This Dateline SBS Australian Report starts... "Children need classrooms. They need books... and a safe place to learn." Throughout the presentation we are asked the question: Are we overprotecting our children? Why not send your child to a forest kindergarten? Bad weather is not an obstacle. There are at least 500 forest kindergartens in Denmark. There is incredible value in the Danish outdoor kindergarten education. Children are running wild in the mud, climbing high into trees and playing with knives, but no one is telling them off. This is kindergarten… Danish-style.
It leaves me pondering about what our kindergartners are missing, here, where I work. In Denmark, the teacher states: "Children learn what it IS to be cold, what it IS to be wet, and survive that." Children have the ultimate outdoor education. Invaluable opportunities to develop motor skills, balance, maturity, curiosity, even kniving skills, and a hunger for learning. "Many cultures love to wrap their children in a cotton ball."--says a teacher. "Children should have the chance to be free."
I also remember having a small foldable parrot knife/pencil sharpener during my school years. Everybody had one where I grew up. No big deal. Now, here that would be unthinkable.
So, go and watch the video. Then answer me this: Are we too overprotective?