Learning outside the classroom has always had a place in society whether it was practiced at home or in school settings. At the turn of the century, research was published documenting the benefits of outdoor education and its impact on social, physical and academic development. Practitioners have since introduced ‘Learning Outside the Classroom’ as a pedagogy itself, to encourage the use of learning opportunities outside of the classroom. This development however, has since been overshadowed by the concept of ‘risk’.
Risk cannot be narrowed down to one simple definition as it is not an action but how we envisage an action. It can be regarded as a personal matter born from a lack of experience; the more experience you have of an action, the less risky you might deem it. Adam (2001: 13) emphases’ this ability of being ‘unable to quantify or predict risk’ but acknowledges there is an objective to risk. Therefore, there are many ways risk can be defined. Tovey (2007: 20, 99) describes risk as ‘attempting something you have never done before’, while Little, (2006: 499) builds upon that definition by explaining that the action creates the ‘feeling of being out of control’ as the outcome is uncertain. However, to engage in an activity deemed ‘risky’ you need to be able to overcome the fear associated with it (Stephenson, 2003: 36). Once these different descriptions of the word ‘risk’ have been considered, a question arises; should we, teachers and society, shelter our children from engaging in activities we describe negatively as frightening and dangerous or encourage them to participate in activities described as ‘great life lessons’? (Hanscom 2016:___).
Societies current attitudes to risk are affecting aspects of our culture. These not only affect our everyday lives but slowly hinders and potentially drastically changes our future generations education, and character development. At the turn of the 21st century in the United Kingdom (UK) issues of children’s personal safety and the risks they face became a key social and parental concern (Roberts et al, 1995). Many speculate that the development of young children is directly linked with their opportunities to experience risk taking. This essay explores and critically evaluates different opinions from theorists who have investigated whether there is a place for risk in our children’s education and if there is, how much is acceptable. It discusses the critical question of when and why did risk become too risky to allow children to experience. Is our culture of ‘protectionism’ (Harden 2000:___) causing more harm than good to our future generations? The information used to evaluate this question comes from articles and theorists who have conducted research in the UK over the past century on our societies belief of how risk is affecting children’s development.
Over the past century many theorists have conducted research with published findings, the most common theme within these examines the way the world we live in is viewed, and highlights that in recent years we have created a ‘blame and claim culture’ (Trafford, 2016) Instead of living as if each day was our last, we live in constant fear of the unknown, and if something was to go unexpectedly wrong instead of learning from our mistakes and trying again, taking it as a life lesson like Hanscom suggested, we look for the nearest person or object to blame and analyse until we have removed all aspects of adventure. Douglas and Wildavsky (1998) influencers of the cultural theory of risk believe the use of risk taking in our society is a national importance and they investigated whether the dangers in our lives are actually increasing or whether society is becoming more afraid.
Furedi (2001:152) extends the idea of the blame and claim culture by labelling it a ‘compensation culture’ which disturbingly is having a larger impact on future generations than we may realise because we have created a world where outdoor play is ‘criminalised’ (Louv, 2010: 31). As a result, children’s physical and character development are being deprived of stimulus.
This culture is spreading due to the increasing use of social media meaning the view of risk is no longer shared between adults but also worryingly children. Children are subconsciously fed fear not just from the adults around them, but from virtual reality and social media. This creates the foundation of a society where individuals continuously and subconsciously carry out risk assessments and manage risks in all aspects of their life. (Backett-Milburn, Harden, 2004: 430).
The most common examination in sources available concerning risk takes place where the majority of children spend their only time outdoors and in school playgrounds. This place society once deemed safe enough for children to play outside, pushing the limits of adventure without the shadow of adults looking over them. Now it is over ridden by the increasing concern of how risk is being managed within schools due to the fear of litigation and compensation claims. This causes many teachers and providers to restrict the opportunity for children to experience fun and adventure to reduce the potential risk of injury. This comes at the expense of potentially banishing the chance of fundamental opportunities for children to experience a healthy range of challenges without which their character and physical development will be hindered or damaged (Play England, 2008).
In 1981 the first Public Playground Safety Handbook was published. It aimed to provide schools with guidelines on how to create a safe environment for children. Society has since manipulated these guidelines turning them into regulations (Hanscom 2016), allowing them to be used for insurance claims when a child falls over, resulting in increased insurance premiums (Roisin 2014). This obsession with keeping children in a safety cocoon has drastically changed school playgrounds. Walking through a school playground today mixed in with the shouting of children you will hear a constant murmur of adults telling children to ‘get down from there’, ‘stop running so fast’, ‘be careful’, even to ‘stop spinning round’. Hanscom (2016) discovered this restriction on movement when witnessing an assistant give into fear and interrupt children who were learning about balance and safety by collecting sticks to build a den.
