A forest is a library but a library is not a forest!

For those who can read it, a forest is like a library. From 1986 to 1992, I lived in a tribal village. Among the most fulfilling time I spent was in the forest, especially in the company of children I taught or those who lived near my home.

As we moved into the forest, I saw them look alertly at the bushes, trees and much else around them. They knew which of these presented opportunities (a fruit or a berry or a leaf that could be made into a whistle), which presented a threat (an insect that bit or stung or a danger such as a snake), or where you might fall and hurt yourself, or which was a good spot to sit and take a look at the world around you. They anticipated phenomena – which parts would be more interesting or more treacherous or dangerous after a shower or when it got too hot or after leaves had fallen and it was difficult to see the ground. They noticed changes, they commented on how something had been earlier and how it was now.

 

Children would accurately point out holes on a slope to say whether a scorpion was inside them or not, or would be able to pluck a particular leaf that could be crushed and put on a scratch or a wound, and acted as an effective, medicated bandage.

 

They navigated on paths new to them to find their way or set a general direction. They knew if an area was good for their purposes, such as when herding a group of cattle during a given season or when collecting forest produce. They made sense of sounds from different types of crickets or a truck lumbering through the forest track a kilometre away. They sensed when water was near or when not to mess with things.

 

The alert look that seized their faces, the searching eyes or ears or nose or hands or feet as they moved about expertly and casually, were all signs of persons competently reading the environment around them. That pause, curiosity and exploratory actions showed something new was being encountered, processed and recorded. The reaction, of moving urgently away from something or towards it, was instant reading that you and I might not conceive.

 

Very often, children would learn not just from their own experience but that of others too, by asking questions or being told about something at an opportune moment. As a novice, I was enabled a glimpse into this world by my expert guides and often left feeling inadequate by their quickness in reading the world around them.

 

In contrast, the kind of reading I taught them using books was too basic. It helped them read texts, maybe even make sense of those and occasionally enjoy or appreciate some pieces. But I doubt it could make them alert to ideas, concepts or new information in the way in which they were in their native forest environment or capture shifts in meaning or explore excitedly in search of a prize (e.g. a new revelation) or make their life more interesting or worthwhile or just plain rooted. No, we teach reading as an act to be performed, perhaps to satisfy some assessment, not as an enriched and enriching life to be lived.

 

In the end, as our children go through schooling, they move away from their enlivening forest but never reach that lively engagement with the written word and the vast windows of meaning it ought to open. In the end, the forest may be a library, but a library is not a forest.