Most have opened in the last 15 years and are usually located in the city’s parks, with a bare-bones structure serving as a sort of home base, but others... rely on public transportation to shuttle their charges daily out into the wilderness, where they spend most of the day, regardless of weather. Toys, typically disparaged at waldkitas, are replaced by the imaginative use of sticks, rocks and leaves. A 2003 Ph.D. dissertation by Peter Häfner at Heidelberg University showed that graduates of German forest kindergartens had a “clear advantage” over the graduates of regular kindergartens, performing better in cognitive and physical ability, as well as in creativity and social development.I strongly support this approach to childhood education, but writing about it this morning — after the Ariana Grande concert, which was full of little girls — a sad thought occurred to me. Children who are outdoors never have to run for narrow exits and get crushed by larger people pressing toward the doorways. If you stay outside, it's easier to get away, and you'll be in the habit of moving with quick agility. And yet, the biggest terrorist attack that targeted children — that I can think of — took place in an outdoor setting — on a 26-acre, forested island.
The American journalist Richard Louv, who coined the term “nature-deficit disorder” in his 2005 book, “Last Child in the Woods,” is cited often by Robin Hood staff, as is “Coyote’s Guide to Connecting With Nature,” by Jon Young, Ellen Haas and Evan McGown. (“Savage Park,” by Amy Fusselman, is another book that chronicles uninhibited play and was inspired by a visit to an adventure playground in Tokyo.) The pedagogical philosophy of waldkitas, which privileges outdoor play and hands-on environmental learning, comes originally from Scandinavia, but, as one teacher put it to me, “they don’t make a big fuss about it like they do here.” The trend’s non-Teutonic origins are somewhat surprising: There might be nothing “more German” than a state-funded preschool based primarily in a forest....
May 23, 2017
Waldkita — forest kindergarten — in Germany.
There are 1,500 of them in Germany.
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Yes, and the Katyn Massacre took place in a forest. Evil will be evil.
Lots of mass graves in those forests.
If you hear gunfire then, yes, you need to run and hide. A bomb is different. Bombers seldom put two bombs in the same venue. You need to see whether you can render first aid to the injured. Do they teach first aid in Girl Scouts? As an eleven year old Boy Scout I knew to apply pressure to stop bleeding and how to splint a broken bone or to apply a tourniquet for spurting blood, but that was nearly sixty years ago. Sad that we'd need to teach kids that, sadder still that many fewer know it these days.
Killing children is a big win for taking over the news cycle.
Not seeing this catching on in the US. It gets really hot and really cold in many places.
ISIS has taken credit for Manchester.
I spent many kid vacations in the woods. Mostly woods spoil the view. They're like mountains.
I remember being free to choose the 20 mile hike for the hiking merit badge and picked a highway walk to the nearest town and back, just to get away from the damn trees.
The concept is fine. But I always go back to, why? Why did someone think this needed to be done? I always come to the same conclusion. This is parenting stuff, not education stuff. We the people decided we wanted people trained in areas that most parents are not, hired for our benefit to educated our children. The Three R's. But, once we started handing over tax $'s, what we the people created, became our masters, and not our employees. Parents have willingly abdicated parenting to the govt. Drivers ED, Sex ED, PE, etc. The govt is incapable of parenting at any level. Until we admit that, we are destined to the low end of mediocrity.
The ultimate payoff for the terrorists is the wall-to-wall media coverage. But really, how much do we need to know? A bomb, a concert, the location, the body-count. Maybe two minutes, three at most. Then back to regular programming.
So, I changed the channel, but things didn't get much better. A program about a tiny 4-month old boy with a heart ailment. Such fear and apprehension in his big brown eyes as he laid still on the gurney. Looking up at the doctors, then at his mother, then at the doctors, so little comfort.
And finally, the age-old question: What in the world does God have against the children. To give them heart ailments, and blow them up with nail-bombs.
As a lad, I roamed the prairie and forest packing a hatchet and a pocket knife. My friends were similarly equipped. I suppose to contemporary sensibilities it would look like a scene from "Lord of the Flies", to see a pack of 7-year-olds roaming about in such style, whittling and chopping and building stuff. It was a great way to grow up.
"Anders Behring Breivik arrived alone on Utøya dressed as a police officer and told those on the island that he was there for security reasons following the explosions in Oslo which took place a few hours before. He then began shooting at individuals, continuing until the police arrived one hour after the first alarm call. The suspect immediately surrendered. Combined, the attacks in Oslo and Utøya left 77 dead, with 69 killed on the island, 33 of whom were under the age of 18.[7][8][9]
The massacre at Utøya remains the deadliest shooting worldwide committed by a single gunman."
Not a gun owner myself. But...
What would have been the result had the facility been supplied with defensive weapons and trained personnel?
I strongly believe attackers like Breivik (think: school/theater/shopping mall attackers seek soft targets and avoid potential resistance.
One particularly squirmy boy was gently instructed to “please sit properly” five times.
That there's the problem. Squirmy in a forest is irrelevant if not beneficial.
