GREENFIRE

A Proposed New Conference Model for Outdoor Education

2011-10-03T21:05:00Z

I have posted here previously about my views on the current conference structure/environment in outdoor/experiential education but now I would like to propose a specific way forward in the hopes that it might get some folks talking and (just maybe) get the folks with AORE/AEE/WRMC/WEA talking with one another. As the previous sentence reveals, we have a veritable mess of organizations and conference associations for such a small field. While to some degree "diversity is strength" I believe in this particular case it is not. While I do not have current numbers at my fingertips, I would hazard that none of these conferences has attendance over 1,000 and many/most hover between 250-800. I also know, from conversations with folks at the various associations, that budgets are very, very tight. Given this backdrop, does it make sense to have not 1, not 2, but at least 3 different associations and conferences happening around the same time year after year? I don't believe it does.

In my perfect world, we would simply merge at least AEE and AORE into one, larger association and all would be right for the world. For anyone that knows the history of these two "cultures" I would say that my hopes for such a merger are slim at best. But, there are other creative ways forward! I suggest that each year the three conferences (AEE, AORE, WRMC) come together at the same location for their conferences. Participants could then sign up for "packages" that would consist of various "tracks" and/or Special Interest Groups. Cost sharing would consist of a set conference fee plus additional fees for the various tracks signed up for. Many conferences have similar set-ups.

The advantages to this are numerous. All associations would save on conference hosting costs as we could share costs among larger organizations. Vendors would be thrilled with more potential customers and we would likely get higher vendor participation and advertising potential. With more people, we would have better bargaining power with catering, hotels, etc. Imagine a conference titled "International Conference on Outdoor and Experiential Educational" or something of the like that drew 1500-2000 attendees rather than several hundred. Students, vendors, scholars, practitioners could all attend because this would be the ONE conference to attend, to network, and to learn and grow professionally.

It's time to change the paradigm. It's time to think boldly so that we can better serve our constituencies. Are there issues? Sure. But you cannot tell me those are not petty compared with the benefits of a larger gathering of folks. We can make it work. Isn't that, after all, one of the educational tenets we claim to espouse in this field-- collaboration, creativity, and cooperation?

The Science of Experiential Learning

2011-07-29T18:15:00Z

A recent editorial in Nature argues for more experiential, informal curriculum for students in science classes. The editorial titled: “Learning in the Wild” makes the point that informal learning environments are often much more powerful and longer lasting in transfer than formal classroom curricula. They go on to note: “Indeed, researchers say, the personal and idiosyncratic nature of informal science education is precisely what makes it powerful. The question that plagues classroom science — why is this relevant? — never even arises.”

Experiential methodology is getting a little more attention these days as we learn more about how the brain functions in various learning contexts and states. The Nature editorial cites the 2009 report from the National Academies on how people learn in informal settings which can be found here. The National Academies Press also released a very useful text simply titled How People Learn in 2000 that represents a rigorous scientific approach to the issue and summarizes key findings from neuroscience and related studies. Not surprisingly to those of us who advocate for experiential education, these reports support experiential learning methodologies. It would be well worth your time to read these as it is difficult to find rigorous, evidence-based studies of experiential education from such well-regarded sources (e.g. the National Academy of Science). Here is a short-list of findings from the 2000 report:

1. You must work with and address pre-existing knowledge in learners

2. Active learning is a key component to “meta-cognition”

3. Depth of learning is more important than “superficial coverage” of topics

4. Learning is influenced by context. Therefore, attention must be paid to the social aspects of learning

For those who support experiential education, these findings ought to look and sound familiar. They speak to the heart of the experiential educational philosophy and approach. That our “hunches” are now finding support in empirical science is heartening. Here is hoping there are policy makers, school officials, and “curriculum specialists” out there reading more about the science of learning. In the meantime, for the outdoor and experiential educators out there: take heart because the National Academy of Sciences has got your back!

A Call for Better Scholarship in Graduate Outdoor Education

2010-10-25T19:15:00Z

It's another year and once again my in-box is full of survey requests from well-meaning students in various outdoor education graduate programs. Over the last 10 years, I must have completed fifty of these and I am beginning to wonder about their efficacy. While I realize Master's level work is not meant to be a "new contribution to the field," it appears as though we have set the bar awfully low. There is worth to be had in survey style research, to be sure. Brent Bell's "Neighborhood Project" (JEE, 33 (1), 2009) is an excellent example of this sort of research done well. But enough with the survey's sent out by email to every Tom, ***, and Harry that runs an outdoor program in higher education. While I am on this rant, I would also like to suggest that not every form of research needs to fall into the "pre/post" paradigm either. The scientific fetishism in the field seems rappant. Most of these studies are of dubious utility, in my mind, because population sizes are usually very small, timescales are short, and the confounding variables are numerous.

For those interested in other ways of knowing not represented by the current "evidence-based" standards colonizing educational research, I would recommend Biesta and Burbules (2003) Pragmatism and Educational Research as an alternative. It would be great if that text, or others like, were required readings in some of these programs. It would also be great to link the college or university more purposefully with the community in which it is located. More action research, place-based studies, or applied approaches would certainly be welcome.

So what would I like to see in my in-box? How about conceptual studies-- one's that explore questions of race, class, and gender in outdoor education. Or, one's that explore the linkages between outdoor education and education for sustainability? How about the influence of Romanticism on our current thinking about the outdoors? Or, one's that explore the links between what we are learning about the brain in relation to outdoor learning (the emerging eco-psychology field is fascinating in this regard)? How about more work that purposefully integrates outdoor education learning outcomes with K-12 schooling (Michael Gass has been a real pioneer in this sort of work at UNH)? And, if we are going to do qualitative or quantitative (or mixed methods) work moving forward, how about some longitudinal studies or ones that have a significant enough population size for results to actually matter? How about anything, really, that moves us away from the esoteric, the inane, and the shabby. As Historian Page Smith once wrote:

"the vast majority of research turned out in the modern university is essentially worthless. It does not result in any measurable benefit to anything or anybody. It does not push back those omnipresent 'frontiers of knowledge' so confidently evoked; it does not in the main result in greater health or happiness among the general populace or any particular segment of it. It is busywork on a vast, almost incomprehensible scale."

