Calm Photos

It’s not often that I’ll blog about a book while I’m still reading it, but “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder,” by Richard Louv is worth mentioning again and again.www.thefuturesedge.com, Louv presents some recent trends that are well worth considering, whether you’re a parent or not.

One is the fact that as children’s levels of participation in “organized sports” has increased over the last 20 years, so has the rate for childhood obesity. Is there a connection? Louv leaves it for the reader to decide, however, he makes a good point that both trends could account for the dramatic decrease in the unstructured, imaginative play in natural areas that kids once enjoyed without all the fear and paranoia perpetuated by today’s parents, schools, and perhaps worst of all, the media.

In reading this book I’m beginning to realize how fortunate I was to have had a childhood that was largely centered around natural play and constant exposure to all things nature. At a time of important development in my childhood I participated in such wonderful experiences as the Lore Classes at the Dayton Musuem of Natural History (I remember crying on the front steps of my house at age 10 because no one would give me a ride for one of my classes at the Museum) in astronomy, archeaology and field biology. I was also lucky because through the Dayton Museum of Natural History I was first exposed to nature photography and astrophotography. I was the youngest member of the nature photography group and from that experience was introduced to that magical home of my creative spirit called Hocking Hills.

I also remember being taught by members of the Museum’s staff on not only on how to photograph the stars, Moon and planets, but also on how to develop the film in the Museum’s black and white darkroom, making prints of my discoveries long before the arrival of all things “digital.” One morning in the spring of 1976 I anxiously ventured out of the house at 4:oo AM with my camera and tripod in tow to gather time-exposures of an incredible-looking Comet West that filled the eastern horizon (there has yet to be a comet performance to rival that of Comet West). I couldn’t wait until I took my roll of exposed Tri-Max to see the results. The prints were incredible, and to this day I feel awful for having lost track of those prints and the negatives.

It was experiences like that, as well as countless “expeditions” to the woods and creek behind my childhood home, that had so much to do with how I live my life now.
And I could go on and on about how encroaching private property and community convenants has cut kids off from simply going outside and having their own adventures in the woods. I took my daughters Emma and Chloe to a nearby pond to catch tadpoles recently, and you wouldn’t believe the looks we were getting from the neighbors who were part of the local homeowners association. All around the pond were the signs “no this, no that.” Bite me!

The thrill of hands-on self-discovery that can only come when a child is provided with an environment where he or she can explore, create and imagine. Louv is right. You have to give kids the space and trust to venture on their own. You can’t teach and lecture kids on how to respect nature and wildlife by putting them in front of some audio-visual program or display or keep them isolated from the best classroom ever - nature. Buy Louv’s book. Read it, know it, be it.