And I’m afraid the pun was intentional, given what she writes on.

I hope to write more about at least some of the ideas of Rachel Kaplan in the near future, but for now, these few thoughts:

Kaplan and Kaplan’s argument sees being outside as having key components in what they call the ‘ restorative experience’ (Kaplan and Kaplan 1989 p182): Being Away; Extent; Fascination; Compatibility.   These offer the mentally fatigued (Kaplan and Kaplan 1989 p178) – or more properly those whose directed attention to their tasks has caused them fatigue (p180) – a powerful opportunity for refreshment.

Being Away is often seen as a crucial element in Forest School. Simply being outdoors – especially in the context of Early Childhood education where best practice identifies outdoors as a vital but everyday experience – is not enough; being somewhere different is also important. Stephenson’s argument – that pedagogy and relationships are different outdoors, even in the nursery garden – would not seem enough: different, but not that different.

This is where Extent might play a part – and where the comparative issues of the Forest affordances of Ingunn Fjortoft and the small patches of fenced-off play areas in the UK are most crucial.   But if the Forest School site is small, perhaps, like the one hidden away in Little Wittenham, the overall feeling of extent is important?

And so to the last two: fascination and compatibility, that might be combined into something like Laevers’ notion of involvement…

Even so, the objections of Ecclestone and others cannot be ignored: what does the young learner need refreshment for? What needs restoring? Is there a sense in which the confined environment even in the best of schools is viewed as destructive?

A shame one of the Lehrer videos was removed. This (sort of) makes up for it, not in its depiction of elements, but in the images of scientists: mad, middle-aged white men, working in some hinterland that is at once chemistry and physics. Now that’s worth thinking about!!!

Back to Ken Robinson’s TED speech, cited earlier.

We are instantly into the notion of the embodied mind here, and reach back to Plato, to medieval Christian mistrust of the body, and so on. I’m not suggesting there’s a quick fix for this change in thinking. Educationalists look – or can too often look, if we’re more phrasing it more cautiously – at intellectual activity as the sole or principal purpose of education. The debate about testing using SATs (which is not quite an annual event, but does reappear often) brings it mind to again, although it’s interesting to note one of the sources of the current disquiet is the Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee report, published today.

The Ecclestone-Furedi scrutiny of the therapeutic in education [see for example, Kathryn's fascinating professiorial lecture, the text of which can be accessed via this page] explores whether dealing with feelings is a valid way of treating learners – but might, of course, not move the ‘embodiment’ notion any further, seeking rather to look still at activity that is primarily non-embodied: the emotions rather than cognition. In other words, well-being is less the polar opposite of cognition in educational terms than the debate might suggest.

More on this later.

I found these on Youtube and couldn’t resist posting them here: the first tries to illustrate every element in the Lehrer song, the second illuminates the elements on the periodic table as he sings. The third is a snappier, live recording which marries ideas from both. Enjoy. And ponder the educational context, if you’re reading this blog for that kind of reason.