To move Outdoor Education forward in this educational climate, we have an ethical obligation, I believe, to prepare our graduate students with exceptionally high standards of research methodology. So, enough with the surveys. Let's do some real thinking for a change.

An Inconvenient Education: Convocation Address at Earlham College

2010-09-09T17:51:00Z

Text of a talk given at Earlham College, Sept. 1st, 2010 for a convocation on an interdisciplinary approach to Climate Change.

INTRODUCTION

In the few minutes I have, I’d like to speak a bit about the role education plays in the climate change debate. I am concerned here both with how our current models of schooling in the U.S. but in many other parts of the world, too, have contributed to our current situation and what role education might play, in the words of Maxine Greene, imagining things otherwise. It has been almost five years since Al Gore released his popular and controversial documentary An Inconvenient Truth. As I mentioned in the introductory remarks, both nationally and internationally, we seem to have gone backward from that watershed moment. We seem less concerned, less focused, and less politically determined to tackle the environmental challenges before us in relation to climate change. But how or why is this an educational problem? Indeed, if you have seen An Inconvenient Truth, you may have noticed that not once did Al Gore invoke our educational system (either K-12 or Higher Education) as either part of the problem or as a potential ally in generating solutions. This is curious to me. It is as if the sum total of 16 years of institutional socialization, of schooling on a massive scale, the values imparted, the knowledge, skills, and abilities gained—these have no bearing, no impact, on our associations with the natural world.

INCONVENIENT EDUCATION

So, to borrow from Al Gore, I would like to argue in the next few minutes for what I would call an “Inconvenient Education.” Just as Gore titled his movie an “Inconvenient Truth” to suggest that there is something about this truth we do not wish to hear, I have titled this talk an “Inconvenient Education” to argue that the way forward in terms of sustainability and education is likewise “inconvenient.” When we are “inconvenienced” we are interrupted. Our normal patterns of thinking and behaving are halted. Things cease being easy and comfortable. So what might an inconvenient education entail?

PURPOSE OF SCHOOL

First, we ought to step back and re-consider the purposes of school. David Orr, in his provocative essay, “What is Education For?” argues that it is not education per se, but education of a certain kind, that will save us. He notes, in that essay, that the architects of the final solution in Germany, the administrators of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, were products of perhaps the finest educational system in the world at that time. These were well-educated men. And yet they were capable of atrocities that are difficult to imagine and understand. Clearly, their schooling failed them. But to Orr “this is not an argument for ignorance but rather a statement that the worth of education must be now measured against the standards of decency and human survival.” With species extinction rates nearly 100 times the background rate, the health of our oceans and freshwater systems in drastic decline, and a warming planet that not many in the U.S. seem to care about, how can we not ask hard questions about what schooling is for? When we look at the health of our people, our forests, our rivers, and the web of life all around us, I wonder, has our education failed us too? What we are now measuring the worth of our education against?

While we obsess over test scores, accountability metrics, and “seat time,” our children are spending more time in front of screens of various sorts and less time outside. The average American boy or girl spends just four to seven minutes in unstructured outdoor play each day, and more than seven hours each day in front of an electronic screen. Richard Louv coined the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” to describe the impact this has had on the minds, bodies, and spirits of American children. A University of Michigan study, for example, found that between 1981-1997, children’s unstructured outdoor activities fell by 50%. Surely classroom learning is necessary, but it is not sufficient. It is clear to me that we cannot care for something we do not understand, and we cannot understand something that we do not meaningfully interact with. Rachel Carson knew this well. In her essay, “A Sense of Wonder” she writes: “what is the value of preserving and strengthening this sense of awe and wonder, this recognition of something beyond the boundaries of human existence? Is the exploration of the natural world just a pleasant way to pass the golden hours of childhood or is there something deeper? I am sure there is something much deeper, something lasting and significant.” What is education for? A job? Preparation? For what? To what end? It is inconvenient to ask these sorts of questions but if we are to take the present and future challenges of climate change seriously, these are the kinds of questions we must address.

KNOWLEDGE OF MOST WORTH

In addition to questioning what an education is for, another element of an inconvenient education involves questioning what knowledge is of the most worth. This includes both what we are teaching and how we are teaching it. Aldo Leopold recognized this in the 1930’s when he took note of the fact that many in his day viewed the ecological damage wrought by poor farming practices as the result of a lack of education. But Leopold was not so sure of this. He said: “the usual answer to this dilemma is ‘more conservation education.’ No one will debate this, but is it certain that only the volume of education needs stepping up? Is something lacking in the content as well?” In my foundations of education class, for example, I give students a pop-quiz on local knowledge. I ask, for example, if they can name three birds that migrate through this area in the Fall. Or, which vegetables you can safely plant before May 1^st in this area. I ask them to name the reservoir in town where we get our drinking water and the name of the river our Whitewater river eventually flows into. In a class of 55 students, every single student fails. And yet, 100 years ago, an 8 year old would likely get 100%. Perhaps this is not a problem. Many of Earlham students are not from Richmond, the Midwest, or even the U.S. But what does it say about what we value here at Earlham, educationally, when we don’t ask all students to engage with the natural and human history of this place? Author Russell Scott Sanders argues that colleges and universities ought to be assessed as to how many of their graduates stay in the community upon graduation—a homecoming major so to speak. Perhaps this goes too far, but it ought to force us to consider what knowledge really is of the most worth when we consider appropriate responses to climate change? Good people will disagree here: some may wish to emphasize so-called STEM coursework (science, technology, engineering and math) so we can prepare students for the needed technological breakthroughs and work to both reduce our ecological footprint and meet rising population and resource demands. Others might argue for more work on ethics and critical media literacy as a way to respond to the mass-consumerism and individualism that seems ever present in the United States and in other parts of the developed world. Still others may argue for a more place-based, experiential, and community-oriented approach that gives students a sense of agency and active citizenship. Of course, these knowledge domains are not isolated, but rather they interact and are interconnected and interdependent. If that is true, then perhaps what is most important is to teach a “systems thinking” orientation which aims to understand not just the isolated parts but the ways in which the parts come together to form nested and networked wholes.

