Vitamin N

Recently, Richard Louv has written some of the most important books for parents and educators about the link between self-regulation, happiness, and success (in a holistic sense) and nature for children: Last Child in the Woods -- Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, The Nature Principle, and his newest (released in April 2016) Vitamin N. Vitamin N is Nature, the ingredient so crucial for children to become competent, independent, and self-realized beings by integrating their physical, spiritual, emotional, and social needs in an environment where they are free of interference from adults.

I cherish and feel grateful for the existence of a natural space not one mile from our school where my students and I venture several times per year -- at least once per season -- to develop Vitamin N and nurture our spirits. We do this through free play in the forest environment, constructing (and often deconstructing) a fort made from a fallen tree. In this same area, past classes of mine have also learned about the necessity of the canopy -- the mixed age trees which mirror the mixed-age Montessori classroom -- for the survival of all biological life in the woods. Like the forest, we need all of our skills and difficulties in order to be the dynamic class that we are.

Each child receives her own tree under which she can see the world existing in its own rhythm and growing at its own pace, just as children do.

Students take their journals to a space that belongs only to one child at a time -- the nearest being ten to twenty feet away -- and soak in the environment through writing and art, sometimes using dirt or leaves to color their drawings. They write about what comes to mind about the natural world, and how the world entered their senses.

They touch nature, and by doing so, they return to themselves. This is what Maria Montessori envisioned with her Erdkinder program, and it is also how we maintain an authentic and impactful Montessori education. Louv cites Martha Farrell Erickson -- developmental psychologist and author of Together in Nature: Shared Nature Experience as a Pathway to Strong Family Bonds -- who advises parents and children to unplug from technology to create "an opportunity for ... affective sharing" to impact a child's lifelong development. Children need nature and a nurturing connection to their loved ones more than they need social isolation via electronic devices.

Here is a brief sampling of ideas for how to increase your child's intake of Vitamin N (Nature):

• Put nature on the calendar -- just as you would schedule vacations or sporting events.
• Think of nature as enrichment time -- not just after school classes, music lessons, and summer camp.
• Turn your commute into a nature safari -- play I Spy with cloud formations, trees, and wildlife. Read signposts for land, water, and sky. Better yet, walk to school once per week, if you live close enough.
• Play hooky -- take a day off work and let your teacher know you and your child will spend the day in the natural world re-connecting. Your child might take photos to share with classmates upon her return!
• Stash a G.O. (Go Outside) bag in your car -- with compass, binoculars, water bottle, and hiking shoes -- so your family can be spontaneous and Go Outside at a moment's notice.
• Recognize that boredom isn't a negative -- a child remembers best the unexpected adventure of the natural world.
• Be the guide on the side -- ask questions of your child to elicit her logic and imagination, and resist the adult desire to control by answering these questions. This empowers your child and models curiosity over expertise.
• Stay up late on Friday and Saturday night, and study the constellations. Your child may already know the ancient stories in the stars.
• Paint with mud or leaves.
• Press flowers between the pages of a heavy coffee table book you rarely open, using wax paper to protect your book.
• Build a rock cairn.
• Let kids take appropriate risks (walking on logs, for example) to build confidence, gross motor control, and resilience.

Spiritual Awakening in Nature

At my school, we are very fortunate to be within walking distance of a local park and natural area. Within twenty minutes, we can walk together through residential neighborhoods to a public space that has nature trails, playground, a forest (where students have planted young evergreens to help develop the canopy), and a large grassy area.

Students can connect with their primal instincts in the wooded area, building forts or playing with sticks. We also enjoy hiking deep into the nature trails to find a quiet spot for each child to sit, observe, reflect, and write in his/her journal about what it feels like to be alone in nature. This experience is spiritually uplifting for young children, whose lives may be very structured.

Richard Louv has written extensively about “nature deficit disorder” – the myriad ways in which modern children enjoy increasingly less time outdoors, engaged in “free play” of their own devising. These images capture the necessity of such time better than I could ever describe!

Mind Webs and “Going Out”

Last fall, we began our school year with our first field trip to Magnuson Park in Seattle, the grounds of which were once an airfield – now a sanctuary for wetland wildlife and birds of prey. Maria Montessori advocated students “going out” of the familiar classroom atmosphere and experiencing the natural environment as observers. As a scientist, Montessori understood the value of approaching the world around us as explorers, uncovering knowledge with our senses.

With the help of three Magnuson Park docents, our class of twenty students broke into sub-groups to dissect owl pellets; to explore Nature’s Grocery Store on a short circuitous walking path through overgrowth; and to create their own nests using the same materials the local avian population uses. Children enhanced their fine motor skills with tools such as tweezers – pulling tiny rodent jaws from feathers and hair in the pellets. They employed their five senses as they imagined themselves searching for edibles in the environment and planning a soft bed for their eggs.

Upon returning to school from this wonderful expedition, we met altogether at Literacy Group to make a collective mind web. Graphic organizers (such as mind webs, charts, and graphs) honor visual and spatial learners, who may prefer to draw their thoughts and move in a non-linear fashion to express themselves. As an educator, I facilitated this Literacy Group by using a few simple materials: a large (three by three foot) swath of black butcher paper, white chalk, and a small pad of post-it notes. 

