CAN THE MOUNTAINS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

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CAN THE MOUNTAINSSPEAK FOR THEMSELVES?
James Neill University of New Hampshire, USA,
2002 James.neill_at_unh.edu
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Outline

• Summary of James paper
• Mountains vs. Facilitation
• Workshop Group Presentations
• Take-home Points

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Where is Your Preference?(ideal program for you
as a leaderwhere do you feel most comfortable?)

• ---------------------Mountains
  
  Facilitation

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Summary of James paper

• Thomas James (1980) issue paper for COBS
• Can the Mountains Speak for Themselves?
• Distinguished between 2 basic ways of leading OE
  experiences
• 1 Letting experience speak
• 2 Debrief/Processing

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---------------------Mountains
Facilitation

• a defining tension in OE leadership
• a dilemma that is continually in the minds of
  instructors
• Should I let that experience go,
• allowing participants to make their own learning,
  
• or should I try to use my skills and observations
  
• to facilitate participants reflection
• and analysis of the experience?

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Can the Mountains Speak for Themselves?Thomas
James (1980)

• Rustie Baillie Let the mountains speak for
  themselves
• 1960s counselling techniques introduced to
  control group processes
• Ongoing debate about how to best facilitate OE
  groups

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THE MOUNTAINS
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James (1980) Mountains

• The mountains argument suggests that if we have
• A good course structure, e.g. Outward Bound
  Standard Course
• Safe, professional, inspiring leadership
• we are likely to have an impressive OE program.

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James (1980) Mountains

• Argues for the inherent power in nature, good
  programs, adventure activities, and human growth
  orientation, effective leadership.
• Key elements of mountains speaking for
  themselves
• Nature
• Program
• Adventure activities
• Human growth orientation
• Effective leadership

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Nature

• Nature has an inherently positive effect. Fits
  with
• Nature philosophers
• Mountaineers
• Indigenous view
• Simple OE

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Program

• Tried and true course structures provide good
  experiences
• The rappel works
• the expedition teaches
• solo asks the questions that need to be asked
• e.g., Outward Bound Standard Course
• Life of action is often composed of mental
  activity of the most significant kind.

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Adventure Activities

• OE activities inherently demand a high degree of
  consciousness and self-scrutiny
• Real, immediate experience
• Action-consequence

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Orientation to Growth

• Learning occurs naturally
• Allow pure experience
• Humans move naturally towards personal growth
  (e.g., Maslow, Rogers, May, etc.)

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Effective Leadership

• Creates a
• safe
• supportive
• challenging
• series of adventure learning opportunities

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FACILITATION
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James (1980) Facilitation

• Verbalization/reflection in addition to action
• Dewey learning thinking about experience
• Generalisation/transfer of learning
• Facilitation can be subtle acts or comments which
  help guide participants to valuable
  self-reflections
• Crucial to maintain authenticity of experience

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James (1980) Facilitation

• Candice Chrislip helping students to isolate a
  particular success on the course, to identify the
  process they went through, and to make this
  success available to them as a future resource.
• Be wary of expecting too much of a program and
  perhaps we should stick with what we do best -
  leading people in extraordinary outdoor adventures

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Key Questions

• Do you accept Thomas James mountains vs.
  facilitation continuum? Perhaps there are better
  models that could better organize those concepts.
• For example, most OErs are uncomfortable placing
  themselves at a single point on the continuum, so
  how could greater flexibility be introduced?

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• Take-home points
• understand your personal orientation
• understand the range of others orientations
• develop flexibility in instructional style (build
  complementary skills)
• develop expertise in preferred direction
• participants will have their own individual
  orientations!
• this issue forms the basis of understanding more
  recent developments of facilitation techniques in
  OE (e.g., see Gass)

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MORE NOTES for Presenter
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- Mountains - letting the experience speak for
itself

• not for the leader to impose or prescribe
  private, individual learnings and experience
• focuses responsibility on participant
• does not endorse chuck them out there and see
  policy, since instructor sophistication is
  indicated by careful setting up of program,
  program design, activity sequence, pace of
  program, and group management
• May suit certain clients/cultures more than other
  cultures, e.g. males? adolescents?
  intellectually challenged? taciturn cultures?
• May not achieve maximum possible program effects
  by not employing facilitation techniques
  although it could be argued that totally
  self-derived learnings may be more powerful than
  facilitated learnings?
• May lend itself better to achieving recreational
  type goals than higher-level therapeutic goals
• minimalist
• nb. culture comment in Priest Gass book

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- Facilitation - guiding reflecting about the
experience

• centers an emphasis on instructor-facilitation of
  participants learning and experience
• seeks to harness power of self-reflection,
  self-analysis, expression of thoughts, sharing of
  insights, etc. to develop and lock-in new
  understandings about self and group
• instructor must observe and guiding reflective
  facilitation processes following experiences
• may not maximise the inherent value of nature,
  adventure and group processes
• May suit certain clients/cultures more than other
  cultures, e.g. females? adults? intellectual?
  gregarian cultures?
• May enhance the outcomes through this plus
  model - insights which might otherwise not have
  been achieved are likely to be created
• May be most effectively applied to achieving
  educational and therapeutic goals may be of
  relatively less use in achieving recreational
  type goals
• some reflection is always going to be present
  even in the purest mountains program. it is
  virtually impossible to rid oneself of constant
  analysis and reflection. (this is partly why we
  can say that human nature is oriented towards
  improving constantly improving oneself)

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Comments Overall

• ref James re both methods effective
• v. limited research comparing techniques (cite
  Priest study)
• propose DNA metaphor to solve continuum
• draw on board
• Hattie, J.A. (1992)
• it does appear that the more cognitive oriented
  self-concept change programs have substantial
  effects, than the affectively oriented programs
  on self-concept (p.226)
• We need the tension maintained to continue
  furthering the development of effectiveness in
  programming at both ends of the continuum. We
  need the tension from both ends to balance the
  product in the middle. See Sufi quote.