{"id":6382,"date":"2015-07-09T06:31:39","date_gmt":"2015-07-09T06:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6382"},"modified":"2015-07-09T15:08:46","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T15:08:46","slug":"more-lessons-from-far-and-near","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/07\/09\/more-lessons-from-far-and-near\/","title":{"rendered":"More Lessons from Far and Near"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"In summertime on Bredon<\/em>
\nThe bells they sound so clear;<\/em>
\nRound both the shires they ring them<\/em>
\nIn steeples far and near,<\/em>
\nA happy noise to hear.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whilst I was incarcerated<\/a> in\u00a0the University of East London last week, at Natural England's\u00a0Lessons from Near and Far<\/em>\u00a0conference<\/a>, \u00a0I found myself thinking \u2013 not for the first time \u2013 that it would have been far better for me to have been\u00a0outside \u2013 ideally walking on some Wiltshire Down, Shropshire hill or Lakeland Fell \u2013 but outside anywhere, really, than to have been\u00a0inside in a 'theatre'\u00a0that managed to be\u00a0both air-conditioned and<\/em> stuffy, sitting enfettered, listening to people talking at me about how good it is to be outside. \u00a0There was no sense of irony in any of this.<\/p>\n

There were a lot of\u00a0presentations; one I appreciated was from\u00a0Simon Beames, who's an outdoor learning expert at Edinburgh<\/a>,\u00a0and who brought some wit and (I thought) truth to proceedings in his talk:\u00a0Uncertainty, agency, authenticity: Learning in Natural Environments and\u00a0purposeful real life learning for resilient youth<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Here's what caught my ear (NB, it might not have been quite what SB\u00a0said):<\/p>\n