Between the Asphalt and the Paver

I have a very small 4’ x 5’ garden between my front door and my garage. I always plant Impatience there in the spring. They thrive in the shade and don’t need much water. I love their colors and happy faces. This year a seed must have blown over from the garden and landed between the asphalt and garden wall. Moss is growing in this small in between space with very little soil. From my perspective, a desert for flowers as the car is always pulling in and out with its exhaust fumes settling on the hot asphalt and concrete of this space.

A miracle occurred! I looked down today and saw the most wonderful flowers flourishing in this tiny unlikely place. I smiled in wonder. I thought to myself that if a flower could grow here, in this alien place, why couldn’t children flourish anywhere if their teachers and curriculum engaged their real curiosity? It isn’t the place or the amount of money that delivers information and education to the open minds of children; it is the fertile seeds we spread in their imaginations that engage their curiosity and lure them into learning. The human mind is a wondrous thing. Once it connects to an intriguing idea it doesn’t let go. Children are tenacious!

The worst possible disease for a young mind is boredom. Are we boring our children with information that is no longer applicable to their realities? Are our teachers bonded to curriculums that even they find irrelevant in our “Technological-Information Age”? Are we teaching subjects to children that offer no solutions to the problems they face? Let’s look at what we require them to learn in our public educational system and where they usually are mentally at each of these stages:

PRIMARY SCHOOL: Kindergarten age 5, and age 6 to 11 – grades 1 through 6

When children arrive in primary school they usually have a fixed classroom and one teacher for the entire day. The major goals of primary education rest in achieving basic literacy and numeracy for all children. These are important things; we have to read, speak, and calculate. It is also structured to establish a foundation in mathematics, science, geography, and history. As we all know, the priority of various matter and methods used to teach them are of considerable political debate.

This is the time in a child’s life when they are exploring their world. They ask a lot of questions and want to experience everything they imagine. Children love color. We should have them in huge rooms with lots of paint buckets, brushes, and huge pieces of paper, foam core board, or canvas so they can run amuck expressing themselves with vigilant assistance. They love music, but they love better to make music. Anything will do, old wooden sticks banging on pots, spoons banging on glass jars semi filled with water, or combs covered in tissue that make a harmonica. They will invent their own band with their imagination. They love bugs, and frogs, and worms, and bees, and butterflies. They love tinkering and dissecting into things. They love splashing in streams, gathering rocks, running in fields, and climbing trees. They love to build forts and hide out in them. They especially love to plant seeds and impatiently wait for them to grow into beanstalks! How can we fit these wondrous curiosities into their Primary School curriculum?

Brain studies prove these are the best years for a child to learn a foreign language but we don’t introduce this to them until Junior High School. What a waste!

MIDDLE SCHOOL: Generally age 12 through 14 – grades 7, 8 and 9

Upon arrival in Middle and/or Junior High School, students begin to enroll in class schedules where they take different subjects from several teachers in a given day. They move from room to room for instruction. The classes are usually a set of four or five core academic subjects. This core course includes English or “Language Arts”, Science, Mathematics, History or “Social Studies”, and in some schools a Foreign Language. They may also have two to four other classes, either electives or supplementary or remedial academic classes. When they complete Junior High School they will have had 9 years of core subjects in English language, 9 years of Mathematics and 9 years of Science.

This is the time in a child’s life where they are becoming aware of the other gender. Girls are interested in makeup; boys are strutting about like peacocks. They are curious about their bodies, their moods, their social structure within the group, and their appearance. They are experiencing puberty, a complex of emotional chemistry, and some frustrations. They have questions they don’t know how to ask and so they remain silent or talk amongst themselves. They love music, technology, games, and the outdoors if it doesn’t blow their hair in a mess.

I have often wondered why we don’t include courses during these years in Human Anatomy, Personal Hygiene, Social Manners, Communication Skills, Debate, Nutrition and Health, and Personal Grooming to name a few. Wouldn’t this ease their path into young adulthood?

HIGH SCHOOL: Generally age 15 through 17 – grades 10, 11 and 12

Upon arrival in high school a class period is the time allotted for one class session. The courses a student signs up for are arranged in a certain order to fit his or her individual schedule and generally do not change for the remainder of the school year, with the exception of semester courses. A period may vary in time, but it is usually 45 minutes long. There is wide variance in the curriculum required each year but many American high schools require the core courses; English, Science, Social Studies, Mathematics. The majority of high schools require four English credits to graduate. Generally, three science courses are required; Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Usually only three math credits are required for graduation; Geometry, Algebra I, Algebra II, Trigonometry, and Calculus are offered. The Social Studies include; World History, U.S. History, Government and sometimes Economics and Accounting are offered. Two to three years of Physical Education are required. There are also a number of electives allowed depending on where a child attends school.

