Stories in Leaves

Jack arranging natural materials

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get on the train in Middlebury, Vermont and get off at Penn Station and then head to see our son, Chris, our daughter-in-law, Lei, and two grandsons, Jack and Alden. 

I have written about Jack frequently here because I spent several full days a week with him during the pandemic when he was two years old and his family lived close by. We drew, walked in the woods, adventured, baked, worked with potters’ clay, and collected natural materials always.  

Now, Jack is almost 5 years old.  He still loves to play with art materials when we are together, and I can be counted on to have some with me in my bag to pull out and share.

A collection

This time, I wanted to make a collection of natural materials with Jack around his house and neighborhood.  In New Jersey, it was glorious fall a week or so before Halloween and there were so many leaves, twigs  berries, and seeds to choose from.

Then, I thought…let’s try to arrange some of these things, making patterns and arrangements that maybe the wind could have made. This way of working is inspired by what I observed and loved in Reggio Emilia, where I learned that natural materials are materials just like clay and paint and pens are materials. It is most recently inspired by Margot Guralnick who makes compositions with natural materials every day and posts them on Instagram. I wrote about Margot and my experiences with her and my granddaughter, Delilah, a few months ago.

Jack’s park

Jack liked seeing photographs of what Delilah and I had made a month before in Boston and he dove into the experience which happened on the front steps of his house. Only something was different… Jack started telling a story right away. He said he was making a park. And he told me about all the parts of the park that he was fashioning with the leaves, twigs, and berries that he placed carefully in his composition.

Jack: Isn’t this starting to look like something?

It’s not finished yet.

Actually, it’s a park. I have a very good memory of it. This is a canoe. Theses are the logs for my camp fire. (pointing to open seed pods.)

These are all meeting places. (pointing to areas around his leaf circle)

This can be a person having a meeting. (a twig)

Louise: Jack, Is this a model or map of a park?

Jack: No. It’s a real park because I’ve been there. 

These red berries are  bouncy balls for little children to play on.

These seed pods can be the things that have to fall down every morning.

I took Jack to school the next day and when I picked him up his teacher said that Jack wanted me to come to school and lead that same experience with his friends. So, lucky me, I did.

A Child’s Place is a school with an expansive back field and many more natural treasures to collect. Jack and three friends worked together collecting and then arranging as we had the day before.

At A Child’s Place, the West Yard

This is not hard to do. I hope it is something that the children at Jack’s school do on their own, all the time. If we observe young children out of doors, they frequently pick up stones and acorns and sticks and bring them home. They are collecting. They also arrange them and start to build with them, or make fairy houses with them, or forts with bigger sticks.

In Childhood and Nature: Design Principles for Educators, environmental educator and author, David Sobel lists seven principles that he has observed, and that research has shown children are naturally drawn to and act out, on their own. They are principles that we as adults and teachers can use to organize learning experiences that will naturally appeal to children and draw them in. 

Choosing materials at A Child’s Place

Principle 2: Fantasy and Imagination. Principle 7: Hunting and Gathering. Principle 6: Small Worlds.

About Small Worlds, David Sobel writes:

Children love to create miniature worlds that they can play inside of. Through creating miniature representations of ecosystems or neighborhoods, they can better grasp the big picture. Small worlds work wonders for children. The world is simplified and knowable.

My time with Jack and then with Jack and his classmates highlighted these three principles…hunting and gathering materials, creating small worlds, and using fantasy and imagination to create stories.

Try this. I have made natural compositions on my walks from time to time, and it gives me such pleasure. And now, Jack and Delilah and friends and family can play this same game. Hunting and gathering, making patterns, telling stories, leaving them for others to enjoy as they pass, and for the wind to blow around. This practice is like a conversation with the natural world through all seasons.

Try it!

