What is it? What kind of seed is it? Oh, look! There's another one!" the young girl said, squatting down to examine the ground.
We managed to get the group moving again, but they were walking much slower now. Running ahead of us -- typically a challenge on these walks -- wasn't even on their radar screens. Their gaze was fixed on the ground as they searched for the "wishing seeds."
Seeking to become part of their wonder-filled adventure, we tried to tell them about Russian olive trees -- their invasive tendency, how the seeds floated,, and all the rest of the stuff that grownups seem to find so fascinating. But they hardly heard us.
"No, they're wishing seeds," one of the boys corrected us.
OK, OK. "Wishing seeds." Got it.
As they stuffed their pockets with seeds, we casually asked what they would wish for. Many of them said money, but one little boy simply said, "I'd wish for all the animals to have all the habitat they needed."
And with that, one of his classmates fell backward into the snow and said, "I'm going to make a snow angel!"
Pretty soon we had kids making snow angels and wishing on seeds and talking about how much they loved being outside and with nature.
We just looked at each other and laughed. It was exactly the outcome we intended, even if we didn't get there the way we intended.
But that's the nature of nature -- and children who are allowed to explore it in their own way.
Now excuse me while I tend to a pocketful of seeds that need wishes ...
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