For many children, sitting at a desk in a classroom with books, or even with a networked computer, is not the environment that will naturally and easily allow a growth in all the eight intelligences that Howard Gardner proposes we all have (Frames of Mind, 1985).  Our traditional school systems focus primarily on the first two, “Linguistic” and “Logical-Mathematical”,  and for these, constraining children indoors may be adequate. But as our children grow into a much more uncertain and rapidly changing world where flexibility, adaptability, and creativity are likely to be at a premium, I suggest we need to find an alternative to this desks-in-a-classroom model.

Below is an excerpt from an important book looking at the role of zoos in our society that might inspire us to think differently about the environments we expect our children to learn effectively in.

We learn that you can remove a creature from her habitat and still have a creature. We see a sea lion in a concrete pool and believe that we’re still seeing a sea lion. But we are not. That is all wrong. We should never let zoologists define for us what or who an animal is. A sea lion is her habitat. She is the school of fish she chases. She is the water. She is the cold wind blowing over the ocean. She is the waves that strike the rocks on which she sleeps, and she is the rocks. She is the constant calling back and forth between members of her family, this talking to each other that never seems to stop. She is the shark who eventually ends her life. She is all of these things. She is that web. She is the process of being a sea lion, in place. She is her desires, which we can only learn by letting her show us, if she wants; not by encaging her. 

We could and should say the same for every other creature, whether wolverine, gibbon, macaw, or elephant…. (from Thought to Exist in the Wild  by Derrick Jensen, pp. 86-87)

Anyone who has seen a child mesmerized by a butterfly, or a worm or the myriad forms of leaves that we find outside can intuit that deep learning is happening. The natural inclination for children to role play, to throw things, to comfort each other, to test externally imposed limits, to collect and organise things, to experiment, to push their bodies to new limits, these are all evidence that learning is natural, instinctive, and inherently fun. As educators we have to get out of the way and let learning happen, continuously and in all environments.