In addition to what we teach then, an Inconvenient Education would ask us to reconsider how we teach. Are students learning how different subjects and disciplines are connected and interrelated? Are they also asked to work through and experience the consequences of knowledge enacted through projects that are collaborative, relevant and practical? Are they learning systems and holistic thinking and not just broken down and disjointed parts? Environmental Historian Donald Worster, for example, in an essay entitled “Thinking Like A River,” argues that to truly understand our agricultural relation to water we must learn to think differently. This new kind of thinking, he argues, “requires more than technique: [it is] a way of perceiving, a set of mental images, an ethic controlling agricultural policy and practice. It demands, as I have said before, learning to think like a river.” What would schooling look like if the aim was to have everyone thinking like a river?

BEGINNING THE CONVERSATION

The issue, at this point, is not which of these curricular visions is the right one, it’s the fact that we have not yet even begun the conversation. We simply have not considered education as part of the problem and part of possible solutions moving forward. I would ask all of us this simple question: if climate change is as serious as many believe it is, is our current educational response adequate? If the full brunt of the challenges of climate change are truly upon us, how would we educate differently?

INFORMAL CURRICULUM

One final point I would like to make about this inconvenient education—it does not stop at the classroom door. It is important to note that there is another domain to be considered-- the informal curriculum or what some have called the “public pedagogy of the everyday.” What does it communicate, at a place like Earlham for example, when our classroom walls are devoid of color, when the hallways are lined with fake plants, when we don’t know where the food we eat at Saga comes from, and the windows must be opened in winter because we cannot regulate the heat properly? Everything speaks and everything teaches. A truly inconvenient education would constantly pit our values against our actions—noting the areas of incongruence and involving the community in imagining solutions.

CONCLUSION

Chuck Yates once said that the goal of Earlham is simple: we wish to make students comfortable with being uncomfortable. I wonder, are we uncomfortable yet in regards to our individual and collective responsibility to climate change? Do we have the sort of Inconvenient Education we need to challenge us, provoke us, to imagine things otherwise? Can our education give us the will to go about enacting that future in both big and small ways? I think so. But only if we begin to realize the impact education and schooling has on our relation to the health and well-being of this planet. Thank you.

Future Trends in Outdoor Education

2010-02-12T15:16:00Z

As we turn the corner away from the 00’s or the “aughts” or whatever historians will choose to call the last decade, it’s worth taking a moment to look ahead toward future trends and issues that will affect things in the outdoor education field for the next ten years or so. Future prognosticating is, of course, a dangerous game and I make no claims that my reading of the tea leaves is any better than anyone else’s guesses. However, I do keep up to date on the goings on in the field as best as I can and spend a good deal of time talking about these issues with colleagues at other programs, institutions, and conferences. So, without further ado, here are my top five trends (in no particular order) in Outdoor Education for the 2010’s...

1. LOCALISM: The impact of the “great recession” is certainly being felt in outdoor education. People are “nesting” more, staying closer to home, and looking for ways to enjoy the outdoors in simpler, more frugal ways. This dovetails nicely to the emerging localism movement connected to broader sustainability and environmental shifts in certain segments of the population. Interest in gardening, local green spaces, and getting kids out in nature is on the rise across the board. How can outdoor education, as a field, tap into this social shift in a way that democratizes nature and challenges some of the elitism and narcissism that has defined outdoor pursuits over the last several decades?

2. SUSTAINABILITY: It’s hip, it’s green, and it’s everywhere. Whether you think this new movement is shallow or deep, it is certainly influential. Equipment manufacturers are going green, ski slopes and other outdoor industries are ramping up sustainability efforts, and even travel and guide purveyors like REI are offering carbon off-sets for eco-tourist travel. Green gear lists for programs are on the rise as are attempts to lower the carbon footprints of everything from college outdoor programs to summer camps to environmental education centers. How can outdoor education act as an example of sustainable operations and education moving forward?

3. ACCESS: Population increases and the impacts of urbanization and suburbanization are placing incremental pressures on our natural recreation and wilderness areas. We are, in many respects, “loving them to death.” Yosemite and Yellowstone have smog alerts and traffic jams. Getting a permit in some places is like winning the lottery. As pressures increase, guided outdoor education groups will be under increasing pressure to find less-crowded and permit-driven recreation areas. Programmers can stay ahead of the curve by looking for less popular climbing areas, rivers, and trails that serve educational purposes without adding to the crowds.

4. NATURAL HISTORY: Knowing how to identify trees, birds, flowers, and the like use to be a stronger part of our national K-12 curriculum as well as the informal curriculum passed down from generation to generation. We have several generations of kids and young adults who cannot identify even the most basic plant and animal species in their own backyards let along the basic geological history or watersheds of their region. As the “no child left inside” movement and the concern for childhood obesity rates grows, re-kindling a love of the more-than-human world through natural history is, well, “natural.” How can outdoor educators leverage this emerging need into programs and new educational opportunities?

