re: Spending Time With Nature A Natural Remedy for ADHD

KSVaughan2 — 1/17/2010 11:30:02 PM

As a former scout leader, I found that many children with learning disorders were drawn to hands-on learning. The boys were able to spend time in the woods, to make things with their hands, and got a chance to overcome the botanical illiteracy that afflicts children today.

Alice Waters brought this to schools with her Edible Schoolyard program that gets children doing hands-on growing, giving children with short attention spans the ability to move while they learn, getting children into the Vitamin D-giving sunlight which will help them function better. It also trains them to understand real food and to develop a taste for it in lieu of the artificially colored and flavored foods that can make ADHD worse.

Unfortunately there seems to be a backlash. Although school garden-based learning is quite popular and has even increased during this time of deficits, the Atlantic Monthly recently published a screed by Caitlin Flanagan who thinks that getting children out in nature will deprive them of learning and will have the racist effect of sending the children of campesinos back to the farm. She didn't bother to interview either teachers or students who use nature-based curriculums but developed a multi-page critique based on fantasy. There are some strong supporters of school garden/edible landscaping programs though: www.acupuncturebrooklyn.com/school-gardens-and-learning