Tag Archive | the earth

Now more than ever

Aug1

I grew up in the city. Lived much of my life on concrete.

I live rurally now and we did so throughout the children’s childhoods. Our lifestyles as closely linked to the natural world as it’s possible to be, to the seasons, to the land and the way it produces our food, the place where we lived being an intensely agricultural area. We saw greens and potatoes grown, livestock raised, and food transported from field to shop. Sometimes we interrupted that final process and had food direct from the people who produced it.

So we were constantly conscious of how the land, the weather, and nature supports us. How it is wholly dependent on the entire ecosystem for it to continue to do so.

When we visited the city, which we regularly did, I was also aware of how completely sealed under concrete and tarmac this land, this earth, was, and consequently how easy it was to forget all about it as you lead city lives, with city pastimes of pollutive shopping and coffee shops and consumerism as hobbies instead of mud pie making and wildlife watching and seeing vegetables grow, as we did at home. In cities it’s like all forms of nature are seen as inconvenient, often dirty, and to be eradicated. Was only something you visited in a conveniently tidy park space.

Over my lifetime, since I made this change from city to country dweller, the majority of the population has done the opposite. When I was a youngster, most of the population lived in the country – had experience of it – knew what earth was! Now, the higher proportion of the population lives in cities, removed from this direct consciousness of the earth, the land, and the precious ecosystem. And consequently it is extremely easy to forget all about it. To forget that the land that is battened down under all this concrete is what provides us with food, with materials we need, with the very stuff of life.

If there is one subject more important than anything else, on any curriculum, it is that. Think about it.

But it’s August. Lets not talk about curriculum. It’s time off from all that.

However, being August, now more than ever is an opportunity to get outside, to use this time to re-establish contact with the earth. To get the children’s hands dirty. To get our feet off pavements and onto grass, earth, sand, rock, woodland floor, into rivers, under trees, and reflect on the fact that this is where our lives come from. Our breath depends on leaves and plants. Every little critter we find – however repulsive to you, every type of habitat we explore, is equally important within the great diverse ecosystem.

How, more than ever, as our environmental crises deepen, we must educate the young to look at and look after our earth, whatever time of year it is. It is THE most important thing to be educated about. To understand.

So try and get out there this August and enjoy it. Bring the earth to the forefront of your thinking. Bring your contact with it to the forefront of your activities. And thereafter bring it to the forefront of your education. Nothing matters more than the earth does.

Now, more than ever, we need to love it better and show our children how to live their lives so that they may do so. That’s why first hand contact with it is so important. To come to understand that the earth and countryside is not just for holidays, and to look pretty; it’s where our life’s sustenance comes from. We must remember and respect.

Combining the corn for our daily bread

Change your ideas about growing an educated being

Feb1

I’ve been delving into a new book. It’s about gardening, or to be more accurate; not-gardening. (Stick with me – this is going to lead onto education). Not gardening as we know it in terms of managing our own isolated little spaces by prettying up some parts, killing others, controlling nature and forcing it to do what we want it to do, rather than what it wants to do. It’s not about any of that.

It’s about seeing our garden, front yard, window box, whatever, not as one small personal patch, but as part of a gigantic whole earth to which we are connected. And seeing ourselves as guardians of this bit of earth we actually share with other parts of nature, rather than gardeners who keep it out. We should steer away from a insular view of our space where we separate, tidy and control each corner, bed, or ‘room’ as contemporary garden design likes to label them. For in reality nothing in our garden actual exists in isolation, it is dependent on the bigger environment that it is inevitably connected to, despite our attempts to fight it; the insects, the soil, the location, the garden next door and down the street, local flora and fauna and climate. It is all invisibly connected. It’s all nature. It is all interdependent and consequentially important… (The book’s worth a read: ‘We Are the Ark’ by Mary Reynolds. Or find it here; wearetheark.org)

And I immediately thought; what an amazing parallel there is between this view of our gardens and our view of education and educating.

Nothing about learning exists in isolation. So we should equally stop trying to compartmentalise it, or the kids. It might just work so much better for so many.

