Finding the Perfect Words

Katherine Brakman, a Kindergarten parent took these pictures after sharing a morning in the forest with her daughter. I sat with the images for a long time and knew that they did not need a narrative but rather reflection. I sought words that are almost as powerful as the images and  capture the enormity of  a morning spent under a cathedral of trees, amongst blooming daffodils and waking creatures.

If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it. Perhaps this is what Thoreau had in mind when he said, "the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core and I think the same is true of human beings."

David Sobel (at Sabot today!!)




We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our

permanent state." 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions." 
— Ken Robinson (The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything)

Teach your scholar to observe the phenomena of nature; you will soon rouse his curiosity, but if you would have it grow, do not be in too great a hurry to satisfy this curiosity. Put the problems before him and let him solve them himself. Let him know nothing because you have told him, but because he has learnt it for himself. Let him not be taught science, let him discover it. If ever you substitute authority for reason he will cease to reason; he will be a mere plaything of other people's thoughts." 

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing." 

— A.A. Milne

We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it." 

— Wendell Berry (The Long-Legged House)

“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” 

A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

The forest is beautiful but it is profound when shared with others.