CREATING COMMUNITY, BUILDING a MOVEMENT

AEE Annual International ConferenceKurt Hahn AddressNovember 1, 2013

Why is it that experiential education is not the norm?

How do we change this?

LOOKING BACK

FOUNDATIONS

“We teach who we are.”

“Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.”

Parker Palmer: author, educator, and activist

TODAY’S LANDSCAPE

TAKING STOCK

Wilderness Education

Adventure Based Counseling

Inquiry

Service LearningArt, Play, Music, Drama & related Therapies

SimulationsExperience Based Training and

Development

Environmental Education

Internships

Expeditionary Learning

Adventure/Challenge Education

Philosophy of Experiential Education

And more…Equine Assisted Therapy

Cooperative Education Project Based Learning

Problem Based LearningAdventure Education

• HISTORY AND STRUCTURE

• POWER AND CONTROL

James Baldwin: Novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic

"The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for themselves, to make their own decisions, to say this is black or this is white, to decide whether there is a god in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then to learn to live with those questions, is the way a person achieves identity.”

James Baldwin: Novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic

"But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society."

• HISTORY AND STRUCTURE

• POWER AND CONTROL

• MYSTIFICATION

Maxine Greene, educational philosopher, author, social activist, and teacher

“… we are bombarded with messages about“what is”and what “ought to be.” [This is a] …“mystification or ‘surface reality,’ that manypeople take for granted as objectively true.”

"Many of those personal qualities that we hold dear—resilience and courage in the face of stress, a sense of craft in our work, a commitment to justice and caring in our social relationships, a dedication to advancing the public good in communal life—are exceedingly

From: Alexander, L. & James, H.T. (1987) The Nation’s Report Card: Improving the assessment of student Achievement. Washington, DC: National Academy of Education.

difficult to assess. And so, unfortunately, we are apt to measure what we can, and eventually come to value what is measured over what is unmeasured. The shift is subtle and occurs gradually.”

“To have as our educational goal, the production of caring, competent, loving, and loveable people is not anti-intellectual. Rather it demonstrates respect for the full range of human talents.”

Nel Noddings: feminist, educationalist, philosopher

“To transcend the effects of mystification, it isnecessary to wake up to the world and startseeing it from a variety of vantage pointsHumans have the unique “capacity to surpassthe given and look at things as if they could beotherwise.”

Maxine Greene: educational philosopher, author, social activist, and teacher

• HISTORY AND STRUCTURE

• POWER AND CONTROL

• MYSTIFICATION

• OURSELVES

• Adventure Cycling Association • Adventure Travel Trade

Association (ATTA)• America Outdoors Association

(AOA)• American Alliance for Health,

Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAPHERD)

• American Art Therapy Association (AATA)

• American Camp Association (ACA)

• American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA)

• American Education Research Association (AERA)

• American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE)

• Cooperative and Experiential Education Division (CEED)

• Association for Challenge Course Technology (ACCT)

• Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education (AEOE)

• Association for Experiential Education (AEE)

• Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)

• Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU)

• Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education (AORE)

• Association for Play Therapy• Christian Adventure

Association (CAA)• Connecticut Experiential

Education Association (CEEA)• Equine Experiential Education

Association (E3A)• Experiential Training and

Development Alliance (ETDA)

• Independent Schools Experiential Education Network (ISEEN)

• International Association for Professional Wilderness-, open- and swiftwater-, and Mountain GuidesInternational Art Therapy Organization (IATO)

• International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE)

• International Experiential Dynamic Therapy Association (IEDTA)

• International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA)

• Minnesota Association for Experiential Learning (MAFEL)

• National Society for Experiential Education

• New York State Cooperative and Experiential Education Association (NYSCEEA)

• North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE)

• North American Association for the Community of Inquiry (NAACI)

• Outdoor Industry Association (OIA)

• Professional Ropes Course Association (PRCA)

• Wilderness Education Association (WEA)

• Wilderness Guides Association (WGA)

• Wilderness Risk Management Conference (WRMC)

• World Adventure Association• World Association of Zoos and

Aquariums (WAZA)• World Environmental

Education Congress (WEEC)

BUILDING AN EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION MOVEMENT TOGETHER

MOVING FORWARD

MOVEMENT: A group of people working together to

advance their shared political, social, or artistic

ideas

Ideas on How to Build a Movement

1.Believe in ourselves

“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.”

~ Newt Gingrich

Ideas on How to Build a Movement

1.Believe in ourselves2.Know yourself

- Intentionality

What is your ethos?

What are your principles?

What do you stand for?

“People and environments are never neutral, they are either summoning or shunning the development of human potential.”

Purkey & Novak, Inviting School SuccessSee Invitational Education at

www.invitationaleducation.net

“It was so much fun! I got shot in the leg and died of massive blood loss!"

- Participant, Age 10, in simulation of U.S. Civil War battle

Karen Park Koenig, www.rethinkingschools.org, vol. 23 (2009)

Just because we do something does not mean that it is educative. Without intentionality it could just as easily be miseducative.

Linda Oakleaf: Benedict College, Health, Physical Education and Recreation, Faculty

Ideas on How to Build a Movement

1.Believe in yourself2.Know yourself

- Intentionality- Walk our talk AND talk our walk

Ideas on How to Build a Movement

1.Believe in yourself2.Know yourself3.Meet people where they’re

at- Resist “us” and “them” thinking- Patience

GRIT Defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals”

~(2007, Duckworth, Peterson, Dennis, & Kelly).

Angela Lee Duckworth: teacher, psychologist, associate professor, and Grit researcher

"I regard it as the foremost task of education to insure the survival of these qualities: • an enterprising curiosity, • an undefeatable spirit, • tenacity in pursuit, • readiness for sensible self-denial, • and, above all, compassion."

~ Kurt Hahn

Ideas on How to Build a Movement

1.Believe in yourself2.Know yourself3.Meet people where they’re

at4.Build it one at a time

Ideas on How to Build a Movement

1.Believe in yourself2.Know yourself3.Meet people where they’re

at4.Build it one at a time5.Build it together

Kurt Hahn’s Legacy

Outward Bound: Our mission is to change lives through challenge and discovery

UWC makes education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future

Salem aims to … introduce [students] to a lifelong sense of respect for the individual, responsibility to the community and an awareness of the importance of the democratic process in sustaining both.

Gordonstoun prepares each student through learning by diverse experience for a full and active role as an international citizen in a changing world"

The vision of the Association for Experiential Education is to contribute to making a more just and compassionate world by transforming education.

Utopia lies at the horizon.When I draw nearer by two steps, It retreats two steps.If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead.No matter how far I go, I can never reach it.What, then, is the purpose of utopia?

It is to cause us to advance.

Eduardo Galeano: Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist