Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, Louv, Richard [best free novels txt] 📗

are taught ecology using textbooks based almost entirely on molecular biology and theoretical population biology. “This prevailing attitude denies students the sense of wonder and sense of the place fundamental to the discipline. Worse, there are ecologists who have never seen the communities or populations they model or speculate about, and who could not identify the species composing these communities. This is like having the illusion of conducting heart surgery without knowing what a real heart looks like.” The study of ecology has moved from the descriptive to the mechanistic, and research support has shifted from “individualized small science to very large integrated research programs where the players have small roles well defined by the group,” rewarding “group mentalities more than individual creativity.” They write:

Without a sound formation on natural history, we risk producing narrow-minded ecologists. Naturalists are closer to poets than to engineers, and it is the intuition based on first-hand experience and common sense that produces the better leaps of thought. We should imprint on our students the importance of intuition, imagination, creativity, and iconoclasm, and prevent restricting them with the brain-cuffs of rigid assumption frames and techniques, if we are to revitalize an ecological science that is more than ever becoming a stronghold of fundamentalism.

By that, Dayton and Sala mean the fundamentally narrow vision of science. When I asked Dayton how such a revolution—or counterrevolution—might be organized, he said, “I am sure that there are some wonderful naturalists who are also molecular biologists. I am not sure I have met many, but they are there. And for sure that is true of taxonomists.” Still, he worries that his fellow natural historians do not understand the stakes involved. Universities cannot find teachers to teach such classes because so few now know the fundamentals of biology and natural history. How do we reverse this trend? I again urge parents, primary and secondary educators, environmental organizations, and policy-makers to weigh the meaning of this loss to education, to creativity, and to the natural environment. The associations of remaining natural historians must help lead the crusade. The survival of their own profession is linked to a larger cause: the reconnection of the young with nature.

An environment-based education movement—at all levels of education—will help students realize that school isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world.

17. Camp Revival

FOR DECADES IN San Diego, the school district has operated a sixth-grade camp in the nearby mountains. Generations of kids have spent a week during the school year among the pines. Over the years, however, this camp’s central purpose has shifted from a pure nature experience; it has become, primarily, a race-relations retreat with nature used as backdrop. Still, this camp continues to give some children their first or best experience in nature. Myra, a ninth-grader, describes her time at sixth-grade camp:

I haven’t truly experienced nature much. My family is not one that believes in camping or spending time in the outside world, even though my parents were brought up in a rural society. For the most part, I spend my time at home. The only time I can remember having lived in nature, in the open, was in sixth grade on the camping trip to Palomar. There, I felt truly comfortable, being among few people and walking down paths that weren’t paved. . . . Sure, the food was bad and the cabins were uncomfortable, but the walks and hikes were interesting and fun. I truly belonged somewhere in the scheme of things. . . . Sometimes, I feel like I just want to get away from the world, so I dwell in nature through my thoughts and memories.

As with so many young people, the modern world is sometimes too much with Myra. How can we overestimate children’s need for respite from CNN, school stress, or family tensions? Camps have their own pressures, but the healing quality of nature is always there, just beyond the screen door, and then, as Myra experienced, those memories remain, like time-release capsules of medication.

Clearly there’s more to the camping experience than tents and bug bites. The nature experience at these camps could be lost if nature camps allow their mission be become diluted, if they attempt to please everyone all the time. Race-relations and other cultural/political programs at camps across the land are important attempts to imagine a gentler, better world. These are important discussions in a democracy, but childhood is short. If we make those issues our sole priority, another generation—or more—could enter adulthood without significant experiences in nature. The great worth of outdoor education programs is their focus on the elements that have always united humankind: driving rain, hard wind, warm sun, forests deep and dark—and the awe and amazement that our Earth inspires, especially during our formative years.

The social context of camp is important. “The best camps are creating the best of what existed in the 1940s—a sense of shared purpose,” says Mary Pipher, clinical psychologist, family therapist, and author of Reviving Ophelia. But the direct experience in nature is the most important aspect of the camp experience.

Adults who enjoyed early camp experiences often tell stories about practical jokes and latrine hazards, but they can also describe transcendent moments—and the importance of building self-confidence in situations of controlled risk. Ann Pearse Hocker, who later became a photographer for CBS (often doing her work in dangerous conditions), recalls the sense of independence and responsibility that summer camp in Colorado taught her:

I learned about caution. Once we were on a training hike for Longs Peak and an electrical storm drove us down early. We passed a couple of hikers stuck at the boulder field on the way down. The woman had wedged her leg between two boulders and couldn’t get out. The rain was pounding and the lightning was below us. We had to run straight down the power line easements and skip the trail, which was full of switchbacks. Met the ranger