Education outdoors: giving teachers confidence to take their classrooms outside

Ruud “The Bug Man” Kleinpaste and fellow nature expert John Lawry with eight-year-old student Ted Bolton-Riley and his little mate — a skink — which he found in bush behind Te Wharau School. Ruud and John were in the region last week to run workshops on outdoor learning. Picture by Liam Clayton

Getting outside to teach is a vital part of education and the most important thing we can do for humanity and our planet, says outdoor education expert and naturalist Ruud Kleinpaste.

Ruud and fellow nature expert John Lawry ran workshops in Tairāwhiti last week with the aim of boosting confidence in teachers to take their classes outside — whether it be maths, spelling or science.

“Being outside can become part of the curriculum more and these workshops have given teachers the courage to do that with their students,” Gisborne District Council educator and Enviroschools facilitator Bridget Dick said.

In collaboration with Wild Lab Tiaki Taiao, the council was successful in getting one-off funding through resilience and regeneration initiative East Coast Exchange to bring these two experts to the region after the two cyclones this year.

Wild Lab facilitator Anne-Marie Vigeant said kids were always happy to play outside — even in the rain and the mud.

“We asked ourselves, ‘how do we build up the teachers to be able to foster resilience in them to take kids outside for some of their classes?’

“It doesn’t have to be an add-on part of the curriculum. Teachers just need the courage to do it.”

The funding enabled John and Ruud to host night walks in Ruatorea and two workshops with Coast teachers at Ngata Memorial College.

In Gisborne, the pair held four more workshops, each attended by 15 teachers from a wide range of schools.

John, 73, said as he got older he cared more about ensuring young people’s potential was optimised to become a generation of healers.

“You can see with the younger generation that their energy is healing and restoring. We used to say eco-warrior but that’s tended to be seen as political and economical nowadays.

“Post-Covid, post the (cyclone) disasters — it’s a different energy now and the main thing we need to do is heal.”

The workshops focused on giving teachers the confidence to take their learners outdoors.

In turn, teachers spoken to after the workshops said they felt nourished, seen and recognised for what they did.

Te Wharau teacher Maiko Lewis-Whaanga said whenever she took her class outdoors, nature was calming for everyone and the students loved it.

Ruud said giving teachers confidence to take their classes outside was the number one reason he wanted to come to Tairāwhiti.

“Go for a walk, find stuff and use that as the beginning of all the sort of stuff you can do in schools, the whole curriculum — you name it.

“And number two is slowly becoming nature literate.”

Ruud said the teachers he and John engaged with last week “totally got it in the end”.

“You don’t need to know everything. You can say, ‘I don’t know but I’ll find out’, and then work towards ‘what is it that these things do?’

“All these organisms, these plants, trees, birds, insects, spiders, funny little cave weta. . . what do they do inside that ecosystem?

“And then suddenly you immerse yourself into a journey that teaches you exactly how nature operates.

“You can sum it up by saying they rediscover, very slowly, the operations manual of Planet Earth.”

Ruud said the most encouraging thing he learned over the week was that there were organisations that understood how important it was to go out there to the schools, engage with teachers and kids and bring nature into their hearts.

“Whoever funded this, whoever made this happen, I love you for it, and this is why I’m part of this. I’ll always be part of this.

“This is the most important thing we can do for humanity and the planet.”