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Children and Nature Movement
How a Movement Is Forming and How You Can Get Involved
Dear Friends,
Happy children, happy youth and young adults: our future leaders, our hope for a better future, a better world. We must nurture in them the joy of life, the mystery and the wonders of life’s journey, the universe, the environment, ecology, the nature and Mother Earth. We owe it to them, to provide them with the best possible education, the wisest teachers and instil in them the best values to sustain them in their lives, making them leaders to fight for, and to take action, in the interest of the common good, building a world of peace, justice, harmony, sustainability, and prosperity for all, and not the few, as it is currently the case.
Think about it, as the legendary- “Earth scholar”- Thomas Berry had reminded us the universe is, ‘the only self-referential reality in the phenomenal world. It is the only text without context. Everything else has to be seen in the context of the universe’.
Furthermore, Berry drwas our attention to the significance of story, and in particular the universe as story. ‘The universe story is the quintessence of reality. We perceive the story. We put it in our language, the birds put it in theirs, and the trees put it in theirs. We can read the story of the universe in the trees. Everything tells the story of the universe. The winds tell the story, literally, not just imaginatively. The story has its imprint everywhere, and that is why it is so important to know the story. If you do not know the story, in a sense you do not know yourself; you do not know anything."
Please see more below and if you agree with what you read, then, contact me. Share your vision, insight, and experience with me. Together, we can, and we will, co-create the beautiful world and the life we are all imagining. We must not let our children down!
‘More than parent and student communities, the teaching fraternity needs to understand that the essential purpose of education is not to enable students to earn a living, but to learn how to live life. As the primal teacher, Mother Nature teaches both the secret of life, which is to respect all life, and also how to live one’s own life in harmony and balance with all creation, exemplified by the manner in which various species of the natural world live in peaceful co-existence.’
‘Picture a school where the natural environment becomes the classroom and Nature becomes one of the teachers. Even students who don't exhibit "nature smarts" will become more attuned and connected to the world around them. And as many wise people have said, we can't save something we don't love, and we can't love something we don't know. Don't we owe it to our students to help them develop their naturalist intelligence?’
As it has been noted, ‘A child’s experience in the natural world can be as small as helping to plant a roof top garden, sitting under, in, or around the single tree in sight, or listening for the sound of a bird. Spending time in a natural environment has been documented to improve life and learning in many ways. Sadly, such a connection with nature has been slipping away from many of us – and especially so for the world’s children.’
Here, in this Blog, I am calling upon families, educators and community leaders worldwide to become as children and rediscover the benefits of paying attention to nature, and to take action to strengthen children’s connections to nature.
As adults, we should be opening the doors and providing the children and the youth opportunities that fully connect them to the natural environment so they can gain an understanding of the natural world in as many educational and recreational settings as possible. We cannot start too soon!
Today’s children and families often have limited opportunities to connect with the natural environment. Richard Louv called this phenomenon, ‘nature-deficit disorder’ in his influential book, The Last Child in the Woods, and opened our eyes to the developmental effects that nature has on our children.
Reading the book we can clearly see the staggering divide between children and the outdoors and Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, diabetes, sleep apnea, attention disorders, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and more.
Last Child in the Woods is the first book to bring together a new and growing body of research indicating that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults. More than just raising an alarm, Louv offers practical solutions and simple ways to heal the broken bond—and many are right in our own backyard.
In all, in the past decade, the benefits of connecting to nature have been well documented in numerous scientific research studies and publications. Collectively, this body of research shows that children’s social, psychological, academic and physical health is positively impacted when they have daily contact with nature.
Before I continue further, I very much like to share two videos with you. These videos clearly reaffirm what I have been saying above. Let us watch them. They are not that long, few minutes each, but, believe me they are very moving and telling.
First video:
Project Wild Thing: Producer David Bond
"A gripping story of the desperate struggle to lead our computer-crazed children back to nature."
PROJECT WILD THING - Official Trailer - YouTube
Second video:
In this video George Monbiot argues that the more time children spend in the classroom, the worse they do at school because our narrow education system only rewards a particular skill set. He says that when you take failing pupils to the countryside, they often thrive – yet funding for outdoor education is being cut:
It's time to rewild the child – video | Comment is free | The Guardian
OK. Now let us continue our dialogue and conversation, children and nature:
To cut a long story short, there is no doubt that: “Green environments are an essential component of a healthy human habitat”, according to Frances Ming Kuo, a researcher documenting the positive link between nature and human health, and social and psychological functioning. Kou summarizes various research studies that show that humans benefit from exposure to green environments (parks, forests, gardens, etc.) and conversely, people with less access to green places report more medical symptoms and poorer health overall.
