Reading #4 - Incorperating Nature into Children's Lives.

I felt that the article written by Richard Louv was extremely informative, as well as very interesting. I also began to realize, towards the end of the article, how his article tied in with the documentaries and the work done by John Dewey.

In Louv’s article on Nature-Deficit Disorder and the Restorative Environment, mentioned something that really stuck out to me; the amount (and type) of PE classes that are being held in schools across the country. As Louv mentioned, the amount of students who attended PE class dropped from 42% to 28%, in only a matter of a little over ten years. As an elementary education major, I would hope for my students to get a little time each week (preferably each day) to just unwind and take their minds off of school, and get out of the classroom. This ties in with the information Louv brings up later in his article, about ADHD in students.

Louv claimed to have read studies about the environment and how it may help calm students with ADHD. Some students calm down pharmaceutically, but some can also benefit from the “green” perspective; just going outside and playing, relaxing, golfing, etc.

Both Dewey and Louv brought up the fact that our human brains are set up for an agrarian, nature oriented existence that came into play thousands of years ago.  If this is so, I don’t see why many parents are turning to pharmaceutical fixes for their children’s’ ADHD, rather than taking them outside. As Louv mentioned, taking nature and natural play away from students (such as cutting recess or PE out of their day), may be tantamount with withholding oxygen from them.

Another question that came into my head while reading the article by Louv had to do with the agrarian, nature oriented existence that both Dewey and Louv talked about. If the environment and being exposed to the Earth’s natural beings helps children with ADHD calm down, and become more focused, why is it  that children aren’t being brought outside prior to even developing ADHD? Why can’t we as a society try and lower the pharmaceutical fixes that are being handed to children, by “forcing” children into the environment and surroundings around them?

I felt that both the article by Richard Louv and the documentaries based on the works of John Dewey were very informative and interesting. With this information, I might try and do a bit more of my homework and spend some of my down time outside, experiencing the natural environment around me. As I further into my career of becoming a 2^nd grade teacher, I would also like to expose my future students to the environment, and hopefully keeping them nice and calm in my classroom.