The vine climbs the fence slowly, understanding their own body and position on the fence.
It has been 4 months since the conclusion of our first FSPLA. A deep praxis continues daily as we explore what it means to engage in this unique journey of learning and embodying Forest School practices and ways in both our work and personal lives. The program that was designed for the FSPLA went really well. It evolved along with the 9 beautiful apprentices and the many “teachers” of the program. It was a deeply reflective journey, with huge emphasis put on praxis.
The FSPLA was designed with the following focus:
1. Imparting Forest School ways and practices
2. Developing apprentices’ awareness and perspectives
3. Empowering apprentices to develop their own Forest School practices
The process of the FSPLA encompassed the following elements:
1. Experiential
Exploring various natural environments through different time and space durations, allowing skills (like fire making, bushcraft, navigation, and way-finding) to be acquired organically through simple guiding approaches. Pairing apprentices’ hands-on experiences with on-job attachments in Forest School sessions to provide a practitioner-level experience. Through this process, apprentices will stretch their mental boundaries and capacity.
2. Reflective
This element takes a more personal and intense direction. through a scaffolding process. From the general, “What is Forest School? What is Education?”, to a deeper, “What is your Name? What are your childhood memories? What are you angry about?”. It requires the apprentices and the mentor to have a huge capacity to hold space, expand their sense-making practices, and learn to express their reflections.
3. Initiative
A high level of self initiative is key to the process of the Forest School learning journey, as much of the knowledge and learnings are not in the style of upload-download. It has a lot to do with paying attention to self, others and environment. Apprentices are taken on a rigorous stretch to expand their range of initiative taking capacity.
At least that was what we wanted to achieve. But the journey, as life is, took its own form and courage, in accordance with the personality of the mentors & apprentices. 😏 And here on in, is where my praxis revealed itself. After conducting the training, and being a mentor with the apprentices through the FSPLA, I realise what FSPLA truly means.
“It is a Forest School for Adults.”
– Rachel (apprentice)
All the elements of a Forest School session are present in the FSPLA, but in a more M18 version, in its realism. Yet having plenty of fun, experimentation, relationship elements similar to what the children engage in during FS sessions.
I also realised that the FSPLA ‘Diploma’ doesn’t give the apprentices another tool or asset. It reveals them to their own selves through the rigour of the praxis that exist in the training journey of the FSPLA. Through the journey, the potential of the individual (that already exists) is raised as well.
However, the mental intensity of the FSPLA’s reflective and initiative components is a huge stretch for modern-day adults. Many of them already have a lot on their plate day to day. The reflective intensity of the journey exhausted the apprentices after the fourth week. The experiential component (in-person) provided many of them space and time for respite, even though it was physically demanding, Mentally, however, it is more healing. Whereas, the reflective components, when done intensely over a short period of time, were draining. Despite this, the mental intensity and depth of reflection stretched and broadened everyone’s perspective.
Having led the training, reflections and journey of the FSPLA, I realised a unique phenomenon.
People often ask me, “Will I get a job after doing the FSPLA Diploma?” Most of us are conditioned to think of a practitioner’s certification as an entry ticket to a job. However, interestingly, I think FSPLA will not get you a job. Rather, it will make you want to quit your job. Because once our eyes are open through the journey and praxis, we open our mind and life to the infinite amount of possibilities that the universe has in ourselves. We learn to let go of the strong need of control and order, and flow to the rhythm of our own good, bad, fear and courage.
On reflection, Forest School empowers the potential of the individuals who choose to embark on the journey. And that is what it means to bring people to a space between the earth and the stars….
Written by : Darren Quek
Edited by : Zoe Xu
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