...In her book, The Sense of Wonder, Rachel Carson describes waking her twenty-month-old nephew in the night and carrying him out to experience the majesty of a raging thunderstorm. When was the last time you took your family walking in the rain, wading in the stream-like gutters? When wind whips through the night or when fog lies so thick and low that streetlights become pale glowing orbs, do you venture out, all of you holding hands, without a flashlight? Have you simply slept under the stars in your own backyard?
Think of the attitudes parents convey to children in such experiences, not necessarily attitudes about thunderstorms or snakes, but about life and the joy of living! ... “Well, then,” the parent asks, “how do I teach my children about nature?” I’m an interpretive naturalist; “teaching” is my job. So I speak from experience when I say, “You can’t, yet. Not until you know that nature really can’t be taught; it can only be discovered. And we adults cannot share in discovery until we reawaken our own ability to see the world through childlike eyes.”
“Discovering nature” makes the common uncommon.
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3 comments:
I guess that's a little bit of the reason why I'm planning on camping (again) with my family this weekend. All the girls in my youth group at church know I DON'T camp. But, my kids...well, they like it. Last time we went we used our new "luggable loo". They were so excited about using it (after bedtime) that we forbade them!--The other thing on that trip was a beautiful full moon. We woke up early because of it...it wasn't until the sun came up that we experienced the wonderful difference that comes with warm sunlight vs. cool moonlight. So, here's to experiencing nature! ;)
-j
We have some cool pictures of our kids playing in mud puddles in the driveway during the rain. Those are fun times. Warm rain is nice.
It's fun, even if being outside is in many ways more challenging than being inside. I'm learning to love it. Of course, it's still early summer; the bees are hardly out yet, which is a wonderful thing in my book! But even the bees are a necessary thing.
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