Walking Through the Woods: Meet Guelph Outdoor School

In this episode, Rimsha speaks with Chris Green, the director of Guelph Outdoor School.
Chris works as GOS instructor, is a Dad to two girls, and grew up in the Guelph area.  His hopes are that, Guelph Outdoor School evolves and grows with a changing world, delivering learning opportunities that are fun, effective, relevant, and as accessible and welcoming as possible.


Learn why Chris considers being outside to be the most valuable tool in for not just kids but adults too!

Download the episode transcript here.

To find more information on Guelph Outdoor School, click here! 

Transcript

Chris Green  00:09

I would love to see integration of schools and get nature connection instructors really jamming with some classroom teachers and looking at ways to both make the meld but also evolve them both right? They can, they can support each other. And so far as we're actually, you know, meeting each other and spending some time, you know, walking through the woods together with the kids. That's the way you know, if we don't have kids functioning and in doing well then then we've lost our baseline

Rimsha Sayyed  00:44

Hi, everyone, you're listening to the child and Nature Alliance of Canada Podcast. I'm one of your hosts Russia said. And I'm the Communications Coordinator for Siena, which is headquartered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg. If you'd like to learn more about what we do, please check out our website at child nature.ca.

Rimsha Sayyed  01:13

Today, I'm joined by Chris Green. He is the director of golf Outdoor School. So thank you for joining me today taking the time to talk to me really excited to have you here. Just to get started, can you maybe give us a little bit of an introduction to yourself and what you do?

Chris Green  01:28

Sure. My name is Chris Green. I'm a dad and I live just outside of Guelph on the hermosa River and a little some of it what I do is 10 years ago, I was part of starting something that's called the Guelph Outdoor School. And it amounts to what we call weekly nature immersion and mentorship programs. It's what we would call like an alternative and complement to all the educational options that are out there. So kids will join us in the woods one day a week. And then the other four days a week they're doing remote learning or in class learning or homeschooling D schooling, you know kicked out of schooling, whatever it is, you know, it's an alternative and a compliment and like an option to build time in nature right into your week like and on a weekly basis.

Rimsha Sayyed  02:07

Maybe if you could give us a little bit of a background on on Guelph Outdoor School itself and sort of how they got started. What's going on there? 

Chris Green  02:14

Okay sure, Well, it started. Because I was a teacher and finding a lot of frustrations in my own career, like, as young as it was like I did one one whole year as a grade five French teacher just outside of Guelph. Yeah, I found myself distinctly like unsatisfied with supporting certain kids. And I didn't quite know what next steps to take. But I was really inspired by this talk at a at a teacher's like a PD for teachers, which was Ken Robinson talking about, like, if you look at the trajectory of our economy, and technology, we have no idea what we're preparing kids for, like 20 years down the road, like kids who are going into kindergarten now, we can't even predict what will be expected of them. And I think, you know, Ken Robinson is gone. Now. He died a couple of years ago. But I think he would add climate to that, too. So I really got that something was really needed to support kids in a changing world. And I got the resources I was looking for in the in the year or two following. And in the fall of September 2012. We did like a Friday afternoon program with like five boys who couldn't stand school didn't want us to sit still. And it just it just grew like steadily from there. So that's how well Outdoor School started. Just like I'd have a recognition of like the limits of classroom education. And to be clear, like, classroom education has its role like I'm a fan of numeracy and literacy. It's just that it's so limited. And considering, you know, what we have on our plates these days, the next 60 years is going to be harrowing. And I suspect that the classroom can't address it. So we did that. And now, a couple years later, we turned it into a nonprofit organization. That happened in 2016. And now we've got something like 35 staff, over 250 families who come to us every week. And yeah, we we have multiple programs every day Monday through Saturday at a few different locations throughout wealth. And so that's like how that looks like on a daily basis. And then we do great summer programs as well. Because why not? It's a great way to help kids find their way to our weekly programs throughout the school year, which is like, really what we're all about, you know, doing doing nature immersion during school hours, you know, because kids already have pretty full schedules. And then we support other outdoor schools. We're starting up because we have a couple of years experience. So

Rimsha Sayyed  04:40

that's wonderful to hear. And you had mentioned about you know, that need of like, not being able to address all of the issues in like a normal school setting and not knowing how to properly prepare kids and I think that can also be a question for maybe parents who are looking into whether it's part time Outdoor School or even full time Outdoor School is that Is the needs of their kids going to be addressed versus like a traditional school setting? I think that's something that people may not understand or grasp fully as How are their kids meeting that quote, unquote, curriculum? And are they going to be prepared in the same sense as traditional school as they would be with Outdoor School?

