Chuyville is the name I gave to an area in the Primavera Forest where naturalist Jesús “Chuy” Moreno has been teaching kids about science, nature and survival for many years.
I stumbled into this remote area one day while hiking in the woods and was surprised to find myself in the middle of a great many crude, teepee-shaped shelters made of tree branches and pine needles. I eventually learned that these had been built by kids who were learning about plants, animals, insects, soil, ecology, etc. during the many summer camps for kids he has organized over the years.
Each time I lead a group of hikers to Chuyville, I tell them, “What you are looking at here is an outdoor classroom and an educational success story. This is the place where a great many kids were transformed into enthusiastic investigators of natural science.”
When I asked Moreno just how many children have studied nature with him out in the woods, he replied, “Well, I’ve been doing this for twenty years. When I started, I had groups of 4 or 5, but soon I had more and more, as many as 120 kids at a time. I haven’t kept count, but the answer is in the hundreds.” Many of those hundreds, he adds, turned to careers in biology, ecology or conservation, “and a few ended up becoming mountain climbers.”
Taking kids out into nature in order to teach them about nature sounds logical, but hardly anyone in town – apart from Chuy Moreno – is doing it. A small number of schools, for example the Waldorf School of Guadalajara, organize occasional field trips for the students, but none seem to incorporate such trips into their regular curriculum as part and parcel of their course of studies.
This is surprising because the city of Guadalajara is situated right in the middle of an area incredibly rich in biological, botanical and geological diversity. Inside of what I call “The Magic Circle” around Guadalajara (a circle with a radius of 250 kilometers), all five of Mexico’s ecosystems just happen to come together. This means you could easily take a group of kids to visit a semi-tropical jungle on one day, a deep canyon the next, grasslands the next and a pine forest the day after. In the course of a week they could study live fumaroles inside the crater of a volcano, coconuts on the Pacific Coast, giant monolithic rocks 30 million years old and crocodiles in a mangrove swamp.
Indeed, the city of Guadalajara is surrounded by marvelous natural laboratories and regular visits to them could be incorporated into the programs of all the city’s schools.
These days the media are full of talk about Educational Reform in Mexico and the question on everyone’s lips is, “exactly what kind of changes will result in better education?” I suspect that many experts will answer this question in terms of more teachers and more buildings, not to mention more computers, TVs, iPads and expensive, entertaining textbooks. I propose instead, that they “go to Chuyville,” that is, that they examine an educational success story in detail to find out why it worked.
That this is a success story no one could dispute. Every child taught by Chuy Moreno will tell you that he’s the greatest teacher ever. All the parents of all these children are amazed at their kids sudden enthusiasm for nature and science and the great amount of knowledge they have acquired in these fields.
There’s a big difference between studying something in a book and coming into direct contact with interesting insects, plants, waterfalls and volcanoes. Presenting naturally curious kids with questions and challenges instantly turns them into investigators, detectives following clues and putting together the pieces of a puzzle. This is called “educating through awareness.” It was the life-long study of a man called Caleb Gattegno, who was once known as The World’s Greatest Teacher. If Mexico or any other country truly wants to reform education, they should examine the modus operandi of successful teachers like Chuy Moreno and Caleb Gattegno.
The last time I visited Chuyville, I found it had entirely disappeared. The most recent forest fire had raged through the area and left nothing but charred trees and ashes. Good-bye to a venerable symbol of real learning!
I just hope Mexico’s educational reform will fare better.