I just got off a radical 9 day open enrollment course with 16-18 year olds. There were 6 students and 3 instructors. Those numbers were for no reason, that's just the way it worked out. Also how it worked out was as an all boys crew, which I was honestly apprehensive about before the course started. But it ended up being a non-issue and actually an incredibly fun and strong crew. The course moved quick, we were on expedition (backpacking) for 3 days then we did a day of service for the Rice Street Community Garden in Brevard, NC (pictured above). Following that we spent 3 days paddling Section 10 of the French Broad River (20 miles). After that all we had left was a morning of climbing on an Alpine Tower, an afternoon of student solo reflection time, and a fire watch. The fire watch is a cool challenge rooted in OB history where the crew must stay up all night to keep a fire alive. It mimics keeping a lighthouse operating all night for sailors, which is what some of the the earliest Outward Bound students did at schools founded by Kurt Hahn. It is a challenge in compassion (compassion in the form of service; in the fire watch's original days, keeping a lighthouse operational 24/7 was an act of community service) as well as a challenge in craftsmanship (fire building and tending). What is the point of making a crew get extremely sleep deprived before an action packed course end day? Quick switch up; read the following explanation of Outdoor Experiential Education. This is called the Outward Bound Process Model (Walsh & Golins, 1976).
To cycle back; where does a fire watch fit in? It's just one of those incremental problem solving tasks, to top off a week filled to the brim with them. Plus its fun, I love both building and tending fires as well as the conversation that happens around them. But the fire watch was a challenge, and through it hopefully the students saw another glimpse of what they are really capable of doing. In the words of Outward Bound founder Kurt Hahn, "There is more in us than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps for the rest of our lives we will be unwilling to settle for anything less." I said the week was filled to the brim with these tasks. What does that look like for my crew and for me? For the crew it's everything from the micro tasks like cooking meals, filtering water, and setting up tarps, to macro course accomplishments like physically and emotionally supporting each other over 3rd and 4th class terrain to the summit of a mountain. Where do I play in all of this? At my core I am a facilitator. From the Latin word "facilis" which means "easy", Outward Bound Instructors are like the emcee of a life process if that makes any sense. I have to wear many hats, but generally my role starts out super involved in the beginning of a course and slowly evolves to a mentorship role. The terminology we use calls this progression "teaching, coaching, then finally mentoring". This fits into our "Training, Main, Final (TMF) progression by which we develop our courses. In Training I am role modeling how to combat many of these incremental problem solving tasks (wearing my bug protection layers, packing up my pack on time) as well as teaching technical skills (here's how you light a stove) and delivering plans for the day (okay team let's clean up breakfast and get ready to hike). During Main and Final, the students know the technical skills and have learned tools for decision making and conflict resolution, so I pull back a bit and watch the group process unfold. It can look an infinite number of different ways, which is part of why it's so hard to explain. My job is never the same any two days, but generally, I am facilitating this group process as well as providing challenges and reflection opportunities for the crew to learn and grow from. If I wanted to crush the coolest 3rd an 4th class terrain in the world I would not be at the North Carolina Outward Bound School. But if I wanted a (literal) boots on the ground experiential education about experiential education (meta!) then I would be at NCOBS. Working for NCOBS is being the experience and adventure of my dreams. The outdoor rec activities themselves are fun and engaging, moreover the experiential education is just ROCKIN! Experiential education is explained simply by the Experiential Learning Theory (Kolb, 1984). It's key to mention that while on course, this "learning from the experience" is largely regarding the self. The students undergo self-growth, and so do I. So that is the long winded explanation of how my summer is going. I am learning so much and feel like I'm ascending and it's all only just started. I really love my job and my new life. I feel so fortunate to have found my life passion. To tie this up, I can't help but point out that going through the mental processing to type up this blog post was reflection for me regarding my summer, therefore increasing my learning. Learning from experiential education by explaining experiential education... meta... again.
Final note- apology for no photos once again, I receive photos weeks after a course ends. At some point in the summer or fall I'll dump some media on you. But for now it's just me nerding out over education. Here's a photo of me weeding to close this out. |
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