If I’m being honest with myself, I want to talk more about our educational systems (early childhood to PHD) but I don’t for a whole host of fears so I’ll get around to facing that in upcoming posts.

In the meantime, as I try to work through what I want to contribute to educational systems’ lacking, I can’t get past the amount of change that would be needed at the individual level first nor the role of parenting or adulting (not everyone is a parent, but many are adults who interact with kids, teens, young adults, hell even old adults who need some (re)parenting).

Anywho, connected to this for me is that I spend probably an unusual amount thinking about the role of nature in our lives as humxns and our (often) unexamined baggage of beliefs which (often) keeps us disconnected from self, others, let alone nature. I especially think about the connection to nature for my daughter as she grows and experiences the educational system. With that, I want to tell you a story about getting down and dirty.

Warning: Story does involve actual dirt for those of you who are squeamish.

It was a warm, early day this past summer. My kiddo (5 yo at the time) and I were at a small creek that runs alongside a playground at a park. The area was blooming with new life and flowing energy from the water.

My daughter looks up at me to watch my reaction, “I’m gonna step into the water.”
“Okay,” I say.
She steps into the little creek that is only about an inch deep and a couple feet wide. "
She says, “I don’t mind [getting her sandals wet]. It feels good to get my feet wet on a warm day.”
“I bet,” I say.

She carries on joyfully for a bit. Soon two new kiddos, a boy and a girl just a bit older, come to check out the creek with her.

I hear their parents issue commands of:
“Get away from the water!”
“Stop touching the water. It’s dirty.”
“No, don’t get dirty.”
“Don’t get too close.”
“Don’t jump across the creek.”
The other kids watched as my daughter went in and out of the water. The younger girl even called out to me, “she went into the water.” As if to make sure it was okay?
“Okay!,” I say. The girl looks puzzled.
My daughter beams back.

A bit later, the kids had to leave at just about the time mine starting making “clay” out of the mud.
My daughter said to me afterwards, “I guess I’m just lucky that I get to play in nature.”

This story came back to me as I process shifting approaches to education (be it at the 1st grade or graduate student level) and how educational systems need new paradigms but that requires how we educators/adults show up for ourselves first.

Back to my story, I’m sure those adults had their reasons. Lots of reasons, I’m sure. Maybe they had an event afterwards. Maybe the adults were scared of drowning in an inch of water. Maybe there wasn’t an extra pair of shoes in the car. I’m sure they had their reasons for staying clean and dry. Sometimes though, and I speak as personal confession, sometimes as adults, we just don’t want anything that might give us more work or effort. Sometimes we might not even know why but we hold unexamined beliefs. I get all of that.

What are the messages we send with “don’t”?

There are plenty of times when “don’t” is necessary with others - boundaries, people. Mostly though, I’ve noticed with myself, there are more times when it is a quick default verbal response where I’m not even aware of what message is being sent as the word “don’t” flies out of my mouth.

Yet, messages of "don’t” are important. These are coded values and scripts for living that we consciously or unconsciously transfer to kiddos and others. Societies and cultures are built around these messages.

For example, in the story above, “don’t” was a message that those kids cannot trust their bodies. If they were to jump across the creek or get within a few inches of the edge, they might fall or trip or land in the water. Sure, it could happen or more likely, given their ages, they would be fine.

I have seen the adult outcome of this message in my training as a teacher of yoga as well as with coaching clients - many of us harbor an inherent mistrust in our bodies. This one takes work, but work on our part to (re)learn trust and watch the messages we give kids about body trust. It’s about trusting the kid to trust their body, which requires I trust that she knows herself and I show her that I trust that I know myself. What a spiral.

What of this is our own internal beliefs?

I suspect if I could’ve asked, those adults, as most of us do, have some internal belief from childhood that getting dirty is bad. Or worse, some adult in their childhood scolded them, once or a million times, that they were bad because were dirty. And I’m not picking on parents as I’ve seen teachers and bystanders (and I’m sure myself) act out these beliefs, too.

My point is that we internalize societal messages as our own, often without agreeing if we value it. Or without consciousness that we do indeed, for example, value cleanliness, then we can’t set a boundary with others about what we value and why.

Playing with this example of dirt. There are a lot societal and cultural messages around dirty. Here are a few that come to mind – feel free to add your own – actually please do!

· Related to social class – only poor people are dirty. If you’re well off, then you don’t have to work the land (which ignores people wanting to and connecting to land, but that’s another post).

· Also, by gender – girls who are princesses are never dirty, of course. I mean, who has ever seen a dirty unicorn?!

· Thanks to Plato, most of us in the Western world believe in a hierarchy of intellect over body, of humxns over nature. Therefore, to be dirty is to be lesser than like an animal (oh wait, we are animals, well some seem to have forgotten that).

What if, instead of unconsciously reinforcing out those messages, we reflected on them? One of the true gifts of parenting and adulting with children is the opportunity to examine the beliefs we were taught. Then, it is our choice to decide if we want to keep them or not. Our life’s work is (un)learning all the shit we were taught as younger people.

What are the values we actually want to teach?

Others hear the values and beliefs underlying our messages. As humxns we are fine tuned for socialization but, then, we use that to contain others in the same belief, such as the other girl in the story. I don’t fault her, she’s doing what individuals in collective groups do. Yet, that moment, she found out that not all adults share the same beliefs that she’s been taught. Cognitive dissonance can be great teacher.

Going back to my example of jumping the creek. What do kiddos learn in jumping attempts versus what do they that learn by standing far away without those same movements? Or just perhaps, more wonderful lessons happened. What if they jumped across successfully or got to the edge to watch the tadpoles? What if they felt confident and strong in their bodies after jumping? What if their interest in amphibians was stoked in that moment? I don’t know about you, but these latter options sure feel better to me!

So, what do I hope my daughter learns by getting down and dirty? What values do I hope she internalizes? Here are just a few:

· I hope she learns that I value a deep and dirty connection to nature because she is nature and nature is her.

· I want her to learn to trust her body and her instincts.

· I want her to value herself. To choose what she wants over limiting herself with what society and peers tell her.

I’m toying around with doing more writings about parenting and adulting with children as a way to learn about ourselves and choose to live what we value. Because then, and only then, can we turn these (un)learning lessons to children and help them grow up freer! What do you think?

And my last take away – all kids have an inner adventurer and nurturer that wants to connect with nature. You also have an inner child who wants to dig for worms or put your feet in the creek. That inner child just may be buried deep under the mud of limiting beliefs – so go dig for their freedom! Go for it!