NATURE IS ALL OUR CHILDREN NEED
“Earth and sky, woods and fields,
lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and
teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”
We were the last generation who played outside, ran freely in the fields, jumped on puddles, climbed trees, had real pets, dug holes, smell flowers, woke up at dawn, played in Mud pie kitchens in our backyards, noticed the rainbows, felt the rain, could detect squirrels, and discover bugs........
Although today's children have better Internet connections, they never get the opportunity to connect with Nature...
On one hand,with the advent of technology, humans are evolving their brains, exploring new Planets , reaching new heights of human civilization, but on the other hand they are loosing humanity, facing the death of great civilizations, reaching the new heights of spiritual degradation and drowning into the depth of corruption on all emotional and social parameters.
This is the first time in the history of mankind that we started fearing Nature, so much that we ask our children to go inside when it rains, to hide themselves inside the man-made structures when it snows, to cover themselves more when the sun shines, to wear boots when contacted with sand, to watch out when they sit near streams or lakes, to shout when they witness lizards or bugs, to kill when they encounter ants, to stay away from dirt and soil when they want to go crazy playing on it, to lock themselves indoors when they encounter windy days, to become deaf so that they can never hear the sounds of birds chirping and the squirrels chittering, to go blind when a flower is blossoming, to be ignorant to see the wonders of nature all in their backyards.
Gone are the days when children walked to school, when they ran freely in the fields, when they took the back streets to enter the woods, when they climbed trees and discover nests of birds, when they wandered and explore the gardens, when they could feel the sand and jump on puddles, when they monitor wandering animals and discover their habitats , when they collected flowers and made necklaces , when they dug cave like holes and hid treasures, when they created their own mud kitchens, when they discovered the changing sky and could predict the weather, when they spotted the injured birds, when they could predict the perfect season to fly their kites, when they could calculate the high tides on summer days....
There are millions of explorations and discoveries which were made by children everyday, every moment.
But gone are the days......
Contrary to what is happening now in our modern day human societies, we can still Observe children and their love for Nature , their learning appetite and their Awe-based exploration. But we need to give them a natural environment to observe their behavior and it's connection with nature.
MY OBSERVATIONS ABOUT CHILD'S LEARNING:
I could
see how children dive into an Imaginary world, where they exist with their own
fantasy: it's wonderful to witness their wilderness and curiosity. I was
wondering and feeling ashamed how we adult think about children , how much we
underestimate their powers, their motivation level, their curiosity, and sense
of Awe....it’s like I'm discovering HUMAN BEINGS on my own apart from
what I knew about them.
Every child learns in his own way, I
discovered that each one experienced a unique way of grasping, so it’s all
about INDIVIDUAL UNIQUE LEARNIN , which cannot be generalized .That's the
beauty of natural learning.
As my Journey of Observation continued, I started exploring more deeply, and became more interested
into knowing HOW CHILDREN LEARN NATURALLY rather than focusing on HOW I made
them learn the way I choose.
Amazing discoveries kept bombarded my senses
and I was recording those facts to see how we as adults ignored the Power of Play in the learning process.
Observing
the natural Play of children, I discovered another truth that Nature is a force
to tap the natural CURIOSITY in children which automatically guides them to
Explore.
- John Lubbock
The
"immense concentration of a child" is the natural outcome when he
works in nature, we need not to do anything to build up the span of attention
in children or speed up their curiosity or raise their concentration level. It’s
already there in their SOULS. Stickers and behavior Charts (artificial reward
systems) never work in reality, it only makes a child greedy and ignorant.
“No use to shout at them to pay attention. If
the situations, the materials, the problems before the child do not interest
him, his attention will slip off to what does interest him, and no amount of
exhortation of threats will bring it back.”
- John Holt
- John Holt
Children can
never be seen so satisfied as can be seen when they reach their goals and
targets by themselves .And it is not we (adults) who can direct them towards
their UNIQUE GOALS , its embedded inside them and they are the best judges and
leaders of their destiny, if only we can think differently .
In the words
of Maria Montessori," "When children come into contact with NATURE,
they reveal their strength".
Hence , the need for Nature based schools and learning environment is more deeper today than anytime in the history of man..And if we want to Inspire the young minds, motivate more Innovators and Change makers , we have to Reinvent the idea of Nature schools.
“If a child is to keep alive his
inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who
can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the
world we live in.”
- Rachel Carson
Watch the Nature sounds Video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2smvyl
- Rachel Carson
Watch the Nature sounds Video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2smvyl
