By Lea Jorgensen
I’m sure that many of you reading this have attended the Yearley Outdoor Education Centre as a student, parent volunteer, or even a teacher during the 40-plus years that it has been run, offering outdoor education experiences to our grade 6 students and other user groups within the Trillium Lakelands District School Board.
Therefore, you’ll understand why this is such an outrageous decision, to close Yearley at a time when outdoor education is needed now more than ever before. We desperately need places such as Yearley, where children can go to learn experientially, spend time in nature, and reconnect with themselves.
On the heels of a two-and-a-half-year pandemic, which has left our children unable to attend Yearley, we are now seeing the direct impact of nature deprivation and the loss of meaningful group learning experiences outside the classroom. In addition to learning about our natural environment and how to care for our planet during a climate crisis, we need to attend to our mental health now more than ever and not let it slide further into chronic instability. Many studies suggest this is most successfully done with connections to nature and nature-based programming!
To close such a valuable learning centre and nature program is so deeply wrong on so many levels. We have seen from past experience what happens when we let amazing facilities, like Yearley, go. The Frost Centre in Dorset is a good example, never to return or be re-opened again, with all those great connections to nature lost to our students well into the future.
We can’t let this happen to the Yearley Outdoor Education Centre. The future health and well-being of our students should take priority right now rather than cutting such a valuable program and facility!
If you feel compelled to let TLDSB’s director (Wes Hann) and the Board’s trustees (Chair Bruce Reain) know how upsetting this decision is to you, and how imperative it is to keep Yearley operating, this is the time to speak up.
Please share this message with others who know of Yearley and who have a strong belief that our outdoor spaces and programs are worthy of saving. Yearley needs your support, and we need to stick together with our beliefs that outdoor education needs to continue within TLDSB and for all of our children!
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Trish Henderson says
Thank you Lea for your dedication to our children and for trying to protect a precious resource that our education system has been incredibly lucky to have. I agree that Yearly Outdoor Education Centre is a place that promotes mental health and environmental awareness in our youngest community members.
Sharon Stahls says
I am flabbergasted about the decision to close Yearly. As a former teacher & administrator I spent many nights there with groups of students experiencing many firsts and learning about team work. I’m glad my name will not be associated with the decision to close it down. I’m planning on attending information session Tuesday night at board office to learn more about how decision was made. So sad 🤦♀️
Allen Markle says
How many children and adults have watched, touched or learned a little bit about the outdoors at Yearly? It seemed that it was an ubiquitous part of the education program in Muskoka, even though we were surrounded by nature and in my time, spent a lot of our spare days running and playing in it. Our elders informed us as they could, but a lot of what we discovered, we discovered on our own. Parents and grandparents responded to our questions as best they could. At the end of their knowledge was the standard retort. “Ask your teacher”,
There was a difference in the stored knowledge of a child from downtown and one who grew up country-wise. To my mind, the lucky ones, with access to a patch of bush. Yearly supplied that patch to a good number of ‘downtowners’.
I remember trips out to the fish-hatchery that operated on Skeleton Lake. Good stuff. And what we learned was stored as personal knowledge; as well as the many reference books we can peruse, we can remember most of what we saw, heard, tasted or were bitten by.
Today, most information can be accessed digitally, and lots of ‘hands on’ is lost to the little glowing screen. It can supply visual and audio, but is devoid of smell, texture and the elation that reality can deliver.
Why close Yearly? When so much is being lost through financial constraint, threatened by global warming, driven to extinction by habitat loss; maybe this is just a preemptive move by the school board? If people don’t get to experience nature and environment as children, maybe the won’t know what has been lost. Nor what they missed.
Maybe that’s a bit cynical, but I can’t imagine having to grow up, and old, without a tract of empty ground and a patch of bush.
To play and learn and be a kid in.
John K. Davis says
This isn’t the first time serious thought has been given to closing Yearly. It was ear marked for closure in the late 1980’s. Teachers didn’t want the responsibility of taking children for several days into the woods. This was a time of great unrest in our board. Teachers were demanding greater pay and reduced responsibilities when it came to students. A long and divisive strike ensued.
