Frustration may be the least of the emotions one feels when looking at the public educational system in much of the United States . Once a founding concept of the New World , free and quality education for all , is deteriorating into a developed-nation minimum standard. Quality curriculum, no not quality for there are many curriculum delivered with quality, rather diverse curriculum is quickly becoming a famous anecdote revisited by the baby-boom generation who talk of gymnastics, driver's education, art classes, shop classes, advanced placement programs with access to materials , etc. Just like grandpa telling how he walked to school 10-miles in the snow, up hill both ways. Why and how the deterioration is happening is open to debate, to which we're not engaging. What we can do to help offset the loss and the benefits we can offer our children or grandchildren follows.
Debasing the education of our children to core subjects (English, math, history, science), creating a standard test to measure each student, teacher, school and school district and creating punitive actions based on those test results has helped lead the US educational system into poor performance. Learning has taken a back seat to teaching-to-the-test wherein teachers and administrators are working more on not failing the measuring stick, than they are about the students achieving success in the classroom.
Not so long ago, when I was in elementary school, the school had school supplies ! Now, many parents are greeted by their child's first day of school with an entire list of supplies each child is supposed to donate to the classroom as well as a wish list of other items the teacher would like in order to teach that year.
Schools, apparently hurting for money, are cutting programs from the education experience. In California , no longer will your child learn driver's education in a driver's education class or the classic home economics/cooking class, they don't exist. Now, one must hire outside of the school. Most schools do not offer a gymnastics team any longer. Of course, there is a whole host of classes no longer offered.
Art courses, school sports, school clubs and organizations are falling by the wayside. This is the collective-parents' fault ultimately. We trusted our representatives to represent us and to defend what's important to our children while we tarried away at our jobs trying to make ends meet. We can change the course for the positive again but it will take massive collective efforts. Fear not, for there are organizations out there that can help us now, help us offset some of the lost opportunities for our children to gain life skills not just core academics: unfortunately, we have to take care of this on a personal level, each taking care of our own while we work to repair the whole.
Enter the outdoor education programs focusing on experiential education. There are schools around the country, especially private schools, which understand the value in this type of learning and environment, thus support the curriculum, and enthusiastically share this with their students. If you're like most of us, private schools are not in the annual household budget.
Therefore, we must look to programs we can enroll our kids once a year or so, the summer camp.
Experiential outdoor education programs help in a great many ways, here are a few main points of impact this type of education will have on a student:
1. An environmental / ecological awareness.
2. Physical challenge and accomplishment positive for both the physical and emotional well-being.
3. Self-awareness / empowerment
4. Interpersonal relations, communication and leadership skills.
5. Socialization and community development.
There are many studies on environmental-, experiential-, outdoor-education and all those researched for this commentary, tout the benefits of this type of exposure. Reciprocally, they speak to what a child misses when this experience is pulled from their reach, from their opportunity to sample the experience. What is commonly difficult in the research is delivering the results. Overwhelmingly the results are anecdotal; as it's each person's response to the experience, we're interested. This is not easily explained by predictable measuring devices i.e., tests. We know if we teach a child basic addition and then test the child on 2+2 and the child responds with 4, the teaching was a success; the result is measurable and it can be repeated over and over. With experiential education, it's difficult to give clear, concrete results.
This is one of the reasons we lose these programs and experiences from our schools. When the budget crisis is on, it's very difficult to defend cutting the chemistry class but the school garden center is only viewed as a cost and its benefits not defended.
If nothing else, we should all agree, having a children who are aware of themselves and the world in which they live, have a belief in their physical ability to achieve, are self aware and strong enough to defend the safety of their person in an ever violent world, are able to communicate effectively and confidently as well as have a sense of responsibility and understanding of groups and their interpersonal dynamics is a very positive endeavor. Look to an outdoor, adventure camp for your child this and in the upcoming summers of their adolescence.
This was part I of II. A look into outdoor / experiential / environmental education. Part II will delve further into each of the 5-benefits above and provide hands on examples of positive changes made in the lives of summer campers.
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