52. Learning from Life with Chantel Zimmerman

Today, I have a treat for you guys—I’m interviewing Chantel Zimmerman, the founder and creator of Sensory Garden and Play, on her first podcast ever! Chantel lives, breathes, eats, and shits proprioception, vestibular movement, and big play, and I wanted to have her on the show to talk about her educational philosophy and the programs that she runs, including her forest school. Chantel starts the episode by telling us about her background as a public school teacher and how her post-pregnancy move into tutoring led to her setting up programs based on sensory learning and eventually opening her full-blown forest school. She then explains how important it is for parents to give serious thought to what they want from childcare before choosing a program and that we often get trapped in an outdated educational philosophy that prepares kids to work in industry rather than for the modern world they’ll be living in. In her school, Chantel uses a Scandinavian model that encourages kids to learn from life and experience the outdoors rather than prioritizing academics. She also talks about how the pandemic has resulted in many parents challenging the school system and explains how she attempts to bridge public schooling, homeschooling, and unschooling to combine the best of all three systems. The Finer Details of This Episode: The COVID pandemic has led to many parents challenging the school system (not the educators, it’s important to note) and realizing that there are serious flaws in it. Chantel herself has decided not to send her kids to kindergarten this year, instead letting them learn to play and figure out life on their own terms rather than on the standards. Chantel advocates for risk in play, which means stop telling your kids to be careful and start telling them to assess the situation. When hiking with her own kids, she tells them that if they go up, they have to come down on their own. That doesn’t mean she’s going to leave them up there crying, but they do have to think about whether they can handle the hike and if they need help. In Chantel’s opinion, there needs to be a beautiful blend between life skills and social and emotional well-being. Her kids’ homework every day is to ask someone in their home how their heart is and listen and report back the next day at school. She’s had parents text her and say they don’t know if they’ve ever known how their heart feels, and Chantel’s response is that they’d better find out because the kid will be asking every single day. Chantel is a huge fan of big loose play, which allows kids with high energy to do things like move logs around and build forts before ten o’clock, so they can funnel all their positive energy and then participate in the whole class. Whereas, if you put that same kid in a preschool or kindergarten setting, they wouldn’t be able to participate. Instead of using shame and humiliation to keep kids in line, Chantel encourages risk and play and has a set of standards for how to conduct oneself. She also points out that girls tend to be told to be quiet and don’t try to be leaders, an attitude she tries to counter by letting the kids she teaches (including her daughters) feel empowered in their learning and giving parents a track to focus on. Links: Jamie’s Homepage - www.jamieglowacki.com Oh Crap! Potty Training – https://www.amazon.com/Crap-Potty-Training-Everything-Parenting-ebook/dp/B00V3L8YSU Oh Crap! I Have A Toddler - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Oh-Crap!-I-Have-a-Toddler/Jamie-Glowacki/Oh-Crap-Parenting/9781982109738 Jamie’s Patreon Page: www.patreon.com/join/jamieglowacki? Jamie’s Instagram Page: @jamie.glowacki Sensory Garden and Play Homepage: https://www.sensorygardenandplay.com/ Chantel’s Instagram Page: @sensory  garden_and_ play Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices