Hello Roger ( welcome back) and all :-
I will try and keep this response "to the point".
You seem to divorce the sensuous and active person away from society. To
deny that is the social aspect of being. This seems clear from your
words when you say - " who wants society to be more dangerous". Is it
possible to make such a dualistic divorce? If so how? If so why? How is
"society" away from "us"?
You also use the terms of danger and opportunity, in your posting, as if
they ( these terms) might be happy to be assumed as terms that really
fit together OK. Why is this? Why is danger and opportunity linked?
While I have (and find) a kind of deep-symapthy with what you say ( to
me, at least) - yes I agree with so much that you say especially with
that which you may leter in your post call for a kind of "freedom" - I
must still ask, first, before I can try and understand your meaning ---
what is "common-sense" ? I ignore the "grandmother" bit, for now.
Maybe if this posting says anything at all it merely asks questions.
What do I say? What drives on my question(s)?
I think the term "risk" is absurd and quite useless in human work as it
is social and will always be ongoing-social.
I think the term "risk" is a "dead-duck" and constructed only by
duck-hunters that will kill for sporty "means".
I think the term "risk" is a socio-historical term that "MOVES".
As I have written before I think "risk" is but a cult and an ideology of
the market !
When "risk" becomes an abstract term then we must ask, I think, why this
abstraction and this is true especially if we mean that a "risk" is
mainly concerned with a "danger"!
I ask you to consider the following words from a good writer that I have
cited in the past concerning risk-cults :-
" First of all, the greatest threats are targeted : unmarried teenage
mothers. They are the ones who produce the gang members who deal in
drugs that pollute the social body. No safety net for them. And, for
their children, orphanages that will never be, because they are too
expensive to build. No safety net and TOUGH LOVE instead. It is a favour
of the person deprived of WELFARE to remove them from DEPENDENCY." ( M.
Weinstein " The Triumph of Abuse Value - C-Theory - 1998).
Perhaps we might debate and even dialogue here the issue(s) that are (
maybe) at-work.
Indeed Roger - the question is this - which-stories-from-whom? Who
really benifits? What is "adventure"? What is this "outdoors" and just
how might the absurd term of "risk" have become one of the operative
fixations through various and non-critical "programmes"? Where did this
"risk" really come from?
What did Weinstein mean and/or intend ( what might we debate together)
through his use of "Abuse-Value"?
best wishes
steve bowles
Roger Greenaway wrote:
> David's listing of 6 kinds of risk (20th February) brought some
> welcome clarification. But No. 6 raised new kinds of issues. In
> No. 6 David referred to Libby Purves' article about the risk to
> society of becoming too 'safe'. But who wants society to be more
> 'dangerous'? An average of 15 children a day are killed or
> seriously injured on British roads. What should the target be?
> What should the target for outdoor education casualties be?
>
> I am not a statistician and I think I need a much better
> understanding of statistics before I can make sense of these
> issues. I'm a little more comfortable with 'comfort zones' than
> with statistics. Encouraging people to step outside 'comfort
> zones' seems to be based on a belief that they are really in
> 'atrophy zones'. For example, Elliot Eisner in 'The Art of
> Educational Evaluation' writes that:
>
> "humans are not immune to atrophic processes. The lack of
> opportunity to use certain capacities increases the likelihood
> that those capacities will decline."
>
> It is possible that people get 'stuck' (and perhaps even atrophy)
> not because of a reluctance to take risks, but due to the lack of
> opportunity. My experience and my research tell me that people
> (youths and adults) are extremely willing to explore new 'zones'
> when they attend outdoor courses and are generally keen to make
> things even more intense and adventurous than their
> instructors/trainers will.
>
> Who's wrapping who in cotton wool?
>
> There seems to be a broad assumption that the outdoors is
> about risk and that outdoor educators and trainers are
> specialists in the psychology of risk. In my view, the basic
> psychology of overcoming challenges (outdoors) boils down to
> grandmotherly common sense - that the more you overcome
> challenges the better you get at overcoming challenges (in other,
> though not all, aspects of your life).
>
> Then it starts getting complicated. Seeing 'life' or 'the
> outdoors' as a sequence of challenges to overcome is just one of
> many perspectives that we can choose to take. And how much we
> want to 'frame' or 'frontload' things before they happen is
> another choice we have. We can also choose to be more
> adventurous, take the road less travelled, to be more open to
> experience, open our eyes, hearts and minds - and resist jumping
> to conclusions or making the frame before we've created the
> picture.
>
> I still remain inspired by Carl Rogers 'Freedom to Learn'. The
> outdoors can help us to provide freedom from everyday influences
> that can make learning so difficult. If outdoor experiences
> become closely managed risks, tightly structured, carefully
> designed and artfully frontloaded then where is that freedom?
> The amazing educational opportunities in outdoor environments are
> themselves at risk if the outdoors is simply represented as an
> arena for hazardous sports or as a playground of artificial
> challenges with ready-made scripts.
>
> In 'Why Adventure?' Jon Barrett and I proposed a comprehensive
> approach to outdoor research that looks at the many different
> ingredients of experiences in the outdoors - and not just the
> activity experiences. In 'More Than Activities' I wrote about the
> ways in which stories are generated during outdoor experiences.
> Instructors should certainly be monitoring risk, but participants
> should have the freedom to generate many other kinds of stories
> about their experiences - and should not be driven through
> ill-fitting, thought-restricting, ready-made metaphors that
> simply reflect what is preoccupying the instructor or written in
> the script.
>
> Freedom may not be an easy subject to research, but I am sure
> that it is fundamental to the appeal and effectiveness of the
> outdoors in education.
>
> Chris Loynes (22nd Feb) suggests that ''outdoor leaders are the
> storytellers of our time''. I like the idea of leaders
> stimulating young people's imaginations, but I think it is more
> important that young people themselves are the storytellers of
> their time. And that we listen.
>
> They get told plenty when they are indoors.
>
> Roger Greenaway
> Reviewing Skills Training
> [log in to unmask]
> http://reviewing.co.uk
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