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T.E.A.M. Year in Review. Roll the Dice with Special Needs Students. |
I've learned many things on my journey as an educator and teacher. I grew up in traditional schools and went to a traditional university, where I learned how to teach from traditional professors teaching traditional methods. I learned that my job was to control students. Not only was I unhappy, but my students were unhappy with school, with each other, and with me. It was not fun. Then I got bit. Adventure and experiential education grabbed me. For the first time I realized that this traditional box was not my box. This thing called "adventure" gets inside of you, doesn't it? Over the years, layers of defenses continue to peel off as I allow myself to open up to new learning. Here are a few things I've learned along the way: * Learning is everywhere, and can be gleaned from anyone at anyplace at any time - if I can remain open to it. Many times the learning is accompanied with a humbling experience. Here are two examples: After building our big outdoor ropes course, we organized all of our gear into separate bags - one per element. Every day I would take these bags and hang them from my arms, walk around the course and drop them at the bottom of the trees. At the end of the day I would pack them up, hang them from my arms and haul them back to the storage box. I did this for four (yes 4) years. One day a group of 4th graders stayed a little later and were helping me clean up. As I was draping the bags on my arms a little one looks at me and says, "Why don't you use the wheelbarrow?" Another story involved the Pamper Pole, where participants are asked to adorn climbing gear (helmet, harness), attach to a climbing rope where a belayer (trained rope holder) keeps them safe as they climb up a pole and attempt to jump off and catch a trapeze or hit an object such as a bell. I was belaying the element, and this petite girl was ready to climb. Then she got cold feet and decided not to go up. Now I knew that if she could just make herself do this she would feel so good about herself. So, I proceeded to talk her up the pole and talk her into jumping off. When she got back down, she did one of the most courageous things, considering the power differential - me, the adult, teacher, belayer, and her, the child, student, and climbing novice. This little girl came up to me and said, "Why did you do that? I didn't need to do that." And she was absolutely right. I needed her to do it. It was all about me. I consider what she gave me a great gift - from that moment on I started on a path to become a facilitator of experience rather than a manipulator of experience. * Fear occurs before the action. I, too, have stood on the Pamper Pole, on the Zip Line Platform, on the cliff's edge, and in the mouth of many caves. These experiences have helped me to realize that the fear is most paralyzing before the commitment to act. Once the commitment is made and movement starts, the fear dissapates. How we arrive at the action point is a personal process that requires insight, courage, and support. * The people and the process are at least as important as the product and the task. This is not an either - or proposition, but a case of both - and. We need a balance between process and product in order to feel what we do has connection and value. * Having fun is the glue that holds it all together. Without fun, anything can become tedious and boring. * Challenge by Choice is more than a theory or a tool, and can pave the way for true empowerment. 15 years ago I worked with a 5th grade class for a full year. I would come in once a week and we would spend time working on our group process and building classroom community. There was a girl in the class who was labeled as "selective mute," which meant that she did not talk at school. She would talk everywhere else in her life, but never at school. This had been her pattern since kindergarten. At the beginning of the process I had a private talk with this youngster, and told her that she had the option of how she wanted to participate. Over time, she would participate in some activities, and not in others. I never did see a pattern in her choices, but the system worked for us. In the spring, we decided to go to the school district ropes course. In the morning we did a trust fall from height. She really wanted to do this, but needed a way to communicate so that the class who was waiting to catch her as she fell backwards was ready. Other students decided to help by having someone stand on the platform with her, and be her voice. She fell back, we caught her, and all was well. Later that day, we did some high elements. She really wanted to do the two-line bridge, where she was required to put on climbing gear, go on belay, and climb up to cables about 25 feet in the air. She suited up, clipped into the rope, looked at the belayer and said, "Ready." The whole world stopped as everyone realized what had just happened. No one said a word, except the belayer who said, "Ready." She said, "Climbing," and the belayer replied with, "Climb on. She went through the climb, and from that day on she talked in school. There is no
way to know exactly how or why she found her voice that day, except to
say that she was, quite simply, "ready." Challenge by Choice played
out in a powerful and humbling manner that day.
What we do is magical, powerful, good for the spirit and the soul because it's more than standards, more than outcomes, and more than test scores. We, as adventure and experiential educators are a key to transforming education because we offer hope, optimism, authenticity, and positive energy. As Gil Scot Heron says, "This revolution will not be televised." Each of us is a change agent within our spheres of influence. To do this we have to be articulate about what we do and why we do it. We must be able to interpret our actions, because what we do is magical, but it is not magic. It is not enough to walk the talk - we must also talk the walk. Our passion must be translated into intentional action. Everything we say and do with students has to emanate from our core beliefs and philosophies of inclusion, empowerment, and growth. Fun must continue to be part of the equation. It's the element of fun that will provide the energy to keep us all going, and, ultimately, transform our system. Again, each of us is a change agent. In Inviting School Success, Purkey and Novak say it well: "Education is fundamentally an imaginative act of hope." We are the ones who will make this happen, and we are not alone. Our allies are everywhere. In closing, Dan made a comment in passing that singing would be permitted, so here is something I learned from Moon Joyce that we can sing together: You can feel
the spirit
Thank you. You can contact
Laurie at:
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