Essay on the development of adventure education in physical education

Two major trends together have led to the development of adventure education in physical education. First, the idea that adventure activities particularly risk activities in the natural environment has potential for education and character development has grown consistently in educational philosophy throughout this century.

Second, public interest in outdoor recreation has increased substantially in the past several decades. Taken together, these two trends have made it possible for physical educators to conceptualize and implement an adventure- education curriculum within physical education.

Adventure education often includes areas such as wilderness sports and outdoor pursuits. Activities such as back-packing, kayaking, scuba diving and caving take place in natural environmental and often involve some risk.

Adventure education includes not only these natural activities but also activities created for specific educational purposes. Thus, a high-ropes course or an initiatives course is designed and built so that students can experience the challenge inherent in the design.

A high-ropes course is a series of obstacles that the student must overcome from 20 to 40 feet in the air, on ropes strung between trees in a wooded area. Although students are secured by a harness, there is no net through the ropes course.

In initiatives, 8 to 20 participants work together to solve an unusual task, such as how to get all members of a group over a 12-foot-high wall.

There are two sets of goals within adventure-education programs. The first set of goals is to gain skill, to participate safely, and to gain utmost satisfaction from participation for example, to ski well enough to do it safely and to be excited about doing it again and again.

These kinds of goals are quite traditional and are not unlike those in other physical-education curriculum model. A second set of goals, however, has more to do with problem solving, self-concept, and personal growth.

These goals are typically emphasized in the adventure portion of the program, in activities where obstacles are designed to produce some risk, with the assumption that the risk produces anxiety and stress for the participant.

When the participant learns to deal with the stress and to overcome the anxiety to solve the problem created by the obstacle, then personal growth is assumed to occur.

Because this is often done within the context of a group, the interactions among members of the group also become an important educational focus.

Although adventure-education curricula can be pursued at school for example, climbing walls in gyms or repelling down the outside wall of the school building they are more likely to take place away from the school.

Thus, adventure education sometimes involves travel away from school, an extended period of time together, the sharing of meals, and even overnight stays.

The group fosters a sense of involvement and intimacy that is almost impossible to recreate in a regular class period in a school gymnasium.

The purposes of adventure education show both the similarities to and differences from more traditional physical-education goals:

1. To learn outdoor sports skills and enjoy the satisfaction of competence.

2. To live within the limits of personal ability related to an activity and the environment.

3. To find pleasure in accepting the challenge and risk of stressful physical activity.

4. To learn mutual dependency of self and the natural world.

5. To share this experience and learning with classmates and authority.

Teaching within this model is obviously different from meeting classes at an appointed hour in a gymnasium. More time is needed. Instruction often takes place in small groups. Risk is involved, so safety becomes a paramount concern.

Because travel and longer, more intimate time with students are often a feature of such programs, teachers must have skills to interact with and guide students in such situations.

Also, particularly with wilderness sports, the teacher must have some substantial experience and skills in the activity being taught.