[I wrote this for one of my classes, but I thought I’d post it here for my Old Man to read. WARNING: This is a VERY earnest essay!! Skeptics and Ironists read at your peril!!)
I have always considered myself a country mouse/city mouse hybrid. My parents divorced when I was four, and my mother stayed in Denver while my dad moved to the mountains. The rest of my childhood and teen years were spent divided between their homes. With mom I would go to movies and museums. She was great at sniffing out free cultural events, so we were always going to concerts in the Botanical Gardens, and street fairs in the Cherry Creek Arts district. We werenât entirely city-bound. In the summer we liked to take day trips to a cold-spring swimming pool nestled in the Eldorado Canyon in the Flatiron Mountains. We would occasionally travel to the deserts of the Southwest or the towns dotted along the Continental Divide for long weekends. But most of my outdoor experiences were with my dad.
My father is a naturalist. He hikes nearly every day and enjoys biking, climbing, skiing, snowboarding, ice climbing, wind surfing, and just about any other outdoor recreational activity that causes minimal harm to the environment. He has worked as an alpine guide in North and South America, and as a field safety instructor in Antarctica. Spending time with my dad as a child meant spending time outside. I spoke to him on the phone today, and he reminded me of my first rock climbing experience, when I was five years old. This was before they made equipment for children, so in lieu of a harness my dad tied the rope around my waist in an intricate knot, and climbed along beside me while his friend kept me on careful belay. I scampered up the rock like a chipmunk under my dadâs careful watch. To this day I feel safe and sublimely happy at great heights with a warm boulder beneath me.
As happy as I was climbing, I was equally content playing at the base of a climb by myself or with a friend. One of our favorite climbing spots was just outside the town of Morrison. There was a creek that ran along the valley floor, and it was magical. A frequent friend, Becca, and I used to send flower petals down the creek on little leaf boats, watching until they toppled or disappeared from sight. We perched on slippery rocks and held our hands just at the surface of the water, feeling the current move under our palms. We gave ourselves Indian names, and made up intricate orphan stories, painting ourselves as heroes and rescuers. We would collect flora samples, making patterns with the leaves and stems. We would watch the red ants collect their treasures, and gleefully observe the hummingbirds that hovered and dove around us.
My dad moved to a small town called Silver Plume when I was 8 or 9. It was an old mining town, occupying a tiny valley at an elevation of 9000 feet. The population hovered around 150, and there were maybe 10 kids in my age group to play with. We tore through town like a pack of wild dogs. On bikes, scooters, or on our feet we traversed the length of town all day long. We knew when a storm was coming, and about how long until it would hit. We knew how to spot elk and mountain goats, and were aware of the mountain lions and bears that occasionally dipped into the valley. We made clubhouses in the forest. They boys in town were more enthusiastic about the actual building part. They would drag boards and tools up the mountain and build intricate tree houses in the branches of the giant Douglas firs. We girls were content simply to find a hidden circle of rocks to claim as our own. We would hide treasures in the tree trunks- bottlecaps and pieces of purple glass left over from the miners a century before. We drew ourselves maps, and marked our way with rock piles and stick-through-leaf signs that we adopted from Native American stories we had read.
As an adult I have worked with many children as a camp counselor, babysitter, and classroom aid. Many parents are nervous to leave their kids alone in the backyard, and would never consider letting them run around alone in the woods. I feel very lucky that my dad was not only permissive, but encouraging of my explorations. Nabhan and Trimble write about children feeling connected to the natural world, how it is essential for them to be allowed to discover the secrets of their environment first hand. I was blessed with a father who let me loose outside. He taught me about safety and conservation, and he trusted me to make good decisions.
As I got older I went on longer trips with my dad. We went camping and backpacking. He tool me on a month-long expedition in Bolivia that he was a guide for. We kayaked in the Northwest and hiked in the jungle of Panama. Later I became a camp counselor and tried to impart some of what my dad taught me to the kids in my care. Mostly I tried to set up conditions for the kids to find the connection themselves. I hope that as a parent and teacher I am able to do this on an even greater level.
A question for class discussion:
Nabham and Trimble often infer that classroom environmental education is inadequate, that kids need to spend great chunks of time outside to feel a true connection to the natural world. How can we as educators help facilitate this connection within the confines of our urban classrooms? How can we create valuable wilderness experiences for our students that will marry the cerebral and visceral concepts of nature?