Kuo uses the phrase “Vitamin G” (G for “green”) to capture nature’s role as a necessary ingredient for a healthy life. Evidence suggests that, like a vitamin, contact with nature and green environments is needed in frequent, regular doses.
And now finally I wish to share with you a piece on why Mother Nature is the greatest teacher and why the natural world is the wisest classroom.
Mother Nature the Greatest Teacher
Photo: fourdirectionsteachings.com
Mother Nature: “Speaks not a word in any human language, and yet everything in Nature inspires humanity to seek and learn, engendering awe, mystery, and an enthusiasm for uncovering the truth behind her workings, her creations, her cycles and her balance. As such, she is the primal teacher archetype of inspirational teaching and the root of all scientific enquiry. Hence, ‘science’ has been defined as “mankind’s attempt to understand Nature”. The great scientist Albert Einstein expressed it more dramatically stating, “We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what Nature has revealed to us.”
More than parent and student communities, the teaching fraternity needs to understand that the essential purpose of education is not to enable students to earn a living, but to learn how to live life. As the primal teacher, Mother Nature teaches both the secret of life, which is to respect all life, and also how to live one’s own life in harmony and balance with all creation, exemplified by the manner in which various species of the natural world live in peaceful co-existence.
Encouraging observation of the daily miracles of Nature has profound effects on students. One effect is a heightened appreciation of life and its wonders, with corresponding understanding of how each plant and animal contributes its own unique qualities, abilities and skills to the whole, complementing one another to enhance Nature’s overall beauty, practicality and efficiency. When this pedagogy is utilised and concept applied to society, it helps foster respect for others and their talents, and instills the desire in students to work together for the betterment of the community as a whole.
Nature’s greatest teaching technique for vital survival skills is ‘trial and error’. While the parents of a young animal may teach and demonstrate, the mastering of any skill can only come from the repeated attempts of the ‘youngster’ himself, and each failure becomes the foundation of learning for the next attempt. When this pedagogy is utilised in classrooms, teachers become ‘guides,’ encouraging students to seek their own answers, their own solutions to problems, and learn by doing. This also infuses creativity and enthusiastic participation into the learning process.
Nature is also an exemplary interactive teacher. She teaches us most vividly the concepts of action/reaction as plants and animals mirror our own state of mind — positive and negative. Plants and animals ‘respond’ in a positive manner to tender, loving care. Hence, from hardened criminals to the criminally insane, study after study has shown the benefits of people working with Nature, especially animals, not only for the individual, but for society as a whole.
These benefits become visible in the classroom as well when students work with plants and/or animals. In addition, students gain a sense of responsibility and self-satisfaction as life forms they nurture, grow and flourish. Extra-curricular group activities that include service projects in the community centred around cleaning and beautification of parks, waterways, and forest areas, reinforce the values of volunteerism and cooperation.
Today, humanity stands at the crossroads, both environmentally and in the field of education. We are in the grip of an environmental crisis that threatens the very survival of the human race — a crisis that has been brought about by our own destructive actions and activities. Global warming and climate change, species extinction and pollution are destroying the pyramid of life whose very foundation is Nature and her various ecosystems.
As the capstone of this pyramid, humankind is facing imminent destruction as its base of fertile soil, clean water and air provided by Nature is being steadily eroded, with species of flora and fauna disappearing at unprecedented rates. Already over 60 percent of the planet’s ecosystems are near the point of no return, according to the United Nations.
As educators, we have a duty to society not only to make our students aware of this crisis, but also to encourage them to do something about it, since it is they and their children who will inherit our planet-under-siege. By bringing Nature back into the classroom, we can instill in our students an understanding and respect for all aspects of creation. And by bringing students back into the ‘classroom of Mother Nature’, Nature herself will inspire them to act to protect her and their own future. The ripple effects of our actions will touch not only their parents and immediate community, but the nation and world as a whole.
The future is of today’s children. But it’s our duty to find and light the path toward regeneration and rejuvenation of Mother Nature, of planet Earth, to bring a greater understanding of the oneness of all creation, of which we are part. Once again, as Einstein put it, “Look deep into Nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
Notes:
In writing this Blog, I have consulted the following sources:
Thomas Berry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Children & Nature Network (C&NN)
Project Wild Thing – Reconnecting kids with nature – Project Wild Thing
Last Child in the Woods - Children and Nature Movement - Richard Louv
It's time to rewild the child – video | Comment is free | The Guardian
Pamela Gale Malhotra: Mother nature the greatest teacher
Below in a very intersting article by Richard Schiffman you can read more about the late Father Thomas Berry’s vision and story which I had briefly referred to earlier in this Blog:
Fr. Thomas Berry
“Bigger Than Science, Bigger Than Religion”
'The world as we know it is slipping away. At the current rate of destruction, tropical rainforest could be gone within as little as 40 years. The seas are being overfished to the point of exhaustion, and coral reefs are dying from ocean acidification. Biologists say that we are currently at the start of the largest mass extinction event since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. As greenhouse gases increasingly accumulate in the atmosphere, temperatures are likely to rise faster than our current ecological and agricultural systems can adapt.