Over the decades we’ve been generally led to believe that educating needs to be a manageable and controllable process of developing certain outcomes in our kids through rigid and structured approaches, that requires separating kids into a plot (school), and isolating them from the rest of the world. We fertilise some aspects of our children’s development (the academic mostly) and try and kill off others (like their creativity for example), almost like we try and genetically modify crops. We keep subjects as separate from one another as brick edging so that no cross pollination occurs, instead of seeing all the language, maths, sciences and humanities as interconnected. We try and weed out the idiosyncrasies of our diverse learners in attempts to make them all the same, make them learn all in the same way, at the same time, in the same climate, which clearly doesn’t work for many children, just as it doesn’t work for all plants. Then, when the children don’t grow in the way we want them to grow, we try and prick out the weaker ones, giving them various labels that are in no way useful. Like ‘disruptive’. ‘Slow learner’. ‘Attention deficit’, thus making an issue of a child’s natural tendency to investigate, experiment, move about, be curious and intrigued and thus unable to sit still, which to my mind is a sign of their developing intelligence and eagerness to learn. Even worse, we try and ‘fix’ these traits on occasion by various means, some as harmful as crop spraying.

All instead of opening our eyes to the glaring obvious truth that many kids need something different from the suffocating education system we have allowed to become the norm.

When you’re home educating you can see their education as different from that. You can look at the bigger picture – the whole earth view rather than approaching it in isolate little patches of learning. And maybe you’ll begin to see the interconnectedness of all subjects, all approaches, all the little activities you do as important, however jumbled they are, and trust that they all contribute to each other and to the rounded development of an educated being (not a schooled being).

This is what real education looks like, as opposed to hot housing.

All learning overlaps. Whether the activity you’re doing is labelled ‘educational’ or not, it will have a valuable influence on your children’s learning as a whole. Just living a life has an influence on skill building, formulating knowledge, reinforcing it, that will transition into educational outcomes (if we want to label them).

I always think cooking is a good example of this – relevant to all ages. To cook you have to research, to read and use language, witness scientific changes as heat brings a change of state to certain substances, you have to learn and have a mathematical knowledge of amounts. You have to develop the skills needed to use and manipulate tools, materials and substances with different properties. You have to use creative thinking, imagination, and problem solving when compromise is needed. And doing this with others will develop the skills of cooperation, job sharing, conversation, among other social skills. Even the clearing up expands skills and understanding of yourself as part of a community, or team, and that you do not exist in isolation; that what you do impacts on others, particularly the mess you’ve left behind, and how to take responsibility for it.

If you wanted to label the subjects involved in all this you could call it ‘doing’ maths, English, science, language, PSE or whatever the latest personal development label is.

But if you see all activities your kids are doing as a valuable part of an infinite education, you’ll realise that anything they’re doing, in whatever form, wherever they are, impacts on this whole, from squatting on the pavement watching ants, to investigating YouTube, playing with their mates, or gaming. Including all the activities that don’t necessarily have a label!

I’m not saying we should regulate nothing. What I’m saying is that home educating gives us the opportunity to educate the whole child, and all their diversities, through a range of diverse activities that interconnect and are part of life, not just part of a school, directed towards schoolish outcomes (like test results) And perhaps that’s how we should see it, rather than a tidy, container-based, manipulated and isolated set of subjects to be ticked off, the result of which process often begets failures.

Our gardens are part of a whole ecosystem, and should not destroy any part of that ecosystem’s health from the smallest insect to the tiniest weed, in the way we take guardianship of them. Not least because we depend on that broader ecosystem for our own health!

Equally, our children’s education does not have to be contained in specific packages, subjects, rooms or timetables, or make kids suffer. It is a growth of interconnected skills, knowledge, understanding, and personal development, that evolve through a variety of overlapping experiences contributing to an educated whole, in a more organic and holistic way than it has been previously. Many unstructured home educating families are proving, have proved, how well this works. An organic, mostly unstructured, and holistic education is more compatible to the organic and natural earth that exists around our youngsters and which they will need to take guardianship of.

We are beginning to take a broader view of our gardens and their relationship to all nature, to the whole earth and the all other living organisms upon it .

Why not take the same view of education? Many families already do, with great success, proving it doesn’t have to be completely packaged, structured or rigidly contained in the way we’ve done previously. We need to be brave about broadening it beyond the restrictive concept we generally have had of it, because that’s as damaging to some kids as weed killer is to plants. Instead, allow it to expand, overlap and bloom in a much more holistic, diverse and healthier way, more related to an earth-wide whole.

Home educating gives you a wonderful opportunity to do just that.

A reminder of THE most important subject

Aug9

A short pictorial thought this time to remind you, whilst you can get out and about during the holidays, what’s THE most important of all subjects for your child to learn about. You’ll see why when you read the original post here.

Do let me know your thoughts!

Happy Spring: What better time…

Apr15

Easter Holidays!

What better time than this to celebrate the season of rebirth, regrowth and the earth’s burgeoning vitality. When days of longer light can make me feel that my own sap is rising along with that of the trees and plants!

