Hello Roger and all -- Just like with Jo and others I warmly agree. I
even go so far as to suggest that we all have much work to do still ( in
all areas) before we can really get to grips with the kinds of things
you are syaing and others are saying.

Back in the 1970s or before there was no possibility for this kind of
discussion. But people did try. They tried hard too. But it seems to me
that only today is it possible to get to work with these huge issues.
One "sign" of our "discipline" ( now there is a use of words if ever
there was?) is just this. We can "open source" just as the 1980s did
with the internet and computer. We can "Linux" later as we will in the
fight against Microsoft monopolies.

But this was pre-modern in one way and it was Socratic too. Socrates
lectured in an open field and so can we if we want and if we "will". The
postmodern turn has links to the before-Modernity period for sure. But
they did not have computers and they could not clone "Dolly" and
designer-babies for a full value contract !!! If the postmodern turn has
links to the premodern then I guess this means a respect for history. I
guess this means each student that attends a university course on OAE
should grapple with history. I have not researched this but I wonder if
they do grapple in such ways.

Perhaps one OAE face with postmodern turns denies history. "No time for
that stuff" kind of thing. But, of course, more research needs to be
done - who cares ?

Socrates , like the professor ( see loytard) is DEAD !!!

Is it better the "Spice Girls" singing about "experience" ? ( although I
guess the Spice Girls are dead already, too)

But the very idea of the pre-modern and the postmodern is not, I think,
so mad. The very nature of spirituality remains and the spirit of Nature
somehow remains. But here we have a conservative as well as a radical
perspective at work. I did NOT mention here the "Modern". That was just
for the fun of it !!!

keep on shopping in the free world
steve bowles





Roger Greenaway wrote:

> Yes, Ian, I much prefer ''opportunities for meaningful
> experiences'' to anything like ''delivering experiences''
> (although this is not a phrase that has yet appeared on this list
> as far as I know). Given the range of experiences generated
> within one activity, within one group, within one person, the
> unqualified use of the term ''the experience'' is probably best
> avoided by researchers and practitioners alike. The more we
> listen, the more diversity we recognise, the more likely we are
> to question any received wisdom, assumptions or traditions. This
> is surely the responsibility of any and every researcher whether
> or not they embrace or dismiss post-modern ways of thinking.
>
> Thanks to well researched clarifications of the meanings of
> (and issues about) post-modern thinking from Wil, Jo and Steve it
> will be much easier for us to follow and join in this discussion.
>
> To answer Steve's original question (now that I, for one, feel
> more confident about doing so), I think it would be easier to
> characterise outdoor education as a conservative reaction to
> both modern and post-modern thinking ... conservation, back to
> nature, rites of passage, wilderness survival, bush walking ...
> Key aspects of outdoor education are a going back to pre-modern
> ways of thinking and doing. Maybe the turn is towards pre-modern
> not towards post-modern?
>
> Roger Greenaway
> Reviewing Skills Training
> [log in to unmask]
> http://reviewing.co.uk