Tools that Teach pt 3-Adventure!

It has been way too long since I last posted here. Moving to Colorado and getting into the running of the new camp has taken up a little more of my time than I anticipated. Well, enough of a hiatus, back to the Tools That Teach! When I last posted, we were talking about the work of David Sobel and Jon Young. Over the years the two of these wonderful writers and naturalists have spent a lot of time watching and learning from children playing in nature. In his book Childhood and Nature, David Sobel spells out 7 areas that children's play in nature have in common. Adventure is one of those characteristics that shows up in children's play. So that is part 3!

As experiential or non-formal educators, we often use Adventure as a key tool in our work. Low and high ropes courses rely on the sense of Adventure they can inspire to bring people to an emotional connection to the group process, as does rock climbing and other wilderness pursuits. And I want to look at how we can intentionally include Adventure into our work with groups.

 In many instances we have removed some of the Adventure out of programming because of either risk management concerns or to make things easier for our participants because we want them to succeed or their group leader wants them to succeed. And yet Adventure is one of the original components of using challenge or "adventure" education. There needs to be an element of the unknown, the potential to not succeed. In short, there needs to be some Adventure.

Now, Adventure does not mean that you need to have a 60' high Pamper Pole, multi-person Zip Line, or even the Wall Element. Adventure, does not need glitzy elements, it can be an attitude. As a facilitator with a group you can craft a sense of Adventure into your programming. For there to be some Adventure, there needs to be an unknown factor in the activity. That does not mean that you introduce a power play based on your position as the facilitator. It means that there should be option for not completing the activity or multiple outcomes depending on choices that the group can make. Adventure means there is some unknown factor.

Adventure should bring some excitement to the activity. For an example, years ago on a ropes course in New Hampshire we built a TP Shuffle at their waterfront and over the lake water. This was used with summer campers and we would brief the participants away from the activity and then divide the group into two. In this version each group started on one side and had to cross over to the other side while another member of the other group was also trying to cross at the same time. Well, you could imagine the look on the groups faces when they walked out of the woods to see the challenge before them. There was some Adventure, and the possibility of getting wet in the never too warm NH lake water. There were several roles to play in the various scenarios we created, so if someone really did not want to run the risk of falling in, we could work with that in a way that kept the person involved.

Adventure could be in the storyline of the activity, it could be in the tools the group has, it could be the level of challenges that the group could choose. Adventure has many levels. Remember that we want to keep people just outside of their comfort zones at times and into their learning zones, and keep the Adventure appropriate to keep them out of their panic zones. Play with your concepts of Adventure, and see what results you get. And remember that with children, sometimes just exploring choices can be a huge Adventure.

Until next time, keep doing amazing work changing the world one group at a time. You can leave comments here, or email me atasinglefootstep@gmail.com. And I have another blog which is nature activity based called What's Out There.