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For those of us who didn’t grow up with a love of nature, the idea of nature study sounds like a wonderful thing, something we want to give our children. But we might find ourselves at a loss once we step outside that front door. Or we might have all those nature journals in tow with us, but when our children’s faces turn expectantly toward us, what do we say? What do we do? Well, let’s get specific. Joining me today is my friend Amber O’Neal Johnston.
Sonya: You were a self-avowed lover of air conditioning when you grew up, is that right?
Amber: Yes, that’s totally me. I would say this is one of the most intimidating parts of a Charlotte Mason education for me. It was the idea of intentionally going outside and staying there.
Sonya: I grew up in the country and we spent a lot of time outside, but it wasn’t studying nature. I mean, I could recognize the red-winged blackbirds because they were all over the place, but it wasn’t like I knew all of the birds and all of the flowers and all of the weeds. We didn’t look at it that way. We were just out there playing.
Amber: For me, it wasn’t even that. So time outside was spent from the car to the building, from the building to the car, and outside was—in my family culture—it was something to be avoided. And so, this idea that I would spend time outside, that was layer one. And then to actually study the things that I saw out there was a whole other layer. And I wanted that desperately for my kids. But a lot of times in this community, we can tend to assume that people are starting from a certain place. It’s great for someone to acknowledge—and I’ll be the first—that I started from zero, not knowing anything. I remember someone suggesting, why don’t you guys just go on a short hike? And I was like, where do you do that? And she was like, just go to the trailhead and walk, and then you guys can meander. I was like, where is a trailhead? I mean, I’m looking for a sign. Yes, point me in the direction! So I was like, I need you to talk to me as if I don’t know anything.
Outside was—in my family culture—it was something to be avoided. And so, this idea that I would spend time outside, that was layer one. And then to actually study the things that I saw out there was a whole other layer.
I know how to go to the playground in the park. It was boring. After my kids were 2 or 3, they were tired of that. They were looking for expansion. And one of the best things I did was join a nature group. I did that because I had no idea what else to do. The mom who was in charge of that was a Charlotte Mason mom, and she led us so well. She became a mentor without even knowing it. I was watching her, listening to what she said and how they did things. And I was like, this isn’t half bad. This is actually not difficult. I think I’m having fun. I’m not sure yet. But that was our entry point into this.
Sonya: So what were some of the key things that you learned from this mentor? I’m assuming it was that you don’t have to be the fountainhead of all knowledge when you’re out there, because some of us just aren’t. And we can’t fool our kids into thinking, “Oh yeah, we know all about this,” when we have no clue.
Amber: Yes. She was really good at allowing the children to lead the exploration. She actually did know a lot about nature, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it, being out there with us. She wasn’t walking around giving lessons like “this is this,” and “let me show you this, kids,” and “this is that.” But we were meandering a little bit, and she might point towards something interesting or say, “What do you think you might find over here, kids?” And they would go and explore and come up with something, and they would ask questions and she would say, “What do you think about that?” or “How do you think we could find out?” And sometimes she would give the answer. She would say, “Oh, I grew up with a tree like that in my yard, and I know that that’s a such and such.” And I thought that was great because it was natural. It allowed the kids to come up with some of their own learning and understanding and asking questions, even though I knew that she knew the answer to everything that they asked. So that was one key takeaway. Also, we brought our nature journals with us, and it just seemed so natural to sit down and, instead of creating an art project, which is what I had seen from the nature journals I looked at, to me as someone who is not an artist…
Sonya: Well, if you look at The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, it’s like, why even try?
Amber: Yeah, so it’s like, forget it, I’m never going to get there. But instead, she told the kids, “Oh, we want to make sure that we are noting this, and noticing and remembering.” And she said it’s almost like taking notes in picture form. That opened my eyes so much, taking notes in picture form. I can do that. I can investigate and explore something and make note of it. And so she led the kids through that and nobody was like, “Oh, mine doesn’t look good, mine’s ugly,” because she was like, “We’re not out here to become world-famous artists. We’re naturalists and we’re taking notes for what we’re exploring.”
