A Fayetteville mom had been dreaming of creating a more enriching educational environment for her homeschooled children. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, so she teamed up with three other women to formulate an unconventional plan.
By Sarah E. Komar
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In a backyard just blocks from downtown Fayetteville, there is an educational utopia of sorts. Elementary school students spend their days with the sun on their faces and the breeze in their hair. During their hour-long recess, they sprint and scamper across grass, mulch and mud. They weave between trees laden with vibrant blossoms that flutter through the open-air spaces where they study.
Aided by ample space to spread out, the students and their teachers freely and happily breathe fresh air, only wearing masks if they enter the basement that houses a restroom, kitchen, and occasional one-room schoolhouse. Their “classrooms” include a wooden gazebo and pavilion, a vegetable garden and a fire pit surrounded by stumps and situated by a babbling brook.
At the Bodark Nature School, situated in the .8-acre terraced backyard of Jerry Elizabeth “J.Liz” Griffith’s Dickson Street home, 20 children ages six to 12 spend nearly eight hours a day outside, studying naturalism, math, English, history and more. The outdoor school was founded nearly a year after Griffith, a Fayetteville defense attorney and mother of three, first contemplated its creation. She wanted children to learn to respect nature and the value environment by being fully immersed in it.
“I think that we have this misnomer that learning happens because we teach people,” Griffith said. “But there’s so much intelligence in nature that science and math, even literature, art, it all sort of begins in nature.”
Griffith and three other mothers opened Bodark in Fall 2020, hoping to create a pandemic safe haven for their children at the “community homeschool,” which functions like a cross between a homeschooling cooperative and a Montessori academy. Now, inspired by the year’s success, they are looking toward a future of expansion and greater permanence.
Going Outside
Griffith struggled for years to find the right educational fit for her children. Although the older two had gotten good grades in public school, they weren’t thriving socially. After homeschooling them alone for a year and hating it, Griffith joined a forest school co-op near West Fork in 2019.
“That’s when I realized how transformative being outside all day long was for my children,” Griffith said. “Their emotional intelligence increased, their social intelligence increased. They were just happy kids. Even in the rain and muck and cold and hot.”
Inspired, Griffith began dreaming of starting her own outdoor school. When the pandemic hit, after researching historical precedents, she recruited Liz Hill, a former teacher naturalist with an M.Ed. and experience in Montessori education and homeschooling. They were soon joined by Stephanie Jordan, a Fayetteville nutritionist who loved her children’s teachers at Washington Elementary School, but hated what remote learning did to her kids.
“They were just starting to get depressed,” Jordan said. “They weren’t hanging out with other kids, they weren’t playing. They couldn’t see people’s faces. I have one child who’s learning how to read and couldn’t see the teacher’s face with a mask on. And they started to become germaphobes, and it was super stressful.”
After word of the venture got out, interest developed so quickly that Hill promptly brought in her former Montessori colleague Rose Netherland. What was originally intended to be a school of no more than 16 children — those of the four women and a few neighbors — grew to 18 by Bodark’s mid-August launch, then to 20. Griffith decided to limit the student-teacher ratio to 10:1, creating a waitlist now 18 children long.
Griffith spent over $32,000 turning her backyard into a nature school. She paid for construction projects that included building a sheltered pavilion where the younger students study, and converting her basement into a classroom space for use during lightning storms and for activities like cooking. The school’s teachers and parents also donated some educational materials and erected a temporary tent that, along with a gazebo on the yard’s lower level, serves as the older students’ shelter.
Griffith chose the name Bodark, an alternative spelling of the bois d’arc (Osage orange tree), as a symbol of the school’s emphasis on naturalism and outdoor skills.
Two members of the younger group at the Bodark Nature School create a comic strip based on “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White on April 8. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar 
The lower level of J.Liz Griffith’s expansive backyard, where the Bodark Nature School’s older students study during the school day. The fire pit (right) was used for warming during the winter and is the site of daily school-wide morning meetings. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar 
A student at the Bodark Nature School completes an activity teaching about equivalent fractions on April 8. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar 
A student playfully tackles her friend during lunch time at Bodark Nature School on April 8. Following lunch and clean-up time, all 20 students get at least an hour of unstructured recess time. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
Challenging But Rewarding
Bodark’s students spend Monday-Thursday participating in group and individual studies, doing “community jobs” to keep the sprawling yard maintained, and learning survival and life skills like cooking, fire-building, foraging and mindfulness. Each teacher manages ten students, with Hill teaching third- through sixth-graders, and Netherland teaching kindergarteners through second-graders and providing Spanish lessons. On Fridays, Jordan leads the children in exploratory activities like hiking, archery and nature sanctuary field trips.
