Experiential Education Archives

Eagle Rock Included in ‘Learning Through Experience’ Website

When it comes to adventure-based experiential education, Eagle Rock can be counted among the leading progressive high schools in the nation. Appropriately located adjacent to the 415-square-mile Rocky Mountain National Park, our sprawling campus provides not only a location, but a starting off point for a number of adventures that, when combined with education and service, provide our youth with a student-based, rather than faculty-based experience.

Recognizing our unique role and approach, Eagle Rock is among 200 or so providers listed in a new online resource recently published by the Association for Experiential Education (AEE) — http://learnthroughexperience.org. If you’re unfamiliar with AEE, it is a not-for-profit membership-based organization that advocates for the outdoor and adventure-based experiential education industry. Among its offerings are regional and international conferences, a robust publishing program that includes the Journal of Experiential Education, and an accreditation program that identifies, publishes and upholding standards to improve professional practice in the field of experiential education.

As an AEE accredited program, Eagle Rock is proud to be listed in the Learning Through Experience directory, which helps consumers find Continue reading…

An Outdoor Education Fellow’s Perspective of The Eagle Rock School Wilderness Orientation Course

Since Eagle Rock’s inception, a new student wilderness orientation course has been an unconventional tradition that sets ours apart from other learning habitats. As an Outdoor Education Fellow, I continue to be blown away by how Eagle Rock engrains — and then celebrates — the wilderness experience as a right of passage for new students.

The moments they first step foot on campus, new Eagle Rock School students find themselves surrounded by veteran students and the first topic of conversation is inevitably, the wilderness course. These more experienced students talk about how much they enjoyed it or hated it. They offer the newbies tips and tricks on staying clean, or the best way to snag some extra toilet paper.

And soon, these fresh new faces hear about circles — a restorative process that is used frequently while in wilderness. Like the name suggests, students and instructors form a circle in order to create an emotionally safe space for discussions. Interestingly enough, there has been an evolution in how students reminisce about their experience with circles.

It was often described as a negative experience, but over time, something has changed. The concept of circles, and the perspective of them, has changed. I’ll explain why I think this change has occurred in just a moment.

I often tell students near the end of the 24-day wilderness expedition, that one of the many reasons we go out into the backcountry for two dozen days is because there’s really no place to hide. Wilderness forces us all to step up to the plate, to embody our strengths consistently, and it exposes areas with which we are struggling.

Sometimes, it exposes problem areas we didn’t even know we had. But the one thing 24 days gives us is time. We have time to stop, time to contemplate, time to discuss what’s going on. And time to figure out how we can move forward in order to curtail, contain or take the power out of a conflict that might impede the functionality of the group — our community.

Of course, conflict is unavoidable. We like to think it is a healthy approach to developing a positive group culture that correctly, and appropriately reflects the vast values and perspectives of its community. An introductory way that we do this is with affective statements and questions. These tools are incorporated into circles and the progression of questions the facilitator uses. One-on-one coaching is an essential tool of the wilderness instructor. Students often need support in how they bring up issues or frustrations with affective statements.

For instance Continue reading…