More "Last Child in the Woods" commentary.
Louv interviewed many naturalists, educators, parents, psychologists for his book. Some quotes that struck me:
"Natural spaces and materials stimulate children's limitless imaginations and serve as the medium of inventiveness and creativity observable in almost any group of children playing in a natural setting"
Hmm. I've always tended to blame the difference in what I see of this sort of play in my children, as compared to what I remember of my childhood--I see the discrepancy, and blame TV, Palms, iPods--the electronic world. Well, maybe that is part of it, but maybe another part is that they just don't have the open spaces, mysterious scary woods, etc. that I grew up with. We've bought more "stuff" to entice our children outside more--swingsets, sandboxes, play equipment--but that hasn't seemed to solve the problem. Perhaps there is something to this, that a vacant lot, a forest edge, a prairie meadow, a creek, would solve--these are things I had, as a child, that my children do not have.
Being a CM mom, I was particulary receptive to Louv's chapter "Don't Know Much About Natural History: Education as a Barrier to Nature" This quote led off the chapter: "To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk thorugh a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall." Thomas Huxley
An educator quoted in the book said this: "The society we are molding these kids toward is one that values consumer viability. The works of John Muir, Rachel Carson, or Aldo Leopold are seldom if ever taught to children . . . Even in the sciences, where nature could play such an important role, the students study nature in a dry, mechanized way. How does the bat sonar work, how does a tree grow, how do soil amenities help crops grow? Kids see nature as a lab experiment."
I must admit, I see this in my current town of residence. The local elementary school has an award-winning wetgrass prairie restoration project on its ample grounds. The children get to see it, look at it, study it---but, during recess, it is "no-touchy" Someone could get hurt in there, or muddy, or something. We recently built a five-figure-price-tag wooden play area for the children to play on, instead. Our message to the children is loud and clear: Play on the constructed structure, clinically study the sedges and frogs. Don't play with them. Don't form a relationship. "Nature" is something we study with a grant, or doctor up when it is ruined--not our natural environment, a place to play and dream and live. No wonder the children are growing up detached.
Why else don't our kids have the same opportunities to form relationships with nature as those in past generations? Louv cites many: our view of time. Playing at a soccer game is a good use of time; meandering through a woodsy area, wading in the stream, or looking up at the trees, is wasting time. Our fears--our kids, roaming at large far from home with no adults, could be abducted. Mugged. Fall out of a kid-constructed tree house and break an arm. Fall in the stream and drown. Or get dirty. Or something else awful.
I still remember the reaction of the mothers in my hometown when I was eight, and a boy in my class in grade school simply disappeared on his way home from the public pool, never to be seen again. Our tiny town was in an uproar. Mothers who previously only cared that you came home for lunch and dinner, suddenly wanted to know where we were every minute, wanted us in sight at all times. It disgusted me then, but now, as a mom, I so understand!
Or back to the educational issue--Louv quotes a biologist as saying "Humans seldom value what they cannot name." I suspect Charlotte Mason would have nodded her head vigorously at that.
Then Louv takes on environmentalists themselves! Perhaps, he posits, in our haste to protect everything, environmentalists have managed to abstract nature to a distance too far for the children to connect easily. No touching, camping, fire building, tree houses, forts, fishing, hunting--but care about it anyway. No relationships allowed! He cites community rules that attempt to keep children out of nature areas, homeowners associations that ban treehouses, the left's war on Scouting, the "scare tactics" used by some environmental educators. What is the possible future, then, of enviromental activism? Louv reminds us: "Passion does not arrive on videotape or on a CD; passion is personal. Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature."
What is the fix for all this? I haven't finished that part of the book yet. Stay tuned. :-)