Regenerative outdoor learning
ArticlesA few salmon shaped synchronicities occurred over the past week which has prompted me to write on the subject of the importance of elders in community, education and power. Allow me to explain…
[footage appears courtesy of www.earthways.co.uk]
My story begins in planning my journeys for the year
‘Come into the resurrection of nature… Reside in this environmental nomenclature’ Whilst i sit and contemplate river journeys to come this year; this tale from overseas fires my imagination and kindles my enthusiasm. Engaging, inspired, campfired eloquence. Bardic brilliance for 21st century resilience. I hope you enjoy it too…
‘Something about problem solving’
That’s the shortest brief i think i’ve ever received. Venture Scotland, are a successful charity who offer a 12 month personal development course for disadvantaged young people, and had called me in at short notice; i was glad to accept.
They’d asked me in to deliver a five day residential course for twelve 16-30 year olds with a team of three volunteers during the ‘problem solving’ phase of the ‘Journey’ programme. After a staffing issue a day before the trip was due to go out,I asked for the aims and objective to which a development worker replied : ‘Do something about problem solving.’
I wanted to share some reflections on fulfilling such a brief and how the experience of flow learning can positively influence the seemingly conflicting needs of safety, fun and learning for participants and volunteers…
Sometimes we ask ourselves; whats the point? Here’s some of mine from 2012… “We are oddly constructed machines. At one moment all resolution, at the next all doubt… Today our intellect, our science, all our ‘Lieben und Treiben’ seem but a pitiful Philistinism, not worth a pipe of tobacco; tomorrow we throw ourselves heart and …
What put the ‘w’ in ‘whole’?
That’s the kind of nonsensical self-talk I get when I rise up in the predawn. Stoke the stove, shake on the clothes, fill the kettle and head out to welcome the day and ‘water the horses’. This day, we were to get triply warm. A large, bright, blazing promise built the night before. It took with the first match….
Cup of Tea. Porridge with my lover. Flickering flame chasing, sucked skyward; sun-rising and an atmosphere descending, seemingly sucked down as the flames tickle the heavens. Aye, it can be pretty poetic before 7am when you’ve woken up in a tent.
Earlier in the summer I published some work for Horizons magazine; the periodical for the Institute of Outdoor Learning. As the journal comes only in paper copy, I present the unedited article here…
