Kids Need Dirt and Danger

When you pass the kindergarten at Sde Eliyahu, a kibbutz near the Jordan River in northern Israel, you might not recognize it. Instead, you’ll see a yard for castaway objects: rusty tractor parts, old computers, and orphaned bike wheels. It takes a few moments to realize that some person, or many people, has devoted thought to arranging the parts into strange structures and machines.

What seems at first like a haphazard jumble in the yard at this kibbutz, and in hundreds of similar yards across Israel, is in fact the expression of a theory about how children should learn and a sharp critique of the way they’re usually taught. The kindergarten junkyard is countercultural at a moment preoccupied with safety and litigation—but may have something to teach parents who’ve just been through a yearlong education on the limits of education itself. The junkyard is one answer to a pressing question: When we teach kids, should we prepare them to climb an orderly ladder of tests that lead to other tests, grades, and degrees—or should we prepare them for chaos?

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