The article about the Forest kindergarten in Germany is a sign of the times. Up until around 20 years ago, children spent most of their time playing outdoors. Yards were large, houses came with garages that were not filled up with former basement and attic storage items.
With the destruction of the middle class economy, so carefully crafted from the 50s on, the square footage of basements is not allowed, nor large yards or even garages. So children’s behavior- being driven indoors- is naturally inclined, now, to sedentary activities. If this were not so, I don’t think this article would be remarkable.
The question that is more to the point, here, is what happened to the choices of families to have outdoor room for children to play? Was this a conscious choice, or an infliction of economic circumstances?
People seem to be inclined toward outdoors play being good for children. Then why is this not a stated societal goal with the appropriate economic systems being voted into place to achieve this? And given the state of things now- outdoor play as a novelty- what information would have been useful 20 years ago for this topic to be a non-topic, now?
The article about the Forest kindergarten in Germany is a sign of the times. Up until around 20 years ago, children spent most of their time playing outdoors. Yards were large, houses came with garages that were not filled up with former basement and attic storage items.
ReplyDeleteWith the destruction of the middle class economy, so carefully crafted from the 50s on, the square footage of basements is not allowed, nor large yards or even garages. So children’s behavior- being driven indoors- is naturally inclined, now, to sedentary activities. If this were not so, I don’t think this article would be remarkable.
The question that is more to the point, here, is what happened to the choices of families to have outdoor room for children to play? Was this a conscious choice, or an infliction of economic circumstances?
People seem to be inclined toward outdoors play being good for children. Then why is this not a stated societal goal with the appropriate economic systems being voted into place to achieve this? And given the state of things now- outdoor play as a novelty- what information would have been useful 20 years ago for this topic to be a non-topic, now?