How Do We Create A Good Tomorrow?

Angelo Patri wrote in 1917,

“The school must be enriched so that the child can experiment with actual things from the very first day of school. Playrooms and games, animals and plants, wood and nails must take their place side by side with books and words. Be it remembered, however, that a shop, a studio, a playroom, may become as formal, as dead, as antiquated, as rigid as any phase of the present book school, if these activities are developed by rule and applied to all children regardless of tastes or tendencies, in accordance with a fixed time schedule that has neither elbow room or leisure. The substitution for direct experiences for indirect ones leads nowhere. I wanted nature that would make the child’s heart warm with sympathy, that would make the child dig and plant and be glad of the earths smells, that would make him laugh to feel the snow and the rain and the wind beating on his face.“

I think we bring this vision to life in our environmental program that sees our Year 4 students spend every day immersed in the natural world thinking about nature, the environment, sustainability and a whole range of global issues. The year-long immersion program is centered around the driving question “How do we create a good tomorrow?”

We have just put together a new video. Check it out.

Year 4 Enviro Program from Sam McIntosh on Vimeo.