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Sunday, April 20,2008
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Nature and Youth
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The
unmitigated awe that nature can inspire in the youthful imagination has been a
subject of reflection for countless poets and authors. Transcendentalists like
Walt Whitman ascribed an almost pious relevance to a child’s discovery of
nature.
It’s
this sense of awe and wonder that writer Richard
Louv believes is at stake in today’s youth, resulting largely from a
dwindling contact with nature and an immersion in electronic media and
structured play. In 2005 he published Last
Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder,
enumerating the many ills that arise when children are gradually divorced from
the natural world.
The
book’s main premise is that contact with nature is just as important to a child’s
well-being as good nutrition and adequate sleep. According to his introduction,
“our mental, physical and spiritual health depends upon it.”
Those
whose youth was spent far removed from grass and streams might disagree with
the critical urgency of his appeal, yet even for the nature-deprived the
natural world has always found a way of seeping into the imagination,
populating horror stories and fairy tales with enchanted glens and gurgling
brooks. And which of us doesn’t have at least one idyllic childhood memory of
scouring rock-pools for crabs or hunting for mushrooms amid the heady scent of
damp earth? Perhaps the fact that many of us still yearn for such moments of
intent absorption accounts for Louv’s ultimately optimistic tone. If we make
the right choices, he says, there’s a chance we might see “the rebirth of
wonder, even joy.”
Louv
comes to the Jewish Community Center,
Also
this week, world-renowned author, poet, performer and civil rights activist Maya Angelou comes to the Kohler
Memorial Theater (
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