Aims and Experience in Outdoor Education

This study explores the lived experience of seven, ten to twelve year old students in the outdoor education programme at Somers School Camp. It relates teacher expectations as recorded in programme aims, to the aims of students as revealed in interviews. Aims in outdoor education are examined in the light of a framework developed from Dewey's writings, focussing on his notion of general and immediate aims. It also highlights the importance of the nature of aims, the context in which they operate and the methods they suggest. The aims examined are those developed at the Dartington conference in the UK in 1975, and those of Somers School Camp. The content of these aims is also examined against the background of broad educational expectations in the domains of personal and social development, and environmental education. This book should be useful to outdoor education professionals, and educators in general, who are looking to develop or refine aims which are able to fulfil their role - to give guiding purpose to their programmes and to the student experience.