5. STANDARDIZATION: Travel to many places in northern Europe or New Zealand and Australia and you will find a professionalization and standardization of outdoor education that we have yet to see here in the States. Ropes courses, climbing walls, and other outdoor education sub-fields are all feeling the pressure toward more national standards. This is both a good and bad thing. With increased standardization comes increased need for certifications and training. This makes access into the field more expensive as a career option. But it also, potentially, increases the quality of the educational product and process. Yet, too much emphasis on “merit badges” can take the flexibility and life out of a field that has long thrived on passion, creativity, and sound judgement over rules, credentials, and bureaucracy. How will the field wrestle with the need for quality control against the strong legacy of individual freedom?

Those are my top five. I would be interested in hearing from others. What with the 2010’s hold for outdoor education?

Teaching is Listening, Learning is Talking

2009-08-05T18:47:00Z

Teaching is listening, learning is talking. This wonderful rule of thumb, from the educator and writer, Deborah Meier , reminds us that real learning comes, in large part, from being actively involved in the educational moment. Experiential educators have long known this and frequently advocate for teaching that involves the learner and does not, as Paulo Freire famously described, treat students as empty "banks" in which to deposit information. I once heard a feisty school superintendent from Texas describe this method as the "sit, get, spit, and forgit" model of teaching and learning.

While many in progressive education have believed active learning to be far more effective, definitive scientific evidence has been difficult to come by. There are mountains of educational studies, research, and journals advocating for this method or that, and educational conservatives and progressives both have virtually unlimited amounts of data from which to cherry-pick evidence to support their particular pedagogical approaches. There have been very few studies that have risen above the fray to clearly and succinctly shown significant, generalizable results. Until now.

One of the most respected scientific journals, Science, recently (and without much media attention), published a study that, in its simplicity, is astounding in terms of its significance. "Why Peer Discussion Improves Student Performance on In-Class Concept Questions," published in the January 2nd edition of Science (vol. 323) is one of those simple research studies that yields powerful results. In the study, researchers used in-class "clickers" (imagine the "ask the audience" function in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) to have students answer a conceptual question in class. Then without revealing the answer, the researchers had the students discuss their answer with a neighbor and then "re-vote" after the peer discussion time.

As might be expected, the number of students clicking on the correct answer increased following the peer discussion. We might expect this because students who originally missed the question might be lucky enough to sit next to "Mr. Smarty Pants" who helped them figure out the correct answer. OK. No big deal right?

These researchers took it a step further. They wanted to find out whether peer discussion, in and of itself, increased conceptual understanding irrespective of a student sitting next to Mr. Smarty Pants or not. So, after they asked the first question and performed the peer discussion and re-vote, they asked a second question. This question was what they called "isomorphic" in that it was related, conceptually, to the first question but it required conceptual transfer from the original question. At no point during this exercise was the correct answer to the first question revealed (thus controlling for the Mr. Smarty Pants scenario). The results were astounding.

The number of students who answered the first question correctly increased after peer discussion (again, as expected). But, the number of students who answered the first question wrong, then changed their answer to the correct one after peer discussion also tended to answer the second, isomorphic question correctly. Even more significant, students who got the first question wrong both times still improved on the second question (over random guessing). So what does this all mean and why is it significant enough to appear in Science?

This study shows, very simply but very powerfully, that students learn more and they learn better through talking. Student peer discussion, rather than a waste of time or pedagogical "fluff" as some conservative educational theorists have long argued, significantly improves student conceptual understanding. Indeed, much more than getting the right answer from Mr. Smarty Pants, the students that got question one wrong twice benefited from literally "talking it out" in order to understand new concepts. As the researchers themselves say, "We speculate that when [these students] discussed, they were making sense of the information, but were unable to apply their new knowledge until presented with a fresh question on the same concept."

This simple study provides strong evidence to something experiential educators have long advocated. Students must be involved in their own learning. The educational process must be active and social, not passive and individual. Rather than "seat time" and time "on-task" as the dominant currency of classroom practice, it's high time we start listening to our students (and letting them talk more to each other) to improve academic perfomance. Teaching is listening and learning is talking.

Why you should care about "twittering"

2009-04-21T18:21:00Z

Twitter? Tweeting? Twibes? Come on, you say, isn't all that stuff ridiculous? No, it isn't. Used in certain ways, twittering is an amazing tool that allows you to "map the discourse" of any particular topic or field that you may be interested in. Used properly, twittering gives you access to people, topics, and resources that can help you create virtual communities and networks, generate new ideas, and anticipate trends. If you are involved in the outdoor, environmental, and/or experiential education fields, twittering, done right, has amazing potential. I have been "twittering" for awhile now and here is what I have learned along the way.

First, twittering is much more than the update function from Facebook on steroids. Sure, you can use it that way (e.g. "I am now going out for coffee," "I just got on the plane," "lying on a beach in Puerto Vallarta" ) but to use it purposefully, you need to be more careful and deliberate. Download (for free) a twitter application platform (like tweetdeck http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/). This allows you to set automatic search functions for anyone tweeting on a topic of interest to you and also display tweets in a quickly scan-able format. My search terms are: experiential education, environmental education, outdoor education, education, and climate change. You can also combine terms into one search (outdoor + experiential education). Once this is set up, it literally allows you to see who is tweeting on those topics from all over the world-- pretty cool! I have used tweets and links I have found from tweets in my research, my classes, and to scan for recent events and news that I ought to be aware of in my fields of interest.

Don't follow just anybody. Make sure they are tweeting purposefully about the topic(s) you care about. The last thing you need is some joker who tweets every five minutes about picking his nose. Post thoughtfully. Just as you should not follow the joker above, don't become the same said joker above. When you have a question, find a cool website, or have something you want to get out there into the tweet-o-sphere, go for it!