The benefits the children get from being outside are immense, Jordan said.
“It’s turned out to serve our kids in so many more ways than we anticipated,” Jordan said. “Their physical, social and emotional needs are met at school every day. They’re using their bodies, they’re healthy and active and strong. They’re confident. They’re becoming little naturalists, you know?”
But idyllic as the year has been, it has also been challenging, Hill said. Coping with the elements has sometimes proved difficult. During the winter, students had to bundle up in high-quality cold-weather gear including ski jackets and wool layers, and huddle around the fire pit.
And although Hill loves the beauty and freedom of Bodark, teaching such a wide range of ages without help has been difficult and draining, she said. There are no state-mandated curricula or assessments for homeschoolers in Arkansas, and homeschooling co-ops are not regulated. Hill and Netherland try their best to meet all students’ needs and tailor lessons to their grade levels, employing a blend of Montessori curriculum materials and traditional standards-based tools like math workbooks.
But with limited resources, it is impossible to meet every recommended baseline for every child, and Hill acknowledged that some may have knowledge gaps when they graduate from Bodark. However, she thinks the practical skills students learn, such as self-regulation, planning and time management, are essential for their future success.
“It’s like there’s these other life skills that they’re gaining that I think make up for maybe not being as far along with their division as they might have been had they stayed in public school,” Hill said. “And I wonder, well, would they (even) have understood it as well?”
Expanding Vision, Expanding Space
Griffith’s goal is to expand Bodark, hire as many new teachers as enrollment necessitates, and make the school a permanent community fixture. She is selling her house and purchasing more property on the outskirts of town. The school needs more land, woods, ponds, and space for a storage barn with a large, heated pavilion on each side, Griffith said.
Still, much about Bodark’s future is uncertain. The property Griffith hopes to buy is a thirty-minute drive from downtown, and several parents have said they won’t be able to transport their children there without a bussing system. She and the teachers are working on creating a scholarship fund and sliding-scale tuition system. Without this, the $550-per-student-per-month tuition fee may become prohibitively expensive for some families.
But Griffith is determined to make Bodark live on long after the pandemic is over. She sees outdoor education as essential to nurturing the next generation.
“I think that what we need to do is really immerse children into our natural environment,” Griffith said. “Not only is it healthier for them, biologically (and) physiologically, but also spiritually and emotionally.”
Sarah Komar 
Hi! I enjoyed reading your story—this was a great find! I love how it’s showcasing something positive that came out of the pandemic! I’ve left some comments in all-caps at the end of some paragraphs with comments/questions I have. I liked how you set up you story into different sections. The pictures are awesome. This is such a novel idea to me that I really needed the visual to picture everything, and they did a great job of helping me visualize.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark — For millions of K-12 students across the U.S., the past year has been bleak. For many, dining rooms and living rooms have become classrooms, where kids spend eight hours a day staring at computer screens and vying for wifi bandwidth with their siblings. For others, going to school has meant separation from friends by spaced-out desks, plexiglass dividers and staggered recess sessions. Children in the prime of their educational and psychosocial development have learned to read, write and do arithmetic from teachers muffled by layered masks and plastic face shields. I LIKE HOW YOU’RE SETTING THE STORY UP.
But for twenty Fayetteville elementary school children, the past year has looked more like something out of a utopian daydream than a dystopian future. At their school, there are no masks, computers or desk dividers to be found. In fact, there are no desks at all. THIS IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM TRADITIONAL SCHOOLING
At the Bodark Nature School, situated on the .8-acre Dickson Street property of Jerry Elizabeth “J.Liz” Griffith, children ages six to 12 spend their days exploring the natural world, running and playing with friends, and learning math, science, English and social studies lessons in “classrooms” that include a wooden gazebo, an open-air pavilion, a vegetable garden and a fire pit surrounded by stumps and situated by a babbling brook. GOOD IMAGERY. I’M WONDERING IF YOU COULD EXPLAIN WAS .8 ACRES LOOKS LIKE. IT SOUNDS FAILRY BIG, BUT IT’S HARD FOR ME TO IMAGE THE ACTUAL SIZE.
The outdoor “community homeschool” functions like a cross between a traditional homeschooling cooperative and a Montessori academy. Griffith and three other mothers, concerned about public school and homeschool options, initially formed Bodark in Fall 2020 as a pandemic safe-haven for their children. But now, inspired by the success of the school year, they are looking towards the future. THIS IS A GOOD FIND. THIS IS A GREAT IDEA FOR PANDEMIC SCHOOLING.
Going Outside I LIKE HOW YOU’RE DIVING THE STORY INTO DIFFERENT SECTIONS
Griffith, a defense attorney based out of her and her partner’s Fayetteville home and Southeastern Oklahoma law office, struggled for years to find the right educational fit for her three children. Although her older two, now eight and nine, had gotten good grades in public school, Griffith found that they weren’t thriving socially. After homeschooling them alone for a year and hating it, she joined an outdoor, forest school-style co-op near West Fork.
“That’s when I realized how transformative being outside all day long was for my children,” Griffith said. “Their emotional intelligence increased, their social intelligence increased. They were just happy kids. Even in the rain and muck and cold and hot, it didn’t matter. They were excited to get up and go to school.”
Inspired by her children’s experience, Griffith began dreaming about starting her own outdoor school. So when the pandemic hit and she found herself homeschooling again, she decided to take the plunge. After researching the historical precedent behind outdoor schools, she recruited Liz Hill, a former Ozark Natural Science Center teacher naturalist with an M.Ed. and experience in Montessori education and homeschooling. They were soon joined by Stephanie Jordan, a Fayetteville nutritionist who loved her children’s teachers at Washington Elementary School, but hated what remote learning did to her kids. WHEN DID HER DREAM START? HOW LONG WAS THIS SCHOOL IDEA IN THE MAKING?
“At the end of summer, they were just starting to get depressed,” Jordan said. “They weren’t hanging out with other kids, they weren’t playing. They couldn’t see people’s faces. I have one child who’s learning how to read and couldn’t see the teacher’s face with a mask on. And they started to become germaphobes, and it was super stressful. So we talked and decided to create a school. And then as soon as word got out that it was happening, so many people enrolled.”
Although Griffith had initially the two women’s children and those of a few neighbors, interest in the school grew so quickly that Hill soon brought in her friend and former Montessori colleague Rose Netherland. Today, each teacher manages a group of ten students, with Hill teaching third- through sixth-graders, and Netherland teaching kindergarten through second-grade children, as well as offering school-wide Spanish lessons. ARE THEY ALL LEARNING TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME, OR ARE THEY BROKEN UP INTO GROUOS ACCORDING TO GRADE LEVEL?
Challenging But Rewarding
Bodark’s students spend Monday-Thursday participating in group and individual studies, doing “community jobs” to keep the huge terraced backyard well-maintained, and learning life skills like cooking, fire-building, foraging and mindfulness. Recess is at least an hour each day. On Fridays, Jordan leads the children in “Fun Fridays” activities like hiking, sledding and field trips to nature sanctuaries.
The benefits the children get from spending every day outside can’t be overstated, Jordan said. HOW DO THEY DEAL WITH WEATHER IF IT’S ALL OUTSIDE?
“It’s turned out to serve our kids in so many more ways than we anticipated. Their physical, social and emotional needs are met at school every day. They’re using their bodies, they’re healthy and active and strong. They’re confident. They’re becoming little naturalists, you know? They are constantly catching crawfish and salamanders and raising butterflies. And so it’s turning out to be a really, really beautiful school.”
But idyllic as the year has been, it has also been challenging, Hill said. Coping with the elements, particularly rain and extreme cold, has sometimes proved difficult. School was cancelled during the ice storm that swept the South for a week in February. The rest of the winter, students had to bundle up in high-quality cold-weather gear including ski jackets, boots and wool layers. WOULD THE CHILDREN RATHER BE OUTSIDE IN EXTREME WEATHER THAN BE INSIDE AT A MORE TRADITIONAL SCHOOL?
Teaching such a wide range of ages without a classroom aid has also been challenging and draining, Hill said. With limited time and resources, it is impossible to meet every grade-level standard for every child. However, Hill is grateful for the opportunity to work outside among the flora and fauna while breathing freely. She also thinks the practical skills the students learn, such as planning and time management, are essential for their future success. WHAT DO PARENTS THINK ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN POSSIBLE NOT MEETING GRADE-LEVEL REQUIREMENTS? DO THEY THINK THE BENEFITS TILL OUTWEIGHT THIS?
