Going ‘outdoors’ will help schools

If there is a division of state government in better hands right now than the S.C. Department of Education, I want somebody to bring me evidence.

After meeting Dr. Jim Rex at an outdoor writers’ function in November, I came away convinced that school children in the Palmetto State’s public schools have an unbeatable leader.

Rex, who grew up in a rural area of Ohio — running a 1,000-hook trotline during the summer to make spending money — intends to weave his love of the outdoors through schools’ curriculum. As state superintendent of education, he has the bully pulpit to do so.

The first “natural resources school” in South Carolina was introduced last fall, and Rex has already got a second one in the works. He wants every school district in the state to offer its students a chance to learn about the outdoors.

“I want to try to have more choice-driven public schools,” said Rex, a former dean at Winthrop University. “I want to give parents and kids different kinds of options: charter schools, magnet schools, single-gender schools. And natural-resources schools are part of the choice.”

Palmetto Middle School in Westminster became the state’s first “Natural Resources School” last fall. The curriculum is to debut this month. And plans are being drawn up for a natural-resources elementary school in Richland County.

“I am concerned with our kids’ lack of connection to the natural world, and I think the way to make it go in the other direction is to get it into the public schools,” Rex said. “I grew up hunting and fishing and trapping. When I was growing up, the wealthier kids could play golf and tennis, and poor kids like me, we had a .22 rifle or a .410 shotgun.

“Now, it’s flip-flopped. Almost anybody can get on a tennis court. But it’s harder for many kids to go hunting and fishing.

“We’re losing way too many kids. Boys, increasingly, are doing poorly in our public schools. We don’t have enough fathers, enough male role models, enough male teachers. Those boys don’t see much to turn them on to school.

“We have 700,000 kids in South Carolina public schools. … Most of the kids in our schools will stay in South Carolina, so what we do with them will shape what the state looks like over the next 50 years.”

Rex and John Frampton, director of the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, started talking about an outdoors curriculum a year or so ago. SCDNR will help train teachers and teach courses at natural resources schools, intertwining the outdoors with existing curriculum, meeting educational requirements at the same time.

The way parents can get their kids involved in a curriculum laced with outdoors-related activities is to ask local school officials to offer natural resources schools.

“I want every school district to be required to provide school choices,” Rex said. “If we can get that legislation passed, one of the most popular options will be natural-resources schools.

“The partnership between the department of education and DNR is the only one like it in the U.S. I think we can lead the nation in getting citizens to understand that there’s nothing wrong, and something very right, about getting children in the outdoors.”