It is no secret that the Earth is in trouble and that we humans are to blame. Just knowing these grim facts, however, won’t get us very far. We have to transform this knowledge into a deep passion to change course. But passion does not come primarily from the head; it is a product of the heart. And the heart is not aroused by the bare facts alone. It needs stories that weave those facts into a moving and meaningful narrative.
We need a powerful new story that we are a part of nature and not separate from it. We need a story that properly situates humans in the world—neither above it by virtue of our superior intellect, nor dwarfed by the universe into cosmic insignificance. We are equal partners with all that exists, co-creators with trees and galaxies and the microorganisms in our own gut, in a materially and spiritually evolving universe.
This was the breathtaking vision of the late Father Thomas Berry. Berry taught that humanity is presently at a critical decision point. Either we develop a more heart-full relationship with the Earth that sustains us, or we destroy ourselves and life on the planet. I interviewed the white-maned theologian (he preferred the term “geologian,” by which he meant “student of the Earth”) in 1997 at the Riverdale Center of Religious Research on the Hudson River north of New York City. Berry spoke slowly and with the hint of a southern drawl, revealing his North Carolina upbringing.
“I say that my generation has been autistic,” he told me. “An autistic child is locked into themselves, they cannot get out and the outer world cannot get in. They cannot receive affection, cannot give affection. And this is, I think, a very appropriate way of identifying this generation in its relationship to the natural world.
“We have no feeling for the natural world. We’d as soon cut down our most beautiful tree, the most beautiful forest in the world. We cut it down for what? For timber, for board feet. We don’t see the tree, we only see it in terms of its commercial value.”
It is no accident that we have come to our current crisis, according to Berry. Rather, it is the natural consequence of certain core cultural beliefs that comprise what Berry called “the Old Story.” At the heart of the Old Story is the idea that we humans are set apart from nature and here to conquer it. Berry cited the teaching in Genesis that humans should “subdue the Earth … and have dominion over every living thing.”
But if religion provided the outline for the story, science wrote it large—developing a mind-boggling mastery of the natural world. Indeed, science over time became the new religion, said Berry, an idolatrous worship of our own human prowess. Like true believers, many today are convinced that, however bad things might seem, science and technology will eventually solve all of our problems and fulfill all of our needs.
Berry acknowledged that this naive belief in science served a useful purpose during the formative era when we were still building the modern world and becoming aware of our immense power to transform things.
Like adolescents staking out their own place in the world, we asserted our independence from nature and the greater family of life. But over time, this self-assertion became unbalanced, pushing the Earth to the brink of environmental cataclysm. The time has come to leave this adolescent stage behind, said Berry, and develop a new, mature relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants.
We’ll need to approach this crucial transition on many different fronts. Scientific research has too frequently become the willing handmaiden of what Berry called “the extractive economy,” an economic system that treats our fellow creatures as objects to be exploited rather than as living beings with their own awareness and rights. Moreover, technology, in Berry’s view, potentially separates us from intimacy with life. We flee into “cyberspace”— spending more time on smart phones, iPods, and video games than communing with the real world.
Science and technology are not the problem. Our misuse of them is. Berry said that science needs to acknowledge that the universe is not a random assemblage of dead matter and empty space, but is alive, intelligent, and continually evolving. And it needs to recognize that not only is the world alive, it is alive in us. “We bear the universe in our beings,” Berry reflected, “as the universe bears us in its being.” In Berry’s view, our human lives are no accident. We are the eyes, the minds, and the hearts that the cosmos is evolving so that it can come to know itself ever more perfectly through us.’…
Read more:
Bigger Than Science, Bigger Than Religion by Richard Schiffman — YES! Magazine
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Nearly a year ago I posted a Blog: In Praise of Frugality: Materialism is a Killer where I noted the following:
“A deadly force is taking over our world. This is a monster that can do too much harm to be so commonly welcomed into our society, and it goes by the name “Materialism.” The scariest thing about materialism is that it is so easy to fall into, especially in this day and age. So you ask what is materialism? It is a fixation on and love for material objects over actual living things”…
I then had posed some pertinent questions:
“How Much Is Enough? What is money and wealth for? Why do we as individuals and societies go on wanting more? What is economic growth for? Can we/ should we carry on just growing, creating, producing, consuming,…,more and more, for ever more? Do we need to satisfy our needs or our wants? Should we be a “maximiser” or “satisfier” and choose the path of “enoughness”? Then, what is a good life? What are the main ingredients of a good, happy and peaceful life? Should we move away from Gross National Product (GDP) to Gross National Happiness? What are we here for?”
