Leah Gneiting: This is what learning should feel like for me

Submitted image##Students gather for a photo at the Natural Resources Center pavilion.

Submitted image

About the writer: Leah Gneiting is a high school student from the Southern Oregon community of Butte Falls. She previously attended Butte Falls Charter School and still relishes visiting its Natural Resources Center, a space that shaped her relationship with learning and mental health. Her experiences there inspired her to explore interconnections among nature, healing and education. 

What first drew me to the Southern Oregon community of Butte Falls wasn’t the small-town setting or the school itself.

It was a piece of land, a former fish hatchery site now housing the Natural Resources Center, where school didn’t feel like school. It felt like a place built for mental well-being, based on the kind of learning that makes you feel better, not worse.

I enrolled at the Butte Falls Charter School in high school, when I was around 14. I went to the Natural Resources Center almost every day.

Sited on a stream running through the woods, with buildings repurposed for activities like bike repair and outdoor cooking, and trails that students like me cleared ourselves, it quickly became the place where I learned best.

At a spring break camp, my friends and I built a teepee out of sticks. It was hard work that took all day, but it’s still one of my favorite memories.

We struggled, but figured it out together. Most of my learning there felt like that; it was real, useful and genuinely fun.

Even though I go to a different school now, and won’t graduate until 2027, I still go back whenever I can. That’s how much this place matters to me.

I signed up because I didn’t like being stuck indoors.

But over time, I realized it wasn’t just the outdoors that kept me coming back. It was the way the center made me feel.

I’ve never liked sitting still in a classroom all day. But give me a forest trail I helped build, or a group of younger students I helped teach about fire safety on Earth Day, and I’m focused, calm and actually learning.

When things in my life got stressful, I’d walk the trails we blazed. Something about walking on a path you helped create clears your head.

I’ve watched friends have awful days, then go for a walk in the woods and come back completely different. I’ve seen students struggle to sit still in class, but completely light up when they’re given the chance to build something with their hands or explore something outdoors.

My brothers are perfect examples.

One of them has ADHD and ODD. He’s had a hard time focusing in school for years.

But at the center, he’s calm. He listens and participates.

My second youngest brother had a stroke as a baby. He lives with the effects of that every day.

In the classroom, he’s quiet. But out at the center, he answers questions and gets excited to learn.

That space gave them, and me, a chance to feel successful and capable. And that changed everything.

We don’t talk enough about how school environments affect mental health.

For a lot of students, especially those who are neurodivergent, or dealing with anxiety or trauma, traditional classrooms don’t always work. Sitting still, being quiet, doing worksheets under fluorescent lights, it’s not how every brain learns best.

Outside, there’s room to breathe and space to move. Most importantly, there’s a different kind of peace.

The changes I’ve seen in myself and others reflect what many studies now show. When I walk the trails I helped build, I feel more clear-headed and calm, and I’ve watched my friends come back from walks like entirely different people.

And it’s not just us. According to the American Heart Association, time in nature has been shown to reduce anxiety, improve focus and boost overall emotional health.

I never thought I’d be the kind of person who’d want to teach. I used to feel I didn’t have the patience.

But after helping younger students, designing scavenger hunts, and leading projects at the center, I’ve started to rethink that. Teaching outside the classroom, teaching in a way that’s hands-on and heart-first, has made me realize I can actually make a difference.

If we want education to support students’ full selves, we have to rethink what learning looks and feels like.

That doesn’t mean every school needs 17 acres of forest like the Natural Resources Center here in Butte Falls. It does mean we should make room for outdoor programs, hands-on learning, and different ways of being in school, because sometimes, the best way to help a student grow is to let them move, explore and find peace in a place that feels nothing like a traditional classroom.