Spring amid the concrete

And what better time than this also to get yourselves and the children outside, experiencing and learning about our essential connection to the earth, how all species are connected to the life of others and imperative for the longevity of the planet, for our own health and wellbeing and that of the children.

I was reading recently about how the increase in childhood conditions and diseases may be exacerbated by our children’s decreasing contact with the earth, the soil, fresh air and green spaces in particular. And how parents should do all they can to reconnect, to encourage learning about the natural world supporting us, and perpetuate a care of it. From the tallest tree, to the tiniest insect, and all those essential organisms we can’t even see – it’s all important!

What better time to do this than when Spring makes it easier to be outside, when it is so pretty and inviting and downright dramatic with its April showers!

So why not get out to spot and experience:

  • Birds – with bits in their mouths, either for nest building or for baby feeding, or singing their Springtime songs
  • Insects – from creepy crawlies in the crevices to the first bee or butterfly you’ve seen this year
  • Rain – appreciating the fact that it is essential for survival. How often do you consider that? And consider also ways in which you can economise with your water usage – waste less of this essential resource
  • Young – the best time for seeing newborns, especially lambs. There may be a farm or a centre nearby you can visit, a river for ducklings
  • Plants, shrubs and tress that are beginning to leaf up or bloom. If you have a garden get the kids involved in growing things, in pots if you don’t, in order to learn about the vital elements needed in order to grow; nourishment, light, water – which we need too! Along with health giving contact with soil!

You may live in a concrete environment, but that is all the more reason you need to teach the children about the earth that lies underneath and to find ways to get them back in contact with it. Otherwise how will they know it’s there, grows our food, supports our lives, and that it needs our attention? Use the season to celebrate this earth and the abundance of life bursting around us, on which all ultimately depend, however city central we live.

Have a Happy Spring!

 

 

Cringing for Christmas

Dec10

Nature’s decorations!

Why do I cringe at Christmas?

Is it the expense? No – although it is a consideration.

Is it because I have to find pressies for relatives I hardly know. Not really – I like choosing and giving gifts.

Is it the thought of the potential for overeating a mass of stuff that’s totally unhealthy but that I enjoy so much? Partly – but I get over it!

Is it because I am a Humbug?

No. It’s none of those things. The real reason I cringe at Christmas is because of the burden the earth has to bear.

So this is a plea that your family – you and the children – consider ways to make your Christmas less of a burden for the earth.

Part of their education is about the planet. To understand it better. To build knowledge of its species. To appreciate how they are part of it and how to relate to it in sustainable ways. We cannot abandon our responsibility to that just because it’s Christmas.

It doesn’t mean a kill-joy Christmas. It just means finding a better balance to what you do. And asking a few questions:

  • How can we moderate the waste we make?
  • How can we give without the earth bearing the brunt of it?
  • What can we reuse, recycle, make, rather than buy? (Wrapping paper as well as presents perhaps)
  • What throw- away articles can we do without? (Wipes, serviettes, paper tableware, for example)
  • How can you make a Christmas that doesn’t cost the earth? Make more of it instead of buying it!
  • Ask before you buy: do I really need this?
  • And consider how much more stuff the kids really need? Love isn’t bought or given through presents.

Giles Brandreth has a lovely idea that he expressed in the media recently. He’s going to tell his grandchildren that he doesn’t want any more stuff. What he’d like from them instead is for them to learn a poem off by heart for Christmas.

Learning poetry has a beneficial effect on the brain, helping with language development and flexible thinking – so he’s perhaps giving them a gift in releasing the kids from present buying whilst boosting their development at the same time!

But whatever you do for Christmas, creating or learning poetry or whatever, please do it with consideration of the earth.

The earth is more important than maths and grammar

Aug11

Bread in the making!

Pulling out of London on the train recently I love to look upon the back gardens. Behind the terraced streets these little green oases must offer some much needed sanctuary to the wildlife (never mind the humans)!

From the centre of the city, where the soaring icons, office towers and blocks of flats butt up against each other without a scrap of space between, we begin to pass these tiny, tatty back gardens where people are making such a champion effort to provide that sanctuary with what little space they have. And even those rammed in high-rise blocks boast boxes and planters and gardens on rooftops in gallant attempts to create a little natural space where nature can flourish among places covered in concrete. Sometimes it does it on its own and a buddleia protrudes from a wall and weeds grow on sidings. But many Londoners are giving it a helping hand, creating spaces to invite insects, birds and critters we’ll never see to drop in.

When I see these awesome attempts to give nature a welcome I am filled with awe and wonder. And immediately stop taking for granted the abundance of natural space and greenery I have round me where I live now. I grew up in a top storey flat in London so I know what it’s like to be concreted in. I know how precious these few natural oases are. We didn’t have one!