Join a "twibe." A twibe is a special interest group on Twitter (it's a brand new function). I started one called "Experiential Education" http://www.twibes.com/group/ExperientialEducation. These can be sites for networking, information sharing, and mobilization on matters of importance to the twibe.

If you are a business or organization, you can also create your own organizational twitter profile. This lets you update folks about events that you may be hosting, new products you wish to feature, or get out any other news. If you are good and you get lots of followers, it can be a tremendous marketing tool. The Wilderness Program at Earlham has a twitter profile and we use it to announce special events to the community. It's a whole lot easier than updating a web-page and more efficient than Facebook.

The experiential/outdoor field cannot be resistant to technology (in fact, any cursory look at the latest gear shows that we are in fact quite the opposite). Yet, sometimes, we get caught in the mindset that computer-based technology somehow diminishes the Good life. This is not necessarily so. In fact, used properly, places like outdoored.com, blogs, and yes... twitter can advance the field by more effectively and efficiently linking communities of interest in ways we couldn't have dreamed of even 10 years ago.

So go on, step out of that comfort zone and fire off a tweet or two! http://www.twitter.com

Is "Smart" the new "Green"?

2009-04-15T14:16:00Z

Watching and listening to "the discourse" on environmentalism in the popular press has been fascinating over the last five years. The sheer number of descriptors used to try to "brand" environmentalism for the 21st century seem to increase right along with our carbon emissions. Who are the losers in this game?

1. "Preservation/Conservation." Too "retro" and old-fashioned. Seems against "progress."

2. "Environmentalist" Too exclusive and cliche. Brings to mind birkenstocks, beards, and patchoulli.

3. "Organic." See above. Plus, what happens to "organic" when canned beans from China sold at Walmart are "organic"?

4. "Wilderness." The post-modernists took this one down. An environmental ideal without humans in it, hmmm....

5. "Sustainable Development." A classic oxymoron. Like "military intelligence." Or, "fresh frozen."

6. "Bio-regionalism." Sounds like something a professor cooked up in "ye olde ivory tower."

The winners?

1. "Sustainability." Lop off the "development" part and it sounds much better! Who cares if no one knows what it means!

2. "Eco." You can put the prefix in front of anything. "Eco-schools," "eco-parks," "eco-design," etc.

3. "Local." Appeals to our American, Mom-and-apple pie roots.

4. "Green." It cannot be as easily stereotyped as "tree-hugging environmentalist." And corporate America is on board.

But my sense is that all these may lose out to perhaps the best, most powerful, all-inclusive descriptor that has recently emerged. "Smart." Who doesn't want to be "smart"? A recent IBM advertisement brought this home to me. It featured scientists and engineers all over the world talking about "smart cities," "smart traffic flow," "smart energy grids," etc. "Smart" ties into our technological and scientific fetish. It implies that we don't need to stop progress, we just need to be "smarter." It appeals to innovation, to capitalism, and to optimism. It also appeals to our "flattened" world. This is not a euro-centric ideal. We can imagine "smart schools," "smart cars," "smart urban planning." And, importantly, it is hard to stereotype and pigeon-hole. If you are not "for" smart cars and cities what are you for, "dumb" cars and cities? Finally, it is not tied to the "environment" per se which avoids the "tree hugger" issues. Republicans, democrats, libertarians... we can all agree to be "smarter" about our designs, our living, and our consumption patterns.

Of course, there will be critics. "Smart" doesn't imply much humility. And, it seems awfully anthropocentric. But, we need visions, ideals, and a language that appeals not to the fringe but to the all important "radical center." Being "smart" may mean using the best of technology and innovation but it need not exclude the wisdom gained from more traditional cultures or long forgotten ways of being and thinking. A perfect example of this can be seen in the short film about the Druk White Lotus School in Ladahk, India http://bit.ly/ivdn0. Now that school, that vision, is "smart" in every sense of the word.

Words matter. Foucault once said that "language is power." Creating an inclusive, open, and inviting social movement is, in the end, the "smart" thing to do.

Education, Climate Change, and Obama's Failure of Imagination

2009-04-02T18:37:00Z

OK, so we get it...don't we? Climate change is human-induced and the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases we are putting into the atmosphere have a direct effect on global temperatures. This has serious and long term consequences for all life on this planet. Al Gore made this clear in Inconvenient Truth. Our new president seems to be on board (chalk one up in the "win" column for environmentalism). But not so fast. Here is the thing: why is it that when we talk of solving the climate crisis the conversation never (or very, very rarely) turns to our schooling system? President Obama is quick to call education one of the three top priorities moving forward (what journalist Jonathon Alder coined "HEE" -- Health Care, Energy, and Education). But when he talks of education his rhetoric consistently slides into the economic purposes of school. We need to improve our schools in order to compete with China and India for the "jobs of the 21st century." Perhaps this is true. But while it may be a necessary condition, it is not sufficient. How might we educate for human flourishing? We all know that economic valuations do not tell the entire story (if someone offered you 1 million dollars for your daughters' left arm would you sell it?). Education and schooling cannot just be about producing better workers. We also need better citizens, better stewards, better change agents.