“It’s like there’s these other other life skills that they’re gaining that I think make up for maybe not being as far along with their division as they might have been had they stayed in public school,” Hill said. “And I wonder, well, would they (even) have understood it as well?”
Expanding Vision, Expanding Space
Griffith’s goal is to expand Bodark, hire more teachers and make it a permanent fixture of the Fayetteville community, so she is selling her house and purchasing more land. The school’s inaugural year taught the team important lessons about productively educating students outdoors, Griffith said. The school needs a property with more land, more woods, and space for a storage barn with two large, warmable pavilions on each side. Griffith also wants a pond for hands-on exploration of natural science principles.
Still, much about Bodark’s future is uncertain. The property Griffith hopes to buy is a thirty-minute drive from downtown, and several parents have said they won’t be able to transport their children there without a bussing system. Griffith and the teachers are working on creating a scholarship fund and sliding-scale tuition system. Without this, the $550-per-student-per-month tuition fee may become prohibitively expensive for some families. IS SHE CONCERNED ABOUT POTENTIALLY LOSING STUDENTS IN ORDER TO EXPAND?
But Griffith is determined to make Bodark live on long after the pandemic is over. She sees nature schools as essential to shaping healthy, well-balanced and environmentally conscious children.
“I think that a lot of people are being fed the whole, ‘Oh, you have to have a STEM education. STEM, STEM,STEM, STEM, STEM,’” Griffith said. “I think that what we need to do is really immerse children into our natural environment, for several reasons. Not only is it healthier for them, biologically (and) physiologically, but also spiritually and emotionally.”
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I LOVE THE IMAGES AND ESPECIALLY THE SLIDESHOW. GLAD YOU GOT THERE TO TAKE THE PHOTOS. GOOD COMPOSITION AND CAPTIONS.
How a Fayetteville Backyard Became a COVID-free School With Nature As Its Headmaster TIGHTEN
A COVID-FREE SCHOOL WITH NATURE IN CHARGE (OR SOME SUCH)
A Fayetteville mom had been dreaming of creating a better, more enriching educational environment for her children and other homeschooled kids. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, so she teamed up with three other women and formulated an unconventional plan. THIS SHOULD BE A THIRD AS LONG
By Sarah E. Komar
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark — For millions of K-12 students across the U.S., the past year has been bleak. NOPE. THE READER KNOWS THIS. YOU’VE LOST THEM ALREADY. For many, dining rooms and living rooms have become classrooms, where kids spend hours a day staring at computer screens and vying for Wi-Fi bandwidth with their siblings. For others, going to school has meant separation from friends by spaced-out desks, plexiglass dividers and staggered recess sessions. Children in the prime of their educational and psychosocial development have learned to read, write and do arithmetic from teachers muffled by layered masks and plastic face shields.THIS IS A TALKIE LEAD. AND NONE OF IT WILL BE NEW TO THE READER.
START WITH A SCENE THAT DRIVES HOME WHAT YOU’RE SAYING THAT IS NEW, FRESH. TEY DON’T KNOW ABOUT THIS SCHOOL. PUT THEM IN THE MIDDLE OF IT.
But for twenty NUMERALS Fayetteville elementary schoolers, the past year has looked more like something out of a utopian daydream than a dystopian future. At their school, there are no masks, computers or desk dividers to be found. In fact, there are no desks at all. RATHER, SHOW US.
At the Bodark Nature School, situated on the .8-acre Dickson Street property of Jerry Elizabeth “J.Liz” Griffith, children ages six to 12 spend their days exploring the natural world, running and playing with friends, and learning math, science, English and social studies lessons in “classrooms” that include a wooden gazebo, an open-air pavilion, a vegetable garden and a fire pit surrounded by stumps and situated by a babbling brook. LOVELY. MORE LIKE THIS.
The outdoor “community homeschool” functions like a cross between a traditional homeschooling cooperative and a Montessori academy. Griffith and three other mothers, concerned about public and homeschool options, initially formed Bodark in Fall 2020 as a pandemic safe-haven for their children. But now, inspired by the success of the school year, they are looking towards the future. BE MORE SPECIFIC HERE. ARE YOU SAYING THEY’RE GOING TO KEEP IT GOING? EXPANDING?
