After 25 years of teaching, children have taught me to slow down, listen deeply, and trust their capabilities. I’ve learned that children are naturally curious, capable thinkers who learn through relationships, hands-on experiences, play, movement, and time spent exploring the natural world.

This story begins long before I ever knew about forest kindergartens. At the New York City public elementary school I attended, our recess area was blacktop, but a London plane tree grew just beyond the chain-link fence, its branches reaching into the schoolyard. I remember children pulling leaves from those branches so they could hold them, feel them, and play with them. They were literally pulling nature toward themselves, an instinct researchers call biophilia, the deeply human need for connection with living beings.