So those types of things I learned along the way and they helped. Each time we would go out there, my anxiety would go down more and more and more. And I felt like, okay, I can do this. And then it just took repetition. It took time and time and time again of going out there, and every time I went outside with my kids, I felt more and more confident. And eventually I found myself actually knowing the name of that flower. I used to just be like, blue flower, red flower, pink flower. And so now I actually do know the name of that flower, but it was because we really loved it. And then we went home and talked about it and we looked it up. And then every time, we had a relationship with that flower. And so we saw it, it would come up. I still didn’t know the names of the other ones, but little by little I learned more. And I noticed that we got to know our area very well. But even now when I take the kids and we have an opportunity in another locale to get outside, we are back at ground zero. We don’t know these trees. We don’t know these plants. We don’t know this pathway or this topography. And it’s something to start over and learn anew. But it’s been revolutionary for me, because I got to see how you really could start from nothing and work your way up to really feeling like you have a grasp on things in an enjoyable way.
Sonya: So what attitudes did you have to pay attention to in yourself in order to make that transition?
Amber: It was talking myself out of feeling inadequate and feeling like I had to have an answer for everything my kids asked me, because I really didn’t know anything. “Mom, what kind of tree is this?” I would be like, “A big one.” So I would just say, “I don’t know, but let’s see. I know if we pay attention to the bark, and we look at the type of leaves, and I know where we are, we’re kind of in this area of Georgia, let’s make notes in our nature journal and we can go home and we can look it up.” And then we started bringing our Georgia field guides with us, and we were able to kind of identify stuff out in the wild. But it wasn’t always about identification either. Sometimes we were just absorbing. We weren’t trying to necessarily name something or figure out all the things about it, but we were observing. Especially when we returned to the same places, like our favorite places in different seasons, the kids were like, “Where’s the water?” Even I was like, “Oh, the creek bed’s dry. I didn’t know it was going to do that.” We’re noting it down, during these months that the creek bed is dry. There’s no water running, and we know there was water in there last time. So it became a lot more natural when I let go of the feelings of inadequacy, especially comparing myself to other Charlotte Mason moms, who seemed like they had Comstock’s book memorized. I was like, “Well, I’m here with my kids, and that’s all I have to offer today.”
Sonya: Yes. I know that Charlotte talks about being curious along with your children, that that attitude of curiosity and an openness to learn alongside them can be a huge thing in that area as well.
Amber: That’s great advice in every area, not just nature study, but in all of the things that we do. And it’s good for our kids to see that what I can give my kids is enthusiasm and interest. I can show them that I’m curious, but I cannot always give them knowledge that I don’t have. I don’t know the answer to all the questions, and they have a lot of questions. But I can come alongside them, and we can talk about it, see what we can figure out, get their ideas. We can go find experts in areas and how to find answers and all of those things. And I think that that’s part of learning and growing together. That’s part of homeschooling for us. It’s that we’re doing this together and we’re exploring ideas, not necessarily that I know everything and I’m going to tell them all the answers.
Sonya: Which is the opposite of a Charlotte Mason education anyway. One thing that has stood out to me in our whole conversation here, even starting with your mentor and her approach to this tree, is that she talked about her relationship with the tree. “Oh yeah, I had that in my yard when I was growing up.” And it was all based on an idea and a relationship. And then the facts came after that. It’s just like we’ve talked before about ideas and how the idea takes precedence. So when you’re out there in nature study, especially if you feel inadequate, a lot of times that’s baggage from the way we were educated—if you want to use that term—with the emphasis on knowing facts. And when you feel inadequate, a lot of times that old baggage can come back with you. And so when we’re out in nature, it’s like, well I don’t know what facts to tell my child about this particular nature friend. And we let that stop us, instead of coming at it from an idea standpoint: What ideas can we grasp about this? How does it speak to our imagination? What does it remind us of? What does it make us think of? And then using those ideas to motivate us to learn more. Charlotte talked about wondering with our children to wonder about things, look at them and wonder. So I wonder if that whole sense of inadequacy stems somewhat from focusing on the facts versus the ideas and the relationships.
Amber: And we tend to see other people, and it seems like they know a lot of facts. And so it’s the inadequacy, if you don’t know a lot of facts, but what we’re missing is the story behind it, how they arrived there. So now, all these years later, someone could be with me and think, “Amber knows a lot of facts about the trees and the flora and fauna in her area.” And I would laugh at that. But also I would say I didn’t sit there and just memorize it. I didn’t go to a class to do this, but it came through our repeated exposure to the same things and our curiosity of finding this out or drawing this and then wondering, “What is it that we’ve drawn?” It’s very powerful and it has moved over, outside of our lessons, into other aspects of our family life. So we’ve become campers. We go camping. That’s something I never did growing up. And we have, I don’t even remember what they’re called… boards… the boards the kids stand on and paddle out in the lake when we go up to the lake. I don’t know why I can’t think of the name.
