Above and Beyond: Teaching Children Sky Awareness

Published in baystateparent magazine

What if you could give your child a special gift? A gift that was never the same, always changing? That stimulated imagination, creativity and observation? That could calm even the most hyper child –without drugs? That could improve her test scores? That would ensure she would become environmentally responsible? And that would give her a profound sense of “place” in the world? Now what if this gift was free, readily available and lasted forever?

Where do you find such a gift? It’s easy: Just open your eyes and look up- at the sky – with your child, and you’ll discover the “theatre over your heads which presents all kinds of shows,” says Jack Borden, former Boston television reporter who for the last 30 years has dedicated his life to “turning people on to the sky.”

In 1981, after a sky-gazing epiphany of “becoming aware of my unawareness of the sky,” Borden founded “For Spacious Skies,” (FSS) a non-profit educational organization with the vision of “using the media to stimulate and sustain public awareness of the appearance of the sky.”

Today thousands of teachers and homeschoolers across the country are blending the FSS sky-awareness approach into their daily activities. In addition, over 40 states have declared a “National Sky Awareness Week” every year in April.

Borden’s big vision is to bring about “new eyes” in young children in terms of how they see the sky. But the most effective teachers and influencers of children – their parents – need to become “sky aware” themselves in order to pass the gift along.

And there’s the rub.

Could you describe the sky right now, without a sneak peek out your window? Are there clouds? If so, what do they look like? “Nine chances out of 10, you don’t have a clue about the sky’s appearance,” says Borden.

“We know that people are not looking at the sky. If they perceive the sky at all, it’s in the context of the weather or astronomy.”

Sky awareness means expanding your horizons so that, “you begin to see that the sky is the province, not just of the weather reporter, but it is the province of the photographer, the artist, the poet, the dreamer, of the physical scientist,” says Borden.

And it’s the province of parents and their children.

A New View of the Sky

What does practicing sky awareness with your children require? For parents, it’s relearning how to look at the sky – not just as a utilitarian means to predict the weather. Not to help your child recite facts about “cumulus” “nimbus” “thisis” or “thatis” cloud formations, says Borden. Not to see it only as background to objects in the distance, but as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, to see the sky as “the ultimate art gallery, the daily bread of the eyes.”

“In order to turn a child onto the sky, you need to get them to look at it,” says Borden. “Just telling them what a cirrostratus cloud is will not do the trick. You want to give them the experience. Every kid should have access to a backyard telescope, and every kid should have a magnifying glass when they go out for a walk.” It’s all about observation.

But what if your child asks questions you can’t answer, questions like “Mommy, why is the sky blue?” or “Daddy, why are clouds different shapes?”

Borden suggests that you tell them “Put it on your ‘I wonder’ list. Then look it up online later together.” Borden goes further to suggest that too many facts can cloud a child’s ability to experience the sky in its awe-inspiring totality.

“It’s when we put kids into a situation that we’re expecting them to learn the cloud names that we run afoul,” Borden says. “Just look at it. Take away the factual and put in the experiential.”

Famed nature writer Rachel Carson wrote, “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.”

The Expansive Benefits of Sky Awareness

In 1986, a landmark Harvard University study found that Massachusetts students who attended schools that taught “sky awareness” scored in the 90th percentile in standardized tests, six times higher than those who were not exposed to the curriculum. “They learned much more and grew much more,” one researcher remarked.

Sky-aware children also are likely to want to protect their environment. “If kids develop a powerful relationship to nature, then nature becomes a resource for them throughout their lives and something they will care about,” says Borden. Sky-aware people “don’t have to be told not to throw Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes around,” he quips.

Sky-awareness has also been linked to positive thinking and success in life. A recent study revealed that seventyfive percent of people surveyed reported that negative thinking goes away if you look at the sky.

The benefits of sky awareness are enormous for children. What parent doesn’t want to foster intellectual excellence, positivity, social responsibility, creativity and curiosity in their children?

“There’s a lot to this. There’s more to it than I ever dreamed,” says Borden.

More than enough to take your child – right now- by her little hand, go outside together for a few moments and lift your eyes to the sky.

Trish Reske is a freelance writer from Westborough, MA and a newly-reformed avid sky-watcher. While interviewing Borden at Wachusett Meadow in Princeton, MA, she looked up and was amazed to see her first solar halo. She now looks up daily and encourages her children to do the same.