Today I wish to share with you a possible path to how we might be able to achieve “Enoughness”.
As noted in a recent article in the Guardian, the Swedish term ‘lagom’ is the perfect term to describe an economic system where just enough is produced and consumed. Let me explain a bit more.
How to build a 'lagomist' economy
“The current capitalist economic system is in continual crisis. As Thomas Friedman, said in a New York Times op-ed: “What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall, when mother nature and the market both said, ‘no more’.”
In the 21st century we need a new economic model to achieve a sustainable and equitable high quality of life for ourselves and our children. This model needs to go beyond the conventional “isms” (communism and capitalism) of the 20th century, all of which were focused on “growth at all costs”.
Getting the balance right between private, common and state property is critical to this new model. Communism (mostly common property) and capitalism (mostly private property) have both failed to get the balance right. The ongoing global economic and environmental crisis presents the opportunity to strike a new balance. Finding a path to sustainable prosperity requires that we achieve that balance.
We also need a new term to describe this model. We need a term that implies a better balance among built, human, social, and natural assets. We need a term that implies a shift from the “growth at all costs” economic model to one focused on sustainable human wellbeing – based on sufficiency, fairness and sustainability.
The Swedes have a term that connotes many of the qualities of such an economy. The term is “lagom”, which means “just the right amount”. The origin is from old Viking tales about passing a horn full of mead around the campfire and everyone taking just the right amount, so that there was still some left for the last person in the circle.
A “lagomist” economy would be one that was “just the right size or scale.” It is not an economy of scarcity and sacrifice. It is an economy where just enough is produced and consumed – no more, no less. An economy that had achieved “optimal scale”.
It would also be an economy where the benefits were equitably distributed, not only within the current generation of humans but also with future generations and with other species. It would be an economy where goods and services were valued and allocated efficiently, including the services of natural and social capital. These services are currently external to the market allocation system and are part of the open access commons.
A new, more nuanced suite of property rights and responsibilities that give adequate weight to the commons would also be a part of a lagomist economy. Public goods such as the atmosphere and ecosystem services that are currently open-access need property rights assigned to them to adequately protect them. However, we cannot (and should not) assign private property rights to these inherently common assets. We need new global institutions that can assign and enforce property rights on behalf of the global community. Such an institution could effectively charge for GHG emissions and use those funds to reward activities that remove carbon from the atmosphere or reduce emissions. One such institution that has been proposed is an “earth atmospheric trust”, just one example of the implementation of the public trust doctrine to manage our common assets.
A large and growing number of individuals and groups around the world have been discussing how this new economy needs to look. These include the New Economy Coalition, the International Society for Ecological Economics, the UN, the Future Earth Initiative, the Post Carbon Institute, the Alliance for Sustainability and Prosperity, and many others. A broad consensus is forming around the basic characteristics mentioned above. But everyone has a different name for it: ecological, green, regenerative, circular etc. That leaves the impression the consensus is weak. It is not. It is strong. But it will not crystalise until we have consensus on a common term to describe and encapsulate it. I propose lagom as that term.
By the way, it can also be used as a greeting, an affirmation of goodness and a toast.
Lagom!”
The above article was first published in the Guardian on Monday 6 April 2015:
How to build a 'lagomist' economy | Guardian Sustainable Business | The Guardian
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A Few weeks ago I posted a Blog UK General Election 2015: Breakthrough for the common good – Dare to imagine that where I highlighted the serious need for us all to reflect carefully on life’s bigger picture and take action in the interest of the common good, as we contemplate and decide how to vote in the coming General Election on 7th of May.
Today reading my Sunday papers I came across a very articulate and passionate article by the former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting a few times and who wrote the Foreword to the book- Promoting the Common Good- that Rev. Dr. Marcus Braybrooke and I had co-authored in 2005.
Lord Harries’ article is all about values, trust, integrity, morality, spirituality, ethics and more; and that all actions should be in the interest of the common good.
I very much enjoyed reading this article on this beatiful Easter Sunday, the day we all reflect on life’s bigger picture. The article also very much re-affirms the points and concerns I had raised in my Blog.