We haven’t stopped at just giving our children verbal instructions on how to play safer and keep them in this cocoon, health and safety advisors have instructed society to alter simple playground equipment. Hanscom (2016) discusses the effect of shortening slides and swings on the physical development of children by instantly reducing children’s sensory input and creating weak and undeveloped neurological systems. Without the sensory input children are unable to support skills such as attention, regulation, and learning (Hanscom 2016). By reducing slide length, we remove an opportunity from children to allow them to develop a strong balance system, weaken their muscles and core system and hinder their development of fine motor skills. Many researchers including Fiskum (2004) and Fjørtoft (2000) have discovered that in Norwegian schools’ children who engage in risky or ‘challenging’ play outdoors show ‘improved motor skills and spatial skills. Through risk taking in play children learn how to master risky situations’ allowing them to develop basic survival skills to aid them later in life when they are no longer under the watchful eye of adults (Ball 2002:__)
Without the opportunity to develop basic characteristics such as concentration how can children be expected to stay in a classroom for the majority of a day, listening, copying and ‘learning’. In today’s schools there are high expectations of children with assessments to pass and grades they need to achieve to progress. If children do not achieve the goals we set for them we tell them to try harder next time but still record it as underachieving; however many don’t have a long enough attention span to concentrate for a whole lesson, because we’ve removed their chance to develop their neurological systems through outdoor play, their handwriting isn’t acceptable because we’ve limited their chance to develop and challenge their fine motor skills as Hanscom’s (2016) findings proved. This isn’t an opportunity to remove all boundaries relating to risk but the current culture of risk management is over restrictive and hinders development. Malone and Tranter (2003) argue that just giving children access to unlimited outdoor space is not enough to maximise a stimulating environment, the management of the space is just as important as the access to it.
Should we be asking ourselves whether the problems of children creating disturbances (experiencing risk) out of school hours is a direct result of not being able to do so during school years? Also, why the law states prisoners are accessible to double the amount of time outside than children at school (Free the Kids, 2016)? If children learnt to appreciate the results of their actions through knowledge of risk, there may be fewer disturbances and fewer people in jail.
Theoretically incorporating risk taking into schools might be easier said than done. You would be fighting against what has become cultural practice. Challenges occur with classes having a wide gap of abilities, some children having been allowed to climb trees, go down slides backwards and jumping off swings and develop their balance and fine motor skills, and children who have spent the majority of their childhood playing indoors on their computer games and does not have these skills?
Stephenson (2003: 39) argues this becomes an issue of ‘challenge versus safety as what is challenging for one child may be a hazard for another’ because of the developmental range of skills and abilities. Maynard and Waters (2007) supports Stephenson’s findings, describing this gap in abilities as a need for an increase in the adult to child ratio when outside. Some to monitor the children who are acquiring their physical skills from scratch, and some for children who have years of refined technique playing outdoors. This could be argued as the most challenging obstacle to overcome as schools have insufficient funding and cannot afford the personnel required. It raises the issue of whether we are so far inside in the cocoon of safety we cannot trust our children to stay within the gated school boundaries and to look after each other outside without the watchful eye of 2 or 3 teachers/adults in the area, or are we so anxious and unwilling to allow our children freedom where they can play, climb, run around independently without the safety net to fall back on.
Children are born with an appetite for risk taking, how would they learn to walk without it? If we do not feed this appetite in a controlled manner, will they seek the risk themselves? (Gill 2007) If we do not allow our children to taste the sense of adventure and feel what it’s like to experience the ‘risk’ when climbing up a tree, they will become desensitised to that feeling. Their sense of risk will be limited to their experience of virtual reality games played on computers. Tovey (2007: 97) and Caillois (2001) compare the lack of risk to riding a rollercoaster as it provides a sensation of falling and spinning without any real-world danger as someone else is in control. Virtual reality computer games create the same illusion of risk as essentially the player is in complete control of the game giving the sensation of falling/climbing/fighting when in reality you are sat at home on your sofa in your safety cocoon. This goes against all meaning of risk and what it feels like to experience it.