So, why don't we talk about schools when we speak about the agenda of initiatives needed to tackle climate change? It is something we all (at least in the US) experience for 12-16 years of our lives. Schools are one of the strongest social institutions of enculturation we have. Through schools, certain values, assumptions, and behaviors become normalized. So the big question is: how does our current schooling system contribute to the climate crisis? There are a precious few writers and thinkers who tackle this question. David Orr is one of them. In Earth in Mind he famously states: "Toward the natural world [Education] emphasizes theories, not values; abstraction rather than consciousness; neat answers instead of questions; and technical efficiency over conscience.... My point is simply that education is no guarantee of decency, prudence, or wisdom... It is not education, but education of a certain kind, that will save us" (p. 8)

Tackling the climate crisis is an "all hands on deck" initiative. It will involve all spheres of human activity: policy, economics, philosophy, religion, science, etc. But we cannot leave out education. We don't come to a relationship that we have with what David Abrams called the "more than human world" out of a vacuum. We learned the sense of alienation we currently experience. But the good news is, we can unlearn it. We can imagine new ways forward. We can start again. It will take adding an "E" to the three "R's". It is no longer sufficient for us to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic divorced from the environment. "Eco-literacy" must be our new educational ideal. Because, it isn't more education, Mr. President, but education of a certain kind that will save us.

Race, class, climate change, and outdoor education

2009-03-13T14:00:00Z

A recent post on climate change and race (http://tinyurl.com/b6fzp7) brings up an issue that really needs to be on the forefront of outdoor and environmental education moving forward. It is becoming increasingly clear that climate change will become the defining issue of our times. Just as with civil rights in the 1960's, this will require sustained and imaginative work on the part of our education system (both formal and informal). Recent surveys show that the percentage of citizens claiming that the "science is mixed" on human caused climate change is on the rise. Worse, even among those who believe it to be a human-caused problem, there is a high percentage who don't feel that it is an immediate threat (http://tinyurl.com/cc6uuo). Clearly, we have not just technological and scientific work to do, we have educational work to do. I call this the importance of both "outer" work (the work of technical problem solving that comes from policy changes, technological advances, scientific research, and economic modeling for example) and "inner work" (the work of education, of faith-based institutions, community organizing, etc.).

Outdoor, environmental, and experiential education specialize, it seems to me, in this "inner work." And yet, we continue to be a very exclusive culture group. We rely on images of humans-in-nature that typically involve the lone white male standing on the mountaintop staring into vastness (check out any current outdoor magazine for examples). The market for outdoor lifestyles demonizes Walmart while selling clothes, equipment, cars, and other "green" commodities that are unreachable by a large percentage of the US population (not to mention the developing world). We amplify the false dichotomy between "wilderness" and civilization (see: http://tinyurl.com/ac7cav) . We sell expeditions and experiences to sublime and far away places so that we can leave the city and suburbs behind to experience solitude or learn about the natural world. Does this sound like a model that invites a larger coalition to meet the present and future challenges of climate change?

People like Marjora Carter (http://www.majoracartergroup.com/) understand this. Until and unless the outdoor and environmental education fields truly examine how we might be ethically and morally bound to actively work toward limiting human suffering and not just simply promoting middle class leisure, we are complicit in the climate change problem no matter what our personal politics or lifestyles. It is time for us to face, full on, the issues of environmental justice. The conflicts between race, class, and our common constructions of the field can no longer be ignored. It is not a question of destroying the good work that many have done and continue to do in the name of outdoor and environmental education. De-construction is not destruction. It opens up space for an essential component of the inner work needed to address climate change: solidarity.

How can we extend our projects to link with other projects? How can we form broader coalitions-- maintaining (and shifting) our identity while connecting to others? The emerging back-to-the-land movements around permaculture, community gardens, and bio-regionalism provide one such place. Place-based education offers some intriguing ways forward. There are surely others. If we are to address the clear and pressing problems of the "inner work" of climate change we must heed Einstein's classic maxim: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Is Wilderness a Useful Environmental Ideal Anymore?

2009-02-19T15:07:00Z

I recently came across Brian Merchant’s blog about 7 classic American “Green” works of literature here: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/work-connect/read-american-environmental-classics.html. In the list: Walden by HD Thoreau, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, the Lorax by Dr. Seuss, and Stegner’s Wilderness Letter (see: http://wilderness.org/content/wilderness-letter).

It made me think of what we rely on as our environmental “ideals” in the fields of outdoor, environmental, and experiential education. Like Merchant’s list above, my guess is that our field would be filled with the usual suspects: Thoreau, Muir, Abbey, Leopold, Carson, etc. It’s a fine list, to be sure, but with significant limitations. First, it is filled, with the exception of Carson, with archetypal “dead, white guys.” But more importantly, I am not sure we have fully wrestled with what historian William Cronon famously called “The Trouble with Wilderness” in our field. What is the cost of relying on "wilderness" as our environmental ideal?

The American environmental movement (and, by association outdoor, environmental, and experiential education) has had a love affair with Romanticism. There are good reasons for this: the Romantic movement gave us Rousseau’s Emile, Emerson and Thoreau’s philosophy of transcendentalism, and many great works of literature and the visual arts. But, there is a darker side to this love affair. As scholars such as Cronon have made clear, the Romantic movement in many respects "invented" the idea of "wilderness." Rather than wilderness being something "real" out there in the world, it was created. The how's and why's of this are much more involved than a blog post but suffice it so say that the emphasis on sublime “wilderness” comes with a cost. By definition, it separates humans from nature by suggesting that wilderness is a place empty of human presence (see the definition in the 1964 Wilderness Act). And, as a consequence, only those places considered “empty” enough, “untouched,” and “wild” are considered sublime, special, and worthy of our protection. But history does not bear this out. In fact, we removed American Indian populations from areas of the west only then to designate them “wilderness.” In fact, it is a peculiarly American concept that views Nature as outside of and apart from Culture. In short, when we think of the environmental ideal as that classic picture of the lone white male standing on a summit staring out into vastness in Backpacker, Sierra Club, or Outside Magazines we lose the ability to define environmentalism as something everyone can take part in. But isn’t that the conundrum? Many of us like the special quality of wilderness as we see and experience it—its an exclusive game by definition.

