Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (31 page)

Even in the face of draconian budget cuts and test-centric education reform, many individual teachers are fighting to bring nature back to education. In addition to more support from parents—and most importantly, students—these teachers need a public movement to leave no child inside. Such a movement should be grounded in regional networks of committed businesses, conservation organizations, civic groups, even garden clubs. These networks could work for increased funding, and just as importantly, become directly involved. They could organize and support volunteer programs and the greening of schoolyards; they could pay for field trip transportation to woods, fields,
streams, parks, nature centers, bird sanctuaries, farms, and ranches; they could help create
ongoing
outdoor education programs, rather than the one-time visits more common in the past. And they could help educate the public.

A significant push is under way to further document the connection between outdoor learning, classroom-based environmental education, and academic achievement and stewardship behavior. “‘Behavior leads to behavior’ is one of our maxims,” says Lieberman. “For a long time we talked about knowledge leading to behavior; instead, we believe that behavior leads to behavior.” What about the pure joy of being in nature? “Pure joy? Not in the curriculum,” he says, laughing. “We advocate for joy, but certainly haven’t tried to measure it.” As “happy and proud” as Lieberman is about the findings of his study of experiential education, such research is “not enough,” he adds. “We need other people doing more studies.”

But an expansion of academic knowledge, as well as more nature in our primary and secondary schools, will require dramatic change in higher education. David Orr, professor of environmental studies at Oberlin College and founder of the Meadowcreek Project, a conservation education center, calls for a new environmental literacy requirement at the college level. Orr argues that the ecological crisis is rooted in the way we educate future generations. The dominant form of education today “alienates us from life in the name of human domination, fragments instead of unifies, overemphasizes success and careers, separates feeling from intellect and the practical from the theoretical, and unleashes on the world minds ignorant of their ignorance.” In other words, today’s practices help create the know-it-all state of mind, and the accompanying loss of wonder.

Orr calls for a new approach to education to promote “ecological design intelligence” that could, in turn, create “healthy, durable, resilient, just, and prosperous communities.” He asks educators and students this
elemental question: Does four years in college make “graduates better planetary citizens or does it make them, in Wendell Berry’s words, ‘itinerant professional vandals’? Does this college contribute to the development of a sustainable regional economy or, in the name of efficiency, to the processes of destruction?” He envisions the kind of education reform—or reformation—that would fully acknowledge the social and biological alienation from the natural world, and the necessity of the healing of that division to the survival of the human race.

Orr proposes that colleges set a goal of ecological literacy for all students, so that no student would graduate without a basic comprehension of:

• the laws of thermodynamics

• the basic principles of ecology

• carrying capacity

• energetics

• least-cost, end-use analysis

• how to live well in a place

• limits of technology

• appropriate scale

• sustainable agriculture and forestry

• steady-state economics

• environmental ethics

Such a focus on ecological reality is essential at the college and every other educational level, but its implementation carries the risk of promoting joyless ideology. A sense of wonder and joy in nature should be at the very center of ecological literacy.

For this type of reform to take place in a meaningful way, there will need to be a rebirth of natural history in the academy. In an earlier chapter, Paul Dayton offered his obituary for natural history. The professor of marine ecology argues that natural history has been “expelled from the ivory tower,” and that biology undergraduates at many universities are not taught classic botany or zoology. The prevailing
patent-or-perish approach in the sciences has left many first-year graduate students with little or no knowledge of major phyla, or of the life-history biology of the very organisms they study.

In a scathing paper for the journal
Scientia Marina
, Dayton and associate professor Enric Sala argue that some students are taught ecology using textbooks based almost entirely on molecular biology and theoretical population biology. “This prevailing attitude denies students the sense of wonder and sense of the place fundamental to the discipline. Worse, there are ecologists who have never seen the communities or populations they model or speculate about, and who could not identify the species composing these communities. This is like having the illusion of conducting heart surgery without knowing what a real heart looks like.” The study of ecology has moved from the descriptive to the mechanistic, and research support has shifted from “individualized small science to very large integrated research programs where the players have small roles well defined by the group,” rewarding “group mentalities more than individual creativity.” They write:

Without a sound formation on natural history, we risk producing narrow-minded ecologists. Naturalists are closer to poets than to engineers, and it is the intuition based on first-hand experience and common sense that produces the better leaps of thought. We should imprint on our students the importance of intuition, imagination, creativity, and iconoclasm, and prevent restricting them with the brain-cuffs of rigid assumption frames and techniques, if we are to revitalize an ecological science that is more than ever becoming a stronghold of fundamentalism.

By that, Dayton and Sala mean the fundamentally narrow vision of science. When I asked Dayton how such a revolution—or counterrevolution—might be organized, he said, “I am sure that there are some wonderful naturalists who are also molecular biologists. I am not sure I have met many, but they are there. And for sure that is true of
taxonomists.” Still, he worries that his fellow natural historians do not understand the stakes involved. Universities cannot find teachers to teach such classes because so few now know the fundamentals of biology and natural history. How do we reverse this trend? I again urge parents, primary and secondary educators, environmental organizations, and policy-makers to weigh the meaning of this loss to education, to creativity, and to the natural environment. The associations of remaining natural historians must help lead the crusade. The survival of their own profession is linked to a larger cause: the reconnection of the young with nature.

An environment-based education movement—at all levels of education—will help students realize that school isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world.

