Why We Wild School

(An hour in the park. A lifetime of lessons.)

This morning started with a pillow.

Not the kind you rest your head on, but the kind someone tore apart and dumped in the local park — its synthetic filling scattered by the wind like snow made of plastic.

So my son and I grabbed a bag and spent an hour walking the field, collecting every last piece. Up. Down. Squat. Stretch.

It became exercise. It became service. It became a classroom without walls.

As we worked, we talked.

We talked about decision-making — how so much of our culture still runs on left-brained, reductionist logic. Extract. Produce. Discard. Repeat. Capitalism without ecology-checks. Profit without responsibility.

We talked about leadership — not management by force, but influence through action. A few passers-by, seeing my son, bent down and picked up a handful before moving on. That’s leadership. That’s how better behaviour spreads: quietly, without orders, without titles.

We talked about courage, compassion, wisdom — the Stoic virtues. About what real warriors do: protect the weak, defend the planet. About the absurdity of a world where grown-ups profit from selling toxins to kids, or remain silent while children die in war zones.

We studied plants and trees. We discussed wilderness survival. We laughed. We questioned. We exercised. We built trust.

All of it in one unscripted hour, simply by responding to what was in front of us: a field full of plastic fluff.

That is what we mean by Wild Schooling.

It’s not rebellion against education. It’s a return to what education is supposed to be: learning that’s real, alive, embodied, ecological.

Not telling children what to think — but walking with them through a world of both beauty and madness, helping them see how to make it better.

In a time when mainstream education still echoes a colonial blueprint — keeping kids occupied, training them to obey — maybe the bravest, most necessary thing we can do is this:

• Teach them to care.
• Teach them to act.
• Teach them to ask better questions.

Sometimes, it starts with a single pillow’s worth of plastic.

Sometimes, that’s all it takes to begin building the kind of humans the future desperately needs.

🌱 Want to learn more?
Wild Coaching is part of our Stoic Pilgrim Adventures approach to developing awake, resilient humans in a world of complexity.

You can experience a bit of Wild Coaching or join our men’s retreat on the 24th and 25th November at Gradbach Mill Buxton, type some details below and I’ll send them over:)

#WildCoaching #WisdomWalks #MasterMindinMotion #AdventureOutsideDiscoverWithin  #StoicPilgrim