EXPAND NUT GRAF TO EXPLAIN MORE ABOUT THE SCHOOL. QUOTE A FOUNDER EXPLAINING ITS PURPOSE AND MISSION. COULD BE TWO-THREE GRAFS
ALSO LATER IN STORY EXPLAIN THE NAME BODARK.
Students in the older of two age-based class groups at the Bodark Nature School participate in communal study time April 8 in a gazebo situated on J.Liz Griffith’s Dickson Street property, the current home of BNS. Griffith, along with three other mothers who now teach there, founded the community homeschool in Fall 2020. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar GOOD CAPTION.
Going Outside
Griffith, a defense attorney based out of her and her partner’s Fayetteville home and Southeastern Oklahoma law office, struggled for years to find the right educational fit for her three children. Although the older two, now eight and nine, had gotten good grades in public school, Griffith found they weren’t thriving socially. After homeschooling them alone for a year and hating it, she joined an outdoor, forest school co-op near West Fork. GOOD PLACE TO START HISTORY SECTION
“That’s when I realized how transformative being outside all day long was for my children,” Griffith said. “Their emotional intelligence increased, their social intelligence increased. They were just happy kids. Even in the rain and muck and cold and hot, it didn’t matter. They were excited to get up and go to school.”
Inspired by her children’s experience, Griffith began dreaming about starting her own outdoor school. So when the pandemic hit and she found herself homeschooling again, she decided to take the plunge. After researching the historical precedent behind outdoor schools, she recruited Liz Hill, a former Ozark Natural Science Center teacher naturalist with an M.Ed. and experience in Montessori education and homeschooling. They were soon joined by Stephanie Jordan, a Fayetteville nutritionist who loved her children’s teachers at Washington Elementary School, but hated what remote learning did to her kids.
“At the end of summer, they were just starting to get depressed,” Jordan said. “They weren’t hanging out with other kids, they weren’t playing. They couldn’t see people’s faces. I have one child who’s learning how to read and couldn’t see the teacher’s face with a mask on. And they started to become germaphobes, and it was super stressful.
PARAPHRASE AND ADD WHEN THE SCHOOL STARTED SPECIFICALLY AND NUMBER OF PEOPLE IT WAS DESIGNED FOR AND NUMBER WHO WANTED IN So we talked and decided to create a school. And then as soon as word got out that it was happening, so many people enrolled.”
Although Griffith initially asked Hill to teach the two women’s children and those of a few neighbors, interest in the school grew so quickly that Hill soon brought in her friend and former Montessori colleague Rose Netherland. Today, each teacher manages a group of ten students, with Hill teaching third- through sixth-graders, and Netherland teaching kindergarten through second-grade children and offering school-wide Spanish lessons.
GOOD. WHAT ABOUT THE MONEY? THE SPACE? GIVE US SOME OF THE LOGISTICS
A student playfully tackles her friend during lunch time at Bodark Nature School on April 8. Following lunch and clean-up time, all 20 students get at least an hour of unstructured recess time. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
Two members of the younger group at the Bodark Nature School create a comic strip based on “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White on April 8. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
The lower level of J.Liz Griffith’s expansive backyard, where the Bodark Nature School’s older students study during the school day. The fire pit (right) was used for warming during the winter and is the site of daily school-wide morning meetings. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
IT’S BEAUTIFUL. TELL US ABOUT THIS SPACE IN THE STORY. WHO OWNS IT? WHAT WAS DONE TO MAKE IT A SCHOOLYARD?
A student at the Bodark Nature School completes an activity teaching about equivalent fractions on April 8. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
A student playfully tackles her friend during lunch time at Bodark Nature School on April 8. Following lunch and clean-up time, all 20 students get at least an hour of unstructured recess time. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
Two members of the younger group at the Bodark Nature School create a comic strip based on “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White on April 8. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
A student playfully tackles her friend during lunch time at Bodark Nature School on April 8. Following lunch and clean-up time, all 20 students get at least an hour of unstructured recess time. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
Challenging But Rewarding
Bodark’s students spend Monday-Thursday participating in group and individual studies, doing “community jobs” to keep the huge terraced backyard maintained, and learning life skills like cooking, fire-building, foraging and mindfulness. Recess is at least an hour each day. On Fridays, Jordan leads the children in “Fun Fridays” activities like hiking, sledding and field trips to nature sanctuaries.