Chris Green  05:16

Yeah, well, you're really touching on something important there. Because I mean, that's the number one question parents have, like, oh, won't my kids be missing school? And I don't have anything impressive to say, it's like, yes, they'll be they'll be missing school one day a week. But then it really brings up for me like, well, there's, there's two issues there. Like one is like, the what's happening, content wise, and yeah, don't miss a little bit of content. But the thing that I always want to drive forward for parents is like the developmental reality for their kids. And that when kids are doing nature immersion regularly, like there's all these developmental aspects that are being missed in a in like an indoor place, that really puts them in a physical developmental position to to excel, when they are doing their academics, if that makes sense. So it's always like, yeah, they're missing school, and they're getting like, you know, if kids were like little switchboards, they would be getting all those little green lights flicked every time they come out,

Rimsha Sayyed  06:12

along the same lines, is that do you think that there is room for kind of bridging that gap of filling in that content with outdoor learning as resources progress? Or is it something that's gonna stay separate from the traditional sense of school? 

Chris Green  06:26

Oh Yeah, that's a great question. And it like that comes up for us, like in terms of access to our programs, like, really, to get to our programs, your parents, like need to have a schedule that allows them to get to us at 845, pick up at four, you know, that's on their own steam, there's no school bus to go vote or school yet. And so, you know, in terms of accessibility, that's something that we really want to do. We want to find ways to get into the classroom and go with or not into the classroom, but to schools, I should say, COVID, when it's in its peaks has not been helpful on that front. But we're really clear that working with teachers and schools is the way and actually just for the it was kind of like, a great moment a couple of days ago, because for the first time, in two years of pandemic, I was actually allowed to go into school and do this thing, this program that we call the outdoor toolbox, which is like just working directly with teachers to help them feel empowered and able to get out into wild spaces around the school and like make the best use of it, both in terms of like giving kids exciting content, like oh, here's that thing that we were talking about in class like living and growing, but then also saying like about developmental aspect to this ways to strategically deploy outdoor time to like, help kids with their academic success, like if they have this big, whatever standardized test coming up, because that's where we are right now. Get them out for, you know, half an hour before that, and their nervous systems will come right down. And they're going to feel inspired and maybe like all sorts of things that are hard to quantify. But we know the case, right? Like, I don't really want to argue the scientific case, we just know that we all do. Well, if we can get outside for a moment.

Rimsha Sayyed  08:04

Yeah, for sure. I'm curious to know, parents and families and kids that you have doing, you know, your weekly programs and stuff do they often see a little bit of pushback from their traditional teachers, when they find you know, their kids are missing one day a week from normal school setting.

Chris Green  08:19

Honestly, like when I started 10 years ago, and maybe a little bit more afraid of conflict than I am now. And all that stuff, I was terrified that like I was gonna have like this whole community of teachers angry at me for pulling kids out of school. And like, the total opposite was the case like, because because no one gets it more than teachers and school leaders and principals, no one gets it more than them. So I you know, 1000s of kids have come through our door school over the last 10 years. And I think I've signed like, maybe three funny little half page forms that, you know, for intent to homeschool what's like, officially explains why they're missing a day. But other than that, parents will say hey, my kids doing outdoor school and the teachers like that makes sense. And off they go, you know, or maybe there's a middle ground stuff, but mostly like it's just not problematic,

Rimsha Sayyed  09:08

that accessibility point where people maybe don't understand what is for school, and how is it benefiting me and it kind of comes off as like, it's only for maybe a niche type of person, because I don't understand what force school is. So maybe you can talk a little bit about your efforts to diversify for school and like how that works with a golf Outdoor School.

