Green guide for educating children's play

Children's play.

It's an area of great debate and, over the last century, an area of significant changes. At one point children were considered mini-versions of adults; that soon gave way to the production capabilities of children; eventually that gave rise to the notion that children needed to be disciplined and commanded until such a time when they were adults; that eventually disappeared when psychologists began to espouse the notion that children needed to be supervised, guided and nurtured.

Now, children's play ranges from the completely inane to the entirely educational, and everything in-between. But regardless of the philosophy more and more teachers and child-care professionals are leaning towards to the notion that all child's play (and educational programs) need to incorporate a green component.

As such, teachers and educators are being offered a variety of tools and options for incorporating an ecological component in their classes. These tools translate into a set of principles (as created and compiled by Green Teacher magazine) that can provide direction and impetus for environmentally sensitive lessons.

• Students should have opportunities to develop a personal connection with nature.We protect what we care about, and we care about what we know well. If students are encouraged to explore the natural world — to learn about local plants and animals, to observe and anticipate seasonal patterns, to get their feet wet in local rivers — they are more likely to develop a lifelong love of nature that will translate into a lifelong commitment to environmental stewardship.
• Education should emphasize our connections with other people and other species, and between human activities and planetary systems. We are connected to other people, other species, and other lands through the foods we eat, the clothes we wear, the items and materials we use every day, and our common reliance on a healthy environment. By gaining an understanding of this global interdependence, children become better equipped to make everyday choices that respect the rights of others and lessen their impact on the Earth’s life support systems.
• Education should help students move from awareness to knowledge to action. Even young children should have opportunities to take action to improve local environments. When students act on environmental problems, they begin to understand their complexity, to learn the critical thinking and negotiating skills needed to solve them, and to develop the practical competence that democratic societies require of their citizens. At the same time, educators have a responsibility not to burden children with catastrophic and complex environmental problems that are beyond their ability to help remedy — or, as environmental educator David Sobel has expressed it, there should be “no tragedies before fourth grade.”
• Learning should extend into the community. Community projects provide authentic “real-world” reference points for classroom studies and help students develop a sense of place and identity while learning the values and skills of responsible citizenship.
• Learning should be hands-on. The benefits of hands-on learning are widely acknowledged among educators and supported by findings in brain research. Learning is a function of experience, and the best education is one that is sensory-rich, emotionally engaging, and linked to the real world.
• Education should integrate subject disciplines. Environmental issues are complex and cannot be separated from social and economic issues. Addressing them requires knowledge and skills from all disciplines. Integrated learning programs, in which several subjects are taught simultaneously, often through field studies and community projects, help students develop a big-picture understanding and provide opportunities for authentic learning.
• Education should be future oriented. Students should have opportunities to envision the kind of world they would like to live in and to think realistically about incremental steps that might be taken to achieve it.
• Education should include media literacy. With constant exposure to mass media, our mental environments can become just as polluted as the natural environment. Media studies can help students learn to distinguish between fact and fiction in advertising, to recognize racial and gender stereotypes, and to consider the difference between needs and wants.
• Education should include traditional knowledge. Students should have opportunities to learn about traditional ways of life that are based on respect for nature and the sustainable use of resources. Across North America, many educators invite Native elders to share aboriginal perspectives on nature and ecology, exposing students to a worldview that recognizes the intrinsic value and interdependence of all living things.
• Teachers should be facilitators and co-learners. The teacher’s role is to facilitate inquiry and provide opportunities for learning, not to provide the “answers.” Teachers do not need to be experts to teach about the environment. The natural world is an open book that invites endless discovery by all. As co-learners alongside their students, teachers both model and share in the joy of learning.

For more information on Green Teacher magazine go to:
http://www.greenteacher.com/index.html

For more information on Toronto's Green Guide go to: http://www.toronto.ca/greenguide/learning_green.htm

For more information on Ontario Centre for Sustainability go to:
http://www.web.net/~ocs/about.html