...In her book, The Sense of Wonder, Rachel Carson describes waking her twenty-month-old nephew in the night and carrying him out to experience the majesty of a raging thunderstorm. When was the last time you took your family walking in the rain, wading in the stream-like gutters? When wind whips through the night or when fog lies so thick and low that streetlights become pale glowing orbs, do you venture out, all of you holding hands, without a flashlight? Have you simply slept under the stars in your own backyard?
Think of the attitudes parents convey to children in such experiences, not necessarily attitudes about thunderstorms or snakes, but about life and the joy of living! ... “Well, then,” the parent asks, “how do I teach my children about nature?” I’m an interpretive naturalist; “teaching” is my job. So I speak from experience when I say, “You can’t, yet. Not until you know that nature really can’t be taught; it can only be discovered. And we adults cannot share in discovery until we reawaken our own ability to see the world through childlike eyes.”
“Discovering nature” makes the common uncommon.