During this time in a teenager’s life they are interested in and confronted by a host of challenges: Drugs, Alcohol, Tobacco, Sex, Family Upheavals, Peer Pressure, Emotional Stress, Image Building, Ego Wars, Obesity, Money Management, Family Financial Problems, and many other subtle influences. This is the time in their lives when they are searching for knowledge that may help them solve their existing or impending life issues.

The most important personal decision a person will make in their life is who they select to marry, for that is the person with whom they have and raise children. The most important significant financial decision a young person makes is the first house they buy. This commitment creates a lifelong debt.

Shouldn’t we be offering courses of instruction which include dating, courtship, engagement, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, child rearing, family structure, childhood education, and more? Shouldn’t we be offering instruction in financial matters such as; money handling, personal banking, savings accounts, checking accounts, balancing a check book, personal loans, budgeting? How about offering real estate courses; how to buy a home, financing options, real estate agents and real estate contracts, real estate laws, home inspection, closing costs, taxes, recording documents, home construction, or more?

Do you remember when you were doing these things for the first time? It was a little unnerving!  Some preparation would have helped to make better and more informed decisions.

Above all remember that by the time a student graduates from high school they will have had 12 years of English language, 12 years of Mathematics, and 12 years of Science. Why is it our children are unable to speak the English language articulately, compose a well written paragraph, prepare for a job interview, balance a checkbook, develop and manage a budget, understand the principles of nutrition, health, body balance in chemistry and biology, and other life enhancing, essential behaviors? To prove my point, ask your child to write a story, or tell you about vitamins and minerals that are indispensable for the body and good health, or create a budget and a financial plan for the month. Try it.

These are the things I think about when I look at my impatience growing on the pavement next to my garage.



Now this takes the cake in light of the previous post on “Gifted Kindergarten” testing in New York.

Here are these New York parents vying for placement for their 4 year old children in the “Gifted Kindergarten” program and a report comes out in the July 29 edition of the Wall Street Journal, which says, “Erasing years of academic progress, state education officials (New York) on Wednesday acknowledged that hundreds of thousands of children had been misled into believing they were proficient in English and math, when in fact they were not.”

Now where does this leave these gifted 4 year olds who have worked hard in weekend “boot camps”, while giving up their childhood, so they could gain entrance into these New York public schools. This leaves them, with their childhood in ruin, attending a public school system that fails to educate them to acceptable standards. It is a system specializing in fantasy.

The Journal states, “The huge drops across the state raised questions about how much of the academic gains touted in the past several years were an illusion.” State officials were careful “…not to assign blame for the previously low standards, saying that the tests had become too predictable and tested too narrow a range of knowledge, thus becoming increasingly easier year after year.”

Isn’t this nice, State Officials, the Mayor, the Chancellor of the State Board of Regents, and all associated officials are careful not to offend or to place blame. If no one is to blame for the loss of proficiency in English or math in grades three through eight, Who Done It?  Maybe it’s the kids? Maybe they are too dumb to learn? Maybe it’s the parents? Who Done It?

The real tragedy is the social class who suffers from these deficiencies. It is always the defenseless, innocent children. They have no champions! According to these latest revelations, “The losses were also more pronounced for minority children. The number of black children proficient in English in third grade through eighth grade was cut nearly in half, to 34% from 64%. Among Hispanic children, 65% proficiency in English turned into 37%.” Who speaks for these children who are doomed to poverty without a proper education?

WHO SPEAKS FOR THEM? Is it the Mayor? Is it the Chancellor? Is it the teacher’s union? Is it the State officials? Is it the parents? How about the teachers, what do they have to say? Where are the champions for the children?Dear Lord, be good to me…

As a last statement on this pathetic situation in our educational system, I was told that most of the kids in the “Gifted Kindergarten” program attend private schools. They can afford it. They want a good education for their sons and daughters, not a public education.

Blowing Bubbles in the Wind

Parents used to comfort their children in their arms. They used to put “bambaids” on their “boo-boos” when they fell down. Children used to play in backyard kiddy pools or run through front yard sprinklers screaming with joy. Their laughter used to fill the streets of family neighborhoods. Ice cream trucks were the gathering place in the evening with shouts of flavors and a little pushing here and there. Sandlot games and neighborhood competition were places of healthy physical ventilation for childhood frustration. Children used to ride bikes to school; roller skate to the houses of their friends, fly kites on windy days, skip rope, play hide and seek or kick the can. They were not fat, or obese.

Italian families ate a lot of pasta, no one got fat. Slavic and Irish families ate a lot of potatoes, no one got fat. Dinner was a family affair and everyone showed up, or else! The father was the head of the household and the mother ruled the roost. The children were protected, loved, sheltered, and treasured. They knew their boundaries and when they stepped out of bounds they were hardily pushed back in. I traveled once with a friend whose out of control 2 year old child became a distraction at every meal. Finally, I leaned over to my friend one evening, looked directly at the child, and told the mother, “In our household the parents controlled the children; the children did not control the parents.” I lost a friend and the child grew up to become an obnoxious adult who needed obsessive attention. Undisciplined children become undisciplined adults.

Now we have an educational system that has something called “gifted kindergarten” testing for entrance. Parents in New York are sold this ridiculous bill of goods and spend thousands of dollars on books and prep classes for their 4 year old sons and daughters so they can be admitted into these kindergarten programs. Many do not make “the cut” leaving parents devastated and children feeling inadequate.

Can you imagine, $90 workbooks, $145 an hour tutoring, and weekend “boot camps” for 4 year olds? One tutoring company, who services this industry in New York, says that parents of the 120 children her staff tutored spent an average of $1,000 on test prep for their 4 YEAR OLD CHILDREN! THAT’S $120,000!

Have parents lost their minds?

I just read his article, The Public School Nightmare: Why fix a system designed to destroy individual thought? Please click on the link and read what this man has to say.

If you are a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, or thinking about having a child you MUST read this article. Even though I am unfamiliar with this man, he is stating the case for what I believed when I became a parent. I taught in the public school system after graduation from my university. I know what I experienced and I know how I felt about my students. I experienced the most amazing resistance from my principal and colleagues to innovation and creativity within the classroom. The rejection was discouraging. They did achieve their goals; I quit the system.

When I became pregnant I determined that our children would have a childhood filled with what Bertrand Russell describes below:

“Bertrand Russell once observed that American schooling was among the most radical experiments in human history, that America was deliberately denying its children the tools of critical thinking. When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.”

Thinkers! I write about how we achieved this in my book , Peek-A-Boo, I See You.

Why can't I catch the water?

Guess what? They were curious about the things that surrounded them; the things they could not understand but saw or felt every day. Why does the wind blow? Why is the sky blue? Why don’t the stars fall down? Why do caterpillars become butterflies? Why is the snow white? Why is the rain wet? All children ask “Why”; it’s when they stop asking that they are in trouble. I still ask questions, having been allowed to do this most of my life. My sons still ask questions.

It seemed natural that children would be asking “Why” nearly every waking moment. Research indicates that pre-school children ask as many as 100 questions a day. It asserts that by the time they reach middle school they stop asking questions and this coincides with the time their motivation and interest plummet. Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman state in their Newsweek article, The Creativity Crisis, “They didn’t stop asking questions because they lost interest: it’s the other way around. They lost interest because they stopped asking questions.”

We send our children off to school when they are 6 so they can get answers to their questions. Why are they coming back to us with the light of excitement gone from their eyes? I’ll tell you why (no pun intended), it’s called “Drill and Kill”.

What is “Drill and Kill” learning?

The “Drill” is learning designed for rote memorization and National test results based upon answering the multiple choice questions correctly. The Drill part is the insanely boring educational practices we have adopted in our American curriculum. Teachers are required to teach a standard curriculum from a textbook and chalkboard. The students are required to memorize the answers to questions that may be asked on the tests administered by the teachers or National Boards. If they pass the tests they are advanced to the next grade level and the school gets high marks for teaching to the test.

The “Kill” part is insidious. It quietly creeps into the psyche of the children and wraps itself around their boredom and they become disinterested. They quit asking questions because they realize their questions don’t matter; what matters is the right answer to the question on the test. They die inside accepting the process because they don’t know any better and there is no reward in asking questions.

