How can we help children experience plants differently before we teach them that they are insignificant?
This heavy question is rooted in the sobering reality that adults teach children how to think about plants and how to treat them.
In Where did you go? The forest. What did you see? Nothing., Lynda H. Schneekloth discusses how adults send conflicting messages about plants to children and how the dominant message to children is that vegetation can be categorized as “nothing” (Schneekloth, 1989). Examples of conflicting messages adults send to children are “vegetables are good for you, eat them…we need to build something here, bulldoze the trees” (Schneekloth, 1989).
How did vegetation become so invisible?
Schneekloth (1989) presents three factors contributing to the unfortunate status of plants in our society. She explains that plants make up too much of the background. Because there are so many plants, they have suffered the fate of any element, when in abundance, that forms a background. Because they are the background, plants make what is different appear to be more important (Schneekloth, 1989).
Also contributing to the problem of visibility is how people experience plants in their real lives compared to what we know about them at the scientific level. Regardless of how we’ve come to know plants scientifically, in our real lives plants exist only to serve us (Schneekloth, 1989). This reality contributes directly to the the third issue making plants invisible and this issue is, it’s all about us.
Because we have come to know plants so well through research, Schneekloth (1989) says this has created a feeling of superiority that prevents us from seeing the extent to which we are dependent upon plants. She explains that our ability to make plants grow and appear in ways that suit us has created a “false sense of security” (Schneekloth, 1989) and has left us feeling in control of our world.
With plants existing only in the background and with our anthropormorphic view of the world, how are plants perceived by humans?
Schneekloth investigated this by asking two groups of people (environmental educators and grad students studying architecture) to draw a picture of “an experience, place or activity” (Schneekloth, 1989) that was key to their forming a relationship with nature. The details of her study can be reviewed in her paper. The big takeaway from her investigation is this — when people drew their nature experience, they placed humans in a scene with vegetation; when they talked about their experience, the actions taken by humans was the focus. Schneekloth (1989) observed that drawing gave plants a presence, while language rendered plants invisible. She observed that in a drawing, plants are “something” (Schneekloth, 1989) because they are given form.
There is much more to learn from Schneekloth in her article about the value of vegetation. Look for the journal Children’s Environments Quarterly at your local college library.
So let’s get back to that big question…
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How can we help children experience plants differently before we teach them that they are insignificant?
Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
Literature Cited
Schneekloth, Lynda H. 1989. Where did you go? The forest. What did you see? Nothing. Children’s Environments Quarterly. 6(1):14-17
Related
Children’s books cited by Schneekloth that give plants a foreground presence:
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, translated by Richard Howard (2000)
- The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkein (1965)
- A Wind in the Door by Madelaine L’Engle (1973)
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