Brian Wattchow

Slow pedagogy and placing education in post-traditional outdoor education

Time, and our experiences of it, warrants attention in ‘place’ pedagogies in outdoor education. Place typically involves the experience of a geographical location, a locale for interacting socially and/or with nature, and the subjective meanings we attach over time to the experience. Place, however, cannot be severed from the concept and practice of time, as seems to be occurring in the discourse of outdoor education. The way outdoor educators carefully conceive of, plan for, manage and pedagogically practice time may, in our view, positively facilitate an introductory ‘sense’ of place. We illustrate the under-theorised relationship of time and place in outdoor and experiential education via a case study of a semester-long undergraduate unit, Experiencing the Australian Landscape. It reflexively describes how two post-traditional outdoor educators working in the higher education sector have assisted pre-service experiential and outdoor educators to sense, explore, conceptualise and examine how ‘slow’ time is important in ‘placing’ education in nature.

Moving on an effortless journey: Paddling, river-places and outdoor education

In an earlier paper I discussed the major findings of a recent research study into participants’ experiences of rivers through outdoor education programs that utilised paddling activities as a means of participation and travel (Wattchow, 2007). I concluded that recollections of their river experiences were dominated by the technical requirements of the activity and the cultural expectations for encountering a universalised wild river, and that such responses were problematic for the development of place-responsiveness. This paper presents and discusses additional findings of the research that suggest greater possibilities for a place-based approach to the encounter of rivers through outdoor education paddling programs. Most participants in the research responded favourably, in terms of place, to calm sections of rivers where they felt little threat to their physical well-being. Participants’ responses to these encounters continued to suggest a complex mix of cultural ideas from the Romantic wild river (as discussed in the earlier paper) to include the ideal of nature as a refuge from civilisation. However, there were also participant statements that were interpreted as indicative of an intimate, sensory and an embodied response to the river place itself. I conclude the paper by presenting a series of suggestions for a river-place responsive pedagogy in outdoor education.

Playing with an Unstoppable Force: Paddling, River-Places and Outdoor Education

This paper presents the findings of a recent research study into participants’ experiences of rivers through outdoor education programs that utilised paddling activities as a means of participation and travel. The study collected written and oral data from 64 participants from three undergraduate Australian university outdoor education degree courses. The major findings of the research are presented and discussed here, revealing how the participants’ recollections of their experiences were dominated by the technical requirements of the activity and the cultural expectations for encountering a wild river. The paper concludes that such responses continue to be problematic for outdoor educators who hope to extend, or replace, the traditional personal and social development aims of outdoor education with a more place-responsive pedagogy.

A Pedagogy Of Production: Craft, Technology And Outdoor Education

In this paper I discuss issues concerning pedagogical practice and inquiry in Outdoor Education raised by recognition that the human body inhabits a ‘technological lifeworld’. The intent is to challenge certain assumptions regarding interpretations of ‘experience’, the ‘environment’ and ‘the body’ in Outdoor Education practice. The theory and practice of Outdoor Education recognises that knowing becomes embodied through action. This process is often aided by pre-action focussing and post-action reflection. I argue that the stated educational goals of many Outdoor Education programs are made vulnerable due to the ‘hidden work’ of technologies encountered and inattention to the significance of technology in experience. The approach employed in this paper is to relate a brief overview of philosophical inquiry into technology and the body to the discussion of two exhibits (a spoon and a three-legged stool), both objects crafted by secondary school students as a part of their outdoor and environmental education. I conclude that human and environmental well being cannot be separated in the ‘technological lifeworld’ that humans are destined to inhabit, and that Outdoor Education must sustain a broad range of technologically mediated experiences of the environment through, with and in the body.

The socioecological educator : a 21st Century renewal of physical, health, environment and outdoor education

1. Starting with stories: The power of socio-ecological narrative.-2. Social ecology as education.-3. Becoming a socio-ecological educator.- 4. The ambitions, processes and politics of socio-ecological curriculum reform: An Aotearoa-New Zealand case study.- 5. Through coaching: Examining sports coaching using a socio-ecological framework.- 6. Through community: Connecting classrooms to community.-7. Through belonging: An early childhood perspective from a New Zealand preschool.-8. Through adventure education: Using the socio-ecological model in adventure education to solve environmental problems.-9. Through school: Ecologising schooling - a tale of two educators.-10. Outdoor education on Scotlands River Spey: A sense of place.-11. Through Physical Education: What teachers know and understand about childrens movement experiences.-12. Conclusions and future directions: A socio-ecological renewal.

The water of life: creative non-fiction and lived experience on an interdisciplinary canoe journey on Scotland's River Spey

This paper focuses on an educational encounter between staff, students and the River Spey, Scotland in September 2009. The themes of water and embodied and culturally constructed ways of knowing the river were used to inform a creative non-fiction narrative that was drafted during and shortly after the journey, and was later refined. Textual descriptions of both significant and seemingly mundane aspects of the experience were built up through observation, discussion and reflection upon actual events as the authors ‘sought a solution’ to writing a narrative-based representation of the experience. This process endeavours to represent an ‘insiders’ view of the experience through descriptions that strive to portray the ‘meaning, structure and essence of the lived experience[s]’ for a particular group of people at a particular moment in time. We propose that this kind of storytelling has the potential to represent important elements of outdoor educational experiences and the places where they occur that would be difficult to relay in other forms of research writing. The paper is presented in three parts: setting the scene; the textual representation of the Spey descent programme; and participants’ evaluations and summary.

