CAN THE MOUNTAINS
SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES?
James Neill
University of New Hampshire, USA, 2002
James.neill@unh.edu
Outline
Summary of James’ paper
» Mountains vs. Facilitation
 Workshop & Group Presentations
 Take-home Points
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Where is Your Preference?
(ideal program for you as a leader…where do you feel most comfortable?)
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Mountains
Facilitation
Summary of James’ paper
Thomas James (1980) issue paper for COBS:
“Can the Mountains Speak for Themselves?”
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Distinguished between 2 basic ways of leading OE
experiences:
1: Letting experience speak
2: Debrief/Processing
<---------------------------------------------------------------------->
Mountains
Facilitation
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a ‘defining tension’ in OE leadership
a dilemma that is continually in the minds of
instructors:
“Should I let that experience go,
allowing participants to make their own learning,
or should I try to use my skills and observations
to facilitate participants’ reflection
and analysis of the experience?”
Can the Mountains Speak for Themselves?
Thomas James (1980)
 Rustie
Baillie: “Let the mountains speak
for themselves”
 1960s: counselling techniques
introduced to control group processes
 Ongoing debate about how to best
facilitate OE groups
THE MOUNTAINS
James (1980): Mountains
The mountains argument suggests that if we
have:
 A good course structure, e.g. Outward Bound Standard
Course
Safe, professional, inspiring leadership
we are likely to have an impressive OE program.

James (1980): Mountains
Argues for the inherent power in nature, good
programs, adventure activities, and human
growth orientation, effective leadership.
Key elements of ‘mountains speaking for themselves’:
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Nature
Program
Adventure activities
Human growth orientation
Effective leadership
Nature
‘Nature has an inherently positive effect’. Fits
with:
 Nature philosophers
 Mountaineers
 Indigenous view
 ‘Simple OE’
Program

Tried and true course structures provide good
experiences:
“The rappel works;
the expedition teaches;
solo asks the questions that need to be asked”

» e.g., Outward Bound Standard Course
“Life of action is often composed of mental
activity of the most significant kind.”
Adventure Activities
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‘OE activities inherently demand a high
degree of consciousness and self-scrutiny’
Real, immediate experience
Action-consequence
Orientation to Growth

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Learning occurs naturally
Allow ‘pure’ experience
Humans move naturally towards personal
growth (e.g., Maslow, Rogers, May, etc.)
Effective Leadership
Creates a:
 safe
 supportive
 challenging
series of adventure learning opportunities
FACILITATION
James (1980): Facilitation
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Verbalization/reflection in addition to action
Dewey: learning = thinking about experience
Generalisation/transfer of learning
Facilitation can be subtle acts or comments
which help guide participants to valuable selfreflections
Crucial to maintain authenticity of experience
James (1980): Facilitation

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Candice Chrislip: helping students “to isolate
a particular success on the course, to identify
the process they went through, and to make
this success available to them as a future
resource.”
Be wary of expecting too much of a program
and perhaps we should stick with what we do
best - leading people in extraordinary outdoor
adventures
WORKSHOP
Key Questions
Do you accept Thomas James’
mountains vs. facilitation continuum?
Perhaps there are better models that
could better organize those concepts.
 For example, most OErs are
uncomfortable placing themselves at a
single point on the continuum, so how
could greater ‘flexibility’ be introduced?
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Take-home points:
» understand your personal orientation
» understand the range of others’ orientations
» develop flexibility in instructional style (build
complementary skills)
» develop expertise in preferred direction
» participants will have their own individual
orientations!
» this issue forms the basis of understanding
more recent developments of facilitation
techniques in OE (e.g., see Gass)
MORE NOTES for Presenter
- Mountains -
letting the experience speak for itself
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not for the leader to impose or prescribe private, individual learnings and
experience
focuses responsibility on participant
does not endorse ‘chuck them out there and see’ policy, since instructor
sophistication is indicated by careful setting up of program, program design,
activity sequence, pace of program, and group management
May suit certain clients/cultures more than other cultures, e.g. males?
adolescents? intellectually challenged? taciturn cultures?
May not achieve maximum possible program effects by not employing
facilitation techniques; although it could be argued that totally self-derived
learnings may be more powerful than facilitated learnings?
May lend itself better to achieving recreational type goals than higher-level
therapeutic goals
minimalist
nb. culture comment in Priest & Gass book
- Facilitation -
guiding reflecting about the experience
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centers an emphasis on instructor-facilitation of participants’ learning and
experience
seeks to harness power of self-reflection, self-analysis, expression of thoughts,
sharing of insights, etc. to develop and ‘lock-in’ new understandings about self
and group
instructor must observe and guiding reflective facilitation processes following
experiences
may not maximise the inherent value of nature, adventure and group processes
May suit certain clients/cultures more than other cultures, e.g. females? adults?
intellectual? gregarian cultures?
May enhance the outcomes through this ‘plus’ model - insights which might
otherwise not have been achieved are likely to be created
May be most effectively applied to achieving educational and therapeutic goals;
may be of relatively less use in achieving recreational type goals
some reflection is always going to be present even in the purest ‘mountains’
program. it is virtually impossible to rid oneself of constant analysis and
reflection. (this is partly why we can say that human nature is oriented towards
improving constantly improving oneself)
Comments: Overall
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ref James re both methods effective
v. limited research comparing techniques (cite Priest study)
propose DNA metaphor to solve continuum
draw on board
Hattie, J.A. (1992):
“it does appear that the more cognitive oriented [self-concept
change] programs have substantial effects, than the affectively
oriented programs on self-concept” (p.226)
We need the tension maintained to continue furthering the
development of effectiveness in programming at both ends of the
continuum. We need the tension from both ends to balance the
‘product’ in the middle. See Sufi quote.