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I grew up in a home environment with parents that encouraged and emphasised outdoor play – I did watch cartoons on Saturday mornings, and I did play super mario on rainy days like any normal kid growing up in the early nineties, but my fondest memories as a child involve the outdoors.
When in the suburbs at my family home I was always climbing trees, traversing ravines down to the forest streams, playing road hockey in the streets, and baseball in the field behind my house. I was also lucky enough to have a family cottage two hours north of the city in the countryside with 40 acres of land to explore on weekends and through the summer and winter holidays.
When my family was up at the cottage I was exploring from sunup to sundown, and even when the sun went down, we were outside at the bonfire. I was also fortunate to have a father that was a cycling and camping enthusiast and thus we spent many family vacations down the east coast of the US camping and cycling what felt like endless kilometres to unknown destinations with my father at the helm. In contrast to this, kids today between the ages of 8-18 spend, on average, 7-10 hours a day on a device of some kind. From this, we can rationally conclude that they are spending far less time outdoors, connecting to nature, and moving their bodies.
At the time, I wasn’t conscious of what I was learning from all the hours spent outside, what skills I was developing, or the deep connection I was cultivating with mother nature. In retrospect, as an adult I now know that not only was my mind and body benefitting physically from all the outdoor play and adventure but I was also learning valuable life skills. Some of the undeniable benefits from outdoor and adventure education are developing and improving problem solving skills, building resilience, fostering a deeper connection to nature & building community stewardship, creating opportunities to develop teamwork skills and for new peer interactions.
One of the biggest draws for me to explore a teaching position at Green School Bali back in 2016 was the sustainability focus that is at the forefront of their mission. This important focal point for teaching and learning at Green school allows for a variety of outdoor education and adventure opportunities to help students foster a deep connection with nature and become stewards of mother earth.
One of the cornerstone programs of the middle school and high school weekly schedule at Green School is Jalan Jalan – meaning to walk or travell in Bahasa Indonesia) Wednesdays. Each Wednesday students and teachers divert from the ‘normal’ teaching and learning schedule and embark on half day adventures or projects that are not reliant on a classroom setting. Many of the opportunities presented by teachers or requested by students are outdoor ed/adventure ed related. I took the opportunity to always pitch outdoor adventure courses in both the middle school and high school learning neighbourhoods.
Over the course of my four years at Green School, I worked with other teachers to develop and improve the outdoor education programming and I ended my four year career at Green School as the Adventure Ed Program Developer and Educator for high-school and middle school during which I led high-school students on hiking and mountain biking adventures around the island and down some of Bali’s mountain sides, open water diving certification courses, and rock climbing. Furthermore, in this final year of my career at Green School I also developed school policy documents for all off campus trips, adventures, and camp experiences.
Below you will see a few videos I created whilst mountain biking around Bali with my high school outdoor adventure ed. Class from 2019.