When playing a computer game there is a certain outcome. This contradicts Little, (2006) definition of risk being out of control as the outcome is uncertain. No matter what happens in computer games you can turn it off and walk away whenever you want with no obvious consequences other than not physically experiencing the result of the risks taken during the game which negatively affect character development. Gill (2007) describes one of the ‘roles of risk in childhood is encountering it’ and allowing children to learn to manage risk and show an understanding of consequences. If future generations are getting their stimulus from computer games within the safety of their homes, the risk of restricting character development is heightened. The ability to fully understand the consequences of actions, and how to deal with risky situations in real life is limited as their minds have been engaging with a virtual reality where they get another life if they fall or seriously injury themselves or someone else. They can hurt/kill a computer-generated person, or themselves and not feel anything but be brought back to life at the press of a button. Consequences of actions to themselves or others no longer have values attributed to them. Without the opportunity to explore the environment and its endless possibilities and boundaries children will never learn the true meaning of dangerous and how to handle risks they come across in life (Adams, 2001:__).
According to a report from Future Foundations (2006) the amount of time parents have spent looking after their children has quadrupled in the past 25 years, from 25 minutes of play per day in 1975 to 99 minutes in 2000. A main reasons for this is parents fear to let their children play unsupervised (Gill 2007: 13). Tovey (2007) agrees with Ball (2002) arguing risky play gives children opportunities to exercise their right to make instant judgements about their own safety and do their own risk assessment on the dangers in the area as survival skills for later in life.
If their risk assessment fails and they hurt themselves or fall down, these mistakes allow them to receive instant feedback allowing them to try a different variation in their technique and planning. This allows for strong character building as the children’s minds are being developed to their limits without the safety net of an adult telling them not to do something ‘just in case’. How will they know what ‘just in case’ means unless they try it? Children surprise us with their resilience. This coincides with what sociologist Frank Furedi (2001) calls the ‘culture of fear’ we have created, a dangerous anxiety about safety that has shown our fears for children even though according to statistics they are safer than at any point in human history.
If we do not feed children’s appetite for experiencing risk by removing all potential hazards, whilst we are making it questionably safer we are also creating a challenge free environment, which alters their character development. Children have an innate instinct to experience risk to the extent that they will seek it out themselves. This wish to escape a restrictive childhood could be argued to be a contributing factor to a rise in antisocial youth leisure activities such as crime (Gill 2007).
Since 2007 the UK has seen an increase in violent crimes involving street gangs and a rise in victims of violent gang warfare. This could be partially blamed on the implications of making settings risk free. From the newly created challenge free environments (Stephenson, 2003: 40) children are more likely to become bored which makes unexpected behaviour patterns and choices become increasingly appealing to create excitement in their play. Walsh (1993: 24) explores this view explaining children are ‘led to use equipment in unexpected and truly dangerous ways in an effort to create challenge for themselves’.
We are surrounded by the most stimulating environment imaginable. However, we are simply not brave enough to use it. The outdoor environment has the most natural and powerful modes of learning for young children (Bilton, 2002). It gives free access to unlimited space to inspire children’s creativity and imagination. The ultimate creation has to be nature itself, which continually exceeds the boundaries of mankind’s imagination. In today’s culture to give children the full range of opportunities to develop and experience what was once called a ‘normal childhood’ and to achieve their full potential teachers and providers must have the confidence to use this natural resource as a central part of their pedagogy and be brave enough to stand up to the ‘blame and claim culture’ (Trafford, 2018)that currently stops them doing so.
In 2002 the Child Accident Prevention Trust explored children’s attitudes to risk in the North-east of England. They found a majority of the young population went out and played on wastelands, building sites, subways, underpasses, abandoned buildings and quarries so they could search for freedom away from the watchful eye of adults whilst experiencing and learning about risk. This was the only way the children felt they could have real adventures where they could climb, run, jump and use their imagination. (Gill 2007: 19). This exposes them to unmonitored risk which arguably is more dangerous to our younger generation because they’ve not learnt to assess risk through experience as we have kept them in a cocoon of safety.
Nature can also be frightening but can be used to allow our children to explore their strengths and abilities in the vast unknown outdoors, it allows them to develop cognitive and moral strength as they can move away from confrontation outside. Thus, reducing the chance of them becoming ‘frustrated’ (Ouvry, 2003: 16). Outdoor play encourages children’s use of imagination allowing for fantasy play to take over. They can become superhero’s, running, chasing and jumping off objects (Paley, 1984). Nature is allowing them the freedom to fantasise in private: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peaceful place. (Louv 2010: 7).