What is Problem-Based learning?

This is a curriculum driven by real world inquiry. It’s about the “Why” they began asking when they were old enough to talk. It is about having children solve problems in their classroom courses that require them to develop solutions to dilemmas they confront in the real world. It is about improving life through creative thinking, not through memorization. For example, when our sons asked why the heart beats they went with our home school teacher to the local slaughter company and asked for a cow’s heart, which they gave them in a neat package. They brought it back and dissected it in order to discover the answers to their questions. This led them to an array of more questions and more discoveries; arteries, veins, pumps, blood, chambers, etc., and pretty soon we had an anatomy class going strong. This then led them into healthy hearts, nutrition, gardening, food preparation, herbs, and then into vitamins and minerals. I discuss this in Peek-A-Boo, I See You!

The problem was how does a heart beat? They solved the question by their investigation and creative thinking process. Creativity does not just exist in an art class. It is rampant throughout the educational process, but rarely used. Fact finding and research are vital stages in the creative process. Think about this. How do creative thinkers solve problems in any skill? They first have to ask the question; then they research what exists; they accumulate the facts; finally, after research and fact-finding, they create alternative solutions to problems they are trying to solve.

There is a public middle school in Akron, Ohio called the National Inventors Hall of Fame School. Like all states, Ohio has curriculum standards. Their fifth grade teachers came up with a project for the class. Read below an excerpt from the Newsweek article:

The key is in how kids work through the vast catalog of information. Consider the National Inventors Hall of Fame School, a new public middle school in Akron, Ohio. Mindful of Ohio’s curriculum requirements, the school’s teachers came up with a project for the fifth graders:

PROBLEM: Figure out how to reduce the noise in the library. Its windows faced a public space and, even when closed, let through too much noise. The students had four weeks to design proposals. (emphasis mine)

Working in small teams, the fifth graders first engaged in what creativity theorist Donald Treffinger describes as fact-finding. How does sound travel through materials? What materials reduce noise the most? Then, problem-finding—anticipating all potential pitfalls so their designs are more likely to work. Next, idea-finding: generate as many ideas as possible. Drapes, plants, or large kites hung from the ceiling would all baffle sound. Or, instead of reducing the sound, maybe mask it by playing the sound of a gentle waterfall? A proposal for double-paned glass evolved into an idea to fill the space between panes with water. Next, solution-finding: which ideas were the most effective, cheapest, and aesthetically pleasing? Fiberglass absorbed sound the best but wouldn’t be safe. Would an aquarium with fish be easier than water-filled panes?

Then teams developed a plan of action. They built scale models and chose fabric samples. They realized they’d need to persuade a janitor to care for the plants and fish during vacation. Teams persuaded others to support them—sometimes so well, teams decided to combine projects. Finally, they presented designs to teachers, parents, and Jim West, inventor of the electric microphone.

Along the way, kids demonstrated the very definition of creativity: alternating between divergent and convergent thinking, they arrived at original and useful ideas. And they’d unwittingly mastered Ohio’s required fifth-grade curriculum—from understanding sound waves to per-unit cost calculations to the art of persuasive writing. “You never see our kids saying, ‘I’ll never use this so I don’t need to learn it,’ ” says school administrator Maryann Wolowiec. “Instead, kids ask, ‘Do we have to leave school now?’ ” Two weeks ago, when the school received its results on the state’s achievement test, Principal Traci Buckner was moved to tears. The raw scores indicate that, in its first year, the school has already become one of the top three schools in Akron, despite having open enrollment by lottery and 42 percent of its students living in poverty.

Creativity in children is about divergent thinking, generating many unique ideas, and convergent thinking, combining those ideas into the best result for the solution to the problem. Creativity is the production of original ideas that are useful. Children have the most amazing ability to craft the most creative ideas to any problem they encounter. They are fresh, innocent, and have no preconceptions. They are naturally enthusiastic and filled with excitement and energy.

Free our teachers from curriculum based standards that offer little room for creativity and turn them loose into standards that allow them to promote creativity in their students. I’ll bet teachers would become more enthusiastic and creative about their courses. Their students would become excited again about learning, working in groups, and competing.

Americans love competition!

What do you mean exercise? Where's the Food!

Two years ago Texas became the first state to mandate annual fitness testing. More than two-thirds of Texas school children flunked the state’s physical fitness test this year. A state analysis last year found that schools with better fitness results also had higher academic performance and fewer discipline problems.

