As a person who is far more comfortable out in nature than in the big city, Ive always been selfishly kind of glad that not a lot of people share my enthusiasm for roughing it, more free and open country left for me to roam. However, when I read Gary Fergusons article I realized that being able to enjoy nature should be a part of everyones experience, especially the experience of children. Back in 1906, celebrated psychologist and educator G. Stanley Hall — the man who coined the term adolescence — wrote that kids age 3 to 8, especially those in the urban hothouse, must be exposed to nature. They should be taken to visit field, forest, hill, shore, the water, flowers, animals, the true homes of childhood ... for the very soul and body cry out for a more active, objective life, and to know nature and man at first hand. These two staples, stories and nature, by these informal methods of the home and the environment constitute fundamental education. A century on, however, kids are even less tutored by nature. A 2003 survey of 830 mothers by Dr. Rhonda Clements revealed that 70 percent of the women said they played outdoors every day when they were kids, yet only 31 percent of their children played outside daily.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 20:06:11 +0000
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