Send your kiddies into the forest when they turn five and don't let them come home till they're six. They'll develop self reliance and an enduring appreciation for nature. If they're lucky, they'll be rased by wolves, which are a lot like dogs when you think about it. When the kids reach puberty, it's time for the forest again--this time until they're eighteen.
The title and beginning of post made me smile because I suddenly remembered being 5 years old, learning that I'd be going to a kindergarten in the fall and thinking that it would be a bunch of kids playing in a flower garden.
"So I said, "Well, if you could give me forty Jewish women who speak neither English nor French, either women who've been in the theater for a long time and want to leave it but don't know why, or young women who love the theater, but have never seen a theater they could love, and if these women could play the trumpet or the harp, and if I could work in a forest, I'd come." A week later, or two weeks later, he called me from Poland and he said, "Well, forty Jewish women, that's a little hard to find." But he said, "I do have forty women. They all pretty much fit the definition." And he said, "I also have some very interesting men but you don't have to work with them. These are all people who have in common the fact that they're questioning the theater. They don't all play the trumpet or the harp, but they all play a musical instrument, and none of them speak English." And he'd found me a forest, Wally, and the only inhabitants of this forest were some wild boar and a hermit. So that was an offer I couldn't refuse. I had to go. So, I went to Poland and this wonderful group of young men and women. And the forest he had found us was absolutely magic but, you know, it was a huge forest, I mean, the trees were so large that four or five people linking their arms couldn't get their arms around the trees. So we were camped out beside the ruins of this tiny little castle and we would eat around this great stone slab that served as a sort of a table. And our schedule was that usually we'd start work around sunset and then generally we'd work until about 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, and then, because the Poles love to sing and dance, we'd sing and dance until about 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning, and then we'd have our food, which was generally bread, jam, cheese, and tea, and then we'd sleep from around noon to sunset. Now, technically, of course...technically, the situation is a very interesting one because, if you find yourself in a forest with a group of 40 people who don't speak your language, then all your moorings are gone...."
I remember whittling sharp points on sticks. You run out of things to do.
The massacre was successful because it was an island.
If I recall, the kids were teenagers, not kindergarten age.
I grew up in the forest. There was a huge forest behind our neighborhood, and all the kids played in the forest.
None of us amounted to much in life. We didn't get higher scores on anything. I still have no desire to operate any equation with an integral sign.
Mostly we got broken arms, grievous cuts, and stab wounds. probably worst of all, hornet stings and poison ivy.
I remember my sister projectile vomiting after eating some tasty red berries. We double dared her to eat them.
a 26-acre, forested island - a gated community.
"probably worst of all, hornet stings and poison ivy."
You don't have to be in the forest for that. I was at a beach in Michigan and was out hiking at age 10. I stepped on a yellowjacket nest on the ground and they followed me all the way back to the cottage. I probably had 30 stings.
They followed me all the way back to the cottage. I probably had 30 stings.
There was a small kid named Tony, who couldn't run very fast. The hornets got him good. His mother turned on the hose, and took his clothes off. We watched as he hopped around naked, and his mother hosing him down.
Being kids we thought it was funny. We told his mom to kiss his pee-pee to make it feel better. Kids are cruel that way. As long as it isn't you...
But we all brought him cake and Kool-Aide the next day, as his mom kept him home from school to recover.
All was forgiven.
He's a dentist today. Probably doesn't like hornets still...
I grew up in the forest. There was a huge forest behind our neighborhood, and all the kids played in the forest.
So did I, Etienne. My brother and I did non-technical rock climbing [unknown to our unsuspecting parents] where we might have fallen and broken our necks but the views were fantastic. The woods gave us a stage for all kinds of imaginative games and adventures. We enjoyed a great childhood unhindered by electronic devices.
Grew up on the outskirts of Williamstown, MA in the Berkshires. Nothing but hills and forests behind us. Pond we ice skated on in winter and collected in summer is now on the grounds of the Clark Art Institute.
Good times.
We had a pet cemetery in the woods. 20 years of dogs and cats. When they built some new homes, the developer just plowed on in to it to level the ground.
I was sort of hoping for a poltergeist scene, where the family of the new home is pulled into the mud, and taken to an inch of their lives by the animal spirits.
My dad was the neighborhood vet. We called him that, but his only skill was with a 22 pistol and a cleaver. Usually the animal just had to be put out of misery, and he was born on a farm, so knew what needed to be done.
"My brother and I did non-technical rock climbing"
When I visited some cousins in Washington state once, they took us to a rocky cliff, that had gravel going down.
So like snow, we made a toboggan, and slid down the gravel. It was fast, and you spilled out at the end.
Since we had to take a bath and wear a nice shirt to go visit, my parents were shocked to see us all come in filthy dirty. They made us eat in the backyard on the picnic bench, which was fine for us, but was supposed to be punishment.
You forgot Beslan, 2004.
We used to call that day camp. As opposed to summer camp, in which you lived away from home.
I'm with Michael K., surprised and disappointed to see Althouse conflating offspring of the elite, in their late teens and being groomed for national leadership, with kindergarten students.
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