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The Ripple Effect is published by the Health & Physical Education Department, in co-operation with the College of Education, Northeastern Illinois University: Dr. Nan Giblin, Dean, College of Education |
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Our Mission Teachers of Experiential and Adventure Methodology (T.E.A.M.) is an organization dedicated to promoting and supporting the process of experiential and adventure based learning. Through the sharing of ideas, skills, and curricula, T.E.A.M. provides individuals and organizations in all fields of human and community service with personal and professonal growth opportunities. The annual conference and bi-annual Ripple Effect newsletter serve as a networking center for everyone seeking to learn about, start or enhance experiential and adventure programs. Newsletter
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Dear Friends and Colleagues, My relationship with T.E.A.M. can be best described as symbiotic. I was first learning about experiential education a year or two before T.E.A.M. came into existence. My own experiential program at McCracken Middle School in Skokie, Illinois began as a nine week course for 7th and 8th graders in the fall of 1990. The previous year we started our 5th grade outdoor experience with a three day trip to White Pines Ranch in Oregon, Illinois. Our first issue of the "The Ripple Effect" was published in the fall of 1991 and this is our 20th issue almost 10 years later. T.E.A.M. had its first conference in 1989 and by the time you get this newsletter we will have completed our 12th conference. I have been on the newsletter committee since the first issue and I have been on the conference planning committee since 1992. As you can see the two experiences had a simultaneous existence over the years with a lasting influence. This relationship brings me to the concept of the "Ripple Effect". I have learned much from working with a
dedicated and selfless group of individuals who gave of their time over
the past 12 years to put out the newsletter and a great experiential conference.
I learned from many of the presenters at the conference who shared their
knowledge freely with all who attended, and I learned from the articles
written for the newsletter. I shared my experiences and knowledge
learned with my students and colleagues with the hope that they would share
what they have learned with friends and family. "The Ripple
It is our hope at T.E.A.M. that in some way we have influenced you to be a "positive influence in the world". We hope you will choose to go out and influence those around you, and they will influence those around them. On a solo canoe trip in Canada a number of years ago I saw the ripple effect in action. It was just before sundown and the lake was a mirror of the sky. A few raindrops began to fall. Each drop sent out a ripple but because there were so few none of the ripples touched each other before their strength dissipated to stillness again. As the rain began to fall with more intensity I began to notice some of the ripples begin to reach others. As the rain became more intense I looked across the lake and realized that with so many raindrops every ripple on the lake was connected with others creating a tapestry of interconnected ripples. We at T.E.A.M. and all of you reading this are part of the "Ripple Effect". Together we can influence others with the hope that some day we will be like the ripples on the lake and become a tapestry of experiential and adventure based learning. Read "The Hundredth Monkey" in this issue for a different "Ripple Effect." Gus Pausz
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The Ripple EffectFirst, get your own life in order. Ground yourself in the single principle so that your behavior is wholesome and effective. If you do that, you will earn respect and be a powerful influence. Your behavior influences others through a ripple effect. A ripple effect works because everyone influences everyone else. Powerful people are powerful influences. If your life works, you influence your family. If your family works, your family influences the community. If your community works, your community influences the nation. If your nation works, your nation influences the world. If the world works, the ripple effect spreads throughout the cosmos. Remember that your influence begins with you and ripples outward. So be sure that your influence is both potent and wholesome. How do I know that this works? All growth spreads outward from a fertile and potent nucleus. You are a nucleus. |
QUOTABLES: --Karen Hall When I see an adult on a bicycle, I have
hope for the human race.
Laughing is the signal that you can dance into the eye of a hurricane. --Steve Allen, Jr. Service to others is the rent that you pay for your room here on earth. --Elijah Muhammad BEHOLD THIS DAY...IT IS YOURS TO MAKE. --Black Elk, Olgala Sioux Lakota No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley. Seneca the younger (57 BC-AD 65) "On Providence" Moral Essays My desires alone differ from those of others--for I value drawing nourishment from mother nature. --Lao Tzu When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. --Franklin D. Roosevelt I shall pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore I can do, or any kindness I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. --Stephen Grellet Judge not, then, the karmic path walked by another. Envy not success, nor pity failure, for you know not what is success or failure in the soul's reckoning. --author unknown |