A Walk at Beus Pond: Relating to Nature as a Family

Part 1: Go Diego! Go; Exposure to the Natural World

"Dad, are jaguars nice?" asks my son William. It's a conversation we've had many times – though the subject has varied. We’ve discussed spiders, snakes, bears, and June bugs, but this time it’s jaguars. He brings it up as we prepare for a little "hike" I'd promised to take with the kids around a local wooded pond. We’re off to “relate to nature,” and in my role as wilderness guide, Will is giving me my first chance to make an impression on this trip.

As a busy father of two very energetic boys (translate that: the kind of kids you want to send outside...all of the time), I am interested in making sure that my little guys get their fair share of "natural" experiences to make them aware of the life that is actually happening outside of the room where we keep the computer and the television set. They get plenty of vicarious nature experiences from the big, glowing, silver box we keep in the corner; but their mother and I do try to mix it up a bit with the actual, in-the-trees kind of nature experiences too.

It actually happens when I’ve got the time to take out of work and school to make a special attempt. But special attempts are rare, and I am often left wondering how I can, as a parent, keep my children engaged in the Gaia-sphere if they are too often stuck in the largely artificial isolation-sphere that our home sometimes seems. Luckily, through no prodding from me, the children often bring me alternative opportunities to gain enlightenment.

“Are jaguars nice or not?” Will’s question makes some important assumptions from the beginning, and I want to give him the answer that won't predispose him to over-humanize "nature” but will still allow him to “see that living things are kindred” (Abbey 25).

"Uh, neither one, I guess," I hedge; "They're not nice or not nice. They're just wild." It's hard to even articulate the idea. How can I expect my four year old to wrap his head around it? I don't even introduce the word "mean." It might just confuse the issue.

"Yah, but are they nice?" he tries again.

"Well, if you mean: will they let you play with them? No. Would they try to eat you – if they got the chance? Probably. Do we have to worry about jaguars at Beus Pond? No. They're not nice. Or not nice. They just do what they do. They're just wild."

I don't think my answer satisfies him, and I'm not sure that it satisfies me. I understand the desire to put a familiar face on the unfamiliar, but I'm not sure what that face should be for my kids when it comes to nature. Relating to the natural world, and in this context I mean anything that is "out-of-doors," is difficult enough as an adult without assigning arbitrary qualities to things that are already pretty observably complicated. Intellectually, I know that the desert can be a "harsh" environment but not a "vengeful" place. Likewise, though ocean waves can be "rough," they aren’t really "angry" at the observer, poetic as it may seem to say so. I want my children to be able to recognize the difference early on, and learn to relate to nature in an honest way, without having to unlearn the personification that can sometimes be a crutch to true appreciation.

For my boys' sake, I want to awaken them to the intricacies of life forms and land features that surround them, to engage them as observers and teach them to recognize pattern and chaos and to relish both. I long to take them, whenever it is possible to go together, on the kind of empirical journey described by Thoreau as "the experience of living" (48). To do these things, I need to create for my kids an atmosphere where they can learn to love "nature" in the specific and the abstract, where they can identify with and feel like a part of an ecosystem worth participating in and defending.

That's not as lofty and intellectually complicated for a child as it might sound. Children today, including mine, are made well aware of environmental concerns without having to leave the home (Louv 1). Television, first among all sources of this information, affects the way my kids view the natural world in much the same way that Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and The Discovery Channel still shape and affect my perceptions. The Internet, likewise, makes it possible to view pictures of almost any creature or plant you want to see, from the comfort of your ergonomic office chair. As a result, children hear about endangered species and environments early on and know facts about the world that were unavailable and/or unimaginable to their grandparents.

But what are the effects of this kind of knowledge upon our children; are our kids getting realistic information from what they see? Does their virtual nature experience shape their actual experience? Will's jaguar question is a telling example of both the positive and negative effects that the televised version of nature has upon my boys. As we take a simple nature walk in Ogden, Utah, my little boy wonders if we’ll see a jaguar, and if said imagined jaguar will be friendly to him.

