Forest kindergarten • Hacker News Board

Re: Forest kindergarten

#41

Post by foxyv » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #8

There's one near where I used to live in Chicago. They use a local Forest preserve. Strangely there is a contigent of neighbors who continually try to get the whole thing shutdown because they don't think young kids should be outside like that all the time. They try to complain and say they leave garbage or are noisy or other invented complaints. From what I understand, what they're really upset about is that they ca…

A lot of these NIMBY campaigns are a veneer for plain old corruption. Don't want your competition getting into your territory? Use a home owner association or a city council seat that you or a friend are a part of to obstruct them. That small business is owned by someone outside your church? Well they aren't getting a liquor license for their convenience store.

Often there is some underlying motive coming from bigotry or greed. However there is always the person with too much time on their hands who gets a kick out of having power over others.

Re: Forest kindergarten

#42

Post by em-bee » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 2:40 AM UTC

rubidium wrote: post #39

Doxin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what about fights with sticks? As an anecdote, I went to a school with a decided lack of sticks. Fights were had by throwing building blocks instead. Kids will do stupid things, and sticks aren't inherently more dangerous than building blocks.

Right but in a classroom the teacher intervenes. In a “free play” outdoors how are the rules defined and enforced?

outdoors the kids are still supervised and the teachers can intervene if necessary

Re: Forest kindergarten

#43

Post by checkyoursudo » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 1:45 PM UTC

rubidium wrote: post #37

checkyoursudo wrote: post #34

Waldkindergarten was great for my boy. My younger girl isn't quite old enough for it yet where we live, but I am sure it will be good for her as well. My boy was outside, no matter the weather, every school day for about 3 hours, and then inside for about 45 minutes. Large motor skill and plenty of loose- or un-structured play with many other kids seems to be a really great way for young humans to develop. They went…

As a parent of three 3 and under, and interested in this, can you share some of the practicals? -what if it’s cold (40f) and rainy? Do they still go out? What do you dress your kid in? -what about fights with sticks? -what about all the stuff in the woods that may or may not be edible (eg mushrooms)? Just interested as these are some of the “how would that part work?” That come to mind for me.

The kids go out even when it's 0°F and snowy. There were a couple of days at below -10°F when they did not go out, and a few days when they only stayed out for maybe an hour instead of 3.5 hr. In the winter, they wear snow pants, heavy jackets, gloves, hats, face mask/scarf. In the rain they wear rain jackets, rain pants, and rain boots. They do just fine. The teacher for my kid's class warns ahead of time if they expect different gear to be needed than normal for the season.

My son's class of 14 this past year had a teacher, a naturalist, and two aides. This is a public school system. I do not know if private classes would have more or fewer adults.

So, fights with sticks could happen, but they don't seem to any more than any kind of fight in an ordinary classroom might, and the teacher/aids deal with them the same way they would with classroom fights.

When the kids are out in the woods and not in the outdoor play areas, they are more closely supervised. They don't have free roam of the entire forest. Hiking and adventuring is led by the naturalist and assisted by the teacher and aides. They are taught about things like "don't eat the mushrooms" and such. Still, things happen. My kid loved to jump into water, and he always got his shoes/boots/etc wet, even when it was cold. One time he broke through the ice at the very edge of the lake (deep enough to get into his boot). The adults and kids deal with it, just like we had to in scouting when I was a kid. The main difference is that when I was a kid, I only got to do it about once per month on a weekend, whereas my kid could do it all day every (school) day. How awesome is that?

When I was 14 or 15, I slept in a tent in the deep woods in -20°F overnight. It was really no big deal. My kid at 5 is already at least as good of a naturalist as I was at that age. :)

Re: Forest kindergarten

#44

Post by checkyoursudo » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 1:47 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #42

rubidium wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but in a classroom the teacher intervenes. In a “free play” outdoors how are the rules defined and enforced?

outdoors the kids are still supervised and the teachers can intervene if necessary

Yes, exactly. My son's outdoor classroom (as the free play area is called) still has a boundary and adult supervision. Sometimes the teacher or naturalist is leading some activity, and sometime they give the kids something new to investigate and then get out of the way. But they can always intervene, if needed. It's really not often needed.

Re: Forest kindergarten

#45

Post by nimnio » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #19

dfee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved the idea of Montessori, and it’s an issue I raised in open discussion at one of the school’s group chats. Basically, in principle it’s great. Children drive themselves and follow what they’re passionate about (with a teacher’s encouragement). If they’ve got a tendency for math, for example, the teacher helps them develop their own intuitions and keeps those pathways open for them. In practice, my son believed…

> I believe that it was a better program than a median program, but I’m not sure if it’s because his peers came from families who could afford to spend time with their children, or if the program itself was better than median. Doesn’t matter which is true. Early educational interventions fade out universally and we have nothing that effects adult intelligence or conscientiousness which explain pretty much all variati…

The paper you're citing investigates the idea that "early childhood investments have significantly higher benefit cost ratios than those targeted at older age group", and it concludes that "there may in fact be no relationship between program cost effectiveness and the age of the recipient."

From this you seem to have drawn the surprising conclusion that there is no benefit to greater in investment in early childhood education, a conclusion which the paper you're citing specifically warns against:

> This finding does not imply that there should be less investment in early childhood programs. There are many early interventions that have large positive rates of return, and there are powerful equity reasons for investment in children.

> The data shows that prevention can be cost effective, but in addition, later treatment and amelioration using evidenced based programs can also succeed.