Case Study #1 > Forest School
This Case Study is responding to: Planning and teaching for effective learning (A1, A2, V3)
In MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures students from different design backgrounds build environmentally and socially just foundations into their practices. The content includes: positionality, intersectionality, ethics and justice. Students can understandably feel discombobulated while deeply critiquing themselves, their work and their worlds.
Over five years I have observed:
- Absence of playful permission: Eco-social justice feels heavy, and students often feel prohibited to act by the knotty complex enormity of it all. We know how important imagination is in eco-social change[1], and how important playful freedom is in cultivating imagination. So how can we create a more intentional space of play and freedom earlier in the course?
Our wild experiment
In October 2023 I changed our day-one experience. We met the new students outside university and made our way into the woods. Influenced by Contemplative Pedagogy[2], we made a sonic meditation for the train ride. Following Kimmerer’s teachings, their journey into the woods connected our diverse knowledge(s) with the wild[3]. The idea was to start the course off with a deliberate invitation to contemplate, get grubby and play.
My reflections and next steps:
The wild classroom
Students built their own classroom from logs, they took control of their space, and subsequently the discussions within it. We (course team) relinquished control, and the natural landscape did something that a university building could never truly do: hand-over the power. I am now interested in how a better understanding of “critical pedagogy of place”[5] could enhance our students experience within the LCC studio. When they have the permission to design their learning environment(s), I believe we will see more of who they are and what they are capable of imagining.
Freedom through disequilibrium
From observation, students did seem opened up by their surprise day in the woods. We heard everyone’s voices and there was more laughter and skipping than an average day. I am now considering how Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive disequilibrium could open permission spaces for more playful invention. We created what he might describe as “cognitive imbalance[6]” which challenges norms and stimulates new thinking. This strategy also connects to pedagogies of ambiguity[7], where students learn to adapt within a habitat of uncertainty, possibility and hope. These ideas feel excitingly frictious against our institutional obsession with ‘Student Satisfaction’ and ‘Quality Assurance’.
Assumed experience
Three of our students had never smelt or touched a woodland landscape before. They talked about the experience being almost child-like in wonder. I would argue that wonder and awe are critical in the mobility of our imaginations. This was a significant moment for me, we’d been teaching with the assumption of a shared understanding of nature. I see an opportunity here for a Forest School methodology[4] within Higher Education, borrowing from child-development principles of free-play[8]. Re-imagining our relationship to the more-than-human world.
In conclusion, I think we did disorientate, activate and delight our students during this forest experiment. We have not achieved this before on day one. They moved logs, made leaf wings, foraged and touched leafmould for the first time. This all felt significant. But it was a small step. I am now planning a workshop with my students to design a new Term One Experience, embedding these principles of play, wilderness and co-designing space more continually within our learning.
Dreaming of a Forest Design School.
Image credits : screen shots from film we made about Day One in the Forest + quote from a student travelling to London from Saudi Arabia
[1] Thomas, L. (2022). The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet. Little, Brown, (2022)
[2] Wilson, C.N. (2021). A Contemplative Pedagogy. A Practice of Presence When the Present is Overwhelming. Texas Woman’s University
[3] Kimmerer, R.W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions.
[4] Knight, S., Solly, K., & Cowan, R. E. (2017). Forest Schools and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years. Sage Publications Ltd.
[5] Gruenewald, D.A. The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place. Educational Researcher, Vol. 32, No. 4. (May, 2003), pp. 3-12.
[6] Piaget, J. (1969). The Psychology of the Child. Basic Books.
[7] Orr, S, & Shreeve. (2017). Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum. Routledge.
[8] Griffiths, C. Goodall, D. Santer, J. (2007). Free Play in Early Childhood: A literature review. National Children’s Bureau.