German Kindergarteners Answering Call of the Wild
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 04.25.08
If you’ve ever wished you could play outside all day, running through forests and playing in the mud until the sun went down you just may be fascinated to learn that there are kindergarten schools in Germany that now eschew classrooms in favor of the forest floor, and head outside to learn all day, come rain or shine.
And while schools and parents in some countries push their kids to read, write, and surf the Web earlier and earlier in an effort to sharpen their skills for an increasingly competitive global economy; these kids get to sing songs, build fires, roll around in the mud and kick back in their “wald sofa” of tree stumps and twigs.
All told it seems there are about 700 Waldkindergarten, or “forest kindergartens” throughout Germany, with kids discovering the world in a different fashion.
Intriguingly, there’s a tiny high school in the woods of Northeastern America, inspired by Thoreau, that’s taken a similar approach with kids who might otherwise have dropped out or found themselves in trouble of one form or another.
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Via: WSJ
Forest kindgarten has been around for decades and exists in a lot of countries outside of Germany, although I do think it is most popular there. There are even some in the US. I think it originated in Denmark but it always seems to get press as a German thing.
Awesome! In Milwaukee, the Schlitz Audubon Centre has a pre-school that amounts to much the same
http://www.schlitzauduboncenter.com/natpre.htm
(check out how green and beautiful the building is too! It won some awards a few years ago.)
Last I heard, the school was so popular you had to register as soon as your child was born. I'm glad more schools like this are cropping up.
We know a teacher of this type of schooling over there! Interesting to hear her talk about it.
This is brilliant. I think one of the great failings of Western society is the dissociation of humans with nature. We are an inseparable part, and these kids will be ahead of most in understanding that.
Long time ago I read about a school for "troubled" kids in the UK. The teachers would let the kids roam about outside until they finally got interested in what was going on inside ...
I hear these outdoor kindergartens also are catching on in Sweden. My Portuguese friends seem to be both appalled and intrigued by this. But then I have seen at least one Portuguese kindergarten that was more about squeezing in many kids in a very small room ... storage basically ...
Anyway, in my old kindergarten we would spend lots of time outdoors, come sun, rain or snow.
This is something that Rudolf Steiner advocated years ago and is part of the basis of Waldorf education. You can find this type of philosophy at Waldorf kindergartens all over the world.