Moral and intellectual courage only comes from experience



"Moral and intellectual courage only comes from experience"
J. Darling

I just read a piece about 2 and 3 year olds cooking over a fire. Author Emma Conder summarized the essence of experiential education in one picture and about four paragraphs.

'Sam with his damper bread' Emma Conder

The simplicity of this strikes me. Yup, it's all there, the process of understanding, information transfer. The concrete experience and reflection stage is occurring simultaneously, this child is no doubt set for success to conceptualize this in the near future. Ms. Conder calls it 'ignighting minds'. 

Makes one curious how large school districts embrace this and at older ages. 'Bushcraft' and outdoor education experiences (most importantly overnight ones) almost entirely remain as extra-curricular activities and appear as enhancements to a schools program.

If a school/districts vision revolves around interacting with experiences and building better understandings with oneself and the world, one must argue this type of learning must be a priority, no matter the roadblocks.

It is really that simple, students require their minds to ignite. Kolb's 'recurring cycle' of reflection-application where one forms new concepts and hypotheses fits so perfectly in experiential situations in outdoor education. Or as the unreconstructed realist George Monbiot calls it: "civilization [slides] off as easily as a bathrobe".

I am hopeful the forest school model like Emma Conder co-coordinates can not only help to bolster ones development, it will be a key in our education pedagogies as we evolve with technology.

Image: Emma Conder via http://www.forestschoolsblog.com/2014/01/igniting-minds-filling-tummies.html
other posts like this:
 Teaching 'all living things are connected' (and not missing the point)
Where tech meets experiential ed. 
A quest for a recess like classroom

 

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