The fifth pedagogy

The children walk two by two or in a single file. They walk through an open meadow and as they move further away from cars and houses, you can sense the calm wash over them. Their movements become more purposeful; their conversations turn towards their plans for the forest. They arrive at a path half hidden by trees and enter the muddy track leading to a shaded billabong. The sun tries to fight its way through the leafy canopy, and the water that feeds the billabong gurgles along a pebbled bed. There is an aura to this place. When you ask Amanda England the Brisbane Manager of Wildlings Forest school, how she chooses her locations, she will tell you that they need to have an element of magic about them. Looking around it is hard to believe that one is at Cliveden Park in Fig Tree Pocket, surrounded by homes, shopping centres and schools, it feels as if we have left the city entirely. 

 

“Fig Tree Pocket is one of my favourite locations for Wildlings. It is an amazing park, and it is so underused it is scary.” Amanda says that the Wildlings facilitators never have a problem finding a park to set up in. “That’s the demographic of that area, those kids are all in after school activities. Even on the weekends that park is dead. I can’t even believe it.”

 

In 2004, Frances Kuo, PhD, and Andrea Faber Taylor, PhD, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, published the results of a study they conducted. Kuo and Tayler surveyed over 400-parents of children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADHD is a brain disorder that usually exhibits in subjects as inattention, impulsivity and oftentimes, hyperactivity. The parents rated the aftereffects of 49 common after-school and weekend activities on their children’s symptoms. These activities were then compared for green outdoor settings versus activities conducted in indoor settings. The results were conclusive, nature fights ADHD symptoms. According to the parents, the children all showed fewer ADHD symptoms after time spent in nature. The children were more focused, they were better at listening, following instructions and completing tasks. 

 

When you ask Amanda about the kids who participate in the Wildlings after-school sessions: “We have a lot of NDIS [National Disability Insurance Service]. I would say close to 70% of our families are claiming NDIS in the upper age groups. Our home school is full of NDIS participants.” According to Amanda, NDIS doesn’t exactly support the idea of Forest school, but they do support the development of motor skills and social skills and that is how the parents are able to apply for government support. “So, in our after-school groups the parents already know that their kids need something else, so they seek us out as an alternative to the mainstream.”

 

It doesn’t take a pristine landscape like that at Cliveden Park to recreate Kuo and Taylor’s results, any amount of time spent outdoors in a natural setting had these benefits.  "These findings are exciting," says Kuo in a news release:"I think we're on the track of something really important, something that could affect a lot of lives in a substantial way."

 

Sarah and Elisha both have children recently diagnosed with ADHD. Sarah says that when her eldest son started prep, they were concerned about his ability to focus in class, they had him assessed for ADHD and it “basically came back that he had high energy levels, but nothing diagnosable.” So, when her second child displayed similar behaviour, she didn’t think much of it. “We just went, high energy levels, he’s a young boy. We’ve done this before, all good.” But then the school kept pushing for her to have him assessed. In Sarah’s opinion, if you’re a proactive parent the school tends to be satisfied, but she adds, “I think the school wants funding and they get funding through diagnosis, so if you can’t show that you’ve achieved every outcome then they keep pushing you.” 

 

For Elisha it was the opposite experience: “The school – didn’t pick up on his ADHD as he wasn’t disruptive.” She had been told about how he had been getting distracted since grade 2. “We’d been having conversations with the school about how he was struggling to get his work completed. He’s not naughty per se, so they’ve never had an issue with his hyperactivity. So, ADHD was never mentioned, just that he was being distracted and as he didn’t distract anyone else, he flew under the radar.” It was only when the family took a semester off school to travel around Tasmania, that they decided they needed to get him assessed. “He was just a disaster in Tasmania. We couldn’t home-school him eventually, we couldn’t make him.  It was more that he could not cope with the change.  He’s fine once he’s there and doesn’t leave once he’s there it’s just getting used to the change.”

 

Sarah’s situation with the school reached such a critical point that she began to worry that her son would be expelled. After he was suspended, she was finally able to get an appointment to see a paediatrician: “When we walked into the appointment with the paediatrician we basically went ‘we think our kids going to get kicked out of school, we need help.’ And she went: “Look, medication may help.” And we went: “fine.” Sarah describes the experience of her prep-aged child being suspended from school, and feeling pressured to diagnose him with ADHD as highly stressful and emotional.

 

Author and journalist Richard Louv coined the phrase nature deficit disorder in his book The Last Child in the Woods. Louv argues that ADHD is increasingly being treated with powerful drugs, but that research shows how being in natural green environments does much more to increase a child’s attention span and lessen the symptoms of ADHD. In his book, Louv states: “the woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.” Louv argues that society is placing an increasing emphasis on children to achieve academic success but hasn’t yet had a chance to quantify what we have lost through our direct experience with nature. “at the very moment that the bond is breaking between the young and the natural world, a growing body of research links our mental, physical, and spiritual health directly to our association with nature—in positive ways.”

Both Sarah and Elisha have moved their children out of the public sector into private schools. For Sarah, the greatest benefits are the school’s approach to their students. They group the students according to maturity levels, not age, and allow the students to work at a pace that suits their individual level and needs.  Elisha says: “His school now is fantastic. The only real difference is that his teacher is very good at picking up when he’s staring at a speck of dust and makes him get up and go for a walk around, fill up his water bottle and that’s enough to get him to finish his work.”

 

Amanda believes prevention is better than cure.  She believes that schools have things the wrong way around. Parents shouldn’t have to wait until their kids are presenting with anxiety before they seek out Forest school. “Those rates are ridiculous; the suicide rates are really high.  I would say nearly 80% of kids these days have something going on inside them.” The traditional school system has lost that element of exploration. “That’s where I think we fit in. And it’s quite hard as I don’t feel like we are wanted. We are offering such a unique thing, but we are advocating for something that is not wanted by the majority. Most people are very pro-academic and believe that it can only be found in a school, and they don’t think about the broader things.”

 

The Department of Education recognises four categories of ‘productive pedagogies’, these are areas that are recognised as leading to student engagement and learning within the classroom. Recently a fifth pedagogy has been added: “Experienced Based Learning.” However, despite all the evidence on the importance of learning in natural environments, there is not enough research identifying specific teaching strategies or pedagogies that can be applied in these natural environments.  According to the Kids in Nature Network (KINN), the lack of professional development opportunities for educators has led to various unregulated Forest School programs being imported from Europe and the UK. Forest schools in Victoria are growing at a rapid pace, but without a foundational understanding of the ethos behind Forest School, there is a real risk of them becoming commodified and results-driven. Turning into yet another wellness movement, branded and sold back to well-meaning parents.

 

Sarah and Elisha both feel that if their local state school had a Forest School component, their children would have benefited from it.

 

References:

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Ballantyne, R., & Packer, J. (2009). Introducing a fifth pedagogy: experience-based strategies for facilitating learning in natural environments. Environmental education research, 15(2), 243-262. doi:10.1080/13504620802711282

 

Kids in Nature Network (KINN). (2018). The State of Nature Play, Outdoor Learning and Bush Kinder in Victoria. Summary of Key Findings and Recommendations, November 2018. https://3c9b4507-3b71-401c-aff3-4e14ac9612a3.filesusr.com/ugd/c8e3a7_a8a8b070b9624525b0f660e9143be700.pdf

 

Kuo, F. E., & Taylor, A. F. (2004). A potential natural treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: evidence from a national study. American journal of public health, 94(9), 1580–1586. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.94.9.1580

 

Sullivan, Virginia. (2006). Children, Youth and Environments, 16(1), 200-205. Retrieved August 24, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.16.1.0200

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