Experiential Educators...Is that what we are?

Occasionally I am alerted to great ideas that impact on the work we do here at Manito-wish or, maybe more importantly, cause us to think deeper about why we do this work at all and what all means. I recently was told about a great little article by Manito-wish friend Tom Lindblade. Tom has been around this industry long enough to have heard it all--the good, the bad and the ugly. His blog entry Concious Use of Metaphor or Thinking Outside of the Experiential Box has some interesting perspectives and it does challenge some conventional thinking (something I think we need to do a lot).

Without going tremendously into detail, Tom asks a question I have heard for years: Why isn't experiential education accepted in the mainstream here in the US? Is it for lack of supporting research? Is it because of a resistant mainstream educational system? The answer he gives to both of these questions is a resounding no. Research is clear on the effectiveness of experience based, hands-on education and is also very clear that "conventional" teaching methods such as lecture have limited effectiveness for many (if not most) students. As an industry we have also put a lot of energy towards evaluation and research on the effectiveness of the tools and processes we use. My reading on this is that we may certainly need continue to make sure that we are always using the best, most effective practices, however there is ample evidence that good programming has positive impacts on participants. We all see it every day.

Tom also mentions the fact that there has been tremendous success in building support at all educational levels for service learning and international education and internships. He even sites the early success of the "No Child Left Inside/Children in Nature Network." Clearly direct experience in the world has value as an educational process and many people in education see this value.

Tom ends his entry with a challenge that maybe "Experiential Education" is a poor way of naming this industry. His analogy is that it is a poor metaphor that doesn't meet established industry standards for effective use of a metaphor. He suggests that "Leadership" and "Challenge" have much more impact.

I agree to some extent. These terms do have impact and it certainly brings clients to the Camp Manito-wish Leadership Program. On the other hand I do feel that "Leadership" is a greatly misunderstood term in itself (more on this to follow). I even occasionally joke that this word, along with ill defined terms like "teamwork" be struck from the English language. While this is certainly a stretch, there is a point here worth considering. Leadership is a buzzword and is defined in so many ways by so many people that the meaning may be lost. At Manito-wish we choose to focus on collaborative leadership and make a clear distinction between between the uses and application of collaboration verses other methods of decision making. There will certainly be more on this topic to follow as well.

For the complete article by Tom Lindblade, you can find it here:

http://www.outdoored.com/Community/blogs/ofa1/archive/2008/12/08/conscious-use-of-metaphor-or-thinking-outside-of-the-experiential-box.aspx

Mark Zanoni