Society does benefit from technology – life expectancy has increased, infant mortality is down (Douglas & Wildavsky. 1998: 2) and is essential to almost all careers. However, negative ripple effect is the impact on children’s development and we need to be aware of these dangers. Louv (2010:13) states that arguably computers are essentially more important than nature as computers are where the jobs are. We cannot take away the opportunity for our future generation to succeed in their careers through understanding technology. On the other hand, we should not be short-sighted as it places work before play and it could be viewed as the beginning of a slippery slope where work takes over our lives. To create and live in a society where we don’t live to work, we work to live could cause a crippling effect on our children’s physical and character development. We didn’t get to the level of intelligence to build a computer without engaging with nature and taking risks so why should we stop now? Louv (2010: 137) continues to debate the use of technology and the impact on children’s development. He expands on the consequences explaining he believes the problem with computers isn’t that they are technology, but an over dependence on them which displaces and eradicates our other practical tools for education such as arts and nature. Individuals are pouring more money into our technology allowing it to take over our lives, when really, we shouldn’t allow it to control us, we should control it and use it to our advantage in a controlled manner.
There are contrary opinions and Marshall Jones (1998) contributed the ‘theory of flow’ in relation to learning through video games. He argues flow theory explains ‘motivational aspects of computer games’. The theories characteristics have been used to show direct links with how computer games can positively affect school practice by giving clear goals, allowing children to concentrate and provide deep involvement in the activity therefore creating maximum output in achievement (Csikszentmihalyi, 1992: 50). This allows for more engaged and motivated learning for children benefiting their education. (Nielsen, 2013: 61).
Other studies have been undertaken that identify concerns with young children using technology on their physical, social, moral and cognitive development. Plowman et al (2010: 65) analysed a series of reports that placed screen play as a ‘distraction from first-hand experience, possibly damaging to long term memory impediment to imagination and physical activity and as undemanding cognitively’. We are surrounded by the most ‘natural and powerful modes of learning for young children’ (Bilton 2002: 132) which is described by (FjØrtoft, 2001: 111) as providing dynamic, stimulating and rough playscapes that challenged motor activity in children. However, there are few who openly state that children with a high dependency on technology develop faster physically, cognitively and in a better way than those who learn through actual life experiences by taking manage risk.
The evidence presented in this review shows that despite the importance of learning outside the classroom, it is almost an impossible task without the change of playground regulations (Stephenson, 2003: 39). The current safety regulations are so restrictive, making steps to regain trust in our children’s ability to judge risk near impossible.
This does not mean society should allow our children to engage in uncontrolled risk but instead allow them to interact with managed risk. Adults, parents and providers, have a pedagogical responsibility of encouraging children to encounter challenges within a safe setting (S. J. Smith, 1998). But we need to ensure that girls and boys leave childhood leave fully equipped with survival skills rather than relying the current blame and claim culture.
I recognise that, as ever, any change requires monetary support: the additional staff, the additional materials and the additional training. A managed outdoor environment is an additional classroom, it is not merely a space for children to run amok. School environments are often emotionally safe spaces for children, and the lack of a physical wall to the outside world makes finding the balance of managed risk difficult. Not all schools have the support to cope with this pressure.
I strongly believe pedagogical providers need to evoke change, recognising the importance of the research, and reinstill outdoor learning. I argue that without outdoor learning, how can we dissemble the blame and claim culture, how else can we teach children that an action has an associated consequence, how else can they learn this crucial lesson. Being allowed to take risks is an essential part of the ongoing process of being at home in the world (Smith 1998: 182), not living in fear.
Since the start of time children have grown up in the outdoors. At the turn of the century, we rung in a new era of suffocating safety controls. Risk started to become too risky, parents became increasingly protective, and children have not been able to comprehend consequences. Instead of playing outdoors, children play online in the cocoon of their home and the idea of consequences have been replaced by the ability to switch a device off and simply restart.
I’d like to leave you with this. The Waldorf School of the Peninsula in California is the new hotspot for the children of Silicon Valley Titans. This school believes that teaching is all about physical activity and learning through creative tasks. The parents of these children are developing the technology that as a society, we have made our children develop through. What do they know that we do not? It appears that society is now starting to have a ‘seatbelt moment’ (Pierre Laurent, Microsoft).
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