A Pedagogy Of Production: Craft, Technology And Outdoor Education

Abstract

Abstract 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. Cormock's Predicament In his book Arctic Dreams: Imagination and desire in a northern landscape (1987), Barry Lopez writes of the influence of the arctic landscape on both the indigenous and. the European imagination. Of particular interest are the accounts of technological approaches the different cultures developed in response to arctic existence. He contrasts the long term occupation of the indigenous peoples with the short term exploratory and expeditionary experience of the Europeans. I was particularly struck by the story of the indigenous Comock and his family from. Quebec's Ungava Peninsula region who, facing starvation in 1902, set off across the sea ice for a distant island in the search of food. One night during their journey the sea ice opened beneath their camp and they lost nearly all of their possessions - hunting tools, knives, stone lamp for melting water, food and extra clothing. With only their sled, a few dogs, a snow block cutting knife for making shelter and flint stones for creating a spark, their situation was perilous. Lopez (1987, pp. 197-198) continues: They ate their dogs. The dogs they kept ate the other dogs, which were killed for them. Comock got his family to the island. He fashioned, from inappropriate materials, new hunting weapons. He created shelter and warmth. He hunted successfully. He reconstructed his entire material culture, almost from scratch, by improvising and, where necessary, inventing. He survived. His family survived. His dogs survived and multiplied. On the surface this seems to be a relatively straight forward story of human ingenuity, adaptation and survival. Yet deeper questions emerge aie moment we consider that technology has more than just utility value. Despite the patriarchal tone adopted by Lopez (as surely all family members played a crucial role) it reads as a remarkable story about the seemingly inseparable organic/technological basis of their culture. We might guess at the functionalism of some of their objects - the use of seal intestine as waterproof clothing, the selection of caribou cow skins in the late-Fall when their condition was most suitable for certain items of clothing, or the multitude of uses of carved ivory and wood as tent line tensioners, needles and so on, and of whalebone ribs as tent frames. All that they gathered, transformed and used occurred in their 'near to hand' environment. For these people technology, culture and land were as one. The culmination of the story of Comock and his family is equally thought provoking. For several years on the island they collected rare pieces of driftwood and bone and saved bearded-seal skins. …