The benefits the children get from spending every day outside can’t be overstated, Jordan said.
“It’s turned out to serve our kids in so many more ways than we anticipated,” Jordan said. “Their physical, social and emotional needs are met at school every day. They’re using their bodies, they’re healthy and active and strong. They’re confident. They’re becoming little naturalists, you know? They are constantly catching crawfish and salamanders and raising butterflies. And so it’s turning out to be a really, really beautiful school.”
But idyllic as the year has been, it has also been challenging, Hill said. Coping with the elements, particularly rain and extreme cold, has sometimes proved difficult. School was cancelled during the ice storm that swept the South for a week in February. The rest of the winter, students had to bundle up in high-quality cold-weather gear including ski jackets, boots and wool layers.
IS THERE ANY INDOOR TIME AT ALL? HOW M ANY HOURS A DAY ARE THEY OUTSIDE? WHAT ABOUT TRADITIONAL CURRICULUM STUFF LIKE MATH AND HISTORY?
IS THIS SCHOOL ACCREDITED? IF NOT, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR KIDS WHEN THEY ENTER TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS UPON AGING OUT OF THIS ONE? ARE THEY TAUGHT FROM CERTIFIED HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM?
WHAT IS TUITION?
Teaching such a wide range of ages without help has also been challenging and draining, Hill said. With limited time and resources, it is impossible to meet every grade-level standard for every child. However, Hill is grateful for the opportunity to work outside among the flora and fauna, while breathing freely. She also thinks the practical skills the students learn, such as planning and time management, are essential for their future success.
“It’s like there’s these other other life skills that they’re gaining that I think make up for maybe not being as far along with their division as they might have been had they stayed in public school,” Hill said. “And I wonder, well, would they (even) have understood it as well?”
The three oldest and highest-level students at Bodark Nature School study a geometry lesson in a tent, while the other members of the older student group work on their own projects in the nearby gazebo, April 8. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
Expanding Vision, Expanding Space
Griffith’s goal is to expand Bodark, hire more teachers HOW MANY? and make it a permanent fixture of the Fayetteville community, so she is selling her house and purchasing more land. IS THIS HOUSE WHERE THE SCHOOL IS NOW HELD? The school’s inaugural year taught the team important lessons about productively educating students outdoors, Griffith said. The school needs a property with more land, more woods, and space for a storage barn with two large, HEATED warmable pavilions on each side. Griffith also wants a pond for hands-on exploration of natural science principles.
Still, much about Bodark’s future is uncertain. The property Griffith hopes to buy is a thirty-minute drive from downtown, and several parents have said they won’t be able to transport their children there without a bussing system. Griffith and the teachers are working on creating a scholarship fund and sliding-scale tuition system. Without this, the $550-per-student-per-month tuition fee may become prohibitively expensive for some families. GOOD. HOW DID THEY DETERMINE WHICH STUDENTS GOT IN AND WHICH DIDN’T?
But Griffith is determined to make Bodark live on long after the pandemic is over. She sees nature schools as essential to shaping healthy, well-balanced and environmentally conscious children.
“I think that a lot of people are being fed the whole, ‘Oh, you have to have a STEM education. STEM, STEM,STEM, STEM, STEM,’” Griffith said. “I think that what we need to do is really immerse children into our natural environment, for several reasons. Not only is it healthier for them, biologically (and) physiologically, but also spiritually and emotionally.”
THIS IS A NEWS FEATURE MORE THAN A HUMAN-INTEREST PIECE. DIRECT MORE ATTENTION TO THE DRAMA OF OPENING AND KEEPING OPEN THE SCHOOL IN A PANDEMIC. ALSO, HOW DID THEY GET BY NOT REQUIRING MASKS? WAS THAT THE CASE? IT’S A STATEWIDE MANDATE? DID TEACHERS HAVE CONCERNS OF GETTING COVID FROM THE KIDS?
THIS IS A GOOD START. I LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR REVISION.