Let me share the article with you. I am sure you, too, will find it very interesting and relevant:
Faith in politics may be taboo, but we still crave a bit of morality
“There is something fundamentally askew in our public life today, as shown by the lack of trust in politicians and the alienation, particularly of young people, from the political system. This needs addressing first at the personal level by all those standing for public office. Surveys show that despite the terrible loss of trust in politicians in the past decade the public still expects the seven fundamental standards of public life to be observed.
Personal integrity is valued above rubies, while any party wanting to govern must believe, and convey the belief, that its policies are morally based; that they are for the benefit not just of a sectional interest but the common good.”
“I was talking recently to a serious-minded Conservative who is also a thoughtful member of the Church of England. She expressed distress that the bishops of her church continually seemed to advocate policies different from that of her party. For her there was a real relationship between her most fundamental beliefs and her political commitment. She was dismayed that this moral vision did not seem apparent to the leaders of her faith, a view echoed last week by David Cameron. I sympathised, and pointed out that there had been very little in the way of an intellectual Christian case for Conservatism for some time. The late Lord Hailsham put one forward some 50 years ago, as did Brian Griffiths (now Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach) at the time of Margaret Thatcher, but little else. No wonder that the Tories are widely perceived to be the defenders of those with assets, with hedge fund donors as their abiding symbol.
Traditionally the Conservative Party had a strong element of noblesse oblige. Alec Douglas-Home’s mother was heard to remark: “I think it is so good of Alec to do Prime Minister.” Where is that element now? A few do still enter politics, in part out of a sense of duty, but where is the vision of an Edmund Burke, perhaps the politician with the most deeply rooted and consistent moral sense in our history, who could legitimately be claimed by Conservatives as much as progressives?
Politics has always been about representing interests. It will be even more so after the election with the Scottish Nationalists, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and Ukip making it clear that they will expect a major quid pro quo for any role in supporting a minority government. This is a proper part of democratic politics. But if this is all that a party offers it cannot help but come across as thin and diminished. For with all our grievous failings we human beings remain moral beings. There is an altruistic side to the most selfish person, a charitable element in the most cut-throat capitalist. A party that wants to come across as more than a coalition of narrow interests must communicate a sense that it is working for the benefit of society as a whole. The British may not like overt appeals to religion but there remains a deep-seated sense of fairness in the population. We see this in the outrage at the way bankers can fail and still get their bonuses. We see it in the almost hopeless anger at the way our society seems to be in the grip of an international financial elite – and those who tuck into its slipstream – who can shift their cash to tax havens at will.
Labour starts from the opposite position. Drawing its strength from Methodist lay preachers and Roman Catholic trade unionists, as well as secular intellectuals; it has been a moral crusade or nothing. But there is a danger in moral visions. One is that powerful rhetoric can cover up a lack of thought-through policies. The other is to claim the high moral ground with the assumption that the other parties are driven only by self-interest. The British don’t like people who assume that only they have a moral position. The danger is very obvious in the case of religion, as we see in the contrast between the United States and Britain. In America, since the creation of a civic religion by Eisenhower and Truman, appealing to God is part of the rhetoric of any politician. Indeed there was a recent discussion about whether it would be possible for an atheist to be president. But in Britain the attitude was well summed up by Tony Blair, himself a religious man. When later asked why he did not bring religion more into the open when he was in power he replied that people would have thought him “a nutter”. The British do not like the assumption that God is only on one side of a debate, nor the assumption that morality belongs to one side only.
There is something fundamentally askew in our public life today, as shown by the lack of trust in politicians and the alienation, particularly of young people, from the political system. This needs addressing first at the personal level by all those standing for public office. Surveys show that despite the terrible loss of trust in politicians in the past decade the public still expects the seven fundamental standards of public life to be observed.
Personal integrity is valued above rubies, while any party wanting to govern must believe, and convey the belief, that its policies are morally based; that they are for the benefit not just of a sectional interest but the common good. And they must do this without appearing sanctimonious.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth is former Bishop of Oxford. His book 'Faith in Politics? Rediscovering the Christian Roots of our Political Values' (DLT) has been reissued with a new introduction for the election
The above article was first published in The Independent on Sunday 5 April 2015
Faith in politics may be taboo, but we still crave a bit of morality - Voices - The Independent
Further reading:
- Policies must be for the common good- Lord Harries of Pentregarth (2)
- Policies must be for the common good- Lord Harries of Pentregarth
- Prof. Mofid to Speak at the 5th International Conference on Integrating Spirituality and Organizational Leadership (ISOL) in Chicago
- Remembering my friend George Bull, OBE KCSG FRSL (1929-2001)
- Prof. Mofid to speak at World Congress of Faiths