April 29, 2024

Why do we tell our children to finish their homework before they play outside? Why, for that matter, do we so rigidly distinguish between work and play, inside and outside, an academic curriculum and time spent in nature? Why can’t learning involve a science lab and a walk in the woods?

If we need researched reasons to break down the false dichotomy we’ve developed between free play and cognitive development, we need look no further than Jonathan Haidt’s justly popular new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Haidt argues that a phone-based childhood has replaced a play-based childhood to the detriment of children’s well being. He sees outdoor activities like recess as an important way to foster resilience and independence in kids. Not only does playing outside promote kids’ physical health, but it also promotes their social skills and academic achievement. 

I’ll fully discuss Haidt’s terrific book — which more generally and masterfully takes down our phone-driven culture and what it’s doing to our kids — in my next column. But with the onset of spring and warmer weather, I’d like to focus now on the benefits of getting children outside. 

Haidt’s argument that kids not only need more time outside, but also need much of that time to be unstructured and unsupervised, called to mind an educator’s trip that I took to Finland. Parents and teachers don’t need to reinvent the wheel to put Haidt’s advice into practice. They can simply replicate the Finnish way. The Finns have long known the benefits of free play and outdoor education. The Finns also have one of the best educational systems in the world. Might there be a connection? 

I traveled with a group of teachers and administrators to attend an institute for educators at the University of Helsinki. Our goal: Learn why Finland is a renowned global leader in education, with some of the world’s highest test scores and lowest achievement gaps. In essence, we hoped our investigation would lead us to discover Finland’s “secret sauce,” bottle it, and bring it home.

The central ingredient that I want to share involves Finland’s belief in the value of outdoor education. Through formal and informal activities in nature, Finnish teachers develop children’s cognitive skills, promote prosocial skills (often called soft skills), and foster wellbeing. Finland hasn’t just preserved its trees — forests cover 75% of the nation — but it also has ensured kids spend time playing in them, as an integral component of their schooling.

In the United States, we tend to believe that playing and learning are diametrically opposed. Parents and teachers tell children to finish their work so that they can go out and play. But as we spent our days in Finland accompanying children into the forest, the more we came to see that learning and outdoor exploration are inextricably linked. A few examples: 

Cognitive Skills: The jury isn’t out: outdoor learning promotes academic achievement. Not only does studying botany, wildlife, and water in the forest lend an authenticity to learning, but it also improves cognition. Studies demonstrate that outdoor activities increase cognitive achievement, long-term memory, personal motivation, and environmental stewardship. As I learned from University of Helsinki lecturer Anttoni Kervinen, plant collection is a compulsory component of the Finnish national curriculum; students of all ages spend time identifying species of plants and creating digital portfolios of them or real collections of them for their classrooms. Bottom line: students learn by doing rather than being cloistered away. Imagine an internship, taking place in the forest.

Social Skills: Outdoor learning and play also promote positive social interactions among children and improve their social acumen. Many times, students work in groups when conducting small investigations in the forest, with their interactions going unobserved by teachers. They must learn by themselves how to collaborate and address any disputes that arise. Allowing students to work together without the constant supervision of a teacher gives them the autonomy they need to manage freedom responsibly and to develop a sense of independence. 

In fact, the social skills nurtured through play are particularly important. Another of our lecturers, Laura Salo, explained why Finnish teachers provide play opportunities for students. She presented research debunking the notion that play is simply free time that falls outside the structure of learning. Because play is unpredictable, spontaneous, and voluntary, it helps children become imaginative problem solvers. Allowing children to take risks in a self-directed manner builds their resilience and improves their self-regulation. 