The question’s inspiration comes from one of my kids’ favorite television shows, the Nick Jr. program Go, Diego, Go!, and to understand it, we have to walk in Diego’s landscape for a moment. To the point, “Baby Jaguar,” is one of the cartoon’s recurring characters – one of many resourceful, furry sidekicks to the show’s star, young Diego Marquez. Baby Jaguar, however, unlike the others, has the distinction of being named in the show’s theme song. As a result, my kid openly longs to be Baby Jaguar at times or to have his own experiences with “Baby Jaguar by his side" ("Main Theme, Go, Diego, Go!). As far as he knows, we might even get to meet the little jungle cat when we go to our local equivalent of the rainforest.

Canadian psychologist Andy Fisher describes this childhood process of "enacting animals" as important in developing a sense of the natural world and a "kinship [with animals] based on shared qualities" (147). It remains to be seen what kind developmental effect "kinship" with a cartoon character will have on William, but the animated jaguar certainly has his interest piqued.

As for the show’s protagonist, Diego is described on the "Meet Diego" page of the channel's website as "an 8-year-old action-adventure hero who loves nature and animals." He is just about as marketable a role model for young boys as you are likely to find – a rugged, adventurous example of what American, environmental historian William Cronon describes as "the mythic frontier individualist” (78). Even the boy’s clothes are rough-and-ready: hiking boots, cargo pants, an inflatable vest, and the ultimate Swiss army knife of wilderness survival gear, the all-purpose "rescue pack."

In each episode, "Diego's mission is to help rescue an animal in trouble," often with help from Baby Jaguar. As described by the creators of the program, "each episode has four primary goals," and the website lists them in detail as follows:

· To discover scientifically accurate facts about an animal.

· To recognize the similarities between living things – such as the need for air, food, and water for survival.

· To reveal important characteristics about an animal, such as the connection between an animal's physical characteristics and how it lives in its environment.

· Diego and the viewer use resources and scientific methods to discover and document information about the featured animal. ("Meet Diego")

To the credit of its creators, the show seems well researched and very specific in its aims, but it has a lot to cover in a half hour episode on a level designed to appeal to a preschooler. However, in episodes like “The Tapir’s Trip Home,” one of my boys' favorites (though it is conspicuously jaguar-less), the show seems to meet most of its goals. Diego helps a tapir that has become stranded at a railway station. The little lost animal needs to find its correct habitat, and through a process of comparison and contrast, using his "field guide" to discover Baby Tapir's needs for water, open space, and cool temperatures, Diego soon find the right home for the show’s “target animal” ("Meet the Creators of Go Diego, Go!").

The truth is, I dig the show, and whatever its faults, I think it is an awareness builder and a cultural equalizer. As a result of the program, my kids ask questions, and I am as interested as they seem to be to find out about the spectacled bear, the maned wolf, and the three-toed sloth. I find no harm in the occasional viewing, but I do have criticisms.

Among them is Diego's peculiar talent as a Spanish speaking Dr. Doolittle. It seems a simple device for furthering the plot, but because Diego can speak to and understand them, the animals are humanized and even civilized throughout the series.

In addition, Diego can get almost anywhere with his rescue pack which, according to its theme song, can become anything from “a parasail or a kayak” to “a zip cord, [or] a snowboard, whatever ya need.” With no-fuss, transportation literally on your back, the landscapes are simplified, pastoralized, and sterilized until they are devoid of real danger for the human being, whose only task then is to solve the puzzles that will help shepherd the poor defenseless creatures to safety.

The necessarily violent nature of the predator/prey relationship is likewise softened until it can be described as merely a phobia on the part of the prey animal. Such a tactic does show a cognizance of preschooler sensibilities and I respect the attempt at keeping the peril mild. I wonder, however, if such a presentation fosters a naïve view of the natural cycles involved. Learning that "armadillos are afraid of maned wolves," (“The Rain Forest Race”), and that "sloths are afraid of harpy eagles" (“Diego Saves Mommy and Baby Sloth”), does little but create a feeling of pity in the viewer. On Diego, there is no real danger to little creatures from their principle predators, and as a result, no demonstrable nod to the cycle of life and death either.