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In a backyard just blocks from downtown Fayetteville, there is an educational utopia of sorts. Elementary school students spend their days with the sun on their faces and the breeze in their hair. During their hour-long recess, they sprint and scamper across grass, mulch and mud. They weave between trees laden with vibrant blossoms that flutter through the open-air spaces where they study. MUCH BETTER. EXPLAIN THAT ALL THIS JOY AND PLAY IS AN ACT OF EDUCATION
Aided by ample space to spread out, the students and their teachers freely and happily breathe fresh air, only wearing masks if they enter the basement that houses a restroom, kitchen, and occasional one-room schoolhouse. HOW CAN A SCHOOLHOUSE BE OCCASIONAL? YOU MEAN THEY ENTER IT OCCASIONALLY? Their “classrooms” NO QUOTES include a wooden gazebo and pavilion, a vegetable garden and a fire pit surrounded by stumps and situated by a babbling brookOKAY, BUT THAT’S A READY-MADE PHRASE. COME UP WITH SOMETHING FRESH.
At the Bodark Nature School, situated in the .8-acre terraced backyard of Jerry Elizabeth “J.Liz” Griffith’s Dickson Street home, 20 children ages six to 12 spend nearly eight hours a day outside, studying naturalism, math, English, history and more. The outdoor school was founded nearly a year after Griffith, a Fayetteville defense attorney and mother of three, first contemplated its creation. She wanted children to learn to respect nature and the value environment by being fully immersed in it.
“I think that we have this misnomer that learning happens because we teach people,” Griffith said. “But there’s so much intelligence in nature that science and math, even literature, art, it all sort of begins in nature.” GREAT FIRST QUOTE
Griffith and three other mothers opened Bodark in LOWER CASE, LAST FALL Fall 2020, hoping to create a pandemic safe haven for their children at the “community homeschool,” which functions like a cross between a homeschooling cooperative and a Montessori academy. Now, inspired by the year’s success, they are looking toward a future of expansion and greater permanence.
Students in the older of two age-based class groups at the Bodark Nature School participate in communal study time April 8 in a gazebo situated on J.Liz Griffith’s Dickson Street property, the current home of BNS. Griffith, along with three other mothers who now teach there, founded the community homeschool in Fall 2020. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
.
Going Outside
Griffith struggled for years to find the right educational fit for her children. Although the older two had gotten good grades in public school, they weren’t thriving socially. After homeschooling them alone for a year and hating it, Griffith joined a forest school co-op near West Fork in 2019.
“That’s when I realized how transformative being outside all day long was for my children,” Griffith said. “Their emotional intelligence increased, their social intelligence increased. They were just happy kids. Even in the rain and muck and cold and hot.”
Inspired, Griffith began dreaming of starting her own outdoor school. When the pandemic hit, after researching historical precedents, she recruited Liz Hill, a former teacher naturalist with an M.Ed. and experience in Montessori education and homeschooling. They were soon joined by Stephanie Jordan, a Fayetteville nutritionist who loved her children’s teachers at Washington Elementary School, but hated what remote learning did to her kids.
“They were just starting to get depressed,” Jordan said. “They weren’t hanging out with other kids, they weren’t playing. They couldn’t see people’s faces. I have one child who’s learning how to read and couldn’t see the teacher’s face with a mask on. And they started to become germaphobes, and it was super stressful.” GOOD QUOTE
After word of the venture got out, interest developed so quickly that Hill promptly brought in her former Montessori colleague Rose Netherland. What was originally intended to be a school of no more than 16 children — those of the four women and a few neighbors — grew to 18 by Bodark’s mid-August launch, then to 20. Griffith decided to limit the student-teacher ratio to 10:1, creating a waitlist now 18 children long. GOOD JOB SHOWING GROWTH
Griffith spent over $32,000 turning her backyard into a nature school. GOOD JOB GETTING THE EXPENSE She paid for construction projects that included building a sheltered pavilion where the younger students study, and converting her basement into a classroom space for use during lightning storms and for activities like cooking. The school’s teachers and parents also donated some educational materials and erected a temporary tent that, along with a gazebo on the yard’s lower level, serves as the older students’ shelter.