Chris Green  09:29

You just named like, the reality that we're swimming in and don't like it. Not good, but it's just what just like the world right now. There's so many like intersectional and layered reasons why, you know, some people see themselves that Outdoor School and others don't and like that, that school peace is definitely a big part of it. Like the pandemic didn't help but I'm I'm really excited about seeing more in school because I used to think that financial barriers were like number one, I would call financial barriers like number 10. Now You know, there's like nine barriers in front of them. One of them is just like, parents, parents don't, are still sort of like the gatekeepers for you know, their kids experiences up to like age 16. So I realized, Oh, damn, if parents don't see a need for, for the kids to be an outdoor school, or that lights them up, that kind of stuff, lights them up, then they'll never make it over. Right. So if we can be in the schools and let kids get into conversation about that good stuff, that's just like, a great starting point. And then, of course, like, so golf, Outdoor School is now a nonprofit with a pretty like, robust and like, user friendly, that is to say, in the hands of the client, like sliding scale of discount system. So really, anyone can just come for $0. And we're happy to work with people to like, work on transportation, or whatever it is. So that school peace, and just like, creating conversation is pretty humongous. And then from there, it's just about like, keeping our eyes open for those good opportunities, I find like the big monolithic attempts at like declaring what we're all about is just, it just falls flat, you know. And so just keeping, keep your ears to the ground, just looking for those opportunities. I don't know what a great example. But one is like, a couple years ago, we worked with the University team, who had nothing to do with like, it wasn't about getting more instructors into our programs or getting more kids, we had a University team at U of G University of Guelph willing to do like a research project on on nature connection and how it how it improves, like overall community function like on all these metrics, right. And from there, you know, we got to know this, this group of university students, probably like, six of seven, six or seven of them were black, brown, or indigenous or black, red, black or brown. And so they part of their research was to just come on out and get involved and see what our programs are like, so that they could then go write about it. But then we had so much fun by the time it was, you know, our chance to like do summer hires, it was like, Oh, what about you, and now one of them on that team Ridge instan. Not only did summer programs, but he's a he's like a full time instructor who we love. And he's, he's Sri Lankan. And like, so now that happened, and now kids are feeling like other kids from Sri Lanka, or who like, you know, feel like they look like him, or like, are loving being in program. And I'm a big believer, and just like that, that organic, like, approach, like you can't force I wish we could, you know, but one of my teachers says, You can't move a river, you know, it's like, so it, that the experience has so far has been like, you know, doing those official glossy front facing public efforts, but ultimately, it's about like, you know, just just watching for those opportunities. Other ones are like, so other, like efforts that I can point to are like, making those those discounts available, not necessarily because the systemic barriers to wealth are, you know, affecting a particular family. But there's just like, that particular family that's maybe new to Canada, straight from like West Africa, they're not in a community of other people who are talking about outdoor school right now. You know, so there's, like that trust element. So we put out this this discount system where it's like, there's zero commitment, they don't have to put up any money upfront. But what's happened, even though some like brand new Canadians, they're like, Okay, sweet, we'll take three free camps with you all, and then their kid comes back and loves it, and then they just donate later. So we just kind of, you know, there's all these little inroads to, like, start creating conversation that have been really fruitful and made us all like, you know, have a richer program for it.

Rimsha Sayyed  13:50

 Yeah, it's about making those community connections, I think, and then that, that just helps you build your diversity and bringing different people who may not have been ever like, again, to coming to Outdoor School, you know, join you. And you'd mentioned the, you know, like barriers in sort of having those open accessibility points for other people. Could you maybe like name a couple of like, the biggest barriers you're working on trying to get over? 

Chris Green  14:15

Yeah, well, probably is like one big barriers, just like making that connection that I mentioned earlier between your physiological and emotional state and academic success. So I only get to say that thing to parents who are already calling me and I'm like, Well, my kid miss a day of school. So I would love if the educational conversation like broadly speaking, really worked to make that link. I know that like, I know that a lot of people are talking about mental health this and mental health and it's exceedingly important conversation. But then how often does nature connection really feature into that conversation? You know, like when we talk about mental health, we know the things that are taking us out pandemics, income and, you know, inequality, housing, all that stuff. But like, I would love to have access to wild spaces, and those wild spaces being, you know, a welcoming and fun and community place. I would love for that be a bigger part of the conversation.

Rimsha Sayyed  15:20

Yeah, of course. And, yeah, I mean, I think it's great to see people exploring their options, and that way, you know, that they can get outside and that they have this option available to them.

