Beginning of the year can be very exciting,  especially if you are about to start PgCert course!  I was really looking forward to deepening my understanding of educational system in the UK and learning about the ways to improve my teaching skills. It all started well. The first sessions were well organised,  people shared interesting stories, the recommended readings were thought provoking and progressive. But as every good story has its ’but’, when the online session ended and I finished the progressive readings, I had to go out eventually and face the reality of everyday life. There were dead trees everywhere on the streets of London…
In their article on imagining alternatives to current forms of education, Lewis Bush and Taylor Norton are meditating on the idea of the lessons of future that will take place in a more natural settings than the current ones. Inspired by the term ‘speculative pedagogy’ that emphasizes the benefits of learning in nature, they are proposing a new method of learning called ‘arboreal pedagogy’. This new pedagogical method uses trees as the main focus of outdoor learning activities. As opposed to classroom-based activities, they believe that going outside and allowing ourselves to reconnect with nature, where we can be ‘hugged’ by the trees, has countless cognitive, physical and emotional benefits. According to Bush and Norton “these benefits are particularly significant when applied in a large urban centre like London, where issues of mental health and stress are common problems” (Bush and Norton, 2018). So how do we implement this benevolent methodology in societies that kill trees in their ‘happiest time of the year’?

References
Bush L. and Norton T. (2018), ‘Arboreal pedagogy: Tree climbing for better learning’, Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, Vol 3/ Issue 1 pp. 38-43.