Through Outdoor Education: A Sense of Place on Scotland’s River Spey

Outdoor education is often thought of as a series of adventurous activities or journeys through wild countryside, where the purpose is to build character, work on group development or to develop leadership capacity in young people. However, in recent years these dominant approaches have been challenged and it has been suggested that they tend to treat the outdoor environment as little more than a venue for human action – as an arena or a testing ground. There has been a notable shift towards considering the development of sustainable environmental relationships as a program focus and learning outcome in outdoor education. But there are few descriptions of what this actually means in practice. In this chapter we build on the theoretical discussions established in Chaps. 2 and 3 and describe an outdoor education program that is much more attuned to socio-ecological principles and where developing a sense of place is considered a pedagogical imperative. The story that follows details an educational encounter between staff, students, tourists, locals and the River Spey in Scotland.

Becoming a Socio-ecological Educator

Acknowledging the multi-layered nature of a socio-ecological frame, this chapter highlights explicitly how to develop socio-ecological understandings and practices in educational contexts. We begin by providing a series of vignettes based on practice. These vignettes serve to disturb assumptions that researchers and practitioners bring to physical, health, environmental or outdoor education and, in doing so, open a reflective door for research on practice. The foundational concepts introduced in Chap. 2: (a) lived experience, (b) place, (c) experiential pedagogies and (d) agency and participation, are discussed in relation to these vignettes to continue to develop them more fully, particularly how they might work in concert rather than as separate entities. We have argued that a socio-ecological approach provides a mechanism through which educators and researchers can acknowledge the relationships between the personal, social and environmental layers of social ecologies and these are explored further in the following vignettes.

Outdoor Leadership: Theory and Practice

Martin, B., Cashel, C., Wagstaff, M., & Breunig, M. (2006). Outdoor leadership: Theory and practice. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 328 pages, ISBN: 0736057315. I have a number of books on my shelves about outdoor leadership. They range from the now dated classic Freedom of the Hills (1974), which fired my young imagination in its depictions of the rigorous demands and responsibilities of venturing into the frozen mountains as a leader of other adventurous souls, to Bushwalking and Mountaincraft Leadership (1994), which remains a treasure trove of practical and local advice. Some books age gracefully. There is also the weighty and theoretical Effective Leadership in Adventure Programming (Priest and Gass, 1997) and the experientially based and narratively driven Outdoor Leadership: Technique, Common Sense and Self-Confidence (Graham, 1997). Each of these books reflect their times, cultures and vary in their intended audiences. It is possible to chart a trend from the days when outdoor leadership was largely the concern of community clubs and volunteer leaders to the present when, more and more, it has become the domain of an emerging profession of qualified leaders who have to access certification programs and tertiary education degrees (in outdoor recreation management, adventure leadership, camp counselling, outdoor education and so on). From this small sample of the many books and guides published on the topic it is also possible to detect a persistent tension in the relationship between theory and practice. Do we learn to be outdoor leaders by doing it or through studying the theories that attempt to explain it? Can the theory and practice of outdoor leadership be brought into a closer nexus where we gain maximum benefit from reflecting (theorising) upon our practical experiences and then using those theories to anticipate the demands of future experiences? A recent addition to my library, Outdoor Leadership: Theory and Practice (Martin, Cashel, Wagstaff, and Breunig, 2006 In reviewing this new book on the topic I posed a number of questions to myself: how do the authors deal with the relationship between the practice of outdoor leadership on the one hand and theoretical perspectives on the other; how does the book engage with its anticipated audience of students taking introductory college [undergraduate] courses in outdoor leadership (Martin et al., 2006, p. ix), and; finally, how might the book also serve a broader audience of practicing outdoor leaders (whether they be teachers, club leaders etc.)? Incidentally, the authors all work within the tertiary education sector in North America. Outdoor Leadership: Theory and Practice (2006) introduces eight core competencies of outdoor leadership (foundational knowledge, self-awareness and professional conduct, decision making and judgement, teaching and facilitation, environmental stewardship, program management, safety and risk management, technical ability). The authors use a system of codes to map these core competencies across the text. The book is then presented in four parts: Part I - Foundations of Outdoor Leadership, Part II - Outdoor Leadership Theory, Part III - Teaching and Facilitation, and Part IV - Resource and Program Management. Each part is presented in a series of chapters. Each chapter opens by defining key concepts and reminding the reader of the core competencies that relate to the chapter content. It then begins with a vignette that takes the reader into the world of the novice or emerging outdoor leader. These narratives portray a practical experience (like debriefing a ropes course session or learning from co-leading with a more experienced leader) or the need to make a professional decision (such as deciding upon a particular sea kayak route in changeable conditions or facing an ethical dilemma). The presentation of the chapter then works to solve or inform these practical scenarios through reference to established theory, research and wellwritten discussion. …

The Mirror of the Sea: Narrative Identity, Sea Kayak Adventuring and Implications for Outdoor Adventure Education.

This paper explores the complex and changing nature of adventure as a form of cultural practice. Borrowing from Joseph Conrad’s memoirs The Mirror of The Sea (1907), sea kayaking is contextualized here as a journey that takes place just as much between ‘landfall and departure’ as it does between the paddler’s ears (i.e., in the paddler’s mind). That is to say, to gain useful insights into the experience of sea kayaking it is necessary to consider both the external and internal journey of the paddler, and the relationship that exists between these two phenomena. Using tenets of personality psychology which presents new ways of understanding narrative identity, we will ‘waymark’ textual vignettes from four modern day sea kayaking adventure narratives to explore ideas of self, narrative identity and meaning making. These key passages aim to reveal how the adventurer’s story is influenced by “external factors that shape the public expression of stories about the self” (McAdams & McLean, 2013, p. 233). Summary discussion will address potential implications for contemporary outdoor adventure education, offering a way of stimulating reflective practice about the culturally and textually constructed nature of adventure.