Ancient cultures believed the heart was the crossing point of passion and intellect, and modern scientists are realizing that the brain, heart, and immune systems are connected. The heart thinks, remembers, communicates, and contains stored information. Metaphors for the heart include sensitivity, compassion, sincerity, courage, respect, and support. Teaching and learning from the heart involves being genuinely human and using the full range of emotions and feelings. When teachers appear objective and emotionless, students become confused and alienated because their humanity is denied. Environmental and outdoor education have stressed the wholeness of knowledge and the person and have focused on the importance of social and emotional growth within each student. Historically, schools have honored only students' minds and bodies, not their souls and spirits. Good teachers are weavers of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students. The present climate of public education is determined not by teachers, but by corporate leaders and politicians, with an emphasis on testing, inflexible learning standards, prescribed textbooks, lockstep movement through an imposed curriculum, unresponsiveness to diverse learning styles, and other characteristics that do not respect learners. Outdoor educators can enlighten the public and lead the way to a saner way of teaching and learning by planning lessons directed to the students' hearts, where their intellect, feelings, body, and spirit converge. (Contains 19 references.) (TD)