Artifact Six

Artifact Commentary

Through my Nature-Based Early Childhood Education Certificate program with Antioch University New England, I took a course titled, “Risk Management for Nature-Based Early Childhood Education.” This course took place almost entirely outdoors, except for the brief periods we gathered in one of the three yurts, on the grounds of Juniper Hill School located in Alna, Maine, a rural town not far from the coast. Risk and challenge was abundant and came in the form of ticks, black flies, poison ivy, and wet weather. Among us children from preschool to fifth grade were engaged in deep and meaningful learning tasks, from literacy to mathematics, subjects were woven into the fabric of nature. The benefits, it appeared, were outweighing the costs.

The aims of the course included understanding risk, identifying risk as essential and beneficial to learning, strategies for providing opportunities to learn through risky play as a part of a developmentally appropriate curriculum, how to manage risk as part of maintaining safety, and how to communicate the importance and benefits of risky play in early childhood education to families. This artifact is one that I created to support and inform our farm- and nature-based program families, staff members, and other stakeholders through family communications and workshops and professional learning for staff (Standards 5, 6; Goal 2, 3). It shows my understanding of the stated aims of the course and ability to apply my learning to design curriculum, such as through the example of stick play (Standard 2).

This article is significant beyond the role of risky play in early childhood education. In TE 808, Professor Scott Jarvie included the following quote at the top of the syllabus:

Education always involves a risk. The risk is not that teachers might fail because they are not sufficiently qualified. The risk is not that students might fail because they are not working hard enough or are lacking motivation. The risk is there because, as W.B. Yeats has put it, education is not about filling a bucket but about lighting a fire. The risk is there because education is not an interaction between robots but an encounter between human beings. —Gert Biesta, The Beautiful Risk of Education

Over the course of my experience leading and teaching Farm Sprouts, I’ve taken a number of risks, some bigger than others, including creating and running the program in the first place, lacking the funding and support outside of a few key people to run our first-year seasons. I can’t imagine not taking that risk. To risk is to learn and my education and experiences have lit a fire in me. My program development journeys over my years of teaching have been messy and imperfect, and this one was no exception, as it is a program that was built on relationships and that exists in a larger system with policies and processes that don't always interact well with a humanistic approach. However, the immense benefits far outweigh the challenges, as this program has created ripples of positive impacts, serving as another contribution to support and guide early childhood education reform efforts of a much larger scale.