Natural School Reform

Nigel Wilson

7 July 2014 Reading Response

Last Child in the Woods: 16 Natural School Reform

               In a chapter that reads more like a research paper than a narrative chapter, Richard Louv makes his point by summarizing a collection of statistical results from other studies.  He begins with attention to the work of John Dewey and Howard Gardener, two education theorists of high reputation who each in turn voiced the importance of hands on learning with non-abstracted systems. Louv then proposes that this kind of, I’m not sure if it’s liberal or hyper-conservative, educational paradigm that leaves behind box classrooms and embraces the true spirit of exploration physically and academically is becoming less popular and less feasible as legislature demands testable standards-based common curriculum nationwide.  He then points to the relaxed atmosphere and stunning success of Finland’s schools.  The chapter continues mostly with statistical remarks and indulges the reader with a few anecdotes including one about a class learning to garden and another about a class raising trout from egg through to wild release.  The article also cites increasing interest in ‘technology’ (a word that I feel is misused when it refers to all digital information technology and excludes all analog technology such as precise measuring tools and bicycles) as a drain on resources for naturalistic classes.

               As a child of the woods, a gardener, and an education major there was nothing in the chapter that I found surprising or disagreeable. Reading this article provided me with numbers to support what I was already quite sure of.  Some particular favorites I am sure I will like to use again either in a research paper or in conversation are:

“Environment-based education can surely be one of the cures to nature-deficit disorder.” I like the term nature-deficit disorder because it is a believable condition and it is curable. Whereas the term coined just as cheaply that it mimics, ADHD, I have a few problems with.  Three of the four words in it, deficit, hyperactivity, disorder, all put the blame squarely on the squirmy shoulders of the child diagnosed no matter how many times you say “It’s not your fault”.  I do not see that there needs to be any fault at all in our attention spans’ natural variance from person to person and topic to topic.  I see a dangerously unrealistic expectation: that an eight year old sit at a desk all day.  I am sure this is not natural or healthy for even an adult, much less an eight year old.

At Portland’s Environmental Middle School “96 percent of students meet or exceed state standards for math problem-solving – compared to only 65 percent of eighth graders at comparable middle schools.”

A ten year old student was quoted, “The problem I have with gardening is it’s not improving, not like technology, not like TVs and computers.  All these old wood gardening tools haven’t changed in decades.” Speaking like a true child of the twenty first century, he added, “Tools should improve.”  I liked this one because it gives a clear statement of what is probably a common critique today of something I love and lets me offer a pointed response.  What about technique? Shouldn’t it improve? And how can it when the tools keep setting technique progress back to zero?  Also, gardening is full of opportunities to innovate and improve methods which don’t destroy the ground they depend on.  New tools continue to be advertised as better than old ones but I tend to think that shovels have climaxed and I don’t think it’s a bad thing.  They do what they were intended to as simply and as well as possible.  New ways to dig keep being invented but most are complex and therefore prone to failure and they require combustible fuels.  It gets at the question- What does it mean to improve? In at least the aspects of simplicity, longevity, durability, technology is not improving. It is a cool experience to hold a tool in your hand that has climaxed in development; it could change but does not need to.  We could get more things and new things but we ought to recognize a goal before we set off down any path.