Griffith chose the name Bodark, an alternative spelling of the bois d’arc (COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE Osage orange tree),NO PARENTHESES as a symbol of the school’s emphasis on naturalism and outdoor skills. LOVE THIS
A student playfully tackles her friend during lunch time at Bodark Nature School on April 8. Following lunch and clean-up time, all 20 students get at least an hour of unstructured recess time. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
Two members of the younger group at the Bodark Nature School create a comic strip based on “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White on April 8. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
The lower level of J.Liz Griffith’s expansive backyard, where the Bodark Nature School’s older students study during the school day. The fire pit (right) was used for warming during the winter and is the site of daily school-wide morning meetings. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
A student at the Bodark Nature School completes an activity teaching about equivalent fractions on April 8. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
A student playfully tackles her friend during lunch time at Bodark Nature School on April 8. Following lunch and clean-up time, all 20 students get at least an hour of unstructured recess time. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
Two members of the younger group at the Bodark Nature School create a comic strip based on “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White on April 8. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
The lower level of J.Liz Griffith’s expansive backyard, where the Bodark Nature School’s older students study during the school day. The fire pit (right) was used for warming during the winter and is the site of daily school-wide morning meetings. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
Challenging But Rewarding
Bodark’s students spend Monday-Thursday participating in group and individual studies, doing “community jobs” to keep the sprawling yard maintained, and learning survival and life skills like cooking, fire-building, foraging and mindfulness. Each teacher manages ten students, with Hill teaching third- through sixth-graders, and Netherland teaching kindergarteners through second-graders and providing Spanish lessons. On Fridays, Jordan leads the children in exploratory activities like hiking, archery and nature sanctuary field trips. I WANT MY PARENTS TO SEND ME HERE.
The benefits the children get from being outside are immense, Jordan said.
“It’s turned out to serve our kids in so many more ways than we anticipated,” Jordan said. “Their physical, social and emotional needs are met at school every day. They’re using their bodies, they’re healthy and active and strong. They’re confident. They’re becoming little naturalists, you know?”
IS THIS SCHOOL CERTIFIED/LICENSED? DO THE TEACHERS USE AN APPROVED CURRICULUM? CAN THESE KIDS TEST INTO THE CLASSES THEY NEED TO TEST INTO IN HIGH SCHOOL AND SUCH?
But idyllic as the year has been, it has also been challenging, Hill said. Coping with the elements has sometimes proved difficult. During the winter, students had to bundle up in high-quality cold-weather gear including ski jackets and wool layers, and huddle around the fire pit.
And although Hill loves the beauty and freedom of Bodark, teaching such a wide range of ages without help has been difficult and draining, she said. There are no state-mandated curricula or assessments for homeschoolers in Arkansas, HERE’S MY ANSWER. GOOD. and homeschooling co-ops are not regulated. Hill and Netherland try their best to meet all students’ needs and tailor lessons to their grade levels, employing a blend of Montessori curriculum materials and traditional standards-based tools like math workbooks. ARE THERE CONCERNS THAT THE LACK OF A TRADITIONAL CURRICULUM WILL HURT THE KIDS’ CHANCES OF SUCCEEDING IN HIGH SCHOOL AND THEN COLLEGE?
But with limited resources, it is impossible to meet every recommended baseline for every child, and Hill acknowledged that some may have knowledge gaps when they graduate from Bodark. However, she thinks the practical skills students learn, such as self-regulation, planning and time management, are essential for their future success.
“It’s like there’s these other life skills that they’re gaining that I think make up for maybe not being as far along with their division as they might have been had they stayed in public school,” Hill said. “And I wonder, well, would they (even) have understood it as well?”
The three oldest and highest-level students at Bodark Nature School study a geometry lesson in a tent, while the other members of the older student group work on their own projects in the nearby gazebo, April 8. // Photo by Sarah E. Komar
Expanding Vision, Expanding Space
Griffith’s goal is to expand Bodark, hire as many new teachers as enrollment necessitates, and make the school a permanent community fixture. She is selling her house and purchasing more property on the outskirts of town. The school needs more land, woods, ponds, and space for a storage barn with a large, heated pavilion on each side, Griffith said.
Still, much about Bodark’s future is uncertain. The property Griffith hopes to buy is a thirty-minute drive from downtown, and several parents have said they won’t be able to transport their children there without a bussing system. She and the teachers are working on creating a scholarship fund and sliding-scale tuition system. Without this, the $550-per-student-per-month tuition fee may become prohibitively expensive for some families.
But Griffith is determined to make Bodark live on long after the pandemic is over. She sees outdoor education as essential to nurturing the next generation.
“I think that what we need to do is really immerse children into our natural environment,” Griffith said. “Not only is it healthier for them, biologically (and) physiologically, but also spiritually and emotionally.”
EXCELLENT REVISION. GOOD WORK.
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