CREATING COMMUNITY,
BUILDING a MOVEMENT
AEE Annual International Conference
Kurt Hahn Address
November 1, 2013
Why is it that experiential
education is not the norm?
How do we change this?
FOUNDATIONS
LOOKING BACK
Parker Palmer: author,
educator, and activist
“We teach who we are.”
“Good teaching cannot be reduced to
technique; good teaching comes from the
identity and integrity of the teacher.”
TAKING STOCK
TODAY’S LANDSCAPE
Philosophy of
Experiential Education
Cooperative Education
Experience Based
Training and
Development
Wilderness Education
Project Based Learning
Simulations
Expeditionary Learning
Adventure Education
Problem Based Learning
Adventure Based
Counseling
Inquiry
Internships
Art, Play, Music, Drama
& related Therapies
Equine Assisted Therapy
Environmental
Education
Service Learning
Adventure/Challenge
Education
And more…
• HISTORY AND STRUCTURE
• POWER AND CONTROL
James Baldwin: Novelist,
essayist, playwright, poet, and
social critic
"The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a
person the ability to look at the world for themselves,
to make their own decisions, to say this is black or this
is white, to decide whether there is a god in heaven or
not. To ask questions of the universe, and then to learn
to live with those questions, is the way a person
achieves identity.”
James Baldwin: Novelist,
essayist, playwright, poet, and
social critic
"But no society is really anxious to have that kind of
person around. What societies really, ideally want is a
citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society."
• HISTORY AND STRUCTURE
• POWER AND CONTROL
• MYSTIFICATION
Maxine Greene, educational
philosopher, author, social
activist, and teacher
“… we are bombarded with messages about
“what is”and what “ought to be.” [This is a] …
“mystification or ‘surface reality,’ that many
people take for granted as objectively true.”
"Many of those personal qualities that
we hold dear—resilience and courage in
the face of stress, a sense of craft in our
work, a commitment to justice and
caring in our social relationships, a
dedication to advancing the public good
in communal life—are exceedingly
difficult to assess. And so, unfortunately, we are apt to
measure what we can, and eventually come to value
what is measured over what is unmeasured. The shift is
subtle and occurs gradually.”
From: Alexander, L. & James, H.T. (1987) The Nation’s Report
Card: Improving the assessment of student Achievement.
Washington, DC: National Academy of Education.
“To have as our educational goal, the
production of caring, competent, loving, and
loveable people is not anti-intellectual. Rather
it demonstrates respect for the full range of
human talents.”
Nel Noddings: feminist,
educationalist, philosopher
Maxine Greene: educational
philosopher, author, social
activist, and teacher
“To transcend the effects of mystification, it is
necessary to wake up to the world and start
seeing it from a variety of vantage points
Humans have the unique “capacity to surpass
the given and look at things as if they could be
otherwise.”
• HISTORY AND STRUCTURE
• POWER AND CONTROL
• MYSTIFICATION
• OURSELVES
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Adventure Cycling Association
Adventure Travel Trade
Association (ATTA)
America Outdoors Association
(AOA)
American Alliance for Health,
Physical Education, Recreation
and Dance (AAPHERD)
American Art Therapy
Association (AATA)
American Camp Association
(ACA)
American Dance Therapy
Association (ADTA)
American Education Research
Association (AERA)
American Society for
Engineering Education (ASEE)
Cooperative and Experiential
Education Division (CEED)
Association for Challenge
Course Technology (ACCT)
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Independent Schools
Experiential Education Network
(ISEEN)
International Association for
Professional Wilderness-, openand swiftwater-, and Mountain
Guides
International Art Therapy
Organization (IATO)
International Association for
Research on Service Learning
and Community Engagement
(IARSLCE)
International Experiential
Dynamic Therapy Association
(IEDTA)
International Expressive Arts
Therapy Association (IEATA)
Minnesota Association for
Experiential Learning (MAFEL)
National Society for Experiential
Education
New York State Cooperative
MOVING FORWARD
BUILDING AN EXPERIENTIAL
EDUCATION MOVEMENT TOGETHER
MOVEMENT: A group of
people working together to
advance their shared
political, social, or artistic
ideas
Ideas on How to Build a
Movement
1. Believe in ourselves
“Perseverance is the hard work you
do after you get tired of doing the
hard work you already did.”
~ Newt Gingrich
Ideas on How to Build a
Movement
1. Believe in ourselves
2. Know yourself
- Intentionality
What is your ethos?
What are your principles?
What do you stand for?
“People and environments are never
neutral, they are either summoning
or shunning the development of
human potential.”
Purkey & Novak, Inviting School Success
See Invitational Education at
www.invitationaleducation.net
“It was so much fun! I got shot in the leg
and died of massive blood loss!"
- Participant, Age 10, in simulation of U.S. Civil
War battle
Just because we do something does not mean that it is
educative. Without intentionality it could just as
easily be miseducative.
Karen Park Koenig, www.rethinkingschools.org, vol. 23 (2009)
Linda Oakleaf: Benedict
College, Health, Physical
Education and Recreation,
Faculty
Ideas on How to Build a
Movement
1. Believe in yourself
2. Know yourself
- Intentionality
- Walk our talk AND talk our walk
Ideas on How to Build a
Movement
1. Believe in yourself
2. Know yourself
3. Meet people where they’re at
- Resist “us” and “them” thinking
- Patience
GRIT
Defined as “perseverance and passion for
long-term goals”
~(2007, Duckworth, Peterson, Dennis, & Kelly).
Angela Lee Duckworth:
teacher, psychologist,
associate professor, and Grit
researcher
"I regard it as the foremost task of education to
insure the survival of these qualities: • an
enterprising curiosity, • an undefeatable spirit, •
tenacity in pursuit, • readiness for sensible selfdenial, • and, above all, compassion."
~ Kurt Hahn
Ideas on How to Build a
Movement
1. Believe in yourself
2. Know yourself
3. Meet people where they’re at
4. Build it one at a time
Ideas on How to Build a
Movement
1. Believe in yourself
2. Know yourself
3. Meet people where they’re at
4. Build it one at a time
5. Build it together
Kurt Hahn’s Legacy
Salem aims to … introduce [students] to a
lifelong sense of respect for the individual,
responsibility to the community and an
awareness of the importance of the
democratic process in sustaining both.
Outward Bound: Our mission is to change
lives through challenge and discovery
Gordonstoun prepares each student through
learning by diverse experience for a full and
active role as an international citizen in a
changing world"
UWC makes education a force to unite people,
nations and cultures for peace and a
sustainable future
The vision of the Association for Experiential
Education is to contribute to making a more
just and compassionate world by transforming
education.
Eduardo Galeano: Uruguayan
journalist, writer and novelist
Utopia lies at the horizon.
When I draw nearer by two steps, It retreats two steps.
If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps
ahead.
No matter how far I go, I can never reach it.
What, then, is the purpose of utopia?
It is to cause us to advance.