[HN Gopher] Open Air Schools of the 1900s
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Open Air Schools of the 1900s
Author : Petiver
Score : 32 points
Date : 2023-09-25 00:02 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)
| jmkd wrote:
| Thousands of Forest Schools in Europe now; a huge growth sector
| spreading globally.
|
| [0] https://forestschoolassociation.org/ [1]
| https://www.thenativeschool.com/forest-school-101 [2]
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220105-how-asia-fell-in...
| roughsquare wrote:
| "for certain children who are inmates of one of its schools for
| the mentally defective deaf."
|
| Wow, that is a loaded statement that certainly has not aged well.
| hndamien wrote:
| This fixes myopia as well
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| If by "fixes" you means that there is evidence that time
| outdoors slows/halts it, yes. But you can't just spend time
| under a tree until you no longer need glasses.
| Stevvo wrote:
| It's cheaper if you don't need to provide classrooms or textbooks
| for the "invalid" children. Just let them freeze to death out in
| the forest.
| asow92 wrote:
| Were there examples of schools trying to follow something similar
| during the peak of covid lockdowns? Such a simple solution if you
| think about it.
| jetrink wrote:
| Yes, a school near my parents' house in Michigan did this! They
| built several large outdoor pavilions and also have a clearing
| in the adjoining woods that they hold classes in. I visited in
| the dead of winter and sure enough, there were about 100 kids
| out in the freezing cold all day long. Even from a distance,
| you could see that they were bundled up in multiple layers to
| keep warm. I was back recently and they still do outdoor
| classes, but I think it is only for a portion of the day now as
| I didn't see nearly as many students outside at a time.
|
| 1. https://wwmt.com/news/local/moving-forward-kazoo-school-
| offe...
| r00fus wrote:
| Not entirely but my kids' K-8 has pushed some of their classes
| outside (mostly science) to their local "woods" (a part of the
| land parcel of the school that's not developed and has trees, a
| pond and some work tables). Also a lot of effort was done
| during the pandemic to do events outside (like music) in the
| quad area. Also all meals have been outdoors (indoor not
| possibly during pandemic) - I remember this being the case even
| when I was in school in this area.
|
| Being in CA, that's easy year round due to milder weather.
|
| That said, the effort was nothing close to outdoors all the
| time, which has significant challenges.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| There are open air preschools in the Bay Area. The weather
| being temperate year round helps a lot as well.
| asow92 wrote:
| If Scandinavian babies can sleep in the cold, I think our
| kids be lectured in it, no?
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21537988
|
| As far as the hotter areas in the South, there's probably
| some solution for that too.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Fans. Possibly misters near the fans if you want to
| splurge. There's a lot of restaurants with open-air
| sections here in New Orleans that do this.
|
| You do need some sort of shielding from the sky, heatstroke
| is a thing, so's an absolute drenchpour that lasts about
| twenty minutes, usually in the afternoon.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| If the temperature and humidity are high enough, no
| amount of fans and/or misters will cool you down.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Tulane does have a sort of outdoor classroom with a
| chalkboard but I don't really see it used for lecturing
| that often
| INTPenis wrote:
| The open air day cares in my hometown in Sweden never closed
| afaik. The ones in the pildammsparken park of Malmo, anyone
| noticed if they closed during covid?
|
| I just remember walking my dog there daily and seeing kids.
| robinwassen wrote:
| Daycares did not close during covid in Sweden.
|
| On the topic there are a category of preschools in Sweden
| called "Ur och skur" which have most education outdoors.
|
| Back in the 90s I know some primary schools in Sweden also
| had education outside, but I think that have changed with
| schools becoming more competitive lately.
| monktastic1 wrote:
| Except for a small handful of Waldorf schools, there seem to be
| precious few schools that will give my son significant outdoor
| time. In fact, I'm told that WA state won't even accredit fully
| outdoor schools (though I haven't checked this myself).
|
| That really saddens me. From one perspective, nature is dying
| because nobody can be bothered to notice her (and thereby care
| about/for her) any more.
| rhuru wrote:
| Dharampal a student of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi wrote a book
| called "A beautiful tree" which documented at great lengths how
| British administration destroyed the local schooling system in
| India which at that time had managed to produce higher literacy
| rate (even among working low status masses) than England.
|
| Among many things that British got wrong, one was the refusal to
| call a place school if it did not have a permanent building
| neatly separated into classrooms and such. More than the learning
| outcomes, the infra that mattered more for British to recognize
| anything as a school and they went about closing down the
| informal "under the tree" schools in this manner. Of course as
| you go deeper you realize this policy was driven more by the
| corruption in the East India Company and British government where
| missionaries wanted funding from government to build "infra" in
| the same of schools.
|
| Much later in 2005 or so James Tooley another British Economist
| in charge of World Bank aid to school system in India discovered
| similar trends and quit his job to promote low cost high quality
| private schools.
|
| Indian government around that time brought an evil law called
| Right to Education and permanently killed this concept. Running
| an open air school in India might get you jailed today.
| anotherhue wrote:
| Vaguely related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_school
| nemo44x wrote:
| Many turn of the century homes have large "sleeper porches" as
| the science of the day thought there were health benefits to
| sleeping outside. TB was an issue back then.
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