Robert - I am delighted to see you joining in with some fresh and
challenging thoughts. You say that you prefer 'fine focus' to
'broad brush' and that you are dissatisfied with 'just opinion'.
So I was surprised to find you writing:
> I agree that many (but not all) adventure models are overly
simplistic and
> are virtually "no brainers" (virtually useless/meaningless).
But I did find your 'fine focus' on Nadler and Luckner's model
and on comfort zone theories very interesting. In my own research
(with participants on outdoor management development courses) I
did find a number of examples (and one in particular) of people
who stayed within their comfort zones but put in a lot of effort
and got a lot of value from their course. I think facilitators
and researchers and theories/models need to recognise and work
with variation and diversity and many different ways of learning.
Back to firewalking ... This seems to me to be a classic example
of one model fits all. There is a ready made script with only
minor variations allowed or considered. Do people leave
firewalking experiences (and other strongly frontloaded
adventures) with the official storyline - or are there
alternative voices and murmurings and feelings of discomfort
after the experience (even from those who experienced no physical
pain?).
For such adventures to work, participants not only have to walk
the coals - they also have to believe the official storyline that
goes with it.
My understanding of adventure education/training is that one of
its key benefits over other forms of learning is that it is real.
Yes there is a real consequence if you get your feet burned. But
as a learning experience it is only successful if you believe the
official explanation i.e. if you go along with the pretence that
the real reason that you succeeded was due to some amazing feat
(sorry) of mind over matter.
This is a very strange mixture of real and pretend. The actual
reasons why people end up walking the coals may be more to do
with group pressure (going along with the crowd) or company
pressure (going along with authority) or just wanting to step out
of character for a few strange seconds.
There is another tradition in adventure education where
participants create and manage their own adventures and have far
more active and responsible roles in the whole process of
learning. A group that plans, organises and carries out their own
adventurous journey may come to believe ''if we can do this, we
can do anything''. Again it is a belief, but firmly rooted in the
realities of their journey together and not dependent on
believing pseudoscientific explanations of 'mind over matter' .
Where is there a theory/model of adventure learning that allows
us to distinguish between fire-walking and hill-walking?
I am delighted that my original firewalking message has sparked
(sorry) so much interest - but where new threads develop, please
feel free to start a new subject line at the top of your message.
There is also a risk that some of the 195 members of this list
may think that 'do this and you can do anything' is 'spam'.
Just back from a real adventure racing through Scottish bog in
the pouring rain. Maybe there are some firewalkers out there who
know that they can ''do anything'' - including choosing not to
race in mud, but could they resist the peer pressure?
Roger
Roger Greenaway
Reviewing Skills Training
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http://reviewing.co.uk
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