>A growing movement to restore nature to children’s lives in our overbuilt, overpaved, overprotective world is receiving wider attention.
In an op-ed piece last summer, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof described a camping experience with his daughter. He notes that many children today experience nature mostly through the TV screen and consider nature to be exotic and removed from their daily lives. He writes, “Suburban childhood that once meant catching snakes in fields now means sanitized video play dates scheduled a week in advance.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/opinion/02kristof.html?_r=1
An article in yesterday’s New York edition of the New York Times describes a “forest kindergarten” in Saratoga Springs, New York. Children lucky enough to attend this school gain an appreciation and love of nature that they are unlikely to forget. Later, when today’s children become the stewards of the earth, those with important memories and experiences connected to nature will be more likely to care about the earth and to take good care of it than those who spent childhood in a protective bubble.
We at the Preserve Graydon Coalition believe strongly in the importance of encouraging children to connect with nature. This point represents only one of our many reasons for caring deeply about preventing the loss of Graydon Pool and working hard to achieve that aim.
It’s easy to imagine holding some mild equivalent of a “forest kindergarten” at Graydon all year ’round. Would this be possible with a concrete pool?
Here is the article on an outdoor kindergarten just one state away. The “slide show” is wonderful.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/nyregion/30forest.html
Extensive, interesting, well-presented information is available at the website of the Children & Nature Network: https://www.childrenandnature.org/. The site includes articles on a wide swath of related topics, including the value of nature to healing and the medicinal qualities of dirt. Yes, dirt. BBC News reports, “Children should be allowed to get dirty, according to scientists who have found being too clean can impair the skin’s ability to heal. Normal bacteria living on the skin trigger a pathway that helps prevent inflammation when we get hurt, the US team discovered.”
We are part of the earth whether we like it or not. The farther we attempt to separate ourselves from it, the worse that will be for us and our children. Let’s teach them to embrace that connection instead.
Marcia Ringel
Co-Chair, The Preserve Graydon Coalition
www.PreserveGraydon.org
