Classrooms outside the school. Lessons for teachers from three educational experiences during exceptional times

Abstract

The role played by children's motor skills, socialisation and the outdoors during the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of a more outward-looking education. Linked to this, we can identify two other less obvious pandemics: sedentary lifestyles and social isolation. This article presents the results of three studies involving several educational experiences during this unique period between the academic years 2019/20 and 2021/22. It provides a voice to the protagonists: schoolchildren (n=123), educators (n=14) and families (n=128), to understand their experiences and expectations of active and outdoor based education in the different settings in which this took place during the period: the playground, the home, the street, the outdoors and indoor classrooms. As a result, the impact of confinement, both at home and school, on childhood as well as the value of utilising the outdoors and nature as an educational space become clear. We can verify that barriers can be broken down and that outdoor education can overcome difficulties when the teachers set their minds to it. Some of these difficulties are related to a certain reluctance to go outside the classroom, despite scientific evidence indicating that we are safer against COVID-19 in outdoor spaces. This contradiction seems to stem from an excess of zeal and liability, especially on the part of education authorities, which prevented or hindered outdoor education while taking great care to establish strict health prevention measures inside schools. It ends with a message of optimism and realism on the part of educators, who now have the certainty that this pandemic has shown us the great value of outdoor learning.