But can we continue to afford such an ideal? Environmental problems are no longer simply about wilderness protection or even Carson’s concern with DDT and bird populations. It is everything—all encompassing with a guaranteed ability to affect everyone and everything—from the safety of our peanut butter, to the ability to access clean drinking water, to energy security, and, at the grandest scale, global climate change. All education, as David Orr wrote, is environmental education.

It is high time outdoor, environmental, and experiential fields deal with the Romantic legacy in our thinking about things like “wilderness,” “nature,” and what we consider to be transformative in terms of a relationship with David Abram’s called the “more than human” world.

It’s time for a new list of “Green” classics. Here are a few that would make my list: Martin Luther King’s Presidential Speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967. I would include Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac and Richard White’s controversial essay, “Are You An Environmentalist or Do You Work For A Living?” Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring would certainly make it. Terry Tempest William’s Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place would make the short list as would David Orr’s The Nature of Design.

What might make your list?

Together in 2012: Why we need an association merger in Outdoor/Experiential Education

2008-10-31T13:13:00Z

I wrote last year about my hopes for a mega-conference that would combine AEE (Assoc. for Experiential Education), AORE (Association of Outdoors Recreation and Education), and WRM (Wilderness Risk Managers Conference). Each conference is held at approximately the same time (Fall) and, for many industry professionals, it becomes a very difficult issue to choose between competing conferences when there are elements to like about all three. See my post "Can't We All Just Get Along?" for more on this topic.

Well, this year I want to take it one step further, especially given the current economic context. We need a merger. Mergers often happen in tough economic times because the benefits of reducing redundancies, resource sharing, and creating stronger brand/market positioning are very appealing in resource and revenue constrained environments. As a field, we are simply much too small to justify three different organizations and conference models. Only one of the conferences/organizations listed above has significant office/administrative staff (AEE). The economic model is barely sustainable. Now, throw in a significant economic downturn and things look a lot worse. As colleges, universities, and other non-profits look to cut costs, maintaining multiple organizational memberships may be one of the things to cut. Individuals and organizations will likely reduce travel costs and membership expenses. This may significantly affect conference revenues-- something each of these organizations depends on to cover operating costs.

In times like this, we can either stick our heads in the sand or, conversely, keep our heads up and look for new opportunities and creative solutions. Mine? A merged organization that combines AEE, AORE, WRM, and WEA (perhaps even ACCT and other peripherals) into one, "big tent" style organization and conference model. By pooling resources, the advantges are many including better conference attendence, range of workshops/sessions, reduced administrative overhead costs, more effective lobbying and advocacy, clearer industry standards, etc. We would also be a stronger and more viable organization/industry that would be able to weather economic downturns. At the annual conference, we might have different tracks such as risk management, schools and colleges, adventure programming, challenge education, wilderness therapy, etc. Imagine a conference like that! It would draw greater diversity, more vendors, more international attendees, and more conference site bargaining power. In fact, it is the way most successful conferences are run.

How can we get there? I know what I am going to do. At AEE this year, I will work my colleagues, members of the board who I know, and anyone else who will listen. I am more convinced then ever that we must stop this madness of a splintered field. Are there differences? Sure! But we can keep those differences while still holding on to a larger whole... e pluribus unum. We tell our participants that "diversity equals strength," that "many hands make light work," that "cooperation is better than competition"... why can't we model it ourselves?

Worse Case Scenarios: The Economic Crisis and Outdoor Education

2008-10-17T13:38:00Z

I was watching Jim Cramer of "Mad Money" on CNBC last night and his analysis of the economic crisis was striking. He said that we ought to be prepared for 2-4 years of severe recession with high unemployment and significant reductions in flexible income combined with increases in daily cost of living. He went on to say that any business or industry that relies on what would be considered "non-essential" services or "value added" products should expect a severe and extended income shortfall in the coming months. This is the same guy who, by the way, predicted the current credit crisis back in April of this year so his advice stands on a pretty solid track record. What does this mean for those of us working in the outdoor education industry? The future looks unsettled at best.

Cramer's advice to all? Have a "Plan B." It seems likely that as companies look to cut the fat from budgets, the first thing to go will be the training and development line item. This means adventure companies and challenge courses that rely on corporate clients may be in for a very rough ride in the next 2-4 years. In addition, outdoor programs (summer camps, colleges/universities) may also be affected as parents grow increasingly wary of "extra" out-of-pocket expenses. "Cocooning" is a new trend as people spend less time travelling and doing activities outside the home and more time on less expensive activities locally or within the home itself. Degree programs may be affected as well as students choose more "marketable" and financially safe career options that have a better chance at employment in an economic downturn. While it is true that during recessions more folks go back to school, it is less clear that those returning to school choose "lifestyle" degrees over more vocationally oriented ones.

All this is to say that we better be prepared. A long standing maxim of the outdoor field is to plan for worst case scenarios. Has your program or organization spent time planning worst case scenarios for the next five years? Are you over dependent on program revenue from more "flashy" offerings? Do you have a staffing reduction plan that is fair and equitable? Have you closely examined where you can "cut the fat" out of operating budgets? Are there creative programming solutions that can capitalize on the coming trends (cocooning, localism, etc.)?

I have no doubt about the value and worth of outdoor education long term. Through our courses and programs we teach many of the values that will become essential in the current economic climate: self sufficiency, simplicity, learning to live with less, compassion, interdependence, and dealing with hardship. But that does not mean we are not vulnerable to current market forces. Now is the time to think about our "Plan B's."

Jumping the Railing: Is Outdoor Education Losing Its Sense Of Adventure?

