The 2019-2020 school year was filled with many unexpected changes, including a change in our forest school “classroom.” The children in our class have beautifully adapted to three separate classroom environments this school year as we have moved from the sand of “The Boat”, to the wood chips of “The Spire”, and finally, to our comfy couches and blanket forts on Zoom in our Virtual Classroom, we have remained strong in our identity as a community.
Note: Our forest preschool program, Spire School, is named after the Andy Goldsworthy art installation, The Spire, here in San Francisco. Our forest classroom spaces have been named by the children in our program, and they include, "The Boat", "Rollie Pollie Mountain", "Lizard King" and "The Window Tree" which are referenced below. This is one teacher’s reflection from last school year.
Deep Heart Connection
Part 1: “The Boat”
Our school year started off with a sudden shift in location from “The Spire” to “The Boat”. As our former Cypress-filled home received some much needed reforestation. We took on the adventure and the challenge of being “Spire School” without “The Spire.” Many new friends were challenged to recreate their relationship with forest school without their familiar playscapes and playmates. Other friends, new to Spire School, were also met with a similar challenge— to begin the process of place-making and community-making.
Our first weeks were spent close to our tarp, sifting through the sand with bowls and spoons. Since we could no longer visit the “Spire School” spaces that were close to our hearts, we began the process of creating a new relationship to place and to school. Friends who were new to Spire School helped us recreate our classroom with their fresh eyes. One friend inspired us to become a crew of pirates who took pride in repairing their boat’s many holes. Another friend invited us to search for the owls who left their pellets on the forest floor. In the coming weeks, we discovered that our entire class could fit under the roof of the Boat, that the Jumping Logs were the perfect place to move our bodies, and that magical creatures like Owls, Coyotes and Scrub Jays shared the forest with us.
As we deepened our relationship to the Boat, our confidence in navigating the space grew. We observed friends discovering climbing holds in tree trunks, starting a much loved “meatball shop” in a hollowed out root ball, and becoming expert owl trackers. As our knowledge grew, we knew where to find owl pellets and feathers and where “Canis” our coyote friend walked by each day. We could tell you where “magic beans” (acacia seeds) could be unearthed, which jumping log was the highest - anything really. We had become Boat experts. We were seized by adventure - expanding our classroom to the high reaches of the Wattle Tree and to the oak trees that lined the woodchip ridge. As we settled into our classroom, the Boat became “Spire School.”
As our luck would have it, The Boat, too, was to undergo reforestation. Over the span of several weeks, we watched from our classroom the forestry crew erect a wooden fence encircling the Boat. Our class was fascinated to watch the construction work from our perch at the Wattle Tree. One day - to our surprise - the fence completely closed us in! In a joyful and silly spirit, we ended class by lifting all of the children and our gear over the fence. Ending on an adventurous note, we said goodbye to our Boat.
“The Window Tree”
Part 2: “The Spire”
Our first day at the Spire also happened to be our first day in the rain! Our shift from the Boat to the Spire coincided with a shift in seasons. We said goodbye to our warm, gentle Fall and hello to a muddy buddy, puddle jumping Winter. The season wasn’t the only thing that had changed - the Spire looked very different from the landscape we had once played upon. Gone were the Cypress trees, the climbing logs, and patches of plants that crawled along the forest floor. The once lush Spire had been replaced by a hilly sea of wood chips. But a few familiar features remained. The Window Tree and Front Root were immediately recognized by our friends.
Unlike our first few days at the Boat, our class was ready to explore! Guided by our friends who had memories of playing at Rollie Pollie Mountain, we trekked high and low over the wood chips in search of it. After a few minutes of wandering, it was apparent to friends that the Spire had greatly changed while we were at the Boat. To our surprise, the children were extraordinarily flexible when confronted with the changed landscape. I distinctly remember one child, shrugging their shoulders and saying “huh? That’s so funny. It’s a lot of wood chips now” as she turned and ran off to play.
Although the Spire’s landscape had changed dramatically, our class crafted a beautiful reimagining of the space. They took both familiar and unfamiliar threads of the Spire and wove together a new classroom. And although we felt at home in our new Spire classroom, we continued to honor and remember our first classroom of the year, the Boat. When walking along the trail to Lizard King we would come to an opening in the trees that overlooked the Boat. Without fail, each time we walked by that overlook, a friend or two would point and shout, “look, our old classroom.” The rest of the friends would excitedly search the skyline.
Part 3: Our Virtual Classroom
As teachers, we had set the intention of revisiting the Boat. Unfortunately, the unexpected happened once again when the COVID-19 Pandemic came to San Francisco.
For the last several months, we have been working through the unprecedented challenge of meeting as a community, not in person or in the forest, but virtually. Several months ago, I think if you had told most of us, children included, that we would soon be a “virtual forest school” we would have laughed at the contradictory nature of such a thought. But here we are, a land-based community meeting without our direct connection to the land that we share.
Some of the virtual engagement offerings from Spire School on instagram.
As we have made the shift from the forest to our virtual classroom, our class has demonstrated such beautiful strength, resilience, and flexibility. We are truly so proud of each child and their unique offering to our virtual gatherings. One child’s imaginative tales of polar bears and penguins inspire storytelling while on our “field trips” to the arctic tundra. Another child’s vigilance in ensuring each child’s voice is heard as she keeps a careful eye on wayward mute buttons reminds us to check in with one another as we did in the forest.
Although we’ve taken a break from our land-based roots, our class has shown us that it is more than possible to continue to co-create a community even if we are temporarily separated from our “classroom” and from one another. Our community continues to deepen despite its absence from the land and our connection to the land continues to deepen despite our absence of physical community. Our love for our community and our love for nature exists not in a single place bound by physical space, but rather, in our hearts.
This reflection comes from Spire School, a forest preschool program of Parks Plus Creation, as told by Teaching Staff Michaela Mackenzie in the Summer of 2020, during the COVID-19 Pandemic.