School Is In Session — Outside

As wind rustled through bare branches overhead, Sophia Reyes was outside — and in school.

Sophia, a fourth-grader at Elm City Montessori in the shadow of West Rock, took notes on a new topic for the day: symbiotic relationships between different kinds of organisms.

It was days before other New Haven public schools would start meeting in person for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Sophia, her teachers and classmates have shown one way to do that safely. They have found a way to both meet public health guidelines and hold school in-person all fall: outdoor class once a week.

Sophia said that she would recommend the experience to other students.

“It’s safer than inside. Outdoor learning is educational in the same way,” Sophia said.

It’s true. The coronavirus has spread much less frequently outdoors than indoors, partially because wind tends to blow the virus away and partially because people naturally spread out more outdoors.

Multiple opinion pieces in the Independent have recommended that New Haven Public Schools adopt as much outdoor learning as possible during the pandemic. It would lessen the safety risks of in-person school, help students with their isolation and stress, and help parents and guardians who have to work outside of the home, the writers have argued.

Elm City Montessori School, the district’s only local charter school, got on that bandwagon early.

Since the summer, the school has set up outdoor classrooms on its West Hills campus. City Bench donated the seats for the classrooms. Urban Resources Institute’s Chris Ozyck, Gather New Haven, Common Ground and city forester Fernando Lage all contributed other knowledge and materials for the set-up.

Elm City Montessori, which has its own governing board, held in-person classes this fall until the New Haven Health Department grounded school buses and advised in-person school programs to close in late October.

The school fell back on the new outdoor program to supplement remote learning. Families just had to find their own transportation to the school.

On Tuesday this week, three classes of fourth through sixth-graders sat in separate circles on the rough-hewn log benches to start the week’s one in-person class. (Elm City Montessori classes are age-integrated.)

One of Sophia’s classmates read an acknowledgement that the land they were standing was stewarded through generations by the Quinnipiac and other Algonquin-speaking tribes. Then Sophia’s teacher, Ramya Subramanian (pictured above), started to review the roles different organisms have in ecosystems. Students volunteered that they might find ​“decomposers” underneath a rotting log and that a squirrel was an example of a ​“primary consumer.”

Subramanian said that she can see a difference in the energy and excitement of her students after spending time together in the outdoor class. She has felt the same way herself, even when her fingers feel frozen on cold days and the class has to set up a fire.

“I feel different,” she said.

She plans to continue to host as many of her classes outdoors as possible once Elm City Montessori starts indoor classes with the rest of the district next week.

Gammy Unleashes The Wiggles

Meanwhile, preschoolers and kindergarteners were assembling on their own log bench circle (pictured above).

Their first task was to get their wiggles out. The head of the new outdoor education program, Gammy Moses, led the students in shaking out their hands and feet and practicing yoga poses.

Kindergartener Joaquin Galo managed to hold his tree pose (pictured) for several seconds before he lost his balance and toppled over on his tree stump bench.

Joaquin said that his parents wanted him to attend the outdoor program because he learns better there. The hikes and lessons on nature work well for him. He also gets to see more of his friends through the program.

“I like that some of my friends want to hug. Ase, she’s mostly the doctor of this group. If someone falls, she asks, ​‘Are you okay?’” the 5‑year-old reported.

The main friend he gets to see outside of school is named Logan.

“We roll down the hill [together] but not often,” Joaquin said.

“Doctor” Ase Hargrove (pictured above) gave the outdoor program positive reviews too.

“I like it. It’s fun. I like to go on the monkey bars,” Ase said.

She likes the music component of the program best and, upon request, sang one of the songs she has learned very softly into her pink and white mask.

Music is one of Moses’ specialties. Moses (pictured above) started in outdoor education 15 years ago with the nonprofit Solar Youth. He found that his skills as a musician were helpful and began to write songs based on school curricula. He transitioned into teaching at Elm City Montessori two years ago after his daughter enrolled at the school.

After a few minutes of yoga, Moses led the students in a follow-the-leader song. The students bopped up and down and stuck their arms in and out, according to the song’s directions. Then it was story time.

Each student’s eyes were glued to classroom assistant Patrick Whitney (pictured) as he read out the Simms Taback version of ​“There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.”

When the lady in the book swallowed the fly, one student said, ​“That’s bad.”

Then she swallowed a spider and a bird.

When Whitney asked why she swallowed the bird, another said, ​“To eat the spider.”

After Whitney finished reading, 5‑year-old August Palmer Bruch Cruz (pictured) helped him put away the book.

August said that the outdoor program helps relieve his parents from watching him and attending to their own work and errands.

“My mom needed to do a little work, and I’m not old enough to stay on my own,” he explained.

After another song, where Moses asked the kids to imagine themselves as fast elephants, slow snakes and sleeping penguins (pictured above), the kids were released into a period of unstructured play.

While much of the class looks like fun and games, the students have seen progress already this year.

When Autumn Bookert-Jones (pictured above) enrolled in the school’s prekindergarten program this fall, her parents were worried that she wasn’t talking yet. Now the 3‑year-old dutifully says hello when asked to and has conversations with her teachers and peers.

During her free play time, Autumn learned that she could climb the play structure if she pushed a crate next to it. On Tuesday, she was learning to climb without the crate too.

Moses said that the outdoors are good for teaching this kind of problem-solving — and for incorporating joy into students’ lives. Students love jumping in a puddle or in a pile of leaves. Making these moments happen is an act of kindness, he said, like the kindness of the men cleaning up the yard who blew the leaves into a huge mound after his request. He plans to involve his students in another simple act of kindness, making a card for the men who made them the leaf pile.

His students scampered around him. All stayed within eyesight, thanks to the green fence surrounding their play area. Moses said that creating boundaries for the edge of the kids’ play is key to the success of his program. If they walk over to the park, he sets up markers and asks them not to stray beyond them.

The program continues in the cold and rain, unless there is a weather advisory warning New Haveners not to spend too long outdoors. Dressing appropriately is key. Moses recommended comfortable layers, a good hat and mittens for the students.

He said that he was initially skeptical about teaching in person. He still thinks about those risks — he has to help kids put on their masks, for example — but he is on board now.

“I realized that this program is essential, the same as health care. I’m willing to sacrifice for the kids and parents,” Moses said.

Parents tell him that their children are more like themselves after the program. They are happy or so tired out that they go to bed right away.

As the younger students stacked crates and ate their snacks, the older students returned from a walk in West Rock Park, where they were learning about the cave paintings of early humans and chalking their own.

Sophia explored the stream next to her outdoor classroom while she waited for the other students to return. She dropped sticks into the current with her friend Emma Mueller and watched which ones reached the other side of the bridge first.

“It’s really exciting to be here. I get to be with most of my friends,” Sophia said. ​“We get to jump rope and see these beautiful ducks.”

The 9‑year-old said that she focuses better at her outdoor class than in her remote ones, where her sister is always tackling her. The public health guidelines are not too difficult to follow, she reported.

“As long as we have masks and don’t hug or touch each other, we’re okay,” she said. ​“If you are scared about the coronavirus, you can talk to your teachers about it, or a friend.” 

This advice comes from her own, recent experience. Though she could not remember what her teacher said to her, she remembered that it made her feel better.

Sophia’s other top tip to fellow students was, similar to Moses, to wear weather-appropriate attire. She had already gotten her sneakers wet once that day and Emma was dragging her into the river again to see ice coating a fallen tree.

“I would ask them to bring waterproof shoes,” Sophia said.