Friday, March 09, 2007

Another local nature writer

(photo by Kate Anderson for Orion Magazine)

Richard Louv, who recently quit his gig at the Union-Tribune to devote himself full-time to the cause, has a good article in the recent issue of the beautiful Orion magazine titled leave No Child Inside: The Growing Movement to Reconnect Chiuldren and Nature. An excerpt:

In similar ways, the leave-no-child-inside movement could become one of the best ways to challenge other entrenched conceptions—for example, the current, test-centric definition of education reform. Bring unlike-minded people through the doorway to talk about the effect of society’s nature-deficit on child development, and pretty soon they’ll be asking hard questions: Just why have school districts canceled field trips and recess and environmental education? And why doesn’t our school have windows that open and natural light? At a deeper level, when we challenge schools to incorporate place-based learning in the natural world, we will help students realize that school isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world.


Seems like a good way to think about my return to SDSU as a stud34nt-teacher next week. We'll have to get out.

1 Comments:

Blogger Kelly Fuller said...

Hi Jim,

Congrats on being headed back to teaching next week! I hope you are feeling well.

Going from San Diego to Minneapolis has been interesting in terms of children and nature. The snow makes the entire city into an outdoor plaything. And the parks department floods portions of the parks so kids can play hockey and ice skate. There are also rivers and lakes all over the place. It makes me wonder if a big part of why I see much more unscheduled kid play here than in SD is just that there are more natural opporuntities. It's a lot harder to pave over a lake than it is vernal pools and chaparral.

1:11 PM  

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