In contrast to U.S. educators — pressured to develop children’s traditional academic skills at an ever-earlier age — the Finns believe that play is an essential step in the learning process. Through play, children learn to navigate rules and roles, apply knowledge, generate creative ideas, and self-advocate. In Finnish schools, we observed recess punctuate classes in a regular manner. Students in primary school might have 45 minutes of class followed by 15 minutes of recess, then 45 minutes of class followed by 15 minutes of recess, etc. These breaks support educational goals rather than detract from them. We saw children building play structures — including wooden climbing structures and straw huts — independent of adults. They play in all kinds of weather, including rain and snow. It’s a practice that may remind you of your own less sheltered, free-wheeling childhood. It’s a practice that builds the resilience and grit that form character and shape destiny. 

(at left:) Pre-primary children enrolled in a nature school play on structures made from forest materials.

Preparing Students for the Future: Helsinki-based inventor, composer, and entrepreneur Perttu Pölönen often speaks about the skills necessary for success in the economy of the future. (At age 15, he invented a music theory teaching tool that earned him a listing in MIT’s 35 Innovators Under 35 Europe, so he speaks on this topic with well-earned credibility!) Pölönen’s philosophy applies directly to the skills teachers develop in their students through outdoor experiences. Pölönen contends that “we should concentrate on the work skills that are longest lasting and will be useful through our whole lives . . . like problem solving, communication, and storytelling, which are becoming even more important because of technological disruption.” “Computers like well-defined things, numbers, and values,” Pölönen continues. “But a human is needed to interpret things that are not well-defined . . . The faster technology goes forward, the deeper we have to go inside what we really are as humans” through qualities like communication, improvisation, creativity and compassion. “These are things that make us different from computers — and they’re exactly the things that make us happy” (36), Pölönen insists. The Finns know what our own country’s first peoples have long known: such happiness requires a fuller and more sustained integration with the natural world in which we live and which makes our existence possible. 

(at right:) Children playing during one of their breaks in a primary school in Espoo. 

The Happiness Factor: Finnish schools earn high marks for promoting the wellbeing of their students. But as Haidt persuasively demonstrates in his new book, we’re living in an age when the constant exposure to technology and the pressure to get “likes” on social media are making students (and especially girls) more anxious. 

Finnish students are not immune from these pressures; one of the most recent topics added to Finland’s national curriculum involves how to cope with one’s everyday life. But Finnish educators are doing much more to address it than most of their American counterparts. As Finland recognizes, one vital way of coping is paying attention to our natural surroundings because doing so calms us down. We don’t just feel better because we are breathing fresh air; we actually experience physiological changes when in nature. 

In her classic study Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer cites research confirming that the smell of humus — the organic matter on the forest’s floor — has a physiological impact on humans. “Breathing in the scent of Mother Earth stimulates the release of the hormone oxytocin, the same chemical that promotes bonding between mother and child,” Kimmerer writes. By paying attention to nature in the way Kimmerer preaches and the Finns practice, students can, in her wonderful phrase, “unlearn hurrying.” 

Connecting more fully with nature also gives a better understanding of how we might learn to care for it in more intentional ways. Toward the end of Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer asks about the role of schooling in the broadest sense: “Isn’t this the purpose of education, to learn the nature of your own gifts, and how to use them for good in the world?” We saw evidence in Helsinki that students are gaining a better sense of themselves while becoming strong advocates for the environment due to their experiences in nature. 

What’s good for Finland could assist our own ongoing effort to remain at the cutting edge in what we offer children in the United States. In my middle school, we have a daily recess; an Outdoor Education course; a good number of lessons that involve interacting with various habitats on our campus; and outdoor retreats. We also have a no-phone policy; as I’ll make clearer next month in discussing Haidt’s book, there’s a connection between getting back to nature and getting free of the distracting devices that rob us of time for reflection and growth. 

We need to work harder and more purposefully to promote the expansion of such opportunities for “cultivating” student achievement, social skills, and wellbeing. Our collective job, as parents and educators, is to nurture the tender plants that will sustain us in the years to come; it would be helpful, in doing so, to know how actual plants work by walking among them. Learning from nature — and from countries like Finland that grasp its importance — can help us better care for our children and their environment, by giving them the tools they’ll need to make the most of themselves and our world.

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You may also be interested in reading more articles written by Elaine Griffin for Intrepid Ed News.