Forest School Principle 5

Risk-taking is an absolutely vital part of a child’s development and Forest School embraces and encourages risk-taking. This is rare in mainstream education and modern-day parenting, as “our current societal ethos seeks more to protect children from danger than to equip them with the experience needed to deal with difficulty” (Middleton & Swift 2021, p40). As discussed in the previous principle, failure, mistakes and risks are all needed to build confidence and resilience. When parents and educators limit children’s natural curiosity to challenge themselves and take risks, they limit their development.

Risk-taking and managing risk is “hard-wired into our DNA” (Ibid, p40). Our ancestors all had to take and manage risks, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have survived. Play is the most vital element in learning how to successfully manage risk. Play is where children can take risks, build up skills through repeated practice, gain competence, confidence and resilience, which further supports them in knowing which risks to take and assessing environmental or other factors which might increase or decrease the risk.

Children who have had experiences with risk-taking, even from a very young age, carefully assess each situation and make confident decisions about, for example, whether a ledge is too high to jump off, how high they can climb on a tree, or whether they can balance walking along a log. Children who haven’t had freedom to take risks and learn about their competences and limits, are either too scared to try something new or they don’t gauge the risk accurately and cause harm to themselves or others. When children have had the experience of taking risks from a young age, they’re more able to take responsibility for themselves instinctively – they understand the potential for injury or causing harm to others because they’ve experienced and assimilated that knowledge. When adults always do the risk-assessing for children, they’re taking away the opportunity for children to become responsible for themselves.

Middleton & Swift reference the work of Guy Claxton, who argues that “resilience is at the root of all learning” (2021, p41). It takes being comfortable with vulnerability and the risk of mistake, to ask a question that reveals uncertainty. It takes resilience to try new ways of doing things, to come up with new ideas, or to really know when a task is not for them and to choose not to do that confidently, rather than because of fear of failure. Dweck (2017) talks a lot about how having a growth mindset – the ability to recognise that mistakes and failures don’t define who you are – as the key to true learning, and indeed, happiness. “If parents [and educators] want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, seek new strategies, and keep on learning. That way…[t]hey will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence” (p179-80). Forest School promotes risk-taking in a supported environment, allowing children to follow their natural urge to engage in risky play. This risk-taking challenges them, developing their confidence, resilience and self-esteem, and encourages their holistic development.

References:

Dweck, C. S. (2017). Mindset. Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential. (Revised edition) London: Robinson.

Forest School Association, b. (n.d.), What is Forest School? https://forestschoolassociation.org/what-is-forest-school/ [accessed 09.12.2021]

Middleton, C. & Swift, E. (2021) ‘A deeper dive into the Forest School Principles’ in Harding, N. Growing a Forest School from the roots up! Carlisle: Forest School Association, p26-52.