It's Nutty
11/7/2009
The most recent edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary includes a surprising omission – the word acorn.
That’s right, if some students want to find out basic information about the small nuts that are strewn across our campus they couldn’t look in one of the most prominent children’s dictionaries published. According to a statement released by the Oxford University Press, words in the dictionary are selected based on the “language children will commonly come across at home and at school.” Clearly, the editors at the Oxford University Press haven’t walked on the Hillbrook campus recently.
Critics of the dictionary’s decision to remove these words saw it as further evidence of the increasing disconnect between children and nature. Journalist Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, coined a term for the disconnect - nature deficit disorder. He laments a society in which children spend less and less time outdoors and he argues that this disconnect is at least partially responsible for the prevalence of obesity and depression among children.
Hillbrook’s campus is an obvious antidote against this disorder. The simple fact that students run to and from class across a beautiful, tree-lined campus keeps our students connected to nature. As a school, however, we view our campus not simply as a passive resource but as an integral part of our program. Increasingly, we are finding ways to integrate the campus into our curriculum.
The new buddies program is the most recent example of those efforts. Walking the campus, you will see painted rocks next to many trees. Buddy pairs decorated the rocks and then placed them next to a tree in their buddy area. In order to choose a tree, buddy pairs had to match a leaf with the appropriate tree. Future buddy activities will engage students in further study of the buddy area, as they use their powers of observation to develop a deeper understanding of and appreciation for our campus.
Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The campus is utilized throughout our science program, with curriculum at multiple grade levels that utilizes the creek, the gardens, and the chicken coop. Moreover, a quick tour around campus on almost any day finds students working outside the classroom, perhaps completing an art project for woodshop or running around during physical education.
Several weeks ago, the campus overflowed with acorns. Junior kindergarten students, particularly entranced by the nuts, moved from class to class with their heads down, their fists slowly filling with collectibles. As you might expect at Hillbrook, teachers responded to the delays by celebrating their curiosity, not hurrying them along. One particular JK student, a young student I know quite well, extended the experiment by storing the acorns in a container in his closet. The resulting moldy mess, only recently discovered, offered yet another important lesson in the wonders of the natural world. Perhaps I should send a sample to the Oxford University Press editors? I’ll be sure to include an explanation of what it is. After all, they won’t be able to use their own books to find out the answer.
|