I’m also thinking about the children who live without them now. About the generations of children who never experience countryside. And how they will ever be able to understand the significance of nature and natural science.

From the tiniest miniscule organism, through all the plants and animals, to the largest oldest tree everything has importance in the ecology of the planet. Everything needs a place. And we depend upon it all for our food, for our air, for our survival and that of the planet. And I worry that those children with shuttered, sheltered existences will never have the opportunity to know anything different, will never truly understand that significance, being so far removed from it on their pavement journeys between home and school and their virtual lives of indoor entertainment.

Surely this knowledge and experience is far more essential to an education, will have far more impact on a future, than times tables and grammar? It is imperative. But as kids follow academic curriculum and obedience to indoor culture I wonder how nature will make its impact known.

So I urge all families to help your kids understand the ecology of the earth that is battened down beneath that concrete, understand that it is still what everyone needs for their survival wherever they live, whether they have contact with it or not. Cities and towns have places to go to get down to the earth, they have planters and gardens and parks, and even farms, where that understanding can begin. And failing that you can simply stand in the supermarket by the fruit and veg and ask the question; where does all this come from and what aspects of nature do we depend upon to get it here, from the bees that pollinate, to the insects and leaf matter which make the soil, the animals that fertilise it, to the workers who make it possible. That question will take you on a journey.

The earth may not be under your feet as it is now under mine, but it is just as essential to your life. And it’s essential to every child’s education that they understand that!

Short days and earth songs

Dec13

The coming of today's dawn

The coming of today’s dawn

When it got to June I panicked. It’s because I then know it’s less than a month till the longest day when the daily dose of light begins to dwindle again. And light is important to me. It’s important to everyone in fact, but most don’t seem to feel it, or recognise it, as I do. Most manage city lives without this awareness of the earth’s natural rhythms.

I don’t reckon this is healthy. If we’re not aware of the earth we’re not sensitive to its needs as well as ours. When we’re not sensitive we can pollute and desecrate as if it didn’t matter.

What will we leave our kids then? The scenario from the Michael Jackson Earth Song video.

Understanding the earth is one of the most important parts of education surely. Far more important than Grammar or spelling, how many wives King Henry the Eighth had and in what order. We can live without knowing those things – we can look them up. We can’t live without awareness of the planet or there will be no food, no resources, no light, no kings and queens to learn about.

It’s essential our children respect the earth and to do that they need to be connected to it.

Connecting with it at this time of the year is not without its challenges.

But worth it, so get the gloves, hats and thermals out and get the kids out there. There is always something to be fascinated by, discover, experience. And you’ll enjoy being back inside all the more afterwards. (Here’s a site to explore) (And another)

And now it’s December we can take comfort from the fact that it will soon be the shortest day of the year. And a few days after that we’ll be blessed with more light hours each day – well – minutes to start with, but it will inevitably happen.

And it will continue to happen for as long as we are sensitive to the earth’s needs as well as our own – something to remember over Christmas.

For the most meaningful present we could ever give is remembering to be sensitive and respectful through all the present giving, dustbin-filling, wasteful practices and over eating! Help your children understand that our love for the earth is as important as our love for one another; that without it we would not be here.

Ask them how can they help it this Christmas?

Christmasses will come and go – only as long as the earth goes on forever. That’s down to us and our children and our children’s children and so on…and only if we’ve educated them to understand that the earth needs love and has its own song to sing.

Meaningless crap!

Nov27

sundaygardensundown 005

perfect for decoration

Apologies for the title but I can’t think of anything else to call it.

It came upon me when I was standing writing this first draft in a damp notebook out in the dusky field, with dripping stems and little creatures settling into night. And I haven’t managed to refine it – the title sums it up too well.

You see, I’ve had a couple of excursions to city lately and it’s a bit of a shock!

I love the city and the contrast of it and had some shopping to do towards Christmas. But I get a bit overwhelmed with the crowds and the crush after this rural solitude, especially as we visited a huge shopping outlet which I would normally recoil from in terror. But I was even more overwhelmed than normal.

Actually, I came away appalled.

It was the amount that did it! The mountains of totally meaningless crap that people are persuaded to buy for those who have everything they need anyway. Most of it disposable meaningless crap that has no doubt cost the planet in resources to produce and will doubly cost the planet when it ends up in landfill after Christmas.

The pointlessness of it! The vulgarity of the amount!

Could we not all take a serious moment to consider this? To consider the cost earth-wise of all this dustbin bound paraphernalia? Of yet another present for a child who probably is inundated with presents to the point of boredom, another ornament or plastic trash for the Christmas house already creaking under the strain?