Chris Green  15:31

Yeah, but you're, you're asking is, yeah, so you're asking about, like, accessibility and like, how to make things more accessible for people. So I start I went with, like, bridging that link between, like, between mental health issues and, and, and how do we actually address them. And what I usually say about Outdoor School is it's this wonderful. Like, in terms of mental health, it's kind of got all the the special ingredients is preventative, right, we were addressing things before they happen, because we're just creating a good feeling in the body. They're non clinical, right, we're not talking about drugs, or weird, you know, clinical intervention, where you have to go to some building and you know, people with clipboards, you know, check you out. And I should take a moment, like, I get that those interventions are really important. I don't want to dismiss them. But like, there's such an important opportunity, I guess, to, to, to let kids be kids and do the things that make them feel good before they're actually at that point of needing a more clinical intervention. So I always say it's like, it's fun, non clinical, preventative. And it really just a catch all for overall health. And well being like the natural world cat gets us on all these metrics, right, like myopia, and short sightedness, we used to think it was because kids were being presented with you know, two dimensional pieces of paper, two feet in front of them, and they were never challenged to like, zoom in and zoom out, scan, left scan right now we're getting that myopia has all sorts to do with exposure to natural sunlight, kids are getting less and less of, especially in the pandemic, you know, gut flora, you know, from being in non sterile environments. So you know, we get good immune system function from being outside, we get fresh air, which is hugely important, especially these days.

Rimsha Sayyed  17:23

Yeah. And in terms of, you know, mental health and the pandemic, do think you've seen maybe more people interested in like, outdoor schooling for school, because, you know, that's maybe one of the only options that the cab left with, you know, restrictions. And you know, being outside is kind of the only thing they can do. So have you seen maybe a little bit more of an increase of people taking interest in wanting to, you know, see what Outdoor School is about?

Chris Green  17:51

Yes, like last lap, so not this past summer. But last August, I guess, August of 2021, was beyond anything I could have ever imagined. We had a really successful summer, but then we posted fall programs in mid August. And usually we have to hustle to get our programs filled by like late October kind of thing. And that particular summer, we saw, like hundreds of people register, right on that day waiting list just piling up on top. We made new programs just to answer that made new hires. And then those filled it was really something and it's hard to get an official story. And you know, what exactly was driving it. But I usually speculate that we had that time people didn't even know if schools were open, or we knew less about the virus and people just wanted something. Like for a lot of people, they were like humming and Jaime like, Oh, should I do Outdoor School? It's kind of weird. And I'd have to explain it to the teacher. But then all of a sudden, we no explanation was needed. It was like fresh air for your kid. Make sense? Go. So yeah, huge spike, one full year ago. And then we tried to expand programs out again this year in anticipation. And it's been like still lots of interest, but not the same explosion. I guess because like now, we're all a little bit like more used to it all or something like, I got a handle on it. But it's still just as much just as important as ever. That's for sure.

Rimsha Sayyed  19:25

That's great. Another question that just came to mind as maybe you have all these great weekly programs. Do you think full time Forest School is something that you golf Outdoor School would eventually move into? Or do would you say you are more in the area of you know, weekly programs or is it something you want to see in the future that you can kind of move into also having a full time program?

Chris Green  19:48

Yep. I would love to see that happen. I can. I think it's realistic in the next five or 10 years, I would say and that has everything to do with like, yeah, broader, broader. have tons of this kind of stuff right because you do need like natural places to go to where you can have a fire in the winter and things like that. So we definitely need like community buy in, like to grow in that way. But we also two years ago like in the midst of COVID created something called the village hearth Community School which is happening in the willow Road area shell Dale center. And that is a monday through friday September till June, nature connection options. So that is, it's a half day Montessori experience. So half day classroom and then half day is outside and Norm Jerry Park and around shell Dale with nature connection instructors from Guelph Outdoor School, and the kids just have that built in Monday to Friday. And that's that's that's been a like a good news story in terms of accessibility to we offer, we offer spots to Guelph broadly, it's just like other private schools, you know, like Montessori or Waldorf, but we've got a strong commitment to a sliding scale for whoever sees value in the program. And we hold spots for people and families like right in that community, to make sure that those spots don't just get like, filled right out by the person who's got like a nice new smartphone and can hit the button fastest. So we hold spots there. And so we actually do have that in place in one in one part of town.

Rimsha Sayyed  21:26

And how is that going?

Chris Green  21:28

Yeah, I mean, it's it well, it's on you too. And I'm not really aware of anything like it. So not much to compare it to. But it's a, it's a good news story that we've got one. One kid there who has been doing outdoor school for a while and just loves it. And then we identified that, oh, they're actually down the road. We're, and it's hard. Again, the transportation issue is, is a barrier. But we're finding ways like now that we're nonprofit, we can do fundraising for this and that. So it's a little bit clunky, but we just gotten them a cab every day. And so now they just roll in. And that's one of those spots help. So we're making it work. But, again, community buy in would be great, because we just don't have the resources that like public schools have, we have to fundraise for everything like that?

