1. Early Childhood Education Journal, Vol. 25, No. 3, 1998
Environmental Education
"Happy Play in Grassy Places": The Importance of the
Outdoor Environment in Dewey's Educational Ideal
Mary Rivkin, Department Editor
INTRODUCTION that the industrial revolution had changed children's lives
forever, taking from them the opportunity within their
Experience is central to Dewey's educational phi- neighborhood communities to genuinely contribute to
losophy, and to environmental educators, outdoor experi- the production of communal necessities—food, clothing,
ences are key. What does Dewey say about outdoor expe- fuel, light, housewares, and building materials. He
riences? Reading The School and Society (1990), The regretted this reality, noting that this participation in
Child and the Curriculum (1990), and Experience and
needed production had provided discipline to and built
Education (1938) reveals that Dewey considered the out- character in children (Dewey, 1990, pp. 10-11), and that
doors as a given and valued it immensely. In the follow- a spirit of community developed and was sustained auto-
ing I lay out key passages from Dewey's writings and matically in these circumstances. Such communities,
relate them to contemporary conditions.
while not designed for or by children, provided a rich
"Happy play in grassy places" comes from a poem matrix for their existence.
by Robert Louis Stevenson, published in 1885, only 15
years before Dewey's School and Society. The verse Substantive Education Occurs Outdoors
reads:
Happy hearts and happy faces, Furthermore, in preindustrial conditions knowledge
Happy play in grassy places, of real things was well-developed. Schools have a hard
That was how in ancient ages time replacing these experiences of pre-factory life:
Children grew to kings and sages. No amount of object lessons, got up...for the sake of giv-
Although far too sunny a view of history — ignor- ing information, can afford even the shadow of a sub-
ing primogeniture, divine right, and bloody battles — stance for acquaintance with the plants and animals of
these lines nonetheless express both a sense of change in the farm and garden acquired through actual living
among them and caring for them. (Dewey, 1990, p.l 1)
children's lives and an acknowledgment of the impor-
tance of the outdoors to children's development. Other A further misfortune was that not only had the
poems by Stevenson reiterate this importance and limn industrial revolution deprived children of developmental
the joys of flowery meadows, climbable trees, and sandy opportunities but had also created factory-like schools
streams. where children's individual development was sharply
restricted. It is "out of school, in the home, the family, on
the playground, and the neighborhood" where children
CHILDREN'S LIVES CHANGED BY are "intensely distinctive beings" (Dewey, 1990, p. 33).
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Dewey's early writings about children's education, THE NEXT REVOLUTION—IN
School and Society and Child and the Curriculum, did EDUCATION?
not dwell on the joys but did assert the importance of the
Dewey held out hope, however, that another revolu-
immediate environment—both indoor and outdoor—for
tion would occur, this time in education:
children. He also observed that children's relationship to
the environment had altered drastically. Dewey noted Now the change which is coming into our education is
199
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2. 200 Rivkin
the shifting of the center of gravity...not unlike that to explore synthetic fabrics as well as he arranged for
introduced by Copernicus..the child becomes the sun their study of cotton and wool by providing raw materi-
about which the appliances of education revolve.
(Dewey, 1990, p. 34)
als and simple tools? Other more serious concerns dim
Dewey's vision.
Homes would be the model for this new education. The In School and Society, Dewey seems to take for
"ideal home" would be focused on the child's needs. granted the existence for children of gardens, fields, and
There the child learns in several ways—through the fam- forests. But by 1938, in Experience and Education, the
ily's social converse, by participating in household tasks, natural world seems to have receded in importance,
and by working in his own little workshop and laborato- although Dewey argues strongly for freedom of physical
ry. Furthermore and notably, activity (pp. 61-65) which perhaps implies outdoor
The life of the child would extend out of doors to the space. Today however, educators cannot take the natural
garden, surrounding fields and forests. He would have environment as a given, for numerous reasons.
his excursions, his walks and talks, in which the larger
world out of doors would be open to him. (Dewey, 1990,
p. 35)
THE VANISHING NATURAL
ENVIRONMENT
Notice Dewey's expansive concept of the out-of-
doors—gardens, fields, and forests. Naturally these ideal Cars and their roads have eliminated safe outdoor
homes seldom exist, but well-designed schools can pro- play for many children. Cars are so dangerous to children
vide these things. that many children don't walk to school in the industrial-
For instance, to focus on outdoor play, let us exam- ized countries.
ine the outdoor aspect of Dewey's school. Crime, fear of crime, widespread pollution, and lack
of neighborhood communities have further decreased
The school building has about it a natural environment. children's access to the outdoors. Longer hours required
It ought to be in a garden, and the children from the gar-
den would be led on to surrounding fields, and then into
by schools, and a plethora of scheduled activities (sports,
the wider country, with all its facts and forces. (Dewey, lessons, childcare) also keep children away from outdoor
1990, p.75) life. Add air conditioning, television, computers, and
electronic games to the list. Finally, there is less land for
Good schooling for Dewey was dependent on the out-
children to play on, given the sprawl of population.
door world, because that is where life occurs.
Dewey thought that ordinary schools were too arti-
Outdoor Environments at School
ficial and isolated from the real world. He wrote about
the schoolchildren of an Illinois river town studying the Today, it is even more urgent that the school recre-
Mississippi without realizing that it was the phenomenon ate Dewey's "ideal home" because for so many children
flowing just beyond their doorways. He observed that, that home does not and cannot exist, particularly in
All studies arise from aspects of the one earth and the
regard to outdoor space. Even when schools have out-
one life lived upon it. We do not have a series of strati- door space it is usually an expanse of asphalt and/or
fied earths...mathematical...physical...historical, and grass, which is neither safe nor educative. The kind of
so on. We live in a world where all sides are bound activity that occurs there does not automatically induce
together...one great common world. When the child community nor even particularly good play.
lives in varied but concrete and active relationship to
this common world, his studies are naturally unified....
