"In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear."
Whilst I was incarcerated in the University of East London last week, at Natural England's Lessons from Near and Far conference, I found myself thinking – not for the first time – that it would have been far better for me to have been outside – ideally walking on some Wiltshire Down, Shropshire hill or Lakeland Fell – but outside anywhere, really, than to have been inside in a 'theatre' that managed to be both air-conditioned and stuffy, sitting enfettered, listening to people talking at me about how good it is to be outside. There was no sense of irony in any of this.
There were a lot of presentations; one I appreciated was from Simon Beames, who's an outdoor learning expert at Edinburgh, and who brought some wit and (I thought) truth to proceedings in his talk: Uncertainty, agency, authenticity: Learning in Natural Environments and purposeful real life learning for resilient youth.
Here's what caught my ear (NB, it might not have been quite what SB said):
- There is good indoor teaching and poor outdoor teaching
- We need to reconceptualise 'adventure' so as to gain theoretical purpose
- Adventure Education has been Macdonaldised and Dizneyfied. It tends to ignores place.
- Adventurous Teaching [AT] has 4 elements: Uncertainty – Agency – Authenticity – Mastery
- It [AT] should only be an heuristic tool to enable planning
- Our risk culture minimises bads rather than enhancing goods
- Life is liquid. Education is now not.
You can see short bits of Simon's presentation on YouTube in what has to be one of the worst videoclips I have ever seen.
UnNatural England did not allow we prisoners to ask questions at the end of Simon's talk. I wanted to asked him about his use of two phrases: 'adventurous teaching' and 'adventurous learning', and whether this was deliberate. In particular, I wanted to know whether AT necessarily implied AL; and whether AL required AT. Actually, I suspect that the idea of AL may be nonsense, but ...
What struck home most forcibly was his point (above) – the need to reconceptualise 'adventure' so as to gain theoretical purpose, as this was a sharp way of saying what I feel about a lot of our core concept words that are used loosely. "Nature" is another good example; "natural environment", another. Fudging meaning so we can all go on pretending we agree with each other is useful only up to a point.
Meanwhile, ...
"The bells they sound on Bredon,
And still the steeples hum.
'Come all to church, good people,' ---
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come."
Respond