Rachel Carson's Legacy

It is more important to be excited, than to be filled with knowledge when we are young.

by Susan L. Feathers

Rachel Carson developed a deep sense of wonder exploring the fields and woods near her childhood home in Springdale, Pennsylvania with her mother. Carson remembers being encouraged to explore nature. “I can remember no time when I wasn’t interested in the out of doors and the whole world of nature….Those interests I know I inherited from my mother and have always shared with her.”¹

It was during the impressionable time of childhood that Carson’s invincible love and advocacy for nature was formed. In A Sense of Wonder — a book she wrote for her niece’s son Roger whom she raised after his mother’s untimely death — she describes her belief in the importance of developing an emotional tie to nature.

Once emotions have been aroused — a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love – then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate.²

Parents, grandparents, and teachers can engender feelings of love and respect for the living world in young children by sharing their own surprise, wonder, and interest. It’s about sharing the experience rather than knowing the facts and figures! Carson would bundle Roger in warm blankets and take him down to the shore to see the moonlight shimmering on the shoreline of her West Southport, Maine summer home. Or, they put on slickers and huddled together during storms to feel the sea spray and wonder at the thundering waves crashing on the beach. She writes of spiders she “got to know” in woodpiles near the cabin. Carson’s own deep ties to nature sustained her through rigorous challenges later when Silent Spring caused a national uproar over pesticide use, and launched the environmental movement in the U.S. Even when her life was threatened she never swayed from her conviction that damage to nature did not have to be an inevitable consequence of technological progress.³

As parents and educators I think it is critical we pay attention to the message Rachel Carson so eloquently expressed. Learning and developmental theories indicate that we learn first through our senses, and indeed, memory is intricately tied to sensory traces in neuronal networks in the brain. We all have experienced a rush of memories — as fresh as the day we experienced them – when we smell a certain scent, or hear an old tune. When we educate children we must start with emotional and sensory experience. Children of course do this naturally in their explorations and we just need to follow their lead.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

As Director of Education at a major zoo and botanical garden I worked with my staff and volunteers to balance the goal of providing information to the public about natural history, with the goal of providing as close to a natural experience as we could. Often I would watch as a visitor asked a docent “How old is that mountain lion?” or “How did you get that bear? Did you capture it from the wild?” The visitor wants to relate to the experience of the animal. The docent launches into a barrage of natural history information and does not answer the question! I watched as the eyes glaze over and the visitor moves along — a missed opportunity — the result of education that stresses knowing facts. Silence and observation are great teachers. More experienced docents have learned this, and I have watched them standing with a rapt group gasping over a tarantula they just discovered emerging from its hole: “Look at those hairy legs! Man, what a creature!” Then, they sneak in some information when the group starts asking questions — when they want to know something.

Rachel Carson’s legacy is the reminder that it is more important to be excited than to be filled with knowledge when we are young. The learning will come later when the love drives a need to know. David Sobel, an internationally known educator and author on children’s development has produced a book every parent and teacher should acquire: Mapmaking with Children.4 He provides creative ideas for exploring the world of nature right outside the door. One of the best mapmaking hikes I’ve tried with children is one where we collect soil along the paths, fallen leaves and flowers, water from ponds or even water fountains, and other natural materials noting where we found them on our developing map. Then we use these collected materials to paint and decorate the map. It becomes a very sensory-based experience. This particular activity makes kids aware of the elements of habitat and the special aspects of neighborhood haunts. Sobel makes a compelling argument that mapmaking is developmentally important to children’s understanding of the world. If you remember the thrill of having an old map to follow to some undiscovered place, you will love this book. Sobel provides parents and teachers with the rationale behind the activities so you can actively participate in the development of learning “maps” in your child or students’ understanding of the world.

What children can teach us

When I lived in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, an event occurred with a group of children and parents I have never forgotten. At the time I ran a recreation class called “Youth Jogging”. My plan was to follow the traditions of the Hash House Harriers — minus the beer drinking at the end of the run. This international running club assigns two people to lay a trail using colored tags or whatever suits their fancy. The rest of us show up at a starting point and follow the trail to the end bellowing like hounds as we run around trying to find the way. Well, the Youth “Jogging” class not only loved the adventure of following a trail, they got into mapmaking big time. Parents were involved too. After a while we began naming the trails like “Silver Lake Sojourn”, “CET Hidden Trail”, “Mt. Airy Switchback”, and so on. Kids laid out the trails. We learned more about every nook and cranny in our town than we ever thought possible. And we were having so much fun the class grew and was regularly attended. We always met at the “Big Rock” near the elementary school. I never realized how much we were contributing to learning. We were just experiencing and letting our innate curiosity drive the day.

So next time you go with a child to an outdoor area, or prepare to teach your class about nature, don’t worry so much about information. Call on spontaneity and curiosity and imagination. Tell them a story about the place where they live. Call up a sense of wonder and you will be paving the road to learning and to cultivating compassion and respect for life in your child and students. And I think you will find it a lot more fun!

1. Brooks, Paul (1972). Rachel Carson: The Writer at Work. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, p. 18.
2. Carson, Rachel (1965). A Sense of Wonder. New York: Harper & Row
3. Brooks, p 298.
4. Sobel, David (1999). Mapping with Children. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.