The Essential Guide to Forest School and Nature Pedagogy

Jon Cree, Marina Robb

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000335767
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Enseignement primaire

This book is a complete guide to Forest School provision and Nature Pedagogy and it examines the models, methods, worldviews and values that underpin teaching in nature. Cree and Robb show how a robust Nature Pedagogy can support learning, behaviour, and physical and emotional wellbeing, and, importantly, a deeper relationship with the natural world. They offer an overview of what a Forest School programme could look like through the year. The Essential Guide to Forest School and Nature Pedagogy provides 'real-life' examples from a variety of contexts, sample session plans and detailed guidance on using language, crafting and working with the natural world. This accessible resource guides readers along the Forest School path, covering topics such as: the history of nature education; our sensory system in nature; Forest School ethos and worldview and playing and crafting in the natural world. Guiding practitioners through planning for a programme, including taking care of a woodland site and preparing all the essential policies and procedures for working with groups and nature, this book is written by dedicated Forest School and nature education experts and is essential reading for settings, schools, youth groups, families and anyone working with children and young people.

1 Nature Pedagogy, Forest School ethos and valuing nature

As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll interpret the rocks. Learn the language of the flood, storm and avalanche. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as close to the heart of the world as I can. – John Muir (1871)

(via Wolfe, 1945)

It is fundamental to begin this exploration acknowledging that the wider natural world is an essential and necessary part of our learning and development. With the appropriate guidance, there can be a co-development that is immensely informative and draws on the natural intelligence of the living world. This is not just ‘in our heads’, but rather includes our minds, hearts and bodies and the valuable feedback that is gained from the wider natural world.

Experiencing your development and learning indoors is inherently different from ‘being’ in the outdoors. The moment you step outside and are receptive, you will receive different answers to questions, an increase in your sensory and inner life, all because the whole field of your experience is now larger and more complex. You are no longer within four walls but a component within a larger biological and ecological system.

‘How are we informed by nature?’ This question will weave itself throughout this book as we paint a picture of both the theories behind an education-in-nature programme and what it looks like in reality. We propose that the natural world, our ‘beloved’ earth, does indeed hold a place in our understanding, informing our values and our ego and eco identity. We understand that nature is often the ‘invisible’ curriculum, secretly developing us and carefully cultivating our pedagogy, and is part of our own true maturation, our sense of who we are and what it means to belong to this world.

In this opening chapter we would like to share the values, ethos and principles that underpin Forest School and nature-based practice, showing the antecedents to the current practice in the UK and the similarities with many other outdoor environmental learning programmes in this country and across the planet. At the same time, we will provide a framework that will be repeated through the book and serve as a signpost to chapters that fill in the detail of what Forest School practice, in particular, looks like, what guides the practice and tools for practitioners. This will range from the specific dialogues that happen in Forest School in a variety of contexts and case studies to the types of experiences that are facilitated in a Forest School/nature education setting.

As John Muir so eloquently espouses in his many writings – learning is living and living is learning. This idea is always at the heart of nature-based learning. We would argue that Forest School is striving to get to the ‘heart of the world’! We are feeling beings, and we remember more vividly what we have felt most strongly.

In the last 27 years, one of the largest nature education movements has grown and had quite an impact on mainstream education in the UK … Forest School. While we will be looking at the wider nature education movement, we will begin by describing Forest School as it has informed our thoughts and wider nature education practices.

Learning in the outdoors through Forest School

We are often asked, “What is Forest School?” and it is a hard thing to define. While there are many books on Forest School and learning in nature, we would like to delve more deeply into what this looks like in practice and the impact of immersing a group in nature.

Case study: Forest School in action

Let’s begin by painting a Forest School scene (mixed group of 10- to 13-year-olds.)

It’s mid-January as I approach the ‘Forest School gate’ – in fact a rope between two posts. I hear the sounds of delight at the far end of the woodland clearing, a voice shouting from behind a tree, “I’m over here!” and above this a gentle wind blowing through the oaks and birches. There is also a robin singing its heart out despite the exuberant sounds of people – both old and young. I gently lift the rope and walk the muddy path that has obviously had feet splashing everywhere, and I see two planks. Maybe a bridge protecting human feet from a troll? As I approach the ‘base camp’, there is a small fire surrounded by wooden planks on tree stumps, and next to this a semi-permanent shelter with a basket and trolley. The basket is open and spilling out of it are a camo-net and ropes. Next to that are some stakes and what look like homemade mallets. On one of the benches are two youngsters making a batter – half of which seems to have made its way on to the bench. They are both beating the batter in tandem … and they smile at me and ask if I like pancakes … “Pancakes with crab apply jelly wot I made”. Squeals of delight come from two children and an adult on a rope swing, and the adult near the pancake makers is busy weaving a basket. There is a slightly older girl wandering and talking to herself who seems to be threading something on to a piece of wool as she walks. The four that are running everywhere are completely engrossed in their own hide and seek game. The adult greets me and says, “Just in time for dinner, Jon!” and she turns to one of the pancake makers. “Do you reckon it’s lunchtime yet Holly?” Holly replies, “Let’s just wait a bit for the first pancake to be ready, then we’ll call everyone else over.” A minute later both pancake makers make a loud bird-type call. Everyone returns and asks if it is indeed lunchtime, and without hesitation all kick into gear and gather the handwashing materials.

This scene (Figure 1.1) is indicative of what you instinctively feel is a playful learning community that is looking after its own needs, interacting with the woodland in a playful yet respectful way, and where it is tricky to see who is leading whom. It’s Forest School underpinned by a certain ethos and values!

Figure 1.1 A Forest School ‘scene’

The definition of Forest School in the UK, arrived at after an extensive consultation in 2010 and 2011, is

Forest School is an inspirational process offering ALL learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experiences in a woodland or natural environment with trees. Forest School is a specialized learning approach that sits within and complements the wider context of outdoor learning.

(www.forestschoolassociation.org)

Forest School and nature-based values

Forest School and indeed many other long-term nature connection education programmes under different names have spawned in various countries in recent times, each sharing common values.

Nature as a teacher

At the heart of Forest School and ‘good education’ is valuing all learners and the contribution they make to the learning community. This means working with learners’ needs, interests, motivations and preferred ways of learning, and alongside this, recognising the intrinsic value of the non-human world. Respect and humility are core values that all Forest School practitioners work with, giving ‘power’ over to our learners for their own learning – through providing choice, tempered with compassion for the non-human. Nature is the teacher, the pedagogue. We could say, the relationship between the person and the natural world is the teacher. It is the relationship that is revealing something. Nature is also the therapist and a guide. A person, adult or child, learns something about their lives or themselves through this emerging relationship. This may not always be conscious or ‘visible’, but at some point their appreciation of the natural world is deepened.

A holistic approach

In a nutshell, this is a holistic form of education creating a vibrant nature-based learning community. ‘Holistic’ is a term often bandied around in the education world, and we will expand on holistic development in Chapters 3 and 4. We see a holistic approach as an ‘integrated’ approach to learning which means accepting the ‘whole’ person – warts and all. It is an approach that works with everyone’s needs and sense of self – accepting we are all imperfect, but we are who we are and are worthy of love and acceptance. A tall order but very much something that underpins the practice of Forest School, and we have to struggle with it. What we are hoping to develop from these values is the building of resilience, creativity, self-worth, emotional literacy and connection to and caring for the non-human world, so our planet and society thrives. In the end we are trying to create something akin to a ‘f...