Think about this! This is appalling! What is our nation doing to its children? When I was in school we had 1 hour of physical education every day, which we called “phys ed”. We, the girls, did not like it because it messed up our hair, we got sweaty, had to shower (which messed up our hair, again) and always wished for it to occur 6th period, the last period of the day. It was REQUIRED. It was not an elective. I had to take it from grade three through grade 12. My hair was always a mess by fourth period because I always seemed to have “phys ed” during one of the first 3 periods of the day.

I have already stated the case in a previous post about computers, TV, video games, cell phones, etc., and their dramatic impact on children and their physical experience with the outdoors, nature, and play. But, please forgive me; every time I read something like this I become angry at the lack of common sense and compassion regarding our nation’s children and their health. I read nearly every day about the amazing government waste of our monetary resources that go to politicians, their donors, defense contractors with their cost overruns, teacher unions who spend thousands on lobbying politicians for political favors, etc.

None of these people care about our children. They care about their bank accounts and power. It is all about Power and Money! (You see it really does raise the hackles within me!) By the way, many politicians, teachers, contractors, and those in government or corporate power send their children to private schools where they have the best education with the best physical plant facilities, and lots of private lessons, whose teachers are not tenured. The rest of the population send their children to dilapidated, deteriorating, school buildings, with cafeterias stocking coke and snack machines for money, using tattered books and sub standard classrooms, staffed with teachers protected by tenure even when they molest children.

I thought our high property taxes paid for the public school system? Who wants to bet that your taxes are used in other places and not your schools? Maybe some of your money funds the nearly bankrupted retirement accounts of public government employees? Even President Obama will not send his daughters to the public school system of Washington, DC, the nation’s capital! He wants them to get a good education so they can go to the top flight universities in our country. You know what, I wouldn’t send my sons to those schools either.

If any of these people of power really cared they would be pouring our resources (your property tax money) and their focus into our children and their future, who are the future of the United States of America. We have become a nation of greed and disregard. Our children are the victims. Just look around you in your malls, grocery stores, churches, and neighborhoods. The world is passing us by and we are sacrificing what many other countries will not sacrifice, the children.

Now read what it takes to pass a physical fitness test in Texas if your child is 12 years of age:

To be considered physically fit a 12-year-old boy is expected to:

• Complete one-mile run in no more than 10 minutes, 30 seconds
• Have a body fat percentage of 25 or less
• Perform 18 curl-ups (tests abdominal strength)
• Perform nine trunk lifts (tests trunk strength)
• Perform 10 push-ups (tests upper-body strength)
• Sit with one knee bent and one leg straightened against a box, then reach fingers within 8   inches of the box (tests flexibility)

A 12-year-old girl must:

• Complete a 1-mile run in no more than 12 minutes
• Have a body fat percentage of 32 or less
• Perform 18 curl-ups
• Perform nine trunk lifts
• Perform seven push-ups
• Sit with one knee bent and one leg straightened against a box, then reach fingers within 10 inches of the box

Can you imagine what children will look like in the next 5 years if we do not place an emphasis on nutrition in our school cafeterias, physical fitness in our school programs, and outdoor programs that take children back to nature and the woods? No skin off my nose. My sons were raised in the woods, ate from our garden, and are strong, healthy, educated, and successful. I appeal to the parents of the millions of small ones, who need their parents to speak for them, to rise up, and demand what is rightfully theirs. You do pay the property tax money which goes to all the governments, local, state and federal. Why are we quiet as they take our treasure and split it up amongst themselves? Why is there no public outcry in defense of our small children?

I cannot be the only one who thinks about this?

Having said this, I was ruffling about in the stacks of papers on my desk looking for my latest thoughts on parenting when I came across an article I read and printed on March 7, 2010. It was printed in “The Daily Monitor; Truth Everyday; Uganda News…” It came from the Sunday Life section of the paper. I have no recollection of the article and I was intrigued as to what it was that made me print this article by Dennis D. Muhumuza. He credited Fagil Mandy, an educational consultant in Uganda, who developed a series of trainings. Mandy says, “The rising cases of child sacrifice, street children, starvation of children and violence in homes has resulted in a parenting crisis.” The article is amazing in its simplicity of solutions. Follow below the thinking of Fagil Mandy as he is interviewed by Dennis Muhumuza on Uganda’s “parenting crisis”.

