Author, educator defends a childhood that allows ‘inner wildness’

Bellingham Herald – October 03, 2007
By Kie Relyea

Educator Chris Mercogliano wastes no time jumping into the quagmire in his new book, “In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness.”

“Childhood is in trouble,” he writes in the opening line.

He blames children’s overstructured lives — from standardized tests, to heavy homework loads, to after-school and before-school activities — for squeezing what he calls the “juice” or the “inner wildness” out of youngsters.

“All of childhood is becoming so managed and so controlled,” Mercogliano says. “This whole idea of totally scripting education is almost going to put the finishing touches on kids.”

The long-term result? Today’s “domesticated” children will have problems becoming tomorrow’s independent adults because they haven’t had a chance to fine-tune what he calls an “inner guidance system.”

Mercogliano, a teacher and co-director at Albany Free School, in New York, comes to Village Books (in Bellingham) to talk about what he sees as a troubling trend, and to offer solutions.

He’s not saying that adults shouldn’t provide direction to children. “I’m just saying not all the time,” says Mercogliano, the father of two grown daughters.

The forces squeezing children out of childhood start early. “It begins at birth,” he says.

That’s because what should be a natural process is constantly interrupted in hospitals by doctors, machines and medical procedures, all in an attempt to manage risk. Doing so interferes with the developing bond between mother and baby, according to Mercogliano.

This fear of risk leads to control of children’s lives in other ways. More than 90 percent of children’s athletic experiences these days occur in some sort of structured program run by adults, according to Mercogliano. That doesn’t allow children to use their imagination to play.

“The playing has some sort of script,” he says. “The point I make in the book is inner wildness needs to be fed by imagination and it needs to be fed by original forms of experience.”

Other forces include what Mercogliano describes as institutionalized education, especially the “teach to the test regime.”

“It’s deadly. It kills the imagination. There’s no creativity in it any more, not to mention the fact that in many schools music and art are being eliminated.”

Then there’s adult fear that the world is a dangerous place for children. Remember the 1970s Halloween scare, where someone was poisoning children? That never happened, despite widespread news reports, according to studies Mercogliano cites in his book.

But the damage has been done; children no longer roam free trick-or-treating.

Today’s version? The widespread fear of child abductions. They do occur, Mercogliano concedes, and they are terrible. But they’re not widespread.

“This issue is reported as though it is this enormous problem, (that) it happens all the time. The media is selling this idea that the world has become extremely dangerous and that only a foolish parent would let their child go out and play unsupervised.”

The book isn’t all doom and gloom; Mercogliano wants to help save childhood after all.

The way back is the focus of the last chapter, which provides guidelines for adults who want to nurture children without scheduling the inner wildness out of them.

“That was important to me to end that way. I don’t think it’s hopeless,” he says.

DON’T DO SO MUCH

Solutions are simple, according to Mercogliano. Here are some steps that parents and educators can take:

Let children be. “I really wanted to get across the message that the most important thing for parents to do is not to do. It’s important to let your kids have their own time and space. Don’t structure their day. Don’t structure their play.”

That includes allowing children to play outside, unsupervised. “That’s almost a taboo these days but I researched the issue heavily and the world is not any more dangerous today toward children than when I was a child,” Mercogliano says.

Read to them. “Make a ritual. Preserve that time-honored ritual of reading to your children.”

Get them into the outdoors. “Get kids out into the natural world. There’s a real strong connection between wildness of an inner kind and wildness of an outer kind, the wildness we find in nature.”

When they’re out there, let children interact with nature on their own terms.

“It’s so important for kids to have an autonomous experience,” he says. “That’s the beauty of nature, it teaches you without controlling you.”

Reach Kie Relyea at 715-2234 orkie.relyea@bellinghamherald.com.

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