The time is ripe to rejuvenate outdoor places for
Relate the school to life and all studies are of necessity children. School rooms are brighter, livelier looking
correlated. (Dewey, 1990, p. 91) places than previously; school yards ought to become our
next focus.
Very much of life occurs outdoors.
IMPROVING CONDITIONS FOR
Dewey's Unrealized Hope OUTDOOR PLAY
In the years following A Child's Garden of Verses In my study of conditions for children's outdoor
and School and Society, the relationship between chil- play (Rivkin, 1995), I found the following four things to
dren and the environment has continued to change. be encouraging. First, there are numerous schoolground
Along lines described by Dewey, the means of produc- improvement organizations (Rivkin, 1997). National
tion have become more centralized and thus divorced groups include Learning Through Landscapes that has
from daily life. How would Dewey arrange for children improved playgrounds in more than a third of Great

3. Play in Grassy Places 201
Britain's elementary schools, adding features such as Ahrens, 1984-85). Since the 1920s, New York City has
ponds, orchards, meadows, nature trails, birdfeeders, and had "play streets," streets closed to traffic so children can
sundials. In Canada, the Evergreen Foundation has a play (Dargan & Zeitlin, 1990). Such places are not
rapidly growing schoolyard habitat program that has impossible even here in our car-adoring society.
improved more than 400 schoolgrounds. Sweden has two
national playground improvement organizations. In the
United States, various groups help schools improve their WORKING TOWARD DEWEY'S
yards: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state depart- REVOLUTION
ments of natural resources, the National Wildlife
The outdoor spaces that served as the starting point
Federation, and Project Wild all help in adding flora,
for motivating children in Dewey's ideal school need to
fauna, and ponds. Isn't it ironic that we'll build wildlife
be restored. As Dewey (1990) said of this school,
habitats sooner than childlife habitats? Children too are
endangered by their loss of habitat. Children's gardening There is no mystery about it, no wonderful discovery of
pedagogy or educational theory. It is simply a question
is another pursuit supported by a variety of organiza-
of doing systematically and in a large, intelligent, and
tions. Involving children in growing food is in accord competent way...[what homes should but cannot do].
with Dewey's practical spirit. The International (p. 35)
Association for the Child's Right to Play (IPA) is a
staunch advocate for children's play spaces worldwide. Were Dewey now to survey our neighborhoods and
schools, he would, I believe, advocate drastic remedia-
tion of the outdoor environment accessible to our chil-
Greenways—Good Idea for Children
dren. He would surely argue for naturalized school-
The greenways movement in the United States grounds, traffic-tamed streets, and supervised explo-
though not aimed at children's play nonetheless does ration areas, because without abundant outdoor experi-
provide green places and open spaces for some children. ences children cannot develop what for Dewey (1990)
An organizer for Vermont, Anne Lusk, has called for was absolutely fundamental, knowledge of geography.
greenways to connect all 108,000 elementary schools in The unity of all the sciences is found in geography. The
the U.S., creating outdoor classrooms for every child. significance of geography is that it presents the earth as
the enduring home of the occupations of man...Human
industry and achievement, apart from their roots in the
More Careful Land Development
earth, are not even a sentiment, hardly a name. The earth
Environmental regulations, particularly in attention is the final source of all man's food. It is his continual
shelter and protection, the raw material of all his activi-
to wetlands and storm drainage, have served to create
ties, and the home to whose humanizing and idealizing
bits of playable ground for children. Children, after all, all his achievement returns. It is the great field, the great
are not particularly helped by grand natural tracts in mine, the great source of the energies of heat, light, and
remote National Parks; they need play places close at electricity; the great scene of ocean, stream, mountain,
hand. and plain, of which all our agriculture and mining and
lumbering, all our manufacturing and distributing agen-
cies, are but the partial elements and factors, (pp. 18-19)
Regulation of Traffic
Children must know geography, especially their
Streets actually are highly favored by children as own neighborhood's geography. Without it, their com-
play places, since they are so readily accessible. Efforts prehension will be trivial and partial and to me, if not to
at "traffic calming"—restricted access, speed bumps, Dewey, accompanied by a lamentable rootlessness that
lane narrowings, and lowered speeds— all increase chil- provides no "sense of place" in their earthly home.
dren's opportunities for safe play even while irritating
motorists. In Northern Europe, some streets, woonerven,
are designed for the activities of children and other resi- REFERENCES
dents. Special signs alert motorists that no speed faster
Dargan, A., & Zeitlin, S. (1990). City play. New Brunswick, NJ:
than walking is allowed; benches, plantings, and a lack Rutgers University Press.
of curbs increase the ambiance and active space between Eubank-Ahrens, B. (1984-85). The impact of woonerven on children's
buildings. For children, increases in dramatic play, in behavior, Children's Environments Quarterly, 1, 39-45.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Collier.
play with trikes, bikes and other wheel toys, in conversa- Dewey, J. (1990). The school and society; And the child and the cur-
tion with other children and adults, and in overall partic- riculum: A centennial edition. Chicago: University of Chicago
ipation have been observed on such safe streets (Eubank- Press.

4. 202 Rivkin
Rivkin, M. S. (1995). The great outdoors: Restoring children's right to Rivkin, M. S. (1997). The schoolyard habitat movement: What it is and
play outside. Washington, DC: National Association for the why children need it. Early Childhood Education Journal, 25(1),
Education of Young Children. 61-66.