VIEWS EARLY YEARS
The ‘Forest School’ approach might not simply be what you think it is: origins and different cultural interpretations from around the world.
This month, in our ongoing collaboration with Edge Hill University curated by ALICIA BLANCO-BAYO, Early Years Lecturer and WTEY Programme Leader at the University’s Faculty of Education, we’re delighted to hear from SILVIA CONT, Research Assistant, Department for Early Years Education, Faculty of Education at Edge Hill University, and PhD candidate at School of Education, Liverpool John Moores University.
At some point during your career as education professionals you might have come across the term ‘Forest School’ (FS). According to the UK professional body, Forest School Association (FSA) (2023), FS is a nature-based educational approach which offers children regular opportunities to learn through play and exploration in an outdoor setting and supports them with risk taking (FSA, 2023). This definition of FS, however, is only applicable to the UK context. This piece aims to give you a short overview of the cultural interpretations and origins of the ‘FS’ approach from around the world.
The first time I heard about the term FS, was with its Italian name Scuola nel Bosco (which translates in English as ‘School in the Woods’) in the summer of 2006 when I was recruited to work as an assistant in a nature-based provision in Italy. Therefore, my first encounter with the ‘FS approach’ was highly dominated by the Italian cultural, geographical, and educational context. It was set in Trentino, an Italian Northern region densely covered of mountains (20%) and forests (50%) (Eurostat, 2013) and delivered during summer holidays as an integration to mainstream school provision. Across Europe the FS approach has also been differently interpreted within various countries such as Ireland (Whelan and Kelly, 2023), Wales (Waters, 2013), Germany (Waldkindergärtens) (Maron-Puntarelli, 2020), Portugal (Figueiredo et al., 2013), Slovenia (Kokot Krajnc and Vovk Korže, 2013), Italy (D’Ascenzo, 2019) and Czech Republic (Michek, Nováková and Menclová, 2015) amongst others. Differently to the “Forest School made-up English Name” (Williams- Siegfredsen, 2017, p.1), Scandinavian countries have different names to identify the diverse cultural interpretations of nature-based approaches that inspired the importation of this approach in the UK in the 1990s (Knight, 2011). The terms Udeskole (outdoor school) used in Denmark and Norway (Bentsen, Schipperijn and Jensen, 2013) and I Uur och Skur (Rain or Shine) in Sweden (Scott and Vare, 2020) respectively refers to educational approaches happening outdoors and in any type of weather, while the terms Metsamoori (Cree, 2012) in Finland and Skogsmulle (forest creature) in Sweden refers to educational approaches relying on nature-based songs, tales, and characters (Weinstein, 2017).
FS originates further back in time and beyond the current Eurocentric and worldwide interpretations, for example in Brazil, India, USA (Knight, 2013), South Korea (Nah et al., 2017) and Japan (Inoue, 2014). Friluftsliv (free air life), a philosophical way of life based on encounter, sense of freedom and spiritual connection with nature (Gelter, 2000) is not a prerogative of Scandinavians and Sami (Hämäläinen et al., 2018) cultures. First Nation people in Canada (MacEachren, 2018), M ori in New Zealand (Alcock and Ritchie, 2018) and Australian Aboriginals (Christiansen et al., 2018) nature-based experiences and closeness with the natural environment were (and still are) a crucial element of their way of life.
When encountering the ‘FS approach’ as education professionals or sympathising individuals, the hope is that this piece helped you to bear in mind where it originates and its different cultural interpretations (the reported here are only part of the existing ones), both aspects that support its decolonisation. Remember that any application you might develop of the ‘FS approach’
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should be informed by different socio-cultural, educational settings and beyond (e.g., outside mainstream education), the type of involved participants (not only children but also young people, adults and really anyone) and the number and type of resources available. Further examples of adaptations of the FS approach by a mainstream school can be read in the work of Kemp (2019) and many more can be read in Knight (2013).
References
Alcock, S. and Ritchie, J. (2018) Early childhood education in the outdoors in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, 21 (1), 77-88.
Bentsen, P., Schipperijn, J. and Jensen, F.S. (2013) Green Space as Classroom: Outdoor School Teachers’ Use, Preferences and Ecostrategies. Landscape Research, 38 (5), 561- 575.
Christiansen, A., Hannan, S., Anderson, K., Coxon, L. and Fargher, D. (2018) Place-based nature kindergarten in Victoria, Australia: No tools, no toys, no art supplies. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, 21 (1), 61-75.
Cree, J. (2012) A Brief History of the Roots of Forest School in the UK. Horizons (14620677) (60), 32-35.
Eurostat (2013) Portrait of the Regions - ITALY - AUTONOMOUS PROVINCE OF TRENTO - Geography and history.
Figueiredo, A., Portugal, G., Sá-Couto, P. and Neto, C. (2013) Early Outdoor Learning in Portugal. In: Knight, S. (ed.) International Perspectives on Forest School. Natural Spaces to Play and Learn. London: SAGE. pp. 65-78.
FSA. (2023) What is a Forest School? [online] Available at:
http://www.forestschoolassociation.org/what-is-forest-school/
Gelter, H. (2000) Friluftsliv: The Scandinavian philosophy of outdoor life. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education (CJEE), 77-92.
Hämäläinen, S., Musial, F., Salamonsen, A., Graff, O. and Olsen, T.A. (2018) Sami yoik, Sami history, Sami health: a narrative review. International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 77 (1), 1454784.
Inoue, M. (2014) Beyond Traditional Nature-Based Activities to Education for Sustainability: a Case Study from Japan In: Davis, J. M. (ed.) Young Children and the Environment: Early Education for Sustainability. 2 ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 264-275.
Kemp, N. (2020) Views from the staffroom: forest school in English primary schools, Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 20:4, 369380, DOI:
https://doi.org /10.1080/14729679.2019.1697712
Knight, S. (2011) Forest School as a way of learning in the outdoors in the UK. International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education, 1 (1), 590-595.
Knight, S. (2013) International perspectives on forest school: natural spaces to play and learn. London: SAGE.
Kokot Krajnc, M. and Vovk Korže, A. (2013) Increasing Experiential Learning Using Ecoremediations in Slovenia. In: Knight, S. (ed.) International Perspectives on Forest School. Natural Spaces to Play and Learn. London: SAGE. pp. 65-78.
MacEachren, Z. (2018) First Nation pedagogical emphasis on imitation and making the stuff of life: Canadian lessons for indigenizing Forest Schools. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, 21, 89-102.
Nah, K.-O., Waller, T., Ärlemalm-Hagsér, E., Lee-Hammond, L., Lekies, K. and Wyver, S. (2017) The rise of outdoor play and education issues in preschools in South Korea. The handbook of outdoor play and learning, 166-179.
Scott, W. and Vare, P. (2020) Forest school origins. In: Scott, W. and Vare, P. (ed.) Learning, Environment and Sustainable Development. pp. 105-107.
Weinstein, N. (2017) Call of the wild. Nursery World, 2017 (3), 20-21.
Williams-Siegfredsen, J. (2017) Understanding the Danish forest school approach: early years education in practice. Second edition. ed. London: Routledge.
April 2024
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