Current Event 6 Alternative Schools in the Forest?!

Samantha Levine
Soc 202
Current Event Six
On Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 in The Times, based in London, UK, Rosemary Bennett wrote the article “Lessons in life at the forest school.” This article is about an alternative school system based in the UK as well as how it is possibly under threat. Forest schools are unlike most traditional schools that operate within a building, have both male and female teachers and students, and teach the students the traditional education topics, such as reading, writing, and mathematics. The forest schools such as The Secret Garden Outdoor Nursery, hold class outside in the forest, consists of all male teachers and mostly male students, and the curriculum is mainly based on the changing seasons, nature, independent skills building, and is in session year round.
The children that attend forest schools range from the ages of three and seven years old. Unlike traditional schools within the UK it is believed that students are not learning on the same pace, such as with developing cognitive and motor skills through drawing or solving puzzles. “At a forest school, there are no crayons, no drawing paper and no puzzles — just the great outdoors.” As stated within the article “lessons are free-flowing exchanges between pedagogues and children, or children and children. They are encouraged to take the lead and point things out and ask questions.” In traditional schools this would be considered free time and not important on-task objectives.
Parents seem to be happy with the new form of education and children seem to love it. However, there are some officials whom were not happy with many aspects of the school. Some of the main problems were the “wild toileting”, low test scores, students bring bagged lunch, so there is no hot meals, there is little to no paperwork, there is at least one hospital visit per year, and once the students are integrated into traditional schools officials feel they “will struggle to break into the highly regulated world of formal schooling in the UK.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6862016.ece