Over dinner I was regaling my husband with yet another tale of a practitioner moaning that her school was reluctant to take on doing Forest School sessions, as it would take time away from the formal curriculum. She was asking for my help to marshal her arguments in support of the learning that would take place outside. My husband, who is probably bored with this story, having heard it many times before in various forms, said "Well, it's a bit like the chicken and the egg, isn't it – which came first, the Forest or the School". This thought has been swimming around in my head ever since, and, as I do not have the space to complete the process here, I pass it on to you to contemplate over your cornflakes, or over your campfire. Children learn. All the young of all species learn, or die. What is learning? It is about acquiring the skills and knowledge needed to survive in the environment in which they find themselves, be that balancing or accounting. As an adaptive species, we are born with very little except an innate drive to learn, and we acquire the unique skill-set for our environment as we develop physically and mentally. We do it in four main ways, firstly by observing others. Bandura's experiment with the Bobo dolls demonstrates the effectiveness of that method of learning (Long et al, 2011: 318). We also learn by trial and error, as can be seen if you watch a baby trying to fit shapes into a sorter, a toddler progressing to block puzzles, and then watch the increasingly complex puzzle and construction play of older children. Practice and repetition is another key element to learning. Think about when you learned to drive, used a new phone or computer, or followed a new recipe. Each repetition moved you closer to mastery of the task, and closer to the task becoming laid down in your repertoire of unconscious responses. Lastly, we learn in response to instruction by more competent adults, be they parent, early years practitioner or other professional. Vygotsky (Long et al, 2011:40) describes this process, and most agree that all of these are a part of what we call learning. In other species the instruction element is usually delivered by a parent or close relative, but our environments have advanced to a point where some of that instruction is invested in the hands of others with expertise judged relevant to the age and stage of the child and the complexity of the learning task in hand. This has changed over time, for reasons I shall explore further. What is school, then, and what is schooling? These are our representation of that instructional element, one of the four ways in which we learn, that clicks in when the instructions become too complex to expect parents and close relatives to cope. And not just that, but school is also a social and socialising environment where children learn to cooperate in ways that prepare them for the cooperative nature of the world of work. Schooling adds to the social and moral dimensions learned at home, moving children out through Bronfenbrenner's (1979) rings. Early years care and education starts this process, and should be seen as a part of that continuum. The world of the family is now rarely able to deal with initiating its children into the complexities of our society. With our environment changing so quickly we increasingly rely on early years settings and schools to equip children with the dispositions, skills and knowledge that they will need to cope with a constantly developing world. This started with the need for a literate population back in the 19th century. Until then, most of the population had been able to live moderately successful lives learning, mostly at home, the skills and dispositions needed for growing their food, keeping their homes, and trading with their neighbours. A merchant class may have been more literate and traded further afield, and a tiny elite had the time to enjoy leisure activities that prompted greater academic study. Those entering religious orders were more likely to need to read, and to develop skills such as illumination. All would have had self-sufficiency skills around providing shelter, food and drink. But with industrialisation and the growth of cities specialisation led to the need for literacy, and then for a progressively more complex formal curriculum. The school day became longer, the school year became longer, the number of years of compulsory schooling became longer. We moved out of the Forest and into the School. So this answers my husband's "Which came first" question. However, today's post-industrial society has such a rapid pace of change that it makes the notion of a formal curriculum problematic. How can we decide what children need to know for a society which in fifteen or twenty years time may look very different from the world we live in today? Take out your crystal balls. Firstly, look back twenty years to 1991. No mobile phones or laptops, or very few and very big. No internet, very few warnings about global warming. China and India not started on their upward trajectory. Berlin Wall firmly in place. Now, can you look forward twenty years, to 2031? We can make some guesses, but that is all. This is why Guy Claxton's (2007) emphasis on giving children dispositions to learning makes so much sense. This is what Socrates did for the elite of Athens in around 400BC. This is what Ken Robinson (2010) talks about, describing why our school system is now ineffective at preparing children for life in the 21st century, largely because it is predicated on the needs of an industrial society that in the UK had ceased to exist more than 20 years ago. Look back into your crystal ball if you don't believe me. So, while all industrialised countries are agonising over revisions to their curricular, perhaps this is time to revisit the purpose of schooling, and to ask whether there is a place in the mainstream of education for alternative ways of facilitating learning. If we need children who are resilient, resourceful, reflective and reciprocal, as recommended by Claxton (2007), and we need children who are creative, innovative and social, as recommended by Robinson (2010), we need more than what we are giving them at the moment. Pencil and paper, facts and figures do not suffice. There are many ways to enrich the education for young children in particular, and inspirational teachers and early years professionals have explored ways of using drama, music, storytelling, gardening, and outings to stimulating venues to lift the curriculum out of the banal and give it life. But these rely on having those sorts of professionals in settings where they feel enabled to extend their provision. It is tinkering with the form rather than reflecting on the underpinning premise of the purpose of learning. In addition, it fails to recognise the other elements necessary for a happy life, a healthy body on a healthy planet. To address this tripartite of goals we need a holistic overview of the experience of being a young child in England in the first quarter of the 21st century. This child may have been in daycare from a young age, probably from three years old at least, relying on the professionalism of carers to provide them with the repeated daily experiences that will form their life habits of exercise, interests and social interactions. More of them at any time in the last one hundred years may never have played in a wilder space, never have been to a beach in the UK, and never had to rely on their own knowledge to keep themselves safe while they play. We will be expecting those children to know how to care for themselves, how to care for their environment, and to be concerned for other people around the world. It seems to me that we are expecting a great deal from children without providing them with the relevant experiences from which to draw their expertise. Add to this an over-reliance on a single form of learning, that of instruction, rather than facilitating the other three forms: observing and imitating, trial and error, and practice and repetition. Our children deserve to spend some part of every week engaged in these forms of learning, in becoming connected with their environment, and in working together to solve self-determined problems. I would argue that we need to go back to the Forest, and give children space and time outside where they can engage in the other three ways of learning, and acquire the learning skills and dispositions that they will need for an uncertain future. When done well Forest School provides just that opportunity (Knight 2009:41). Good Forest School provision takes place in a wilder wooded space that is safe enough for the participants, so that they can take reasonable risks. It happens regularly, and in all weathers, with the support of a trained Forest School leader. The activities are playful, as far as possible are initiated by the participants, and are centred on their needs (Knight, 2011b). Fortunately the Early Years Foundation Stage endorses all of these criteria (Knight, 2011a). Even better, most of the EYFS curriculum can be covered whilst out in the Forest. Reading through the PSE goals in the 2007 documents, of the fourteen goals only opportunities to develop the final two would not occur naturally in the child-led play that I have observed. Similarly, the CLL goals for communication and language are all given development opportunities. And whilst it may be thought that literacy cannot be encouraged, the Hopton Literacy project (Butwright et al, 2007) indicates that Forest School can encourage reluctant boys to write, even without considering the fine motor control and hand-eye coordination involved in the use of sticks. Problem solving, reasoning and counting are activities that occur naturally and at a scale relevant to the children and their interests (Knight, 2011a:90). Linking those activities to formal recording and numerical symbology can be achieved via photographs. These are key links between inside and out: I was out with a group of four year olds when they discovered a very dead snake-like creature – so dead that it was impossible to tell whether it was a grass snake or a slow worm! We took it back with us and used a visualiser to transfer an image of the creature onto the computer and interactive white board, and we could all share in the internet identification search (while the smelly object of interest went back outside). Knowledge of the World and ICT combined perfectly with Forest School, and I think it unnecessary to expand on the opportunities for physical development and creative expression. In conclusion, we can take from the Forest the holistic approach, the time element, and the engagement with our environment. We can add to it from the school element the trained professional facilitating, reflecting and developing. Together they can provide a sustainable future for our children and our planet. Do not worry about the curriculum "fit", all that is needed is there. References Bronfenbrenner, U., 1979, The Ecology of Human Development, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Butwright, C., Falch-Lovesey, S. & Lord, C., 2007, Hopton Literacy Pilot: using Forest Schools experience as a stimulus for speaking and listening, with a focus on raising achievement in boys writing using ICT, www.schools.norfolk.gov.uk/myportal/custom Claxton, G., 2007, Cultivating positive learning dispositions, in Daniels, H. et al (eds), 2007, The Routledge Companion to Education, London: Routledge Knight, S., 2009, Forest Schools and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years, London: Sage Knight, S., 2011a, Risk and Adventure in Early Years Outdoor Play, London: Sage Knight, S., 2011b, Forest School for All, London: Sage Long, M., Wood, C., Littleton, K., Passenger, T. & Sheehy, 2011 (2nd edt), The Psychology of Education, Abingdon: Routledge Robinson, K., 2010, Changing Educational paradigms, available at http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html
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