Why have you started the Good Parenting training?

Because there is a parenting crisis and we cannot afford to have our future generations going without proper tuning and direction. Parents or potential parents, young people and university students, policy implementers or leaders both in government and private sector or even those interested in learning more about good parenting need to know about addressing the challenges of parenting today; we are going to look at the world of work and education; how to train a child to be a worker, thinker, leader. The world is changing so fast that the demands on a child or the growing up generations are so intense and diversified and the parent must be brought along to understand the diversity in the world today.

You talked of a parenting crisis. What really is the problem?

I’ve run workshops for parents and young people and have made some discoveries: I’ve found out, particularly children from middle class parents have no capacities to deliver, to work, to produce or generate ideas. And, today, because most parents are working, the child is largely neglected so there is an increasing mystery or this huge gap between the parents and the children. Also, I’ve met a lot of parents who think parenting is simply producing a child; most of them think that a child of four or five years doesn’t need any particular guidance and counseling, or driving in a certain direction, so there’s a heavy dose of ignorance. Even more, our education system is not equipping our children with the right attitude, mindset and physical skills to succeed in this tough world.

What are the major concerns of young people in regard to the way they are brought up?

The last time I carried out a leadership training programme, I asked the children what they would have wished their parents to teach them. Many of them regretted that their parents had not talked to them enough about issues of love, relationships, sexuality and even politics and leadership. Also, most of them complained their fathers hardly featured in their lives and that they feel not protected or guided by their parents.

Did you also register any complaints by parents about their children?

Of course! Most parents cried out about the cartoons on TV; their children are becoming cartoons themselves; TV has become a preoccupation for young people. And most TV stations show pornographic material – it is killing their children.

But how can children keep themselves occupied meaningfully in a situation where parents are at work and cannot keep a close eye on them?

But you see, I don’t agree that every parent must work away from home. One of my sons works but his wife is a stay-at-home mother. But most mothers don’t want to first stay home and raise their children because of greed, it’s all primitive accumulations; we think that the wife must produce so much money and the husband so much money but I think someone intelligent enough must sacrifice; why can’t wife and husband organize their activities in such a way that, say, the husband works out and the wife stays at home or looks after a small family business that involves the children too? Parents must involve children in the family business.

In this age of emancipation, women cannot surely be expected to stay at home to look after children.

Why not? I think, again, it is greed; a lot of women are running around in this so called economic independence because they want to run wild programmes. I disagree with that sort of thing because every child needs a stay-at-home mother because there is no way you are going to compensate for the emotional dislocation of a child who has not had proper parentage.

What is the true measure of a parent?

First, one must be knowledgeable enough – one is not going to be a parent worth their soul when they are ignorant; a parent must know a bit of everything because they are the encyclopedia for their child. Secondly, parents must know how to do several things because a child must follow their example; you must be a good reader, be able to clean your own compound, fix a bulb and have a multi-skilled capacity for your child to emulate. Also, you must be healthy; no child likes to grow up with a dying parent; remember, a parent must help the child lead a healthy life and how can you do that if you are not healthy yourself? Then of course, a parent must be able to generate enough income to look after the family and be available to provide the time required for the child. If you are unavailable, don’t produce the child.

Simple, straight forward, uncomplicated – Mr. Fagil Mandy is on to something in Uganda!

Are animals better parents than humans?

Now I want to share with you a story about Danny and the Raccoons. I am an interior designer in the day. This is my real job as writing does not allow me to earn a living. I was hired to renovate a home in the Smoky Mountains and I sent my Maryland crew down to do the demolition and construction. I met them down there one week into the job. We stayed in the home as it was large enough for all of us to have our privacy. There is a balcony on the second floor level off the pool room and their bedrooms. There is a large Mulberry tree growing next to the balcony and it is in full bloom and filled with berries, which drop to the ground and on to the deck. The berries are great food for the birds and other wildlife.

Danny is about 50ish, can’t tell for sure. He was born and raised in Baltimore. He has lived a hard life and has sad eyes. I like him because he has a soft heart. His life has been anchored to the concrete on the streets of Baltimore. He has not known nature with its glorious spaces, peace, serenity, and adventures. He is a city boy, who never fished, hunted, or hiked through the woods.

