Badges of honour.

Many years ago I talked with my friend Martin about the idea of the badges of honour of outdoor play. Martin wrote about this in www.playengland.org.uk/media/130593/play-naturally.pdf,  that dirt, stains and smells can be treated like ‘badges of honour’, ‘evidence of successful outdoor play’ and learning. Like all good ideas I'm still mining it. 

I recently worked in the woods with groups of children and adults as part of a summer school of transitions. Groups came to me for a full day at a time. One of my challenges was setting the expectations with staff (who were only with me for a day) around allowing the children to get immersed in activities and reinforcing with the children that it is OK to get muddy and involved. 

This is when the badges of honour turned from a metaphorical notion to a literal tangible thing. 

                                 

I filled my pockets with them and brought them out at opportune moments, a girl who raced off and find the right sorts of sticks off the den she was making, met with an 'uuuugh' from her friends as she ran through a puddle. 

A badge of honour for muddy shoes changed the story and the girls raced off together. 

                                  

A staff member complaining loudly about getting mud on her leggings actually looked kind of proud to receive the first badge of honour off the day. 

Sitting, quietly after putting a plaster on a cut, I shared with the child that he had a badge of honour too, that cuts sometimes happen because you are living life adventurously. 

As the summer holidays come to an end and looking down at my own hands and legs I can recognise there are badges of honour here too.  

                                   

Did you play in the mud today?

There are certain elements that regularly feature in my work life; fire, tools, cooking outdoors, climbing, bows and arrows and mud!

To celebrate International Mud Day (29th June) I've collected together this weeks adventures that involved mud. Some of them planned, some spontaneous.


One of the groups of children I am working with in the woods as part of a Forest School project wanted me to set them some challenges so i did. They were all themed around mud but built on the different interests that the group have shown in previous weeks.

Some of the group really like cooking so one of the challenges was to write a recipe that someone else could follow. They spent a lot of time swapping recipes and trying out different ideas.

Some of the other children in the group have been really getting into making bows and arrows so I supplied them with a load of international mud day targets and the challenge to make something that would fire mud at a target.

Their solution was ingenious it was a kind of flippy catapult but it was not quite as effective as their arms as they  got into a mud flinging mud fight! 

Sadly no photos exist of the next bit, which got very muddy.

We always take the same route into the woods and often we find patches of mud to squlech in, puddles to jump in and tracks of people, dogs, bicycles to follow. The journey is an important part of our sessions. Stopping and checking changes; will the muddy spots be there? Will it have dried up? or will it be really really muddy this week?

One of the other groups buried a jar of treasure in the woods last week. Despite us drawing some excellent maps they were not quite accurate enough to find the treasure again so we had to do a lot of digging. 

But, eventually we did find the treasure and then buried it again, and then dug it up, and then buried it and then dug it up and then.....

This boy in particular didn't leave this muddy spot for almost all of the session. Mounding and making exploding volcanoes and digging and feeling the earth with his hands. 

And that is what International mud day is about. Connecting with each other by connecting with the earth, This universal, fundamental element from which we can become disconnected. Some of girls who set up the cocktail lounge above have been really phobic about dirt, touching things and getting their hands dirty or sitting on the ground. So them accepting the mud day challenges felt like a significant step in their growing resilience and willingness to get stuck in and try new things. 

I talked in my last mud post about the importance of equipping children with what they need to try new things. At a family gathering last weekend I made sure my nephew had something to cover up his clothes so that his parents would be happy about him getting stuck in and then I put out this inviting setup for him. 

 He had a wonderful time mixing, stirring, collecting, directing, and creating wonderful recipes. "I am the one who does the cooking, I make the food for everyone."

Mud is always there waiting for us, not just for this one day. Soup and cakes anyone? Cheers!

“When the world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful*” or, celebrating International Mud Day

“When the world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful” E. E. Cummings

The fact that it is InternationalMud Day 2012 this month got me to thinking about the role that mud plays in outdoor learning, play and Forest School sessions I deliver.

Sometimes it is a barrier. A group of older boys I was working with brought their best trainers to wear at sessions.  They are allowed to wear their own clothes to the woods, their need to show their personalities has not yet overcome their dismay and the urge to clean their trainers afterwards. At our first really muddy session  I was glad that this didn’t stop most of them from really getting stuck in (in one case literally), though they did spend a lot of time and effort getting rid of the mud from their shoes afterwards.

I had a four year old girl coming to sessions last year who had been told so many times that she wasn’t allowed to get dirty that even with a full waterproof suit and boots to protect her, she couldn’t sit or touch or be near anything dirty. She gradually acclimatised and, with sleeves rolled up is the first one to get stuck in to all sorts of messy play. In a survey of 7-11 year olds 25% didn’t like getting themselves or their clothes dirty. 57% worried they would be told off for getting dirty and two thirds of parents worried that being seen with a child with dirty clothes would make them appear to be a bad parent.* 

But more often than not, rather than a barrier, mud is a key resource for our learning and play. The most solid and tangible of the four elements it is easily accessible and easily manipulated. It is right there under our feet.  Helping children overcome those barriers allows them to explore a fantastic resource. I often find role modelling is a good way to encourage the children who are averse to dirt. I’m the first with my hands in and I also show these children what I have brought to get my hands clean again. Sometimes the language I use and comparisons help. There are children I know who will play with play dough and clay indoors but won’t touch soil or dirt outdoors.  Digging up our own ‘clay’ can be the first step for some children to make contact with mud.  I love the approach taken by Stuart Lester and Martin Maudsley that dirt, stains and smells can be treated like ‘badges of honour’, ‘evidence of successful outdoor play’ and learning**

More often we need to overcome the pressure, be it real or perceived, that comes from parents. Giving them advance warning of what to expect, helping them prepare their children with appropriate clothes works with most parents. As can highlighting the benefits, describing and telling stories of what the child has done and achieved. Showing them photos, journals or learning stories of their child. Some parents find it helpful to see the comparison with sports like rugby or football where the children get muddy. There is also the ‘hygiene hypothesis’, a growing body of evidence which holds that exposure to germs during early childhood primes the body against allergies. Research in recent studies indicate that treatment with specific soil bacterium,  improves moods, makes the brain more receptive to learning, and reduces inflammation of the skin.

So really what more reason can there be to celebrate with a mud day? A trickling hose or bucket of water should give you all the access to mud that you need, even better it might rain and the mud will make itself. Mould it, sculpt it, build with it, cook with it, (mud pie anyone? ) paddle in it, slide on it, find worms in it, squelch and squerch in it. Look at it with a microscope, make space for it in your garden, track animals through it,  print with it, paint with it, bathe in it, dig it, probe it with sticks, bury treasure in it, and bury seeds in it. Check out these photos for more inspiration and celebrate mud in whatever way you can!

Birch leaf mud print 

*From the ‘Positively Dirty’ report, Persil 2005 www.dirtisgood.com

** Lester and Muudsley 2006. Play, Naturally. www.playengland.org.uk/media/130593/play-naturally.pdf