For spring students, outdoor classes a special gift: Danny Heitman

My son is a graduate student in Pennsylvania, where the winters are grayer than the ones he knew in Louisiana. Spring’s arrival was especially welcome for him this year, which is why he asked one of his professors if the class could hold its session outside the other day.

Since outdoor classes are more commonly enjoyed in grade school, my son didn’t expect his request to go anywhere. But the professor agreed, and a handful of young adults ended up in the open air, soaking up some sun while they worked through the tougher technical challenges of 21st century robotics.

The news made me think of a column I’d written a few years ago that touched on my own fond memories of outdoor classes. Each spring, sensing the itchiness of kids dreaming of the playground, some of my earliest teachers hit on a compromise.

“They’d escort us outside, where we’d learn history or grammar beneath the shade of a tree,” I told readers in 2019. “The change of scenery struck me back then as a liberating gift. I now understand that my teachers were treating themselves, too. As spring blossomed, they didn’t really want to be in a classroom, either.”

I wrote those words a year before a pandemic prompted a revolution in how — and where — many of us do our jobs. As COVID-19 lockdowns forced legions of employees to stay home, the concept of work became more portable. Armed with little more than laptops and smartphones, millions of workers learned to accomplish tasks anywhere — at a kitchen counter, in a spare bedroom, or even a shady spot on a backyard patio.

Though the pandemic has subsided, many Americans continue to embrace the newfound possibilities of remote work, which might include taking a home office outdoors. It’s something I notice on daily walks in my neighborhood park. Often, I spot folks on keyboards at the picnic tables: students tackling homework, executives filing reports, an accountant mulling over figures in an afternoon breeze.

Although I love spring weather as much as the next guy, I’ve learned that for a writer, working outside isn’t always the best choice. I’m still tied to notebooks and scraps of paper as my tools of the trade, and one stiff gust can send them all down the lawn.

Some of my best work outside unfolded on spring days when I taught writing to college students — a season when, like my son’s professor, I sometimes decided to offer a lesson outdoors.

Notepads in hand, we walked the campus in search of stories, hatching dozens of ideas from the people and places we saw. I wanted my students to remember that learning often happens beyond a classroom, in the warm bloodstream of the larger world. That made me all the happier to think of my son outside this spring, thinking big thoughts as the wind teased his hair.