LOVE LETTERS TO TANZANIA: What is nature’s role in good education?

According to technology savvy educators, electronic devices and coding skills should be emphasised to equip students for the careers of the future in our increasingly digital world. After all, we are living in the 21st century and youngsters’ skills need to match employers’ needs.

Curiously, current education literature is also calling for a type of learning which appears to be quite the opposite, suggesting that many children nowadays suffer from ailments caused by being deprived of outdoor experiences. Having lived and worked mainly in urban environments, I find this theory intriguing.

Journalist and recent visiting professor at South Carolina’s Clemson University, Richard Louv, is so passionate about the issue that he has written several books about the importance of play in natural settings. He uses the term “nature deficit disorder” to describe the effects of children’s deprivation of and alienation from nature. He is joined by an increasing number of psychologists who warn that insufficient time spent playing outdoors could lead to a range of problems from physical weakness to behaviour issues. Solid evidence links nature-based learning experiences to children’s healthy physical and emotional development.

It is only logical that especially parents in urban environments feel that children are safest when indoors and thus happily provide them with digital devices for entertainment or learning. While indoors, children are safe from traffic and other accidents, drug dealers or characters who may wish to harm them. However, current research makes parents in built-up areas wonder if their children are missing out on valuable, physical kinds of learning experiences if they have little opportunities to roam free.

Many of us were part of the “free range” generations and have fond memories of nature play between chores performed outdoors. We learnt how to climb a tree to obtain the sweetest fruit out of reach for the unfit. We built dams in the river and created make-shift houses of palm fronds, sticks or leaves. We thrived on the challenge to make the best out of the amazing playground which adults simply call “nature”.

Imagination and initiative were essential to creating our own adventures while exploring untamed parts of our local areas, ventures which made some of our fondest childhood memories. As we secretly pushed boundaries beyond our parents’ level of comfort, we felt free, our resilience grew and with it, a sense of responsibility through self-directed learning.

If we protect children by depriving them of learning only nature offers, they miss out on lessons in risk taking and real-life consequences of their decisions. Outdoor recreation involves authentic problem solving and interactive play during which social bonds are formed and tested, and conflict is resolved independently.

Can classrooms, digital learning and indoor activities with constant adult supervision replace those experiences? Can children develop resilience whilst locked up in clean, carefully controlled environments? Can nature’s lessons be mimicked by jumping castles and indoor play-centres?

As we farmed ants, caught rodents or planted small crops or trees, we also developed a deeper appreciation of our environment. Recognising nature as the provider of our food, water and oxygen illuminates our responsibility to protect the environment and is a compelling reason why parents and schools are keen to find ways to re-engage especially urban children with the natural world.

Primary schools are beginning to design programs which involve free play in nature and skills related to gardening and livestock farming, hoping to reverse children’s alienation from nature and find a balance between our indoor, virtual lives and our exposure to Mother Nature and her lessons.

Readers may be aware that Tanzania’s children have been ranked amongst the planet’s fittest. With increasing rates of urbanisation, this could easily change unless we protect and appreciate the world’s most valuable playground: nature, where children get their hands dirty and their souls refreshed.