Slide Ranch: Perspectives from an Outdoor Instructor

For those familiar with Slide’s coastal-shrub coastline, it’s no question that this land is potent with lively magic. From the ancient green serpentine rock at our tidepools, to the living fossils that are horsetail ferns spotting the property, to our honeybees pollinating our terraced garden.

However, I get the privilege as an Outdoor Instructor at Slide Ranch to experience a different type of magic within this landscape. I get to facilitate children’s learning, curiosity, silliness, and excitement in the outdoors. Between summer camp programs, Family Farm days, school field trips, or groups of volunteers, children fill this ranch with light as if it was its own renewable energy source.

I have been teaching outdoor education for five years now in California, and studied Outdoor Leadership in college. I studied the importance of play in children's development, the impact of place-based learning, and how to guide different ages and abilities through positive outdoor experiences. So, albeit close, a degree in playing outside, the hidden gem of it all is watching participants connect to their environment, and to themselves within it.

Slide Ranch is pretty good at inherently turning on that ‘childlike-wonder switch’ for many of us. After COVID, it is an incredible privilege as an instructor to observe kids playing outside by my side and connecting to the land, their community, and the source of their food. Their curiosity inspires me each day to engage with my life with vitality and from new perspectives, and helps me remember this:

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.” - George Bernard Shaw

Thank you for sending your kiddos to Slide Ranch, and make sure to thank their outdoor instructors! Those that engage with the land have the chance to form a desire to protect it. We honor the Coast Miwok within our programs, acknowledging their presence, history, and roles within these landscapes.

P.S. We've released our upcoming workshops (more coming soon!), Fall Family Farm Days, and Farm to Belly Supper Series - join us on the Ranch! We have a few camp spots remaining the last week of July!