Until recently, I hadn't visited Australia or New Zealand in almost three years. Now, after having enjoyed a couple of trips to both in the past three months, I note that the outdoor education fields of each country are struggling with the leader certification and program accreditation issues that the UK and US have been through in decades past. On the basis of my past observations, recent interviews and discussions with leading folks in the fields, at least two years of living and travelling in both nations, and 20 years of research on these very topics, I feel confident that Australia and New Zealand can do a better job of addressing these issues than either the UK or US and can do so without repeating their mistakes. I will try to explain my reasoning in brief and concise terms. First, I'll define some key words. second, I'll review some history regarding the three issues titled above. Third, I'll outline a blueprint for how these issues can be better addressed by Australia and New Zealand. Last, 111 set a challenge for folks to take up at their next national meetings. Hope it works! Definitions Outdoor Education is about relationships concerning adventure (intrapersonal and interpersonal), the environment (ecosystemics and ekistics) and the interaction of all these (spirituality). Although outdoor education has historically had an adventurous meaning in Australia and New Zealand, I am suitably impressed fay recent efforts to develop the "Australian" model of OE that incorporates elements of critical thinking with a deeper understanding of "place" and one's connection to a particular environment while engaged in challenging experiences. Leaders are people trained and assessed to be competent in the dozen skills of outdoor leadership (activity, safety, environment, organization, instruction, facilitation, style, ethics, communication, problem solving, decision making, and judgement). Leaders are the principle catalyst for helping people learn about the five relationships noted above. While I also understand leadership to be a process of influence, and recognize that leadership can emerge from within a group process, I will not use the word in this way during this discussion. Programs are collections of learning experiences held together by many logistics such as scheduling, staffing, equipment, meals, housing, transportation, communication, finances, etc. Each learning experience is a specific event that participants engage in and that Subsequently changes the way they feel, think, or behave in connection with the five relationships noted above. Staff are the leaders designated by the program to have the responsibility for participant safety, environmental protection, program effectiveness, and for facilitating participant changes as repeatedly noted earlier. Qualification is a systemic process and sequential approach to screening, training, assessing, developing, and apprenticing people in the dozen outdoor leadership skills listed. I use the term in reference to leaders only. My notion of qualification differs somewhat from British and other NCVQ schemes. Certification is a process whereby an evaluating body gaurantees that standards of competence have been achieved by leaders after their qualification. I use the term in reference to staff working in programs only. Certification is only effective when a program designates their staff as appropriate to work in their program and not when the certificate is generalized to other outside programs. My notion of certification differs drastically from the old BMLC scheme (or any of the so-called "leadership" certificates currently in use around the world) which support transferability of the certificate to many and various situations. Accreditation is a process whereby an evaluating body recognizes that a program has met standards of operation, which includes the staff's abilities to "lead" appropriate learning experiences. …
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Jul 25, 2008
Kimon P Valavanis + 2
Open Access