The earth will certainly be creaking.

More does not mean better. But judging by the amount we buy at Christmas this seems to be the ethos we’re upholding and the lesson we’re teaching our children.

Don’t get me wrong; I like buying gifts – a few. I also like making them, purchasing them second hand, or finding something that’s valued. And I suppose I have my share of meaningless crap too – just not that much – the decoration, wrapping and gifts have been thoughtfully created or reused. Nature has a hand in it too.

But couldn’t we create a more meaningful way of gift giving and enjoying Christmas with loved ones than one which is charged with commercialism, materialism and trashes the planet far worse than the living room floor is trashed  after present opening?

What kind of lies is this telling our kids? That the more we buy the better Christmas is? That the more presents we get the more people love us? That waste or pollution doesn’t matter at Christmas and yet another set of lights or disposables is okay?

I don’t think so.

As the sun sinks itself into its rosy bed for the night and my nose and finger ends start to chill I ponder this. I ponder ways of making Christmas more meaningful than materialistic. With less cost to the purse and the planet. Less commercial hype for the children. And more imbued with a sense of togetherness than a sense of buying.

Meaningful lives cannot be bought. They are made. Meaningful celebrations are the same. And we certainly need to think about the meaning in planetary terms.

The 29th is Buy Nothing Day (check it out) – we need to do it for far more than a day!

Memories for your loved ones

Nov16

autumn14 007You know the time of day when the busyness ends; when you get in, put shopping away, make supper, eat supper, tuck children in bed and, duties done, you finally sink down onto the sofa with a big contented sigh?

Well, I always think that’s exactly what the earth must be doing right now.

It’s settling itself into the soft shoulders of the season its bounteous duties done. It’s drawing its resources back into the ground to nurture and enrich it for next year. It’s laying low whilst autumnal gales race and roar through stems, ripping off the last of the leaves and heaving down those branches not strong enough to bear another growing season. The animals and birds hunker down in the earth’s embrace, managing to survive on the minimum of nourishment that remains around them and sleep it out until it’s worth going out again.

Quite frankly, I sometimes feel like doing the same.

But eager for exercise and light, and keen to see what’s afoot in the changing tides of landscape, I go out.

Sometimes it’s unimaginably still and calm and quiet, maybe with just the faintest of distant ploughing noise, or ethereally misty when the silence is only punctuated by the robin’s shrill melodious solo.

Other times the elements slap me round the ears, pour tears down my face and I huddle by the hedgerow like the winter blackbirds before returning to that settee to watch the Blue tits from behind the comfort of the window. They cling to the rocking feeder and sometimes pop into the bird box for shelter too.

And although we bemoan the drawing in of the dark at this time of the year, the elements still give us something spectacular.

I watched many an autumn sunset fall over city rooftops as a child. Now I get to watch autumn’s most majestic finales across the uninterrupted scape of sky that this fen land offers. I get the light from horizon to horizon. And if we go to the marsh or the estuary we get it doubled as it reflects in the water.

The sunsets at this time of the year are the most spectacular, igniting the sky far better than any bonfire. We watch until dark, silently sharing with grown up kids now too mesmerised to speak. Silhouettes of birds go out to river for the night. Pheasants chuckle from the dark land side. And hares scuttle across the path of the headlights as we hurry home again and hand the night time land back to them.

So despite the desire to hunker down indoors, get out and observe the passing of a season. Seek and share a sunset with your loved ones, however little or large they are; they’ll always remember.

And never be too busy as a parent to give some time to making them those memories!

last of 2013 022

 

What can you give back?

Jun19

barley beautiful 003I’ve been outside staring at the beauty of the land so much I’ve not got another post done! I was standing looking at the soft evening light settling over the barley far more beautifully than this photo tells.

Then I realised that is another post; a post about appreciation of this glorious earth.

We could all do with appreciating that far more than we do. Even from the centre of a city and not surrounded by exquisite barley fields as I am, there is a need to take a moment to appreciate that under all that concrete still lies the earth.

The earth that provides every resource you could possibly need from food to the elements that make up the technology we’re so addicted to we miss seeing the natural world because we’re glued to screens!

And even if you cannot stand and stare as I do sometimes, you can instead channel your appreciation into the way you lead your life, the way you shop – or not. The way you waste, reuse, eat and drink, save or recycle, throwaway or make do.

And show your kids how to do the same, how to look after the earth which provides it. Your appreciation will in turn become theirs.

So maybe you can find your own bit of nature to stare at this weekend and appreciate what it gives. Then maybe think about ways your family can give back!