No wonder Baby Jaguar has an uncertain status in the eyes of my four-year-old. Will instinctively recognizes a predator in the young jungle cat, but since no creature eats or gets eaten on the show the character of all carnivores is necessarily in question; jaguar seems “nice” because like all of the shows predators he is tame. In an episode entitled “Jaguar to the Rescue,” Baby Jaguar even tries to become a full-fledged animal rescuer by earning “just three more badges” saving animals that any real self-respecting jaguar would normally eat for lunch - some predator! I’m not asking for blood and guts, but is it too much to acknowledge the reality of the food chain?

Worse yet, Diego's full time occupation as "Animal Rescuer" is extremely anthropocentric and sets up a hierarchy that teaches kids that when all else fails, humans must come to the rescue. On the surface, Diego’s altruistic rescues seem intended to encourage in the children a sense of empathy for the animals. The reality is, humans can't always come to the rescue and are often the cause of the animals' plight in the first place – something even my preschoolers are capable of learning. Likewise, sometimes, the peril the animal finds itself in is a natural one, and perhaps, though it might seem callous to say so, the human and his “rescue pack” should stay at camp and let the usually more-than-capable animals rescue themselves or not as they actually must in the wild.

The disconnect between humanity and nature in Diego is fostered further by the fact that, as the theme song says, the show takes place "Deep inside the jungle where nature's runnin' wild" ("Main Theme" Go, Diego, Go!) How far away or “deep inside the jungle” do you have to get before you can get to this place of “wild” nature? I kind of prefer that my kids at least try to continue to look for this "wild-ness" a little closer to home.

In addition, the show focuses on Latin American animals only – not surprising as Diego is Hispanic – but such a narrow focus only serves to widen the gap between the animals my children know from television and the animals that it is possible to get to know in their own ecosystem. It is this detachment that explains why my children recognize a pygmy marmoset, harpy eagle, and maned wolf, but would never be able to identify a Uintah ground squirrel, red tailed hawk, or a pronghorn antelope. Richard Louv, in his recent best-selling book, Last Child in the Woods, describes this tendency toward an artificially distanced knowledge of nature. "A kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon Rain Forest – but not about the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds move" (1-2).

With this in mind, my most significant critique of Diego is the most obvious. No matter how many scientific facts Diego can impart about the capybara or the capuchin monkey, Go, Diego, Go! is still just a TV show. Diego is, in all of his over-acted, prepubescent glory, just a kid version of what Cronon describes as a "romantic [surrogate] for the rough riders and hunters of the frontier" (78). Diego’s vine-swinging experiences in “nature runnin' wild” can only be a substitute for real outdoor experience, when what my boys need is something in our own eco-neighborhood.

Next...Part 2: "Loose-parts" Toys and Belly-button Patches

Works Cited

Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness. New York: Ballantine Books, 1968.

Arnow, Lois A., Beverly J. Albee, and Ann M. Wyckoff. "Malva Neglecta," Flora of the Central Wasatch Front, Utah. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1980. 372.

"Baby Jaguar to the Rescue." Go, Diego, Go! – Ready Set Go. Writ. Jorge Aguirre, Rosemary Contreras, Luisa Dantas, Nancy De Los Santos, Leyani Diaz, and Ligiah Villalobos. Nick Jr. on CBS. 15 Oct. 2007. DVD. Paramount, 2007.

Cronon, William. "The Trouble with Wilderness; or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature." Uncommon Ground. Ed. William Cronon. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. 1995. 69 – 90.

"Diego Saves Mommy and Baby Sloth." Go, Diego, Go! – Wolf Pup Rescue. Writ. Jorge

Aguirre, Rosemary Contreras, Luisa Dantas, Nancy De Los Santos, Leyani Diaz, and Ligiah Villalobos. DVD. Paramount, 2006.

Fisher, Andy. Radical Ecopsycology: Psychology in the Service of Life. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.

Louv, Richard. The Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005.

"Meet Diego." Nick Jr. 5 December 2007.

"Meet the Creators of Go, Diego Go!" Nick Jr. 5 December 2007

Nabhan, Gary Paul and Stephen Trimble. The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places. Boston: Beacon Press. 1994.

" Rainforest Race." Go, Diego, Go! – Ready Set Go. Writ. Jorge Aguirre, Rosemary Contreras. Paramount, 2007.

Thoreau, Henry David. "Walden," Walden and Other Writings. Ed. Brooks Atkinson. New York: The Modern Library. 2000..