Principia School’s Early Learning Center: A Retrospective

Preschool classroom, Principia Early Learning Center

At the end of the 2023 school year, we completed our longest working relationship with any school…Principia School in St. Louis, Missouri. We became close colleagues with the principal, Dorothy Halverson, the ateliierista, Louise Elmgren, and many of the teachers over the eight years that we worked alongside them to integrate Reggio-inspired practices into their way of being and learning in school with children. Last spring, Georgia Mae Harrison wrote an article for the fall 2023 issue of the Principia School alumni magazine, Purpose. What follows are excerpts and adaptations from that article. Reading it provides a lovely way to look back on our years of work with them and to be grateful again for their collaboration and their friendship.

An Enrollment Dilemma

In 2008, facing a struggling economy and low enrollment across all levels of the school, Early Childhood Principal, Dorothy Halverson was searching for ways to attract more families.

It turns out, the answer to that dilemma was the Reggio Emilia approach.

The Reggio approach is a child-centered and collaborative approach to early childhood education. Originating in Reggio Emilia, Italy, it emphasizes the child's innate potential and curiosity. The natural environment is seen as a "third teacher," designed to inspire exploration and creativity. Teachers act as co-learners, fostering critical thinking and problem-solving. The approach values diverse "languages" of expression, including art, music, and movement, to encourage communication and understanding.

Preschool classroom, Principia Early Learning Center

Collaboration among children, educators, parents, and the community is essential. The Reggio approach promotes a strong sense of community, self-expression, and a lifelong love for learning, nurturing children's social and emotional development through play and creativity.

Louise and Ashley Cadwell from Cadwell Collaborative (a pair of consultants specializing in the Reggio Emilia approach) worked with Principia for eight years, and noted what stands out about the faculty working in the program: “There are a number of schools that have beautiful woods and grounds that the children rarely visit. The teachers at Principia think nothing of putting on raincoats and boots with children and going for a walk in the woods.” Acorn teacher Heather Buchanan noted, “It isn’t just about playing outside. How do we extend the learning? We are a mediator in their learning. We are constantly prompting them to think deeper about what they are seeing, ‘What would happen if....?’ ‘Why do you think that is...?’”

“We can’t teach our kids to sustain and care about our earth if they don’t know about it,” remarks Halverson.

Nine years into its Reggio Emilia implementation, the early childhood classrooms and waitlists are full—a testament to the impact of the Reggio approach and Principia’s stellar staff. Prospective families are drawn to the nature-inspired learning, collaboration, and sense of community among students, educators, and parents. Kara Moe, a parent with two children attending the ELC, noted that she was drawn to Principia by the big open spaces and natural light pouring into the classrooms, “I think that was the biggest difference from the other preschools that we toured. The children’s work inspired by the natural world was hanging in the hallways. I just loved that.”

During Principia’s time working with Cadwell Collaborative, Louise and Ashley Cadwell worked in partnership with the teachers to strategically compose their classrooms to ignite students' curiosity and enthusiasm for learning. The transition involved a deliberate shift away from plastic toys and bins, favoring the use of natural materials to foster open-ended exploration.

In Patti Matthys-Pearce’s classroom, where she engages with infants and toddlers, the principles of the Reggio approach are enthusiastically embraced. Matthys-Pearce watches as 12–24 month-olds take initiative in their learning, for example, working with potters clay for 40 minutes at a time, totally enveloped in the play—a testament to the profound impact of these Reggio-inspired changes.

There is a remarkable connection of shared values between Mary Kimball Morgan, Mary Baker Eddy, and the founders of the Reggio Emilia approach. Each recognized the inherent potential and capabilities of children, embracing the conviction that they are capable learners from the very beginning—vessels already full and complete.

Having garnered a reputation as an exceptional Reggio Emilia-inspired school, Principia is inspiring other schools around the world. When Cadwell Collaborative featured Principia in their blog, it caught the attention of an esteemed school in Brazil. Upon seeing the captivating photos and insights shared about Principia's practices, they showcased them in their own outreach efforts.

