When I was 5 my parents separated, and we had to move to a small town in East Tennessee to live with my grandmother. While living there and not fully understanding what was happening, I was drawn to play in the woods and creeks by myself to seek solace. After 2 years of living there my parents decided to get back together and we moved back to Chattanooga. The next 6 years were very volatile, and I
would seek solitude and peace in the woods across the street from my house. I would build forts in the stinging nettles, walk the worn paths that curled through the woods and create hideouts among the bushes. This was my escape from the craziness that was going on within my home. It was not until I read Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods that I realized that I had been drawn into nature on those occasions by the Creator to get healing and comfort. I have been an educator now for over 35 years. I spent all these years primarily as a physical education teacher for grades K-4. During the last 7 years of teaching I introduced outdoor education to all students that I taught. I built and introduced a raised bed garden for my school. I also planned and built a nature playground on both the upper grade playground and the pre-school and kindergarten playgrounds. This led me to attend numerous conferences and trainings on this subject. I have attended Forest Kindergarten Teacher Training at Cedarsong Nature School, in Vashon Island, Washington. Cedarsong is one of the first Forest Kindergarten programs in the United States. In addition I attended Children Learning with Nature Institute at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