Rimsha Sayyed  22:19

Yeah, that's great. No, that's great to hear. I didn't I didn't even know about about that. So that's wonderful. And then one kind of final question and piece with curriculum and stuff. So, you know, we've been talking a lot about accessibility, and you know, how maybe parents might be concerned with the traditional school versus Outdoor School and how that kind of works together. So say, you know, someone's interested in having their kid go through that full time outdoor education, and they get to grade eight, and they're concerned that they're not going to be maybe ready for public private high school in the traditional sense. What would you kind of say, at that point?

Chris Green  22:58

Right. Well, I mean, there's so kids are at the village, hearth Community School, for example, they're still engaging, you know, academics as someone would in any of those Montessori Waldorf options. And those those kids are going into high school all the time, unless they go to like the Toronto Waldorf School, which takes you all the way through grade 12. But I suppose I would say it's the same. It's the same thing I would say like, yes, they're getting academics. And I know, it's only a half, it's just a half day. But they're getting this other set that allows them to function at a higher level. And I think it I'm not totally clear on this, but I think high schools need to accept kids where they're at. So if that's where they're at, they're, you know, you got these nature connected kids who have, you know, this whole other set of skills, maybe they're not passing every test, because they're like, they don't have those specific pieces of content, they're going to be a great addition to their, to their school community. And like, I would just say that it's just one version of how we're going to do the messy business of evolving education, right, like if teachers are seeing kids coming in who are like crazy nature connected and and committed to service to community and like just vibrating on this whole other level, and maybe not getting a pluses, you know, maybe we shift I don't know how it's gonna be a shift. But I'm glad that we've got kids who are not solely like, got strictly the academics that they have mentorship and these other areas that will serve us 

Rimsha Sayyed  24:36

Yeah, it's definitely a point for evolving education. You know, especially through the pandemic and everything we've been going through. I think it's a really important topic now that we need to start involving education to include all kinds of kids because like you said before, there's no really neurotypical what, what is normal you can't really consider anyone normal because everyone one's gonna have different skills, different places that they excel different needs different interests. So, you know, being stuck in that typical school system where it's like, no, you have to pass this, this this and if you don't, then you're not smart, or you're not gonna excel in society is like, what does that say to a kid? You know, you need to have those points of evolving.

Chris Green  25:24

Yeah, yeah, it really begs the question of like, our theory of change, how does the education system change? And what factors we know drive it? And I guess the answer is like, you know, of course, teachers and educators can be visionary in how they change programs, but hopefully, the way kids show up to school will also help drive it you know, teachers will, you know, look at this new kid coming in from an age of connective, educational background, they'll be like, Oh, damn, look what they're doing. You know, I don't know. There's like, element of mystery and all this isn't there?

Rimsha Sayyed  26:06

Yeah, there is. Maybe just a final question. And where would you kind of like to see golf Outdoor School go in the whole nature school, Outdoor School? You know, idea. Go in the future? What would you like to see for?

Chris Green  26:21

Sure. I would just, I would love to see. I would love to see integration with schools and get nature connection instructors really jamming with classroom teachers and looking at ways to both make them meld but also evolve them both, right? They can, they can support each other. And so far as we're actually you know, meeting each other and spending some time, you know, walking through the woods together with kids, I would love to see more time in schools. This stuff. It's still we still we have we want to pay our staff living wages. And so just a broader appreciation. I mean, there's appreciation, but like just a broader appreciation. Yeah, like from funders and from the province and from the federal government. And for people who have a ton of money to see, you know, outdoor education being a nature connection being a real priority, because it is such a great way to get kids prepared for for like an unknown future, you know, and the time is now like, we don't even know what we're saving for anymore. So just use the money you have and make wonderful thing for make wonderful things happen for kids. That's the way you know if we don't have kids functioning and and doing well then then we've lost our baseline

Rimsha Sayyed  27:46

This was great. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I know you're busy. But this was a great conversation. I definitely learned a lot and yeah, I look forward to seeing what you guys do in the future.

Chris Green  27:58

No, thank you so much for for having, having me on having having this conversation.