Conversations with teachers at Principia Early Learning Center

Principia's program has also made waves locally. The School's innovative approach has piqued the interest of nearby universities and schools, prompting them to request tours and classroom observations. This resonance within the educational community stands as a testament to Principia's remarkable impact and its role as a source of inspiration for educators worldwide.

Last spring, The Early Learning Center and Preschool Principal, Dorothy Halverson, and Preschool/Lower School Art teacher/Atelierista, Louise Elmgren, participated in "The Reggio Emilia Approach to Education" conference in Italy in April 2023. Over 400 educators from 27 different countries joined the 50-hour International Study Group—a deeper investigation of the concepts, values, and content learning of the Reggio Emilia Approach.

"We had the opportunity to connect with pedagogisti, atelieristi, administrators, and teachers who work in Reggio Emilia’s infant—toddler centers and preschools," Dorothy remarked. What an extraordinary opportunity for Principia teachers and administrators to deepen their understanding and practice of the Reggio approach.

At the core of Principia’s program is a deep sense of respect and love for each child. Halverson states that their mission is for every student to leave feeling loved. Kate Booher, an ELC parent, can attest to this. Booher herself is an educator and teaches in another local Reggio Emilia-inspired school in St. Louis. At Principia, she says, “The way they talk about my child, even on a hard day for him—they describe his interactions with so much love and empathy, and reassure me that whatever he is experiencing is a beautiful part of life. They really focus on his wonder and awe in nature. It is so evident in the videos and photos we see of him at school and the way he is exploring at home.”

Louise Cadwell's profound words from her book, Bringing Reggio Emilia Home: An Innovative Approach to Early Childhood Education, strike a chord with the core philosophy at Principia’s Early Learning program and Preschool. “Education begins the moment we see children as innately wise and capable beings. Only then can we play along in their world.” The educators at Principia have wholeheartedly translated this principle into practice. Their mastery in creating an environment that recognizes and nurtures children's potential is evident in every aspect of the school. By engaging in the children's world, they have crafted a transformative learning experience that leads young learners to thrive—and, above all, to feel deeply loved and valued. What more can you ask for these future leaders of our world?

Stories written and illustrated by students, Principia Early Learning Center

Forest Bathing

I first heard about Forest Bathing several years ago when I visited the Minneapolis Landscape Arboretum with my sister, Sally. The Arboretum introduced the concept and practice of Forest Bathing to the twin cities.  Since then, classes and experiences are offered regularly at the Minneapolis Arboretum led by David Motzenbecker, a landscape architect and certified Shinrin-yoku guide.  I have wanted to experience it first-hand ever since.

Over the weekend I attended a Forest Bathing walk at Shelburne Farms in Shelburne, Vermont, led by Duncan Murdoch, a nature connection guide. The concept of Forest Bathing or shinrin-yoku originated in Japan in the 1980s and has spread all around the world.  The purpose is both physiological and psychological and is a form of “ecotherapy,” designed to align us with natural rhythms, quiet our pre-occupied minds, bring us healing energy and into a flow state of mind.  While Japan is credited with the term, the concept at the heart of the practice is not new.  Many cultures and spiritual practices have long recognized the importance of the natural world to human health.  Forest Bathing is not only a mindful walk in the woods, which it certainly is.  It is a guided, reflective, focused time to connect to the natural world with all our senses and to share what we notice with others.

I arrived at the Farm Barn at Shelburne Farms where we were to meet our group at 9:00 a.m. for a three-hour guided Forest Bathing walk.  I found around ten people gathered, locals from the Burlington area, a visiting Canadian couple, and four graduate school music students from New Hampshire.  Duncan led us in a circle of gratitude to all the elements and creatures of this place and in introductions to each other.  He explained that he would be offering invitations to us…followed by a period of silent exploration by each of us.  At the end of the period, he would play his flute and whistle to signal us to gather, in a new location each time, to share our experiences if we chose to.  The first invitation was to notice, “What is moving?”…as we walked wherever we wanted to go…into the woods, around the gardens, overlooking the farm.  The second invitation was focused on sound… what did we hear? How did the sounds make a symphony around us? The third invitation was about touch.  What happened if we allowed ourselves to walk barefoot? Or to touch the forest, garden, and meadow world with our hands? The last invitation was called, Sit Spot. We each sat in one place for an extended period to see what might happen around us or come to us.

