Today was pretty special. I arrived at Resen Nature Kindergarten with Jane. There were children and their pedagogue in icy wind flying a kite, all in a huddle. Johann saw us drive in and left the kite with the children to come and greet us. When I looked back at them I could see them laughing and squealing as the colorful kite took flight.
Johann showed me around the place. It has an indoor space that is heated by a wood stove. This space had the usual kitchen, dining room and a small play area with a variety of activities that children could access. These play areas are nothing like what we have in Australia. There are no shelves bursting with craft materials, construction activities, games or toys. There are shelves, there are activities that children can freely access, but they are minimal and simple. At Resen I saw very little plastic, which warmed my heart. Outside there was even less, hardly any at all, just a few sandpit toys.
All that the children need is provided through the natural materials in the outdoor environment, and these are mostly gifts of God, not of people. Johann has turned some natural things into challenging, imaginative and inviting play props through sculpture. He's formed a car, a boat, an aero plane and a bus from logs he found in the forest. He said it takes about a week to rustle one up, and it's obviously a work of the heart, giving him immense satisfaction in his creations. More logs, tree roots and tree stumps, as well as structures made from wood provide open ended options for play and challenge.
There were many nooks and crannies about the place that children were free to access. The kindergarten area has no fences so children are expected to stay within the boundaries, and they do so to their hearts content. I could see twenty five children scattered about, mostly in small groups of peers. They range for three to six years old and again all I could see everywhere I looked was engaged, happy, carefree children. Kind of like free range kids. We do it for chooks out of a sense of ethics to fellow living creatures, why do we find it so hard to do this for children, fellow humans. We know it's best for chooks to be able to express their natural habits, to allow them the freedom to be chooks. Don't children deserve the right to be three, or six?
I asked Johan about how these children cope with the more formal structures of school. They go to school here at the age of six. There are no four and a half year olds exposed to formal education in Denmark, and even the six year olds attend what they call play school. It is a lot more formal than their early education but play is still considered a very important aspect of the curriculum. Johann explained to me the importance of children attaining adequate motor development before they can be expected to undergo the rigours of academic learning and formalized structures. The motor development that occurs through freely chosen, engaging and satisfying tasks in the outdoors build muscle memory, kinesthetic awareness, balance and prepares the twenty five muscles in the hands for fine motor activity. They use tools, operate many different sorts of grasps and manipulate natural materials for real purposes. In doing all of this, their bodies are becoming more and more prepared for their brains to work in the way we need them to work for academic learning. Now I'm paraphrasing here, and I will be researching this in much greater depth when I return and write a paper. This blog is a space for me to reflect and write my thoughts as they come, catching what was significant for me at each place, so please forgive me not providing research or theory to back these claims. They will be coming.
This very young girl got herself onto this tire swing and very deliberately and patiently placed her feet so that she could begin rocking. Bit by purposeful bit she got the swing into a smooth and controlled swinging motion. Is this what Johann means when he talks about the motor development that these children have opportunity to excercise in preparation for school?
Allow me to share a special experience from today with one of the children.
I wandered around the site, looking for a place to watch and take it all in, but I can never resist joining children in play. So I swang on a swing, balanced along a log and approached some girls obviously making cakes from soil and sand on a tree stump. There was one little girl nearby who I was told could speak English, as her father was English, but she never spoke it out of shyness. I called to her and told her I only speak English, not Danish, and it was so nice to find someone I could talk to. She brightened immediately and began chatting away about her family. When the group of girls didn't want to share their cake, she translated for me that the kitchen was closed. She did, however, run to the sandpit and bring me a bucket of 'cake', just for me. Again I was amazed at one child's capacity to feel empathy for a stranger and to connect. She followed me around the rest of the site and there was one particularly special moment whee Johann took me to see a blackbirds nest complete with eggs that he'd just discovered in the woodshed. I lifted the little girl to see. I had a book about Australian birds to give the kindergarten as a thank you and had a little time to look at it with her and talk about the beautiful birds illustrated until it was time to leave.
The pedagogues that I met here today showed a real heart for their work. Johann in particular, as the head, spoke to me with such passion and belief that the kind of education they are offering here is in the best interests of children. The centre is currently involved in some action research with one of the universities and I look forward to reading of the findings. Much of the research I understand is around reflective practice and the why of what they do, as well as what the results are for children. Johan used the term 'provoke' as he explained some of the process of the research.
If you are interested their website is well worth a visit. It is all in Danish but the video link shows some wonderful images. http://www.resendaycare.dk/afdelinger/skovbørnehaven
I didn't want to leave. I was in my happy place, but Jane had a surprise waiting for me and gently coaxed me away. You can read about that in my next blog.
Would it be too much of a stretch to compare the development of fine & course motor skills, the kinesthetic awareness Johan spoke of, along with the associated cognitive development for problem solving as the same sort of thing that primal man would have done purely by instinct in his effort to survive. Is it just me, or is there a parallel here with how primitive man learned to survive & develop into what we are today. It seems to me that this is what nature kindergartens are truly about, learning in the most natural & un-contrived way possible. Nature is the legislator here, & by far the fairest most balanced we could hope for & the children in these environments will have a considerable head start on their peers in later life.
ReplyDeleteWell it's interesting how ancient civilizations, such as our Aboriginal people, have 'ways of knowing' that are way beyond the understanding of our modern education system. The knowledge of the land, the seasons, the animals and the plants and how it all connects is valuable, deep knowledge that hasn't always been acknowledged for its complexity. I'm sure that survival is linked in numerous ways to the sorts of education that societies provide to their young, just in our western world academic learning seems to have a huge priority over other forms of intelligence and learning.
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