How did you come to be interested in and engaged with nature and taking children outdoors?
Rachel Tenney (they/them): I took a year and half off from teaching in 2016-2017 and spent a lot of time outside, although not with children. My sabbatical was incredibly important to keeping me in education and my travel centered on visiting places of natural beauty across the United States and Canada. When I returned to NYC I was missing the amount of time I spent in nature and even considered moving out of the city in order to find more balance. In the beginning of 2018 I
began work with a child who had severe behavioral challenges and struggled to integrate into his pre-K classroom. I was lucky enough to be with teachers who saw the value of nature so as it got warmer, we began visiting Prospect Park many times per week. The times in the park were some of the child's happiest, most connected and play-filled school hours. Working 25 hours per week with this child and seeing how positively being in nature impacted him, I wanted to learn more about how to support children learning outdoors. I wondered if there were educators already noticing how students with special education needs benefited from nature immersion and if there were educators talking about connecting urban children to nature in parks and city green spaces. I found Antioch University New England's Certificate in Nature-Based Early Childhood Education and began in summer 2019.
How did you initially get connected to Inside-Outside and what keeps you involved with the network?
I learned about Inside/Outside when I was a student at Antioch. I remember having a conversation with someone about how it was too bad that there were no chapters outside of New England, because I would like to be a part of such a group. Little did I know, Liza already had plans for expansion. I was glad when she asked me and Chris to co-chair the new New York City chapter. I keep coming back to the group because I enjoy connecting with other early childhood educators and connecting about nature is even better!
What do you want people to know about your chapter?
We are a diverse group of educators, intersecting with nature in so many different ways. There's no one right way to do nature based education, and it's even more so when working in urban settings. I think we all have so much to learn from each other, but the variety of experience is what's so exciting to me. Also we have great events! We try to do a mix of different types of meetings and take advantage of all the resources the city has to offer. We welcome members to suggest ideas for meetings too.
