Experiential Education

OUTWARD BOUND U.S.A.

By Joshua Miner and Joseph Boldt '32 Morrow, 1981. 397 pp. $17.95: paper, $8.95

You've undoubtedly seen film clips on some talk show of people in rugged outdoor gear slogging through a swamp or rappeling down a cliff face and heard of the standard Outward-Bound three-day "solo," often misunderstood as some kind of survival test rather than a period for solitude and reflection.

josh Miner, whose experience with Outward Bound goes back to the founding school in Scotland, and Joe Boldt, a professional writer who was at the time the oldest person to complete the rigorous Hurricane Island program, have gone far in Outward Bound U.SrA. to dispel a lot of misconceptions about the organization's philosophy and practices. Their book chronicles Outward Bound's growth in this country since the 19605, offering a rich variety of entertaining, often touching, anecdotes about the effort to promote a new idea of learning experiential education.

A series of crisp, short, anecdotal chapters sets out the credo of Outward Bound and describes Miner's apprenticeship at Gordonstoun under Kurt Hahn, the German-born British educator who founded the organization.. The story of Hahn's struggle with serious childhood illness, the tale of his fight against Nazism and his expulsion from Germany, and liberal quotations from his own writings suggest that Hahn was truly the colossus he's been made out to be. Hahn's pedagogy stressed compassionate service to those "in danger and in need"; his medium was adventure-based education; his aim was "to produce young people able to effect what they see to be right, despite hardships, despite dangers, despite inner skepticism, despite boredom, despite mockery from the world, despite emotion of the moment."

How Hahn's ideas have been transplanted to the United States and adapted to the American experience comprises the balance of the book. If it reads a little like an encyclopedia, it may be a reflection of the difficulty of dealing with seven full-fledged Outward Bound schools and countless related programs. Biographical sketches of colorful personalities and accounts of incidents like the first million-dollar gift from Dewitt Wallace of Reader's Digest make for interesting reading.

One of the many Dartmouth personalities who appear in these pages is Charles "Doc" Dey '52, a former dean of the Tucker Foundation, who foresaw the potential benefits of the program to Dartmouth students and brought Outward Bound to the College under the foundation's sponsorship in 1969- Bob McArthur '64 is current head of the Dartmouth center, which has recently because of severe budget cuts come under the wing of the Hurricane Island school. The story of McArthur's odyssey from varsity baseball and Casque and Gauntlet at Dartmouth to divinity school at Berkeley to service as curate of St. Thomas' Church in Hanover to a teaching position at a North Carolina mountain school and back to Hanover as Outward Bound director is one of the more engaging profiles in the book.

Much of the text addresses the growing pains Outward Bound has endured the evolving role of extending the programs to include girls and adults; the safety factor in adventure-based education; the continual effort to gain broader acceptance as a legitimate educational alternative; the attempts to help minority, underprivileged, and delinquent youth; the question of follow-up . how to carry the concepts learned from Outward Bound over to one's everyday situation. An important question not addressed is "burnout," the emotional enervation often experienced by Outward Bound instructors that many of them attribute to the intensity of the programs.

Outward Bound U.S.A. is a clear thorough, and enjoyable source of information. Anyone who really wants to learn about Outward Bound's charge to enhance self-respect and compassion for others, however, would be well advised to take one of their many courses. They have something for everyone, and their results to date are impressive.

Classics major Michael Colacchio is aveteran of both Dartmouth OutwardBound's Living-Learning term and the ALUMNI MAGAZINE'S undergraduateinternship.