“Can we have class outside?” the students ask. “Can we have class outside?” At this time of year, especially when the soft April warmth feels so lovely and alien on our winter-pale skins, everyone starts to suffer from spring fever. Even though the students might be surprised at this, their professors are often feeling that same little twinge of solar-powered longing. This year, I forestalled the outside requests by beating my students to the punch. “Today,” I announce in grave tones, “we will have class outside.”
Of course, being the professor, I have sound pedagogical reasons for taking the class outside. In my core classes, we are dealing with the fundamental question, “What does it mean to understand and appreciate the natural world?” Where better to ponder this question than out in that natural world?
The problem with this, of course, is that our natural world, the natural world of the Sacred Heart campus, is not the bucolic forest surrounding Walden Pond, but then again, that bucolic forest surrounding Walden Pond was never quite as bucolic as Thoreau led us to believe. From his perch on the edge of the pond in front of his cabin, he could see the train tracks cut a neat tangent line. As we sat on the hillside we had to contend with cement trucks rumbling up with deliveries to the chapel building site, motorcycles roaring past in spring-fever-induced exuberance, and tour groups of high school students and their parents. The tour groups looked longingly at my class sprawled on the grass and talking about the natural world.
Despite, or maybe in because of, the distractions, we were able to talk of the topic at hand. As we discussed the meaning of nature and the place of humans in nature, we followed the truck rolling past and then the wind ruffling our hair. The machine and the garden both found their way into our talk.
Sometimes we need a break from the walls of the classroom, and sometimes we need a break from all walls.
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