I got all riled up the other day while reading a link from Peter Gray. His article took me right back to when I first started Outside School, as an afterschool program at local elementary schools.

As one example, hung upon the wall near the school’s entrance, art projects were displayed by the kindergarteners. They represented traffic lights, all the same project and completed in the same way. Soon afterward, my mother sent me back my childhood art. I completed this same project in the ‘70s, but as a first grader. This is nothing to say of how much work the teachers spent in cutting out the traffic light shapes for the kids to glue their three designated colored circles upon. Wouldn’t it be more exciting to actually go out to the street corner and examine the lights themselves and see how cars and pedestrians act around them? Practice traffic safety by using the lights themselves? Talk about the meanings of the red, yellow, and green lights and look for those same colors being used to convey similar messages elsewhere around the environment? We use those colors as flags in auto racing; what a cool environment to share these lessons!

I am remembering the grandmother who volunteered with me weekly when I was a preschool garden teacher. She was a retired elementary math teacher who had been recruited by the federal government because they recognized that children were being taught math by women who hated math. They knew that to teach children math, they’d need to be taught by those who understood and loved the subject. They knew it needed to be women, because women were setting examples to girls who would also grow up to either love or hate math based on their role models. More recently I’ve seen this with students in the hybrid model, where they were in their public classrooms when they were not with me at Outside School. These children’s anxiety about completing assignments and doing well was through the roof. They were unwell emotionally, and their teachers were driving their students to perform at levels they were not prepared for. I’m sickened to know that these anxious, stressed teachers are passing those feelings off onto their students. These “model students” are at risk for being those teen suicides we read about, “I don’t know what happened. She seemed fine. She was a ‘model student.’”

I created Outside School as a three-day per week program as the antithesis to the public and typical private school model, while allowing time for typical language and math lessons, as desired. A couple weekends ago I was asked, “What do you teach?” My unusual answer prompted surprise, “I don’t know!” And then I laughed and gave some examples of why that is.

Last week, we went on a walk through the park to view some ruins. That was plenty of exercise after an already physically active week that saw the kids climbing on rocks through the creek and basking in the sunshine. We viewed reflections in rain puddles, saw how mud swirled when the puddle is stepped in, and had reminders about asking for consent when one child purposefully splashed another who does not like being splashed. We walked up a steep hill and asked for breaks when we were tired. We saw how much the grass has grown since the first rain, noticing the hills are becoming green instead of golden. We heard frogs. We marveled at the beauty of the clouds. We looked at how high up we’d been on another walk, and saw that the cows weren’t where they were before. A child photographed the view, then requested I send the picture in my daily email so their parent could forward the email and they could use it as a background for a stop-motion animation they decided to create and send back to me. We climbed over logs that crossed the trail and either stepped in or avoided mud pits, depending on personal preference. We ate snack within an old foundation and wondered what had been there before. We found a fallen palm tree and noticed where we should stop climbing to avoid poison oak. We toured the area and decided to spend the rest of the day nestled within the overwhelmingly huge branches of a giant, ancient Live Oak. The children made a swing out of the rope I always carry. They decided together that in order to use the swing, one must have helped create it. A child who loves making friendship bracelets used their knot-tying skills. Sometimes they asked my advice and sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes I offered my advice and sometimes I didn’t. We looked at the watering trough and saw that there was only a bit of rainwater inside. I showed the children how to know whether a water pipe is turned on or off. I showed them the float, protected by a screen, and directed them to look for the high and low drains. A hat-throwing game ensued, and children practiced their social skills with it as everyone giggled but reminders of consent came up, “No means no.” I met an artist who had been painting the landscape, preparing for a show in January. A child came to me to complain about an interaction with another, but didn’t need me to do anything further than listen to the complaint. We ate food and drank water, and laughed when our lunch items rolled down the little hill on the slippery oak leaves. We heard an owl. I was asked to explain the similarities and differences between “instinct” and “reflex,” thereby settling an argument and pleasing the winner, who stated they normally can’t win an argument with their sibling. We collectively cleaned the hands of a child who slipped and landed in rain-reconstituted cow manure. At afternoon break time I didn’t have time to read a chapter from the book we’re reading, so substituted with a quick lesson in the two major divisions of flowering plants, monocots and dicots, of which I had picked examples from the many sprouts surrounding us. We timed our walk back to the parking lot: 24 minutes at a pretty fast clip, including a race back down the steep hill. I emailed the families photos and stories of the day, and considered posting some of it in my blog and social media.

Playing amidst the giant branches of an ancient coast live oak.

So, what do I teach? I don’t know. The children and I get to experience it all together. I could not have planned the curriculum of life exhibited above, but I do have the lifetime of skill and knowledge behind me to structure and support it. This is what I do, an antithesis to what happens in classrooms everywhere.

I'm so happy to have broken free and have my own school now!

The article:
“Kindergarten Teachers Are Quitting, and Here Is Why: Comments From Exasperated Kindergarten Teachers Throughout the Country”
By Peter Gray, PhD
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201912/kindergarten-teachers-are-quitting-and-here-is-why?fbclid=IwAR0HR6LsN_vGNNqIRyXbZNGYwY1v9t4nf9sGew4ka9Wsy6YAYy_Wrr4Rf_c

Enrollment

As always, there's more information, schedules, and application forms available on the site, www.outside.school.

School

-Outside School has space for the remainder of the school year, and tuition is prorated based on when you start. Enrollment is available for next school year as well!

Camp

-Enrollment is open through 11/30 for families on my mailing list signing up for three or four weeks (families who have taken part in my programs before) or four weeks (new families).

-December 1 and after: anyone else signing up for four weeks.

Community and Resources

SOS:Please help Safe Organized Spaces Richmond if you can. Their facebook link includes a list of items to donate with a phone number to call for organizing that, and SOS_Richmond for Venmo. SOS Richmond is working hard with our local unhoused community to make their areas cleaner and safer, attempting to prevent their constant upheaval by agencies on public lands, providing clothing, shelters, and shower services, locating parking lots for parking RVs for security for both the unhoused and the land’s tenants, and upgrading people’s situations as best they can.

SOS Richmond helps people in need. — *Photo by SOS Richmond*

Article

Here's a great article with poignant questions, “Risky Play: As Safe as Possible or as Safe as Necessary?”

by Gemma Goldenberg, Early Years Educator (https://www.earlyyearseducator.co.uk/features/article/risky-play-as-safe-as-possible-or-as-safe-as-necessary?fbclid=IwAR1nQf30XiwOL8QK8C8SMlk5Ox-TkTQj_5vCdL2SUNlctHFTZ_e5AqIiA0I)

Fun, Beauty, and Science

Have you checked out @berkeleywali on instagram? She's so creative and is inspirational as a natural historian. Now has her art available on posters and 2022 calendars and proceeds go to good causes: https://www.barnalighosh.art/products

I hope you are (and stay) well!

Take care,

Heather

* Feel free to forward to anyone you like!

Heather Taylor, EMT

Founder/Director/Teacher, Outside School (www.outside.school)
Founder, Teach Outside (www.teachoutside.org)California Master Teacher

Connect
Facebook (@outsideschool1)

instagram (@outside_school)

YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDHGkinQRTgRWM9ZUB_0xOw)

iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/people/teachoutside)