Five Lessons Learned from Teaching Outdoors Five Days a Week

There is such a thing as bad weather.

I believed there was no such thing as bad weather and there is a broad truth to the saying. For I can teach in winter’s cold and summer’s heat; I can teach in rain or snow; but I cannot teach well in wind.

Wind – at high speeds or in blustery gusts – creates potentially dangerous challenges. Under these conditions, the children cannot hear my voice creating a disconnect between myself and the students. As high winds whip past the class, my attention gets pulled away from the supervision of children and toward the trees overhead; my ears turn away from their words and toward the sounds of the trees creaking and groaning. This makes it a challenge to give instruction, guide curious explorations, and keep everyone safe.

I can teach more on a 30-minute nature walk than I can for days inside a classroom.

I believed in the power of learning outside but came from a traditional background where classrooms were for teaching and outside was for play. Teaching outside has turned that pedagogy upside down.

Outside is for play and During nature walks, my class is full of explorers, not students. As explorers, they encounter and come to understand a variety of lessons across all learning domains – problem solving; physical, experiential learning; and emotional, interpersonal growth – organically.

It would take me days to intentionally teach the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) concepts experienced on a single hike or the language and literacy from one session of wondering about the birds in the meadow. They practice social emotional skills while waiting for peers and being respectful to the animals and plants that surround them. Time inside the classroom is now used for transitional play time most days.

Small details are big.

I consider myself to be a rather curious adult, one who was still mesmerized by the subtle changes of seasons and observing animals, despite my age. I was still thinking too big. I was seeing the forest not the trees.

My students taught me that the water droplets on a leaf hold a world within them. They have shown me the wonder of following an ant trail. They have shown me all the many colors held within a spring bud. They have had me trying to count the rings on an earthworm. These are the big things for my students, and I would have completely missed them as an adult looking at an adult-sized world.

I am brave (and can overcome lifelong fears).

Much of Pennsylvania’s natural ecosystem – its plants, animals, and climate – have never given me much pause, but before joining the Berks Nature Preschool faculty, I had a lifelong fear of snakes. I never wished them harm but there was something about them that left me startled and very uncomfortable. To effectively teach my class to respect the natural world while also keeping themselves safe (and to avoid projecting my own apprehension onto them) I had to face my fears: I became a protector of snakes.

I have quietly ushered children to a far creekbank to let a water snake swim on by. I sat atop a pile of rocks to be sure the snake hiding within did not get grabbed and poked by enthusiastic and curious hands. I calmly shooed a snake sunning across a paved trail to the side so children could safely pass through. None of those things I would have done five years ago. I would have turned around, or gotten out of that creek, or stayed far away from that rock pile.

Sometimes, the teacher is really the student.

I have always loved being outside, but experienced nature at full speed with a thirst for adrenaline, experience, and purpose. My students have slowed me down. Now, I seek the natural world as a place of settling and comfort.

My students’ curiosity has expanded my own interactions with nature. I search the understory for the forest’s first small bursts of spring ephemeral wildflowers and I long to know their names. I see the joy in a rainstorm, the way they make puddles perfect for splashing and flush the plants in an even more stunning shade of green.

I no longer hide from the winter cold and long for the warmth of spring and summer. Their curiosity has expanded my joy for the outdoors.