17 Jul Outdoor Education: Experience the difference
Over the last few years the traditional activities of Outdoor Education have become mainstream commercial activities. It’s possible to fly a zipline in a shopping centre, clamber over a high ropes course on an individual double carabiner setup or scale climbing walls with nothing more than the assistance of an automatic belay system. Activities are getting bigger, better, longer and some of our competitors have installed similar options because it’s cheaper, less labour intensive and allows larger participant to staff ratios. Some climbing walls even offer strobe lights and blaring disco music.
Recreation and adventure has its place but the subtle difference with this shift is it places the entire emphasis on the adrenalized experience of the individual. This goes against the flow of what psychologists tell us is the pathway towards developing humans capable of contributing to wider society. Whatever the problems we face, community is the answer.
Outdoor Education programs are about building and enhancing functional communities. The most important person is not the one on the activity, it is the people on the ground making it possible. The opposite to automation means the whole group is engaged and taking responsibility for the safety and welfare of their mate.
Participants need to work together to achieve favourable outcomes and it’s all on them. Playground protagonists and antagonists might find themselves responsible for the welfare of each other, a truly life-changing experience. Presiding over all of this is highly qualified, experienced and dedicated instructors working to best-practice participant to staff ratios, on-hand to guide, teach and instruct.
If a picture tells a thousand words, we invite you to study the photos of the participants and instructors on the ground to understand the difference. True Outdoor Education is worth the investment and Queensland Conference and Camping Centres is proud to be one of Queensland’s largest providers of quality Outdoor Education and school camps.