Mary Jane Dockeray stops for a snack on an outing at Camp Rogers in 1973. Photo: Courtesy of Mary Jane Dockeray.

By Howard Meyerson

GRAND RAPIDS, MI  – Mary Jane Dockeray is concerned about kids today; they are out of touch with the land and so are their parents. Not farm land and cornfields so much, but the origins of things most take for granted:  boxes of cornflakes, cans of peas, toilet paper and even window panes.

Glass from sand, cardboard from trees, aluminum from the earth: These are lessons the 86-year-old naturalist says are disappearing in a consumption-driven world where manufactured goods are considered of the highest value.

“The present generation of parents is a lost generation in terms of the environment,” said Dockeray, a lifelong nature educator, Michigan Audubon Society lifetime-member, and lecturer for National Audubon. “We live in a boxed, bagged and canned economy and kids don’t know where things come from before they are boxes and cans.”

Dockeray knows of the lapse first-hand, the urban children who know little of the natural world, and the youngsters who’ve never played in mud or listened to a symphony of crickets and frogs at night. She is the founder and former director of Blandford Nature Center and its environmental-school called Blandford School.

During her 22-year tenure there and 19 prior years lecturing about nature for the Grand

Mary Jane Dockeray, now 86, continues to push the case for environmental education. Photo: Howard Meyerson

Rapids Public Museum, Dockeray taught thousands of young students, who in turn educated their parents about their connection to the world around them.

“It became plain to me in my first 19-years that kids had less and less connection to the land, said Dockeray, who was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 2012 for her work in environmental education.

“And, as the years went by, I got really concerned. When the nature center started we saw kids who didn’t want to get off the bus for fear of what was in those dark woods. I thought then, we really need to be here.” Continue reading →