The second night I was there he was smoking on the balcony and he heard noise in the Mulberry tree. He looked up, and looking down at him were four raccoons. They were in the tall branches munching on the berries. He froze and watched for their entire meal. They kept their eyes on him while they ate. The next morning he told me how he couldn’t believe the raccoons were so close and so unafraid of him.

The next night he took his Oreo cookies up on the deck. Sure enough, the raccoons showed up again. Danny put a cookie on the hand rail, stepped back, and waited. The largest raccoon came down out of the tree and onto the handrail to investigate the smell he caught of the cookie. He looked at Danny, who was a safe distance, picked up the cookie with his 2 paws and ate it quietly in front of him. All was at peace on the deck that night.

Danny from Baltimore was beside himself with joy the next morning. This was his first experience with a wild animal. He could talk of nothing else as we worked the next day. The next night and every night after that, until we left one week later, he would disappear up to the deck and feed his Oreo cookies to the raccoons. They came closer, but not too close, and he communed with them. He would talk about it the next day telling us all the details. This was an experience he would take back to the streets of Baltimore. He was genuinely excited and touched.

Before we left he took the remaining Oreo cookies up to the handrail on the deck and spread them out so the raccoons would have something to eat that night as he drove home to Baltimore.

50ish Danny would never be the same. He had experienced the phenomenon of the natural world. His hard leather face softened a bit. We said goodbye as I left for the airport. I thanked him for the good job he did and he asked me when he could come back to Tennessee again to work on another job with me.

Nature softens and preserves human hearts, no matter the age.

Where's my Oreo?

All of their preschool education incorporated the outdoors and the natural world. I can’t imagine how it is possible to educate preschool children without the outdoors for that is what intrigues them most. They love insects, small animals, rainy days with puddles to jump into, snowmen and snowball fights, butterflies, and the woods. The natural world and the woods are a home to them. They are free to run, explore, conquer, and grow.

It is with great satisfaction that I read an article this morning about a “forest kindergarten” in Vashon Island, WA. The Cedarsong Nature School is a forest preschool and among several that have opened in recent years in the U.S. This is a movement that originated in Europe (and my garages 30 years ago, chuckling). The purpose is to get kids out from in front of televisions and into the natural world. The kids love it! They are outdoors all day, studying how life interacts with them in the woods. These children are different when they enter elementary school. They are healthier, livelier, curious, more mature, compassionate, and intellectually alive. They have an inner joy that is hard to explain, which I believe comes from their knowledge of the natural world and their comfort within it. They are fearless.

Erin Kenny opened the Cedarsong Nature School, after she read “The Last Child in the Woods”, which I discussed in my previous post. In the book, Richard Louv coined the phrase “nature-deficit disorder” to explain a lack of connection between the country’s children and nature. He argues that the decrease in nature dwelling leads to a rise in childhood obesity, attention disorders, and depression. The evidence of this surrounds us. Go to the local mall on any afternoon after school and look at the children, who are usually obese, tattooed, “pants on the ground”, alienated, and looking for something to do inside an enclosed mall when the entire world is waiting for them to explore. They are an interesting comment on their parents and their rote education.

“We gain life by looking at life.”

Dr. Mardie Townsend, a researcher and associate professor  School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia

In the woods on a Balancing Bar

to a child who has never seen a wren?”

Naturalist Robert Michael Pyle

We raised our sons in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. They went to bed with the sound of crickets and woke up with the songs of birds.  I describe their experiences of growing up with nature in “Peek-A-Boo, I See You!” I knew that nature and its quiet presence was essential for their mental and physical well being, because of what it did for me to walk in the woods, dig in a garden, and care for the many small animals that filtered into and out of our lives. Now they are grown men. The experiences of nature in their early childhood instilled an inner peace and serenity that strengthens with each challenge they must meet as men and the woods and its small creatures created a breadth of compassion within them that is touching and disarming.

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth

find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”

Rachel Carson

Millions of our children only experience asphalt and concrete. They never dig in the dirt, plant a seed, or harvest a garden. They never walk in a stream, catch salamanders, or glimpse a fish. They live without ever seeing a cow in a field, smelling a green pasture after a rain, or rescue a wounded animal. My friend Warren, who is retired from the National Parks Service, gave me a book to read, “Last Child in the Woods – Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder”, by Richard Louv. It is a wonderful book and should be read by every parent who loves their child. I began the book on an airplane and am almost finished.

