TAKE FIVE!

April 27, 2021

Cortney Larson:
What can community members do to help your organization?

Eric Feinblatt:
I think getting in touch with the school board members and getting in touch with the administrators saying, you know, we know about this. We know that other schools, we know that Homestead for instance, has moved all other classes outside. They built big tents. We don’t have to buy tents. We can use the areas around the schools that we have in Sullivan County and create these spaces. Why aren’t we doing it? We have, on the one hand, you have this push because of the, I don’t know, because of the necessity of putting kids online, you’re going to have a real push for these schools to computerize more and more of the learning. And I think that the parents have realized the pitfalls of that. A lot of parents are really frustrated with that. So we have the school administrators going in one direction. And I think the parents intrinsically feel that maybe this is not the best direction to go in, or at least it should be modified by more outdoor activity. So I think that getting in touch with the school board members and getting in touch with us, the school administrators, and of course getting in touch with us because we can help.

Caroline Baillie:
And Sullivan West Elementary, you know, we just mentioned has a Forest School setup. And so they really did lead the way there. And we established the outdoor classroom very simply, with little tree stumps, little parachute for rain cover and very, very simple set up, but it just enables so much, so many learning opportunities and they really embrace that. And I think that they can embrace it even more. And I think other schools can go there and learn what to do. So, yeah, encouraging the teachers to take the kids outside to learn is a simple thing to ask, but often schools don’t think about it. They don’t even know that it’s an option. They think that outdoors is either for playing games in the break time or sports or visiting the garden. But actually there’s a huge amount of stuff that can be done outside. And it’s really a question of just helping the school realize that that’s what they want because a lot of people say, Oh, it’s too cold. You know, we don’t have the very long season, but actually, you know, as we always say, there’s no such thing as bad weather, it’s just bad clothes. We can buy the clothes. The schools can buy the clothes, the outdoor coats and the boots, and to learn the kids that don’t have them. And we have a fire usually, which is well tended and looked after, and you can have your lesson outside and you’ll go sit by the fire and you’ll have a cup of cocoa and warm up and it’s the whole thing becomes exciting and fun and kids want to go to school suddenly. And the parents are saying, what’s going on here? Why do they suddenly want to come to school? What’s going on? And they’ll be dragged you know, come and have a look at this outdoor classroom mom! So, yeah, I think you can just ask.

Eric Feinblatt:
One of the astonishing things. I think when we were running these after-school programs at Sullivan West was the school that the kids would arrive and they were so wound up, by being inside all day long that we usually had to give them out of this hour and a half time that we had them, 20 minutes just to kind of run and go crazy and just let off steam before they could just kind of collect themselves and then sit down. It was so clear that there was something unnatural about it, about learning within these four walls.

Caroline Baillie:
Schools are starting to really pay attention and think about it, um, particularly through the initiatives of the organization. And I find that once people experience that, they can’t go back. Often teachers take a little bit of time to feel safe enough to take kids outside because they feel like they’re gonna lose control with those children. And in fact it does take preparation. Teachers do need to go through some training to understand how to address and how to safety look after the children. And also what to do differently in their teaching. They can’t just take the inside and reproduce it outside. It doesn’t work. Once they learn some new approaches to teaching and how to look after the kids and make sure that they’re providing a safety net, but they’re not constraining them, then they immediately see the joy and the beauty and they enjoy classes and so much better than they have before as well. So the benefits to the teachers and that health stress levels is, is wonderful to say. I’ve seen parents who are really, really happy because their kids are having a healthy time, but motivated to learn. And the kids themselves.

Cortney Larson:
What is the best way to stay up to date with your organization?

Caroline Baillie:
So we will provide the links for you. We have Facebook and Instagram and a website, the website posts, the events that we will host and the various different Forest Schools. We run our schools on our property. Outside COVID times we ran them regularly. And we also support schools at any stage of their journey. So, schools can get in touch with us and we will talk to them and come and visit the school and give advice. And then if they are really interested in engaging us, we can go further and do pilot studies with them. We can co co-teach classes sort of by doing, how it works. And, also teachers can join,. The online training course that I run, which is actually meant for the university of San Diego, which I know is a long way from here, but it’s an online program. We do it through those three mechanisms and we can give you those.

Cortney Larson:
Is there anything else that you guys would like to share?

Caroline Baillie:
If anybody’s interested in volunteering, particularly parents, if you’re interested in this kind of thing, and you want to connect with your school to say, I’d love to do this, also offer yourselves as a volunteer because, you know, if you are the sort of person that is great outdoors, they’re always going to look for a supportive, we’ve got some amazingly skilled people around here. I’m, it puts me to shame the kind of crafts that parents come up with. One way that a child gets a project to do. And we just love to hear from you. We would love to have you run a session in the Forest School. So get in touch. Yeah, yeah.

Cortney Larson:
Again, thank you guys so much for joining us and for all that, you’ve done to get schools involved with outdoor classrooms and learning spaces in Sullivan County. It’s truly wonderful.

Caroline Baillie:
So thank you so much for the opportunity. We’d love to help as much as we can.