Who Would Have Thought? Fresh Air For Optimal Health

A lesson from the past, one that highlights the very first forest schools and their purpose

Photo by Gianni Brunello on Unsplash

“Some experts say we are moving back to the pre-antibiotic era. No. This will be a post-antibiotic era. In terms of new replacement antibiotics, the pipeline is virtually dry. A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child’s scratched knee could once again kill.”

Such a sobering thought … a scratched knee being able to kill you … but what if there’s a much better way?

I was one of seven children. We grew up in Scotland in a tiny house big enough for us to eat and sleep together, but no room for the huge amount of toys we see today, or for some of the raucous, space-demanding behaviour exhibited in children today.

The outdoors was where we spent much of our time, rain, hail, and sometimes sunshine, rarely stumped by the vagaries of Mother Nature, with clothes for every season.

My father fed our curiosity by taking us into the woods each weekend and exposing us to the incredible life therein.

It’s fair to say that we rarely got sick.

In fact, I got an award in primary school for five years of perfect attendance. I’m sure some of my siblings were overlooked regarding that prize, because I don’t recall any of us ever really being sick.

So I was interested to stumble upon a turn-of-the-20th-century story about a forest school, where students were taught in the open air, in all kinds of weather, all blanketed up.

This was a serious attempt at effecting healing.

The story begins thus …

“… Rows of children bundled in heavy coats and blankets, sitting at desks — in the middle of a snow-covered forest. No walls. No roof. Just trees, winter air, and twenty students learning their lessons while snowflakes drifted onto their papers.

“This wasn’t punishment. It was medicine.

“In 1904, Dr. Bernhard Bendix and school inspector Hermann Neufert stood in the woods outside Berlin and made a radical decision. They would build a school here, among the trees, and fill it with the city’s sickest children.

“At the turn of the twentieth century, tuberculosis was killing more people than any other disease in Europe and America. The “white death” claimed four hundred fifty Americans every single day. Most victims were young — between fifteen and forty-four years old. Entire families were decimated. Workers who had crowded into industrial cities since the Industrial Revolution lived in dark, cramped, poorly ventilated tenements where the airborne bacteria spread with devastating efficiency.

“There was no cure. No vaccine. No antibiotics.”

It was 1904, well before Denmark’s first forest school, and the sickest of sick students were sent to Charlottenburg, Berlin, in the hope of becoming well.

For the most part, they were taught outdoors, but if the weather didn’t support outdoor teaching, they were allowed into huts with wide open windows. They were never closed.

The students’ days were about being exposed to the elements and also being, possibly for the first time, nutritiously fed and rested.

Interestingly, healing soon began. Fewer coughs were heard, and students became uncommonly energetic.

As you’d imagine, word soon got around …

“By 1907, open air schools had appeared in Belgium, Switzerland, England, Italy, and France. By 1908, the movement reached America, where two pioneering female doctors from Rhode Island — Mary Packard and Ellen Stone, among the first women to graduate from Johns Hopkins Medical School — converted a Providence school building floor into an open-air classroom. They kept the windows open even during brutal New England winters, wrapping children in special “Eskimo sitting bags” that functioned like modern sleeping bags.

“Remarkably, not a single child got sick that first winter. The experiment succeeded beyond anyone’s hopes.”

“By 1910, America had sixty-five open-air schools. By 1918, that number had grown to one hundred thirty cities. Classes took place on ferries, on rooftops, in parks, in forests. Anywhere children could breathe fresh, moving air while learning.”

Reflecting on my much later schooling in Scotland, where we went to school in the dark and finished in the dark, it’s amazing that more of us didn’t succumb to sickness.

Interestingly, the children in this experiment gradually changed in surprising ways, displaying a natural willingness to help each other; demonstrating improved mental health, they were happy and thriving, and collaboration was at the roots of their being.

Happily, disease took a back seat.

And over time …

“The schools attracted some of the era’s most innovative architects. In 1927, Dutch architect Jan Duiker designed a stunning open air school in Amsterdam — a modernist masterpiece of glass, concrete, and light that still functions as a school today. The building was organized around terraced outdoor classrooms where children could learn in sun and fresh air year-round. Every design decision prioritized ventilation, natural light, and connection to the outdoors.

“Similar architectural achievements appeared across Europe: the École de plein air de Suresnes near Paris (1932–1935), schools in Copenhagen, buildings in Switzerland and England designed by leading architects who saw these structures as expressions of a new philosophy about childhood and health.”

I was truly excited by this story, and wondered why on earth forest schools were ever closed.

The answer lies in a medical breakthrough that allowed TB fear to be put to bed.

“Streptomycin — the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis- was discovered!

“Suddenly, the disease that had terrorized humanity for centuries became treatable. Within a decade, tuberculosis rates plummeted across the developed world.”

And open-air schools fell from grace.

The medical justification for them evaporated, traded for a few pills if ever they were needed.

The other benefits simply faded from sight.

Or did they?

The reality is that today’s educators are now better focused on outdoor education, better, yet there’s room for improvement.

Ask most children to choose where to learn, and they will usually say outside!

The philosophy

“The philosophy behind open air schools — that children need nature, movement, fresh air, and holistic attention to their physical and emotional wellbeing — became embedded in progressive education movements worldwide. The emphasis on outdoor play, school gardens, nature-based learning, forest kindergartens, and experiential education all trace their lineage back to those early twentieth-century reformers who dared to move classrooms into the woods.

“Today, forest kindergartens thrive in Germany, Denmark, and Scandinavia. Nature-based preschools are proliferating across America — more than two hundred fifty programs now operate nationwide, most founded within the last decade.”

They’re popping up in Australia, too.

And now, I think back to my childhood, all those years ago, when we foraged in the back yard, or the woods, chased butterflies, and guddled for fish in the local rivers. From memory, we never fought. Such was our absolute engagement.

Though we didn’t know it at the time, we were creating our own forest schools.

Many parents are now waking up to the benefits of open-air schools.

Below, I’ve linked to a few resources that parents might find informative, plus the Open Air School Movement on which I based my story.

[embed]Open Air School Movement Open Air School Movement The open air school movement was created to prevent the development of tuberculosis in…www.encyclopedia.com

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[embed]Why Parents Should Consider Forest Schools and Learning in Nature This is a synopsis of the Childhoods Podcast with David Calabrese which can be . David Calabrese, the visionary founder…www.wonderschool.com

[embed]'Saturated' with technology: Why parents are paying for their kids to play outside Australian parents fed up with screen time and indoor playgrounds are turning to a growing number of so-called forest…www.abc.net.au