Nature as a teacher - Heike Freire

For a few years now, we have been suppressing nature to create increasingly artificial cities. We are seeing that this is affecting the world in a way known as global warming. However, how does it affect us more personally and more closely? According to a study by the Universidade do Minho, children’s time is lost when they lie down and sit in closed spaces, and a small part of that time is devoted to movement in open and natural spaces. Freire gives us examples of how this affects our development and our daily lives in the form of anxiety, for example. We are surprised that the most common psychological illnesses of late are anxiety and depression, and we blame it on the pace of life we lead, the responsibilities we have to take on, or various things external to us. But if we could do something to reduce these cases, would we? The solution lies in nature. Since we have separated city and nature, understanding it as two unrelated concepts, we have seen that motor skills, attention, the immune system, emotional regulation and interactions have not developed to the optimal quality they should.

We have closed ourselves into artificial spaces, including technological ones, where we have at our fingertips a lot of information and important advances that make our day to day easier. However, we are not aware that the steps that we encounter, those that make it difficult for us to move through our lives, such as more cases of ADD, myopia, stress, conflicts, etc., lie in forgetting to do something very simple: enjoy the natural environment that surrounds us.

Schools teach classes of subjects where ecosystems, fauna and flora are very present, and we have photographs of all this to give you visual support. However, why don’t we go outside and set natural examples with something close to our reality? In this way we will get to know the world with which we interact every day, we will promote the sensory over the cognitive, which is sometimes important, we will help to work memory and memory... Nature offers opportunities for learning and we learn values through it, so that we do not forget.

Transforming our cities to learn to live together and respect nature will leave the most important legacy to our children. It will help to improve their quality of life and, therefore, we will be more respectful of nature and provide the need to stop global warming.

Heike Freire | Autora | Docente e Investigadora | Pedagogía Verde |