HOW TO RAISE A WILD CHILD

On reading Scott Sampson's excellent exposition, I realised I had, like some others of my generation, been fortunate to have been raised as a Wild Child, walking back alone from primary school via the woods, fields, lakes and farmyards of rural Wales. My father, who had had a similar rural upbringing, lived a dozen years on a storm-lashed Welsh island, was perhaps even more of a wild child, and like many of his generation had a keen eye for nature. Unlike far too many of today's children he was a "countryman" and knew most of his native plants, birds and animals. He often wrote for the magazine The Countryman, which found a wide audience among nature lovers.

Today the general populace, especially in America, is, and alas this applies to a huge percentage of children, more in love with "screens" than nature. The statistics are rather horrifying. The average American child spends "four to seven minutes a day outdoors." They are essentially under "house arrest" and their health suffers from lack of "unstructured play" time. Such circumstances have generated what Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods has called nature-deficit disorder. The good news is we have begun to address this deficit with a number of back-to-nature initiatives for children and adults. The Japanese, for example, have a tradition called Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, and studies have shown that surgery patients recover better when they have recovery rooms with views of natural settings. Some Doctors now recommend horticultural and pet therapy and some even write "park prescriptions" for nature-deprived children, needing a dose of vitamin N (nature).

Things were much different a century ago: almost everyone from Victorian times onwards (at least until WWII and the advent of TV) spent hours out of doors, and natural history was immensely popular. Now we have to re-educate kids to appreciate nature using books like this one to prescribe the three pronged approach a new breed of teachers are finding effective: experience, mentoring and understanding (EMU). This means engaging the heart more than the mind and showing kids that the outdoor world matters. Kids learn by example and have to see an adult's passion for nature.

Doc. Sampson, a paleontologist, and Denver-based colleague, has an admirable holistic approach to science, pointing out that it is "destructive" to think of ourselves as machines, separate from organic nature. Such a rigid worldview can be attributed, in part, especially in America, to puritan, Calvinist influences on an educational system, which taught that we were separate from beastly nature, and could not trust it not to overwhelm our passions and instincts. So the mechanical round of rote testing and achievement developed as an intellectual passion-controlling approach. Even today "teachers are trapped in the current system every bit as much as the students" because these rote test-based approaches remain the norm.

Sampson acknowledges that only a few school systems, e.g., Waldorf and Montessori, promote holistic, experiential, developmentally-coherent education, recognising that we are organic beings, part of a superorganism network "connected to nature through the web of life." Failure to understand this holistic interconnectivity has made it unnecessarily difficult to build well-rounded character in our youth, and has left American schools ranking about twentieth in the world, in contrast to "high-ranking Finland…opting for shorter school hours and more playtime." As wise educators have said: "all education is environmental education… by what is included or excluded, students are taught that they are a part of, or apart from, the natural world." So it is school gardens, natural settings and the like that foster the relationship between children and the natural world, in which they must be healthily embedded. This is a true sea change in educational philosophy because subjective experience of nature becomes more important than abstract and objective observation of from afar, or through screens. As Thomas Berry has said we must transform the world from a "collection of objects" to a "communion of subjects."

Sampson quotes both classic and novel sources. Einstein reminded us that it is "a kind of optical delusion of consciousness" to regard ourselves as separate from all that is. Thus, according to theologian John Haught, we live in a sacred and "resoundingly meaningful universe" which should "inform the arc of our lives." In language reminiscent of Alan Watts, poet Muriel Rukeyser tells us, non-reductively, that "the universe is made of stories, not of atoms." Cosmologist Brian Swimme says " you take hydrogen gas,…leave it alone, and it turns into bushes, giraffes and humans." Einstein also said if you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales, and if you want them to be more intelligent read them more fairy tales.

All this points to the need for teachers and scientists to be playful, to construct meaning actively, and to provide experience rather than treat students as "information receptacles." Youngsters should experience and cherish "ecstatic moments." I found it refreshing that Sampson feels liberated enough to write in this vein, bucking the trend of much conventional mainstream science. His vision of a world in which nature-deprived youngsters reintegrate with natural settings is compelling for many reasons. First, it is relatively easy to accomplish with outdoor excursions, playgrounds, lessons and activities. More importantly it leads to healthy self-confidence, well-being and a mature appreciation of our embeddedness in the natural world, and our dependence on a sustainable environment. Sampson waxes lyrical and even Steiner-esque: "if beauty is symbolised by the heart, and truth by the brain, goodness might be considered the domain of the gut - a moral compass guiding our decision making."

Our recent love affairs with technology have placed obstacles, mostly electronic screens, in the way of the soothing balm of nature. But, knowing the drawbacks of being slaves to such screens simply highlights the need for alternatives: i.e., restricting screen time and increasing outdoor experience. As befits his position as vice president of research and collections and chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science Sampson is prescriptive in providing many examples of programmes that redirect children and their adult mentors along natural organic pathways. His matter-of-fact ability to integrate prescription with his aforementioned poetic, ecstatic and fairy tale sentiments is impressive. I particularly like the notion that we can reverse unsustainable activity, not merely to be "sustainable" (not lose ground) but to flourish and attain "thrivability"- what a great word! As Sampson so aptly says: "there's something worth fighting for." In short "one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is an optimistic outlook on the future." [I note here that this optimism is to some degree built into the psyche of the prophets of the baby boomers, as suggested in the generations book The Fourth Turning, and Sampson like many of his generation received such "gifts" in fair measure]. But yes! One must agree that it is good to pass on such gifts to all generations. Sampson sees thrivability as having this positive optimistic and ultimately moral dimension. Such vision translated into community action and gentle mentoring will help children again "fall in love with nature" as they naturally will given half a chance. We adults will benefit equally and see our youth grow into well-balanced human beings rounded and grounded in the natural world.

I happened to read A Memoir of Thomas Bewick, the famous engraver, at the same time as Sampson's fine book. Bewick, a very talented artist, writing of his youth in the late 18th century, recounts walking hundreds of miles around the north of England and Scotland. He drew all his bird and animals sketches from life if the species was available, and lamented if it was not. He expressed strong opinions about the damage cause to youth and adults, alike, if indulged and nature-deprived by artificial or city life. His constitutional fortitude was impressive. Through "many years of uninterrupted health and buoyant spirits. I had begun…to habituate myself to temperance and exercise, which hardened the constitution to such a pitch that neither wet nor cold had any bad effect…on …my weekly pedestrian 'flight' up the Tyne, I never looked to see whether it was a good day or a bad one; the worst that ever fell from the skies never deterred me. I …had sometimes the river to wade at the far end. I never changed my clothes, however they might be soaked with wet, or stiffened with frost…till I went to bed…with my windows open, by which a thorough air, as well as the snow blew through… I lay stripped into 'bare buff' except being rolled in a blanket, upon a mattress as hard as I could make it… Notwithstanding this mode of treatment of myself, I never had an ailment, even in the shape of a cold, while I continued…in this way; nor did I experience any difference until, when married, I was obliged to… live and behave like other folks." Now that was a wild child!