We concluded our time together around a fire circle close to the edge of the forest.  Duncan had brewed tea made of golden rod, stinging nettles, and red clover in a small metal Japanese tea pot. He wanted us to taste the landscape out of small ceramic cups as we shared our final thoughts.  I have participated in many walking meditations. The focus is on breath and our steps and our feet and legs as we move slowly and appreciate movement and breath and our bodies moving through space.  Forest Bathing shifts the focus to the senses. It is slow and quiet because to put your focus on one sense at a time requires this kind of attention.  I was captivated by how enjoyable and timeless the morning became.  I was mesmerized watching bees in the sunflower blossoms, listening to the corn stalks rustle in the breeze, stroking sugar maple leaves and Queen Anne’s lace, so soft like velvet, and watching the clouds slowly change form. 

There were some tears at our closing circle.  And gratitude and calm from all of us, all different ages and nationalities, having experienced the great woods and land of Shelburne Farms with so much attention.  

Years ago, when I was a new teacher, I attended a weeklong workshop at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science and was taught how to Seton Watch… inspired by the practice of naturalist, Ernest Thompson Seton, we sat in one spot where we would not see anyone else, and quietly observed the world around us for about 20 minutes.  I brought this practice back to the school where I was teaching and have remembered and practiced some form of it ever since.  Forest Bathing is a more extended practice that is also fun and beneficial to bring to children and families.

During the morning when we were asked to focus on touch, Duncan invited us to bring back an object if we wanted to.  I picked up the first red leaves I saw on the ground, a sugar maple and a red maple.  I also picked up a fat, round acorn from a northern red oak. I brought these pieces of the morning home with me and began to think about another practice that I learned about last spring and introduced to my granddaughter, Delilah.  Through following Margot Guralnick on Instagram, @dogwalkdiarynyc, I was introduced to collecting and composing bits and pieces of the natural world as a daily practice.  Margot is a designer who takes a daily walk in her neighborhood of the Bronx, or wherever she finds herself.  On her walk she collects leaves, twigs, seedpods, berries…whatever pieces of the natural world are available and that she is drawn to. Then, she arranges these pieces into compositions on the ground, or on a table, or any interesting surface and photographs them.  She posts these photographs for all to see.  She calls these compositions “daily devotionals,” “a daily meditation on and collaboration with the plant world.”  She says that she is inspired by early botanicals and the roadside shrines in Greece and Mexico.  Some might also call her work ephemeral art or environmental art. 

Last spring, Delilah and I were lucky enough to meet Margot when she had a show at a small shop in Cambridge Massachusetts.  Both Delilah and I loved the post cards and posters of Margot’s daily meditations. We purchased some to bring home, inspired to make our own. This is another form of being attentive to the natural world on walks wherever we are…like a treasure hunt. Different than forest bathing, but a related practice.

Margot Guralick, Delilah Cadwell, and Louise Cadwell at https://www.abroadmodern.com

When we lived in Reggio Emilia, Italy, I observed teachers of very young children taking slow walks in the park that surrounds the Diana School and picking up leaves and pods to bring inside. The teachers and children made collections of all sizes, shapes, and colors of leaves, seeds, and objects from the natural world. Then, they children were invited to imagine that they were the wind making arrangements of leaves on the earth . What would they do?

The Diana School, 1992

These practices…Forest Bathing, Seton Watching, daily devotional arrangements of pieces of the natural world…all invite us, as a curious friend or playmate, into relationship with the natural world.