F
OR DECADES IN
San Diego, the school district has operated a sixth-grade camp in the nearby mountains. Generations of kids have spent a week during the school year among the pines. Over the years, however, this camp’s central purpose has shifted from a pure nature experience; it has become, primarily, a race-relations retreat with nature used as backdrop. Still, this camp continues to give some children their first or best experience in nature. Myra, a ninth-grader, describes her time at sixth-grade camp:

I haven’t truly experienced nature much. My family is not one that believes in camping or spending time in the outside world, even though my parents were brought up in a rural society. For the most part, I spend my time at home. The only time I can remember having lived in nature, in the open, was in sixth grade on the camping trip to Palomar. There, I felt truly comfortable, being among few people and walking down paths that weren’t paved. . . . Sure, the food was bad and the cabins were uncomfortable, but the walks and hikes were interesting and fun. I truly belonged somewhere in the scheme of things. . . . Sometimes, I feel like I just want to get away from the world, so I dwell in nature through my thoughts and memories.

As with so many young people, the modern world is sometimes too much with Myra. How can we overestimate children’s need for respite
from CNN, school stress, or family tensions? Camps have their own pressures, but the healing quality of nature is always there, just beyond the screen door, and then, as Myra experienced, those memories remain, like time-release capsules of medication.

Clearly there’s more to the camping experience than tents and bug bites. The
nature
experience at these camps could be lost if nature camps allow their mission be become diluted, if they attempt to please everyone all the time. Race-relations and other cultural/political programs at camps across the land are important attempts to imagine a gentler, better world. These are important discussions in a democracy, but childhood is short. If we make those issues our sole priority, another generation—or more—could enter adulthood without significant experiences in nature. The great worth of outdoor education programs is their focus on the elements that have always united humankind: driving rain, hard wind, warm sun, forests deep and dark—and the awe and amazement that our Earth inspires, especially during our formative years.

The social context of camp is important. “The best camps are creating the best of what existed in the 1940s—a sense of shared purpose,” says Mary Pipher, clinical psychologist, family therapist, and author of
Reviving Ophelia
. But the direct experience in nature is the most important aspect of the camp experience.

Adults who enjoyed early camp experiences often tell stories about practical jokes and latrine hazards, but they can also describe transcendent moments—and the importance of building self-confidence in situations of controlled risk. Ann Pearse Hocker, who later became a photographer for CBS (often doing her work in dangerous conditions), recalls the sense of independence and responsibility that summer camp in Colorado taught her:

I learned about caution. Once we were on a training hike for Longs Peak and an electrical storm drove us down early. We passed a couple of hikers stuck at the boulder field on the way down. The woman
had wedged her leg between two boulders and couldn’t get out. The rain was pounding and the lightning was below us. We had to run straight down the power line easements and skip the trail, which was full of switchbacks. Met the ranger on his horse on the way up to rescue them. The lightning was so bad on the way down that I felt buzzing in my braces and had to hold my mouth with my hand. We were wet and a bit scared but also felt powerful when we got to the bottom and the safety of the old blue bus. It was a vivid lesson on how nature plays hardball if you aren’t prepared when you go into the back or high country, and I never forgot it. I made mistakes sometimes but the basis of respect was well laid.

According to Andrea Faber Taylor and Frances E. Kuo’s analysis of the literature, “Some of the most exciting findings of a link between contact with green space and developmental outcomes come from studies examining the effects of outdoor challenge programs on children’s self-esteem and sense of self. . . . It is interesting to note that four studies included longitudinal measures and found that participants continued to report beneficial outcomes long (up to several years) after their nature experience.”

Studies of outdoor-education programs geared toward troubled youth—especially those diagnosed with mental-health problems—show a clear therapeutic value. The positive effect holds true whether the program is used as an add-on to more traditional therapy or as therapy in and of itself; it can even be seen when outdoor programs are not specifically designed for therapy. Studies over the past decade have shown that participants in adventure-therapy programs made gains in self-esteem, leadership, academics, personality, and interpersonal relations. “These changes were shown to be more stable over time than the changes generated in more traditional education programs,” according to Dene S. Berman and Jennifer Davids-Berman, in a review of such programs for the Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools.
Camping programs have been used to facilitate emotional well-being since the early 1900s. According to one study, an increase in self-esteem was most pronounced for preteens, but was positive across all ages.

This is also true of carefully managed wilderness adventure programs. In the late 1990s, Stephen Kellert of Yale University, assisted by Victoria Derr, conducted a comprehensive study of the long-term effects on teenage youth of participation in three well-established wilderness-based education programs: the Student Conservation Association, the National Outdoor Leadership School, and Outward Bound. Kellert reported that “an extraordinary 72 percent” of the participants found this outdoor experience to be “one of the best in their life.” As Kellert wrote, “Youth are often reminded today of how little control they possess over their socially and technically complicated lives.” Learning to cope in wilderness and outdoor settings can enhance emotional and affective development, according to Kellert. “Some of these impacts include increased self-confidence, self-esteem, optimism, independence, and autonomy. Moreover, when these accomplishments depend on working with others, they can foster various interpersonal abilities including enhanced cooperation, tolerance, compassion, intimacy, and friendship.” These positive results persisted through many years. Earlier studies reported similar findings.

Camp experiences are also highly beneficial for children with disabilities. Between 1994 and 1995, the National Survey of Recreation and the Environment conducted a national study of 17,216 Americans. A 2001 analysis of that data, focusing on people with disabilities, found that their participation in outdoor recreation and adventure activities was
equal to or greater than
that of people without disabilities. Other studies show that people with disabilities participate in the most challenging of outdoor recreation activities; they seek risk, challenge, and adventure in the outdoors just as do their contemporaries without disabilities.