Northwood News ♦ October 2007

President’s Message

By Carole A. Barth

It’s hard to believe that Fall has rolled around again.  (Of course the 80 degree temperature as I write may have something to do with my disbelief.)  As a child, I always thought Fall was the best time to head outside for a good long ramble gathering flowers from the meadow and hickory nuts from the woods.  I worry that fewer and fewer of today’s children know this pleasure.  In fact, children today spend an average of six hours a day with the computer and TV but less than four minutes a day in outside unstructured play.

As we continue the fight for North Four Corners Park (see article), it boggles me that the park planners put almost no value on such unstructured play.  To them, a park is either devoted to organized sports (so-called “active recreation”) or it is not being adequately used.  They denigrate most nature-based pursuits as “passive recreation.”

Is it passive to play pirate ship on a big rock?  To catch and release fireflies, tadpoles, or crayfish?  To hunt for and eat persimmons that have been gentled by the frost?  To wish on a milkweed fairy?  How about flying kites and climbing trees?  Organized sports have a lot to offer, but my childhood would have been impoverished without these and a thousand more adventures.

But because they require no regulation equipment, organized leagues, or construction, these pastimes are somehow not deemed worth the price of the parkland.  To put it another way, is there a cost to our children losing what Rachel Carson called the “inborn sense of wonder”?

Richard Louv, in his book Last Child in the Woods:  Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, cites research showing that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development.  At the same time, he recounts how nature pursuits benefit kids with obesity, depression, and ADD.  Environmental education measurably improves student performance in science, reading, math, and social studies, as well as reducing discipline problems.

And what about our planet’s future?  How will tomorrow’s adults cope with serious environmental problems if they have no direct understanding or experience of the natural world?  Rep. John Sarbanes, sponsor of the No Child Left Inside Act, said, “Nothing is more important than giving every Maryland student the basic knowledge to understand these complicated problems and figure out how we should respond, both as a society and as individuals.”

Recently, I was explaining to a school principal how the dragonflies (or mosquito hawks) perch on tall flowers to watch for prey.  The principal told me that the kids (and the teachers!) are afraid of those big bugs.  I was stunned and saddened to think that these beautiful, elegant, and supremely useful insects have become so unknown as to be a source of fear.  I shouldn’t have been surprised, however.  One study found that kids could document 1,000 corporate logos but fewer than 10 plants or animals native to their backyards.

So do yourself and the kids in your life a favor, get outside this Fall.  In the words of Luther Standing Bear, “Man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard; [the Lakota] knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too.”   ■