Trees of Life

A colleague this week reminded me of being a child. She reminded me to think about how I learned about trees as a young girl in school. She remembered learning about trees in a way that was all about what the tree does for us humans. She suggested it was a silly example of thinking about how we centre children and, by extension, the rest of humanity. I was reminded about how I was taught about trees and it was similar to her experience. Trees give US life. Trees give off oxygen for US to breathe; they remove CO₂ from the air WE breathe. They clear pollutants for US to have a more comfortable existence. They provide shade and cool the earth, again for US to have a comfortable existence. I realize that though this may seem like a silly example, it is a good example of how we centre the child with very little thought that we are doing so.

What I have noticed working with toddlers and preschoolers, however, is that they have not been contaminated by these conventional educational ideas around trees yet. The young children I walk in the forest with are filled with wonder and questions about trees. They ask questions: “Why is that tree so bendy?” They have theories: “The leaves are hiding under the snow.” “Someone is going to fix them, they will bring stools out and fix them.” “They all blowed away, but someone will sweep them up and put them back soon.” They wonder if this is the tree the owls live in. They notice some trees have “toes” (exposed roots). Maybe they are making sense of the world we walk with in a less egotistical way than we sometimes assume this age group to be. They wonder about the trees in ways that do in fact include humans, but I’ve noticed that sometimes it is about what WE as humans can do for the trees (sweep the leaves and put them back; bring out stools and fix them), which I find interesting.