What does it mean to children, educators and to the natural world when humans fall in love with outdoor places and the other-than-human inhabitants of this planet?
I invited Juliet Robertson to chat with me at Early Learning Café about her perspectives, experiences, and passion for outdoor learning. She agreed, and a few days ago we spoke. Her insights, practical suggestions, invitations to children, and resources she shares with us in this podcast are incredible…. as is her humility, enthusiasm and joy.
Many educators around the world know Juliet Robertson as the author of two award-winning and best-selling books Dirty Teaching: A Beginner’s Guide to Learning Outdoors and Messy Maths: An Outdoor, Playful Approach for Early Years.
But Juliet’s influence goes beyond the books she authored. Juliet has been at the forefront of Scotland’s educational movement in outdoor learning and play in Scotland’s schools and Early Learning Centres. She headed up the team that wrote the Education Scotland document called Outdoor Learning: A Practical Guide for Scottish Teachers and Practitioners. She co-authored Loose Parts Play – A Toolkit and was part of the Scottish Government strategy group that created A Play Strategy for Scotland.
But educators in Canada fondly remember Juliet from her work with Diane Kashin in which she guided educators’ outdoor learning experiences and thinking at the Rhythm of Learning in Nature through the York River Collaborative in 2018.
And, as recently as this past July, Juliet was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Education from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland for her many contributions to learning.
Richard Louv, co-founder of the Children and Nature Network, and author of Last Child in the Woods, says,
“It’s hard to quantify Juliet’s impact. Through her work as an educator — and in creating the tools that train teachers to teach outdoors — she has helped untold numbers of Scottish children experience not only the benefits of learning and playing in nature, but the pure joy of it.”
If you haven’t yet met Juliet Robertson I think you’ll find our new podcast at Early Learning Café a treasure chest of ideas and inspiration. For those of you who already know Juliet, this podcast offers a treasured conversation that will touch your heart and invigorate your practice.
Enjoy Outdoor Learning and Play – in Conversation with Juliet Robertson.
Engaging Children in Ecology Online Session is November 30th!
We’re excite to welcome Sophie Edwards and you to our upcoming Online Conversation at Early Learning Café!
In this participatory and hands-on virtual workshop, we’ll dig into ecological engagements with children. How do we build what Sophie Edwards calls ‘relational muscle’ and develop an ethos of collaboration and care?
We’ll expand the ‘100 languages and a hundred more’ to include the natural world and explore how we might hear what various materials and natural spaces have to tell us. We’ll grapple with why such an ecological stance is important for children, for ourselves, and for the planet, and how our many choices – from materials and tools, from strategies to contexts – can be care-fully, thoughtfully curated toward engaging the ecological. Together we’ll explore the voices of natural materials and share our thoughts in small groups.
You’ll leave feeling connected and reinvigorated.
Spaces are limited.