Experiential Education is About the Experience

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been interviewing wilderness/outdoors educators on their best practices for bringing teenagers into natural environments. In fact, I’m leaving today for a wild Wyoming weekend and another round of interviews.

As I was preparing for the upcoming trip, I’ve been reviewing footage of the previous interviews and reflecting on what I’ve heard. One quote in particular continues to circle back to the front of my mind. It goes something like this:

When you’re talking about experiential learning, .. the nature of experience is that it’s a kind of a trial, a testing, an experiment, in a sense. So you are experimenting with things. You are attempting things, and the whole concept of an experiment is that you’re not quite sure of the outcome. You can’t guarantee it, or it wouldn’t be an experience you are having.

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The context of that quote was of running a challenging whitewater rapid in a canoe. But it needn’t relate only to that. In fact, I think it’s every bit as relevant for parents in our everyday efforts to compel our kids outside and allow them to explore.

The easy solution is to be the helicopter parent we all tell ourselves we’re not. The more difficult choice — and the more rewarding one — is to send your children outside and then let your kids be kids. They tend to be pretty good at that. Let them — encourage them! — to explore, to experiment, and to test their own limits. Bruises and scratches rarely result in lasting harm. Even an occasional broken bone isn’t the end of the world. In fact, in some cases it may be the very beginning.

Image: Josh Thomas

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