First, I drew a spider web with chalk on the black background. Then, I asked students to remember any details from the field trip to Magnuson Park and modeled writing these memories on the post-its. The reason I did this in a whole group setting was to reinforce auditory, visual, and graphic learning styles. Some students remembered things right away, while others offered their observations later, after hearing their peers’ perspectives. Very quickly, we had about forty post-it notes covering our web.

The second step was to group these recollections into categories. One of the benefits of using post-it notes (rather than simply writing a list on a board) was that students saw how ideas can move around in different formations. A few categories students identified were:

• things about birds
• what happened on the way to and from the field trip
•  facts about animals
• facts about Magnuson Park
• sounds and smells

We ended our Literacy group with students working as partners to make their own mini-Mind Webs with black construction paper, chalk pastels, and post-it notes. They chose which categories they wanted to remember most and went into more detail. This is an example of how classroom studies and “going out” activities are integrated in the Montessori environment. Recent brain research describes how the act of recalling a learning experience embeds the acquired knowledge by stimulating the frontal lobe, where working memory and the faculty for organization reside!

Honoring the Spiritual Aspect of the 6-9 Child

Maria Montessori's most revolutionary act as a scientist and educator was her reverence for the child. Unlike other educational models, which consider children as a product of distributed information, Montessori education considers each student as an individual learner whose spirit is unique, whose time has value, and whose skills are informed by experience. Montessori education is special, because it allows the child to determine his/her learning from an abundance of experiences. Montessori described the spiritual aspect of a child as a “psychological attitude to himself and his life, within the environment, with others, how his personality is shaped by experience, and how experience leads to changes within himself.” Montessori schools honor the spiritual lives of children by giving them the world.

Spiritually, the 6-9 child is reflective and imaginative, experiences empathy and compassion, and is gradually becoming aware of the enormous world we live in.  Montessori noted, "All things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. This idea helps the mind of the child to become fixed, to stop wandering in an aimless quest for knowledge." The Great Lessons begin from the largest concept and zoom in toward humankind, the world's youngest life form. As Montessori said, "work normalizes the child" through purposeful activity, in a calm atmosphere, within a prepared environment, and using hands-on materials. Care for the environment allows a child to make discoveries about the world, share thoughts and feelings with peers, and become a balanced, peaceful person. School is a place for learning not simply about the function of language and math operations, but about social conventions, communication, and caring for others in a community. Students love learning in a Montessori classroom, because it is a place that values their input.

One of the physical components of a Montessori classroom -- the prepared environment -- exists mainly to assist the spiritual life of the child. Montessori observed, "The more the capacity to concentrate is developed, the more often profound tranquility in work is achieved and the clearer will be the manifestation of discipline within the child." Materials are placed in an orderly and sequential manner on shelves within the child's reach so that he/she may freely select and manipulate works in zoology or geometry, word study or geography. The classroom is beautiful and simple, and the child works where he/she desires -- on a rug, at a table, in a rocking chair -- with ultimate control over a preferred mode of learning. The Montessori elementary classroom is rarely silent yet hums like a beehive, students respecting one another's work without disrupting the flow of a concentrating mind. 

The 6-9 child is growing increasingly independent, taking satisfaction in determining choices, and beginning to understand his/her place in the world. The child's soul has awoken to issues of justice, equality, and liberty. Matters of everyday life begin to resemble those of history and society, since the child sees the classroom as it is: a microcosm of the larger world. Learning experiences that encourage belonging and caring for the world reinforce a child's joy at the beauty of life. Montessori noted that, "If a person were to grow up with a healthy soul, enjoying the full development of a strong character and a clear intellect, they could not endure to uphold two kinds of justice—the one protecting life and the other destroying it. Nor would they consent to cultivate in their heart both love and hate." Montessori education seeks to give the child a sense of self-determination so that he/she may find peaceful solutions to conflicts. 

One of the core components of Montessori learning is going out, specifically into nature, to see the world both as a whole and in its parts. Montessori noted about the child that, "The things he sees are not just remembered; they form a part of his soul." The importance of children connecting their senses to the natural world cannot be overstated, especially when media has become an increasingly large part of family lives. Montessori children learn about the parts of a plant not simply through using wooden puzzles, tracing the segments, and labeling the names, but by going out into the habitat classroom, weeding in a garden, and walking to a nearby forest with his/her classmates. Recent scientific studies by the National Wildlife Federation suggest that going out into nature calms a child's stress level, increases fitness, reduces symptoms of ADHD, increases critical thinking skills, diminishes anxiety and depression due to over-structure and lack of free time, and enhances social interactions. The NWF also asserts that children now spend less than one hour per week in nature, as opposed to thirty hours per week indoors, sedentary, and viewing media. Montessori education allows for freedom of movement and incorporates nature in the daily classroom.

Traditional education pretends to know the capacity of children and constructs a system in which students perform in order to prove their merit. Maria Montessori declared that “education becomes a matter of helping the precious energies that manifest themselves with irrepressible force, for the soul is not a stone for sculpting according to the artist’s talent but is free energy whose expression and unfolding obeys its own inner laws”. Over a century ago, Montessori demanded that "education should no longer be mostly imparting of knowledge but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities." Montessori education adapts to and honors all aspects of the child. Maria Montessori understood the spiritual life of the child, whom she described as "an enigma. There is in the soul of a child an impenetrable secret that is gradually revealed as it develops." The child is the keeper of the secret, and contact with the natural world gives the child a safe place to share that secret, thereby releasing the power of the child's energy into our collective future.