If you want to pursue these ideas…read Your Guide to Forest Bathing (Expanded Edition): Experience the Healing Power of Nature, by M. Amos Clifford or find a Forest Bathing experience led by a guide near you.  Follow Margo, @dogwalkdiarynyc, and make your own ephemeral compositions with friends and family. 

One of the books I have on my bedside table, The Joy of Forest Bathing: Reconnect With Wild Places & Rejuvenate Your Life, by Melanie Chokes-Bradley, emphasizes how Forest Bathing is a year-round practice through all the seasons. I have not thought of it that way, and now I will.  We invite you all to try this way of walking out into the natural world as the seasons change. We will be walking together.

Joy is Not Made to be a Crumb

Forty years ago today, our youngest son, Christopher, was born.  I remember the day, of course, with joy.  Forty years, goodness.  How does that time pass so fast? Now Chris and his wife, Leila, have two children, ages four and one.

Chris planned a birthday party last weekend that took place at the farm that Ashley and his brothers grew up on and now steward.  The barn, newly renovated with a solid foundation, makes a lovely place to gather.  And in between the torrential rains of the summer in Vermont, there were two beautiful, perfect days.

The state of the world is rough. Climate change is upon us. Politics are brutal. People are dying and suffering in wars and disasters. Nevertheless, Ashley and I are feeling so grateful these days, for family, for friends, for place, for our children and grandchildren. 

Recently, I came upon this Mary Oliver prose poem that we will leave you with this August.

May you all relish the last month of summer.

“Don't Hesitate”

by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Skiing Seeing Being

Greem Mountain Valley School student athletes

My second great adventure in education, after two years of teaching 3rd/4th grade in a rural Vermont school, was to join a college buddy and two of his friends to start a ski racing academy in the Mad River Valley, Vermont.  That private secondary school became the Green Mountain Valley School (GMVS).  

In the third year of the school (1976), I applied for and received a grant from the State of Vermont to develop a course entitled, “Skiing, Seeing, Being.”  I know: whoa?!?!  It was an attempt to get at why what we were doing was not just fun, but also generative, even educational.  

Green Mountain Valley School campus

The basic premise was a well established theory of education championed by John Dewey whose home is enshrined in Burlington, Vermont: that we learn through a process of having experiences and then reflecting on them, describing them, and, thereby embedding them in our memory.  

So, I wondered, are we learning through skiing?  I suspected two things.  First of all, that you don’t learn from the experience unless you reflect on it.  You’re just free range adolescent chickens, having fun no doubt, but not really getting anywhere, except slightly happier. But, secondly, I thought that if we created a practice of reflection that it could migrate into other areas, like learning how to write and read (that I was supposed to be teaching), and thereby develop a sense of self, of being.

So, it was a practice of skiing (experience), seeing (reflection, class with Ash), and being (discovered through describing and writing, integration into self).

It turned out to be a fun and productive practice.  After all, the students were ski junkies and loved to talk about skiing, particularly their peak experiences.  Our classroom discussions were stimulated by a simple prompt: “Tell us about what happened today on snow.”  Then, at the end of class came the “assignment:”

“Ok, for tomorrow, bring in a written version of what you related today.”  

Green Mountain Valley School student ski racer

Over the course of the ski racing season, each student collected their “stories.”  During the last weeks of the semester they re-read their writings and discovered patterns in their experiences and reflections.  The final questions were: “How do your experiences contribute to who you are becoming?  What does ski racing mean to you?  Can you draw connections to other parts of your life?” To enrich our discussions and perspective we read from a variety of sources.  They included Naked Poetry, a marvelous anthology of modern poets, and Six Great Ideas by Mortimer Adler

I regret that I didn’t collect and keep some of their writings.  Many were transformative.  Just last month, over 400 GMVS alum gathered to celebrate its 50th anniversary.  Three of my former students confided in me that that class had changed and directed their lives; that they had discovered a way to find meaning in their experiences; and that, as one said through tears, “I discovered the essence of joy, and, as best I can, I live it every day.”

Skiing Seeing Being.

Green Mountain Valley School ski racers