Sonya: Paddleboards.
Amber: Paddleboards! There you go. Paddleboards. We’ll use that term. It might not be the right one, but we’ll use it. And we’re out in the canoe, and we have the rafts. So these ideas of our family just recreating outside have also been informed by our lessons and the time we have spent in nature. Because the more we were there, the more comfortable we felt, and it was drawing us in. We have a greater desire to want to be outside, whether it’s formal study, or just relaxation, enjoyment. So it’s done a lot for our family beyond just the lesson that we may have initially started with.
Sonya: About a year ago, a year and a couple of months ago, we got a bird feeder that sticks on the window. We put it right there at our dining room window—and we have woods back behind that—and we filled it up with peanuts and sunflower seeds and said, “Okay, let’s see what happens.” First two weeks, nothing happened. Nothing at all. But then, one by one, these little critters started coming, with little wings and little beaks. And it was like, it’s a bird. And like you said with the flowers, it’s black… well, this one is red. We knew a few of them. But over time, and I’m hearing this with you too, your experience, that it’s not suddenly that the light comes on and we know it all. It is just little touches, consistent touches. Over time, you start to form these relations. And as we watched these birds, ideas would come to us. It wasn’t so much, “I need to know this bird’s name” as “this one acts like this.” I’m curious; well, let’s find out what his name is and if he’s going to be around for a while. I haven’t seen this one. Where do you think it might have gone? So then that started driving us to the bird guide, the field guide, to find out the names of these. Well, I never thought much about it. It was just a hobby. We do this every time we eat a meal, we watch the birds. And we watch them push each other off and we watch the nuthatches, who will pick up the seed and then flick it over the side onto the ground. It’s like, why do they always do that? And the other ones, the chickadees, will just take it and fly up to the branch up above and then hold it with their little feet and peck at it with their mouths, with their beaks. See, I’m using all these technical terms, but it’s the idea. So fast forward to a couple of months ago, after we’d been doing this for about a year, I found out that another musician in our church loves birds. He’s a birder, if you want to call it that. So we started talking about it, and he said, “Well, what birds have you seen on your feeder?” And I started to name them, and I kept naming them, and I kept naming them, and I kept naming them, and his eyes were getting bigger and bigger. And he’s like, “That’s a lot of birds and you know the names to all of those.” And I was just as dumbfounded as he. How did I know that? It just built up over time. But it was all based on that relationship and the ideas of getting to know these nature friends. I didn’t set out to memorize all of these bird names and even their calls; we’re starting to get familiar with those too. So I was sitting at breakfast this morning and looked out, and there was a phoebe on one of the feeders, and we’ve been watching for those phoebes and so excited about them when we see them. So I have to remember to tell my youngest that I saw a phoebe this morning, because she’ll want to know. She keeps track of which dates we see them.
Amber: And that’s what I see with the kids, the enthusiasm of wanting to know. I think that is part of the point—to be out in Creation and to want to know, to wonder, as you said, about the things that you see, to be curious. And there’s a certain amount of delight. We have deer that come at dawn and dusk every day; they pass right through our yard, every single day, And the kids are like, “Mom, every single day you act like you’ve never seen it before.” And I said, “Because there’s just something that’s still exciting.” I still feel that little flutter inside when I see them. And the whole family gathers and I’m thinking, “You’re talking about me, but you’re over here too.” So we just stand there and watch them go back and forth. And it does awaken something and gives you the idea that you want to know more about this creature or you want to learn about their world in the same way we sometimes do with people. Plants and animals can bring up that curiosity as well. I think for me, the biggest thing is for moms to walk away knowing that today is not forever. And even if you’re starting at 0, or -10 like me, that it’s not a race and there’s no number to get to. It’s the type of thing where we’re always going to grow in the directions that we choose to go. And your kids are fine. Your kids are fine going out with someone who knows nothing, and they will still get what was meant for them in those times.
Sonya: And we’ll be setting up a lifelong enjoyment for them too. Because even as we continue on in that direction, they will be able to continue on and learn more for themselves.
Amber: Which is a gift, right? Even beyond your lessons. It’s just a life gift.
Sonya: Yes. That’s great. Thanks.
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