Have you ever read a book where you keep nodding in agreement with many of the passages. Mr. Louv eloquently speaks to many of my intuitive thoughts and perspectives about children and their need for nature. He created the term “Nature – Deficit Disorder”. He has nailed it! What follows are a few of his observations and the pressing need for parents to bring their children back to the earth and into the woods.

• Some of the human costs of alienation from nature are: a diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. Long standing studies show a relationship between the absence of parks and open space with high crime rates, depression, and other urban maladies.
• Biophilia, defined as the urge for humans to affiliate with other life forms, is the hypothesis of Edward O. Wilson, Harvard Scientist and Pulitzer Prize winner. His decade of research reveals how strongly and positively people respond to open, grassy landscapes, scattered stands of trees, meadows, water, winding trails, and elevated views.
• Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the American Declaration of Independence, declared, “digging in the soil has curative effects on the mentally ill.” Carl Menninger led a horticultural therapy movement in the Veterans Administration Hospital system which demonstrated the therapeutic benefits of gardening for people with chronic illnesses. Research has shown that people experience a significant decrease in blood pressure simply by watching fish in an aquarium.
• A 10 year study by Howard Frumkin at Emory University’s School of Public Health shows gall bladder patients leaving the hospital sooner when their rooms faced a grove of trees as opposed to patients whose rooms faced a brick wall.
• The childhood link between outdoor activity and physical activity is clear according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Two out of ten children are clinically obese – four times the rate reported in the 1960’s. This obesity epidemic has coincided with the greatest increase in organized sports for children in our history. What are kids missing that soccer and Little League cannot provide? They miss the physical and emotional exercise that children enjoy when they play in nature. It is more varied and less time-bound than organized sports.
• It is proven that “kids get depressed” when deprived of physical activity in nature. A 2003 survey in the journal of Psychiatric Services found the rate at which American children are prescribed antidepressants almost doubled in five years with the steepest increase – 66% – among preschool children. (my emphasis).
• Cornell University Environmental Psychologists reported in 2003 that life’s stressful events appear not to cause as much psychological distress in children who live in high-nature conditions compared with children who live in low-nature conditions. The protective impact of nearby nature is strongest for the most vulnerable children – those experiencing high levels of stressful life events.
• For a whole generation of children, direct experiences in the backyard, in the tool shed, in the fields and woods, has been replaced by indirect learning, through machines. Even though children are smart we know that something is missing as they sit in rooms and interact with machines instead of humans and the natural world.
• Only seven states even require elementary schools to  hire certified physical education teachers. This has occurred in a country where 40% of 5 to 8 year olds suffer cardiac risk factors such as obesity.
• Nearly 8 million children in the U.S. suffer from mental disorders, and ADHD is one of the most prevalent ones. Frances Kuo, Andrea Taylor and William Sullivan of the University of Illinois, have found green outdoor spaces foster creative play, improve children’s access to positive adult interaction and relieves the symptoms of ADD. To take nature and natural play away from children may be tantamount to withholding oxygen. (my emphasis)
• Children’s Hospital in Seattle maintains that each hour of TV watched per day by preschoolers increases by 10% the likelihood that they will develop concentration problems and other symptoms of attention-deficit disorders by age 7.
• Swedish researchers compared children within two daycare settings: one a quiet play area surrounded by tall buildings, with low plants and a brick path; the other a play area based on an outdoor all weather theme set in an orchard surrounded by pasture and woods, adjacent to an overgrown garden with tall trees and rocks. The ”green” day care children, who played outside every day, regardless of weather, had better motor coordination and more ability to concentrate.
• According to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, two-thirds of American children can’t pass a basic physical: 40% of boys and 70% of girls ages 6 to 17 can’t manage more than one pull-up; and 40% show early signs of heart and circulation problems.

”Teaching children about the natural world should be treated

as one of the most important events in their lives.”

Thomas Berry

Filed under: ADHD and ADD, Childhood Exercise, Children and the Earth, Conscious Parenting, Family, Gardening for Children, New Parents, Obesity, Outdoor Exercise for Children, Parenting Support, Uncategorized Tagged: Childhood Education, Childhood Obesity, Children, Common Sense Parenting, Exercise, Family, National Park System, Nature, Parental Care, Parental Responsibilities, Parenting Choices, Parenting Power, Parenting Support, Public Education ]]> http://peekabooparenting.com/2010/05/10/families-in-crisis-the-last-child-in-the-woods/feed/ 0 Sandra Gunn