Trackers PDX Blog

Family Deficit Disorder

5th

May

A while back a book rocked the environmental education world. It was called Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. Louv coined the term "nature deficit disorder" to reflect modern childhood's abandonment of nature. For many folks, his research linking time indoors to competency and behavior was ground-breaking. For environmental educators, it's become a rallying cry. I personally appreciate his work and ideas. I am also not satisfied with what my educational peers (and I) have done with it.

To them, nature for kids is still simply a program away. It’s a new grant, a new source of funding and a galvanizing movement of hippies in recycled polypropylene vests. We've been making alms at great changes but in the end a movement simply serves to align what was once radical values with our current Culture of Disparity that separates the needs of family from its children. Daniel Quinn once wrote…

Vision is a flowing river. Programs are sticks set in the riverbed to impede the flow of the river. But I don’t want to impede its flow, I want to change its direction. Is it so easy to change a cultural vision?

I don't have an answer to how easy it is. The current vision we have is one where we grow up, go to college, get a job and try to change the world by joining or making a program (making our changes part of the  mainstream). Here's my secret: Trackers is a program and a wannabe vision. Anyone that says differently is selling something. Alone we won't change our culture's vision for your child, family and the land we live… neither will the programs, slogans or congress funded movements of my educator colleagues. Only you can. The family has been the single most powerful foundation for passing down vision and beliefs in the entirety of human history. What is the vision needed? Simply…

Be Wild. Be Free. Respect Family and Care for it.

Family includes everyone by blood, each person we rely on for support, the Red Fox we track, the Douglas Fir we walk under and the Winter Wren that lives with us in our backyard. Family includes the air we breathe, the waters we drink and the entire land we live. No amount of science education or nature experiences brought about by Trackers or my colleagues will illustrate that as deeply as a parent can. It's about how fully your family dives into a world older than any history, older than any philosophy. It's about how much you let your child explore the varied wonder of life, truly living both Wild and Free.

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Camps we love...

Ages 8-10 & 11-13 Overnight Wilders Guild: Homesteading Overnight Camp August 1-6 & August 22-27

Ages 8-10 & 11-13 Overnight Rangers Guild: Wilderness Survival Overnight Camp August 1-6 & August 22-27

A program evolution…

Ages 14-17 TrackersTEENS Outdoor Leadership Club (TOLC) Join Anytime, new opportunities for Summer Attend monthly skills training in wilderness survival, outdoor skills and homesteading crafts. Then apply this knowledge in a leadership role as a Counselor In Training (CIT) with Trackers Kids camps.

Check it out! The best After School program ever in existence…

Ages 6-13 Fully Transported After School Nature & Arts Program Begins September 7 Woodworking, wilderness skills, fishing, blacksmithing, theater arts, sewing, permaculture and sheer awesomeness. Nuff' said.

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