I know my Granddaughter just spent an educational week in Haliburton Highlands. This was a week of growing, exploring, building confidence and greater friendships. There were water sports, environmental studies, team leadership skills taught and opportunities to demonstrate them, orienteering and more. Many of the same things Yearly was opened for. This camp was opened by teachers as a summer camp to make money off of city children wanting these outdoor experiences, in fact many Summer Camps if not all were created by teachers wanting to make money during their summer holidays. The question is does the board need to be saddled with the responsibility and exorbitant costs of running a facility such as Yearly when private enterprise can do it more efficiently and economically. Some times stepping out of a government controlled environment, affords students a learning environment not controlled by controlling teachers they know, can give them a new perspective and open their minds to learning from a different source.
Perhaps selling this facility to a private owner with a contract to the board could expand the programs there. With educational direction focussing on Indigenous studies perhaps this facility could expand its boundaries to include more knowledge of local Indigenous People’s and their way of life, under private tutelage.
Lynn Bennett says
I think this article and the comments above should be sent to our new MPP Smith. Let’s see what he can do to change this decision.
Bob Vtech says
Too bad it’s being closed. Lots of memories over the years.
Valuable land! Wonder who it will be sold too?
Anybody willing to guess?
Susan Lovell says
I find it difficult to believe that the school board can consider closing this facility at this time. It is so wrong! Everyone is concerned and talking about the mental health of our children, and our need to respect the environment. This is another way our generation is failing our children. Our children need time to explore, learn and better understand the environment and the great outdoors. Yearley helps children experience the impact the environment has on us and our impact on it. I am a retired teacher and took many trips to Yearley with my students and my own children. I also helped to write some curriculum units for the Yearley experience. Such care went into what happened at Yearley This is such a short cited decision. When will we finally realize that dollars and cents should not override common sense. Think about it! It only makes sense to allow our children time to explore and be within the environment.
Wendy Oke says
Okay, so this is an obvious loss to our community, and I don’t want to have to point out the obvious benefits of an Outdoor Education Centre to seasoned Muskoka citizens, who have benefited from Yearley’s experiential learning. Sooo… what will replace Yearley? Where is the newer and better alternative? Will it be governmental or private enterprise that fills in the gap in essential education of our ‘device-addicted’ children? I’m going to trust that somewhere, the Trillium Board or Trustees have a plan up their sleeves to replace such an iconic piece of land with something even better. I’ll be at the public meeting tonight to ask that very question.
leslie talbot says
What a shame
Brenda St.John says
Closing Yearley would be heartbreaking!! I am a retired TLDSB teacher who had the pleasure of taking my class to Yearley on many occasions. It was always the highlight of the students’ year!
When they were asked to reflect on their year, they would inevitably write about Yearley. Many of them had never been on an overnight in the woods or on an evening hike to gaze at the stars and learn about the constellations. When we had a chance to play the “Ecology Game”, the classroom science unit on the Interdependence of Living Things came to life. They began to understand the system of prey and predator and the survival of species. They learned how important it is to protect the wetlands and our forested areas, as in turn this aids in the health of many living species and our PLANET!
We re-enacted a part of history “ in costume” where students acted as explorers bartering with native Canadians for exchange of goods, making the settlement of Canada have more meaning. Students learned survival skills, how to read a map, how to navigate…and do much more. Yearley offers experiential learning that is critical to understanding curriculum and enjoying it.
One of the best parts of all was the bonding that occurred among students and staff, having spent quality time together.
Closing Yearley and denying students this valuable learning experience would be criminal.
May I ask what this property will be used for if closed…development perhaps, involving even MORE destruction of Muskoka habitat??? Really??? Is THAT more important???
Sandy McLennan says
We all agree on the essential value of outdoor, overnight, multi-day, group time and the indelible experiences it gives.
And thanks to Doppler we get reactions/thoughts-of-future ranging from: “maybe this is just a preemptive move by the school board? If people don’t get to experience nature and environment as children, maybe the won’t know what has been lost“ to “private owner with a contract to the board could expand the programs… include more knowledge of local Indigenous People’s and their way of life, under private tutelage.”
I just finished giving workshops to students in Muskoka, funded by an Ontario Arts Council, Artists in Communities and Schools grant. Like “outdoor education” it was an experience that is outside the day-to-day (photo-chemical/pinhole photography). The point is: opportunity of experience, for children, is the main thing – regardless of the model of delivery. All ideas welcome, as long as the kids get these times of their lives. Go good at the meeting.