Richard Louv and the eighth intelligence

Richard Louv

The time spent in outdoors playing in nature has become very less among the children especially so among the urban counterparts. A lot of research is going on in the west in this regard. Reasons are many in the modern families. A lot of time is spent in front of the T V and the computer by children and adults alike, making them grow obese. The sedentary childhood may be linked to mental and physical health problems. It also results in poor recreational skills. The children so grown up into adults make them insensitive towards nature. The policy decisions taken by such grown-ups can be detrimental to nature.

According to a British study, average eight year olds can better identify characters from Japanese cartoons like Pokemon, Pikachu, Doremon, Metapod, etc., than oak, otter, or beetle. Japanese photographer, Keiki Haginoya says that either the indoor spaces have become more attractive or outdoor spaces have become less attractive or both.

Are we letting this happen in our households?

Most of the children when asked to choose between a nature trek and mall visit showed no interest towards nature. In some of the developed countries toddlers confine to their seats so much so that they are hardly physically active, may be for just 20 minutes a day.

Most often this confinement to indoors is due to safety concerns. Young children are not allowed to yonder in the streets let alone the wild. The net result is alienation from the nature. Richard Louv calls this detachment as “Nature Deficit Disorder”. This can be detected in individuals, families and communities. He says that it can even result in inaccessibility to parks and open spaces in cities and high crime rates, depression and other urban maladies.

Can a classroom be like this?

The present schooling system emphasises more on rote learning. It stresses up on the scores in the form of either marks or grades by the children. This has put more pressure on the parents thus holding back the children indoors in order to make them “study”. Howard Gardner, an authoritative educationist from Harvard University devised the multiple intelligence theory in 1983. He argued that the traditional notion of intelligence based on I.Q testing was far too limited. He proposed seven types of intelligence viz., linguistic (‘word smart’), logical – mathematical (‘number smart’), special(‘picture smart’), bodily kinaesthetic (‘body smart’), musical, interpersonal(‘people smart’), and intrapersonal(‘self mart’) intelligences. Recently he added an eighth intelligence that Charles Darwin, Alfred Wallace, John Muir and Rachel Carson had. It is called “Naturalist Intelligence” otherwise termed ‘nature smart’. It is the intelligence or ability to recognise and analyse plants, animals and other parts of the natural environment.

Children learn in nature better

If we allow our kids to enjoy nature they become stronger enough to fight their emotional turmoil. This sensitises the children towards nature.

Let us connect the child back to nature.