In outdoor education, we face major change — change that has elsewhere in the province led to the virtual elimination of system-wide out-of-doors learning opportunities. More than ever we need to recognize our core, to strengthen that vision, and then to base our tough decisions on our essence.
Over the years, I have spoken up a number of times to present some elements of my view of what we're all about. In book reviews in Pathways, through articles and editorials in Pathways, through presenting various conference workshops, and in working with others in editing and compiling outdoor education documents, and through speeches, I've tried to focus the outdoor education community on what I think are several essential elements.
I believe one of our essences is that we specialize in experiential learning, making new connections through active personal involvement in our own learning. Because we work out-of-doors, because we teach by doing, because our students are directly and personally involved in their own learning, our message on a very important meta-level is that learning-by-doing is a powerful approach. Our Medium is Their Massage and Our Message
I wrote that editorial at the time of the great swing towards environmentalism in the early 1999’s. I was concerned with the tendency of others to think that our primary goal in outdoor education was to save the environment. I maintained, and still maintain, that our primary goal is the development of children, and that we do that best through promoting active involvement in their own learning. I know that by stating that point, I helped to re-focus at least some folk on our true core.
In “What Fire Make?”, I recount one of the most wonderful teaching experiences I've ever had. In fact, my point is that it was one of the most wonderful human experiences I've ever had — hence the Wordsworth quote. Working that amazing week with three disabled kids, one of them very severely limited, yet so full of life, has kept me focused on the fact that we work with humans, and we work for humans.
For my ‘Mud Between The Toes’: Outdoor Education in Transition speech last fall that headlined the annual Council of Outdoor Educators conference, I was given the mandate to get people to think about outdoor education in transition. So I tried to focus people on what our core was, to try to get us to base our adaptation to change on our essence. Because I didn't think I had all the answers, because I wanted to engage as many people as possible in thinking about this, and because I wanted to deepen our collective sense of outdoor educators as a community of mind, I tried the process of developing my speech online. I sent out several hundred e-mails to my peers, and worked back and forth with those who responded, taking ideas, modifying my thoughts and my presentation. The result was obviously far stronger and more effective than if I had done it alone. I am very proud of this approach as well as the speech itself. I know from comments before, during, and after, that my work at drawing out a collective vision of outdoor education was effective. I know also the value of working collaboratively to enunciate a common sense of what we're about. And I realize that is only a ‘dry run’ for what we're going to have to do over the next few years in outdoor education.
Compiling and editing The Value of Out-of-doors Experience and Mud Between The TOES: Outdoor Education in the Toronto District School Board are other examples of my belief in the value of working collaboratively to draw together a collective statement. Note that I am not the sole author of either of those documents, though I was certainly the major compiler and editor. Working collaboratively has been a major part of my efforts within the outdoor education community in the Toronto District School Board over the last two years. I have repeatedly demonstrated my ability to pull together what seemed at first to be disparate views, finding common language, developing shared vision. That has been based on several distinct personal skills that I've been able combine. My willingness to invite and to accept other's views, and extract and co-ordinate meaning has been an important asset. Plain technical ability with my laptop means that I can take notes and chair meetings, using the written record as we go to help establish a direction and a consensus as we talk. Editorial and writing skills have been a great asset in massaging and presenting finished products that have polish and that speak with clarity.
Many of the other elements of this professional portfolio also give evidence of my outdoor education philosophy.
I am interested in your feedback.
updated 1999 April 25