2008-07-30T18:47:00Z

I recently returned from leading a semester program to New Zealand for college students interested in environmental studies. As part of the semester, we travelled with a guide to Arthur's Pass National Park on the South Island to learn more about alpine ecology. While in the park, we took a trail up to a very large and popular waterfall. The "trail" leading up to the waterfall was mostly well manicured gravel and a series of wooden platforms, stairs, and railings. Interpretive signs provided at periodic viewing points gave us information about the cultural and natural history of the area. Our guide, Terry, also helped by pointing out particular plant species and ecological relationships as we went. The star attraction was, of course, the waterfall, and soon we could hear the rumble of the falls as well as catch glimpses of the water through the trees. The trail ended at a large wooden viewing platform and we all climbed up the stairs to gaze at a magnificent, 100+ foot waterfall crashing into a scenic pool below. We paused, took a few photos, and remarked on the beauty of the place before turning to go. But Terry, our guide, stopped us. "Would you like to get closer?" he said, with a gleam in his eye. Sure, we agreed, we would love to but there was a railing blocking the way and a sign that said "Caution: rock fall and dangerous conditions exist." "Yes," Terry agreed, "it does say that. But does it say you CAN'T go there?" With that encouragement, we quickly jumped the railing and, picking our way through the boulders and blowing mist, soon found ourselves directly below the full force of the falls. It was a different experience indeed. Looking around, I saw awe and wonder on students faces. I felt the full force of the water on my cheeks as the cold water blasted me from all sides. All my senses were heightened. Now THIS was a waterfall.

DH Lawrence once wrote:

“Superficially, the world has become small and known. Poor little globe of earth, the tourists trot round you as easily as they trot round Bois or Central Park. There is no mystery left, we’ve been there, we’ve seen it, we know all about it. We’ve done the globe and the globe is done. This is quite true, superficially. On the superficies, horizontally, we’ve been everywhere and done everything, we know all about it. Yet the more we know, superficially, the less we penetrate, vertically. It’s all very well skimming across the surface of the ocean and saying you know all about the sea… As a matter of fact, our great-grandfathers, who never went anywhere, in actuality had more experience of the world than we have, who have seen everything. When they listened to a lecture with lantern slides, they really held their breath before the unknown, as they sat in the village school room. We, bowling along in a rickshaw in Ceylon, say to ourselves, “It’s very much what you’d expect.” We really know it all. We are mistaken. The know-it-all state of mind is just the result of being outside the mucous-paper wrapping of civilization. Underneath is everything we don’t know and are afraid of knowing.”

When we stayed behind the rail at the falls, we probably also said to ourselves "it's very much what you'd expect." But when Terry encouarged us to jump the rail, we entered a new world. One of novelty, surprise, and the unknown. We know, from experience, that this context can provide the most enriched learning environments. But increasingly, I worry that instead of awe and wonder, our outdoor education programs are "very much what you would expect." With google earth, utube, and easy access media, many of my students had already seen pictures of most of the scenic places we would go in New Zealand. They already knew we would swim with dolphins, sea kayak with seals, etc. While the expereince was still interesting, it was in some ways already known. Closer to home, many more students come to our program already having experienced zip-lines, rock climbing walls, and team building courses. They have already been there and done that. As DH Lawrence remarks, perhaps there is no mystery left...

With that in mind, I offer a few queries and comments about the relationship between adventure and outdoor education:

1. What makes an experience novel? How do we purposefully frame educational activities and programs that allow students to, metaphorically and perhaps actually, "jump the railing"?

2. What are the ethical consequences of such an approach? For example, if EVERYONE did what we did at that waterfall, it would likely cause enough impact that the park rangers would, in the end, post signs that DID prohibit jumping the railing. Are "special" experiences, by definition, exclusive experiences?

3. Following this, what is the relationship between freedom and control? How much freedom can we properly and safely construct in outdoor education programming? When does our need for control infringe on participants' ability to make real and lasting meaning from the experiences we have helped facilitate?

4. Finally, have we, as a field, become so structured that our students can no longer "hold their breath before the unknown" as DH Lawrence claims our great-grandfathers used to do? Is it even important that we have that aim in the first place?

What do you think? Have we lost our sense of adventure?

Final Thoughts from AORE

2007-11-04T11:42:00Z

Due to daylight savings, I am up before I need to be and thought I would post one last time before I head out of town... I am left with several impressions from this years AORE conference.

1. The growing "green" or environmental trend. The field is increasingly paying attention to its environmental responsibilities both as educators of people in the outdoors and as examples for others to follow in terms of our ecological footprint. This, I feel, will be a growing trend as we begin to re-imagine what outdoor recreation and education will be like in the future.

2. Standards and standardization. We couldn't hide forever from the effects of No Child Left Behind and the growing influence of neo-liberalism in our schools and educational practice. Well, it is here. There was a lot of discussion and buzz at this conference about accreditation, certifications, and standardization in the field. The message was: if you don't do it, the state or federal government will. But of course, the question should not be standards vs no standards, it should be what KIND of standards. No one is really against the idea that we should have some commonly agreed upon best practices. How the field wrestles with this issue will be interesting to follow in the coming years.

3. The rise of degree programs. More and more students (it seems to me) are coming out of outdoor recreation and education degree programs. Do they have jobs waiting for them? It will be interesting to see how the rise of this field in terms of academic preparation plays out once many of these folks graduate and are looking for gainful employment.

4. Research. The field as a whole is hungry for evidence-based research that supports the philosophy of what we do. Where this research will come from and how we wrestle with the differences between advocacy based assessment and more "objective" research will also be interesting to watch in the coming years.

5. Lastly, I am left with how much fun this conference continues to be. Great people, wonderful sessions and activities, and a general vibe of informality, support, and encouragement of all. AORE broke the attendance record this year at about 540 attenders. Hope to see even more next year in San Diego.

Signing off from Asheville.