Welcome to the final episode of the NST saga. It was just so much to take in in ten days. Like a powerload experience. I don't even know what a powerload is, and in fact may have just made that up...but that is the word that comes to mind.
The Daily Flow
This might give you a better picture of a typical day on the river. The Daily Flow is different for every course, as much of the specifics are determined by the instructional team in charge. However, the flow we used during training looked something like this:
Wake up and get everything out of tents (5 min)
Take down tents (10 min)
Morning meeting, snack, and 1-10 check-in (How are you doing? 1=horrible, 10=great)
Stretch Circle (student choose stretches)
House of Gain (abs, push-ups, and “mystery exercise”)
Run (start at 15 min and increase 2 min each day)
Dip/Bucket Baths (10 min)
Gear Bag Time (10 min; students are only allowed to get into gear bags twice a day at specified times)
Personal jobs around camp – set up tubby line, cook, navigation brief, etc
Load Boats – first 90%
Breakfast! (30 min)
Load Boats – last 10%
Navigation Brief w/ entire team
Paddle, Paddle, Paddle
Lash canoes together for lunch on the river
Debrief on the river (students might journal or read)
Paddle, Paddle Paddle
Arrive at camp! (hopefully before dark!)
Camp set-up
Gear Bag Time
Personal Jobs
Dinner!
Evening meeting around the fire
GTB!
Behavior Sims and Instructor Blocks
From day 3 through day 7 of NST, we were grouped into teams of three, and each group was given two half-day long blocks of time to be the instructors. Our trainers, Katie and Jinky, then took on the roll of students along with the rest of the group. However, not only did they take on the roll of students, they took on the roll of students with particularly 'interesting' behaviors. During each morning or afternoon, there was a scheduled behavior simulation that the 3-person instructor team would need to deal with in addition to running the daily flow and getting the team out onto the river or into the next day's campsite.
The first round of I-blocks and Behavior Sims were a bit nerve-racking, but turned out to be more than manageable. Imagine going from almost zero responsibility to being responsible for the entire group, considering you’re operating on little sleep, minimal experience, working with new people, and based on your performance, you may or may not have a job at the end of all of this. Definitely in my learning zone. But, like most things in the world of experiential ed (and I would argue overall), getting ones toes wet is the hardest part. Luckily, it seemed like we dove in head first. The behaviors sims weren’t anything out of the ordinary at first – non-participation, bullying, stealing food -- although they got a bit crazier during the second round. I especially enjoyed participating in the behavior sims as a “student.” I got to do this at least twice, being assigned a behavior characteristic (such as bullying Nicole about not liking spiders) to play out as I wished. Oh, I had fun acting bad.
During day 4 of training, as I was acting out the part of the bully, we paddled about six miles down the Bayou Jezzamine – a little tiny rivulet on the map. It was my first bayou experience and I was excited. We twisted and turned down the jungle-like waterway, and as we went we were engaged in the climax of a several-day-long game of “Killer.” If you are not familiar with this game, it goes like this: everyone draws a card. In the pile of cards is one face card, and one ace. The face card is the “killer.” If the killer winks at someone, that person must die a dramatic death 10-15 minutes later. The ace is the “doctor.” The doctor can magically heal people who have been winked at before they die their dramatic death. The goal is to figure out the killer before they murder everyone. Well, when we drew cards, I pulled out the king. And I bided my time. How to wink at people in canoes without the answer being obvious? I waited for opportune moments during gunwale-ups and lunch when many boats were together. I called over a friend’s boat under the guise of wanting a different-sized paddle. I winked at my boat partner because he saw me wink at someone else. At one point I had a bug in my eye, which afterward someone thought was a ploy to wink at someone else, but that was genuine – I actually got a bug stuck in my eye. I was down to two living member of the crew when someone found me out. All this time I was also bullying Nicole about not liking spiders. I got to be sneaky and stealthful and bad all in one afternoon. What a glorious change of pace.
As we were paddling down the Bayou Jezzamine, it rained. At first it just teased us, raining on and off – not enough to make me want to don the full banana-colored rubber rain suit I was issued. But in the end, the clouds prevailed, and the rain did not cease. At this point, everything is wet. It rained so hard we had to bail out our boat. I put on my banana suit and was surprised at how much I enjoyed myself despite myself and almost everything I owned being soaked or damp. (Cross that – my sleeping bag and a few clothes stayed dry in my dry bag – but those that got wet didn’t dry for several days.) The rain was so thick and so unrelenting that it silenced all other noises, including our own voices, and all that existed was the river and my paddle and the rain. Forward, stroke, forward, stroke. I was in love with the intensity of it and began to sing, because no one could hear me over the sound of the rain against the river. Mother Nature, you are still Queen.
The second round of instructor blocks began with a bang when we arrived at out campsite on day 6. It was a beautiful sandbar campsite with a view of the river, where fish would periodically jump full-flung out of the water. That is not an exaggeration. I saw them. Jinky played the part of the student that afternoon, and his behavior sim was extreme non-compliance. He just blew up. “Man, f*$% this s#@*! F#%* you, instructors! Why do I always have to do everything? Jinky do this, Jinky do that, man f$*% you!” Et cetera. The rest of us continued business as usual, watching the show on the side-line of course, and slogging our way through until the debrief after dinner. I was just playing student that day, but my turn came the next afternoon.
That evening, the instructor block that had handled Jinky’s cursing and yelling act passed the torch to the next instructional team in a ceremony that became one of my favorites during the trip. I love ceremony when it is done right. Down on the sand beach, under a sky alight with stars, the Smokin’ Axels flag was passed to the new instructors. Each walked through a tunnel of headlamps to receive this emblem of our team’s full value contract. And as they walked silently down to the shore to take up the flag, we began to sing:
As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way
Come on brothers and let’s go down
Come on down, don’t you want to go down,
Come on brothers, let’s go down,
Down in the valley to pray.
And in that moment I knew: this is where I am supposed to be. It was beautiful.
The next day was fairly uneventful, although it saw us leaving around lunchtime (ahem, 3:00) for our next campsite- not ideal. Simon, Emily and I took over the reigns for the very last instructional block of the trip that afternoon. We made good time, but still only managed to get to our campsite as dusk was falling. Fish were jumping like crazy. Every few seconds, it seemed, I saw and/or heard a fish jump entirely out of the water. “Where do these fish get to be so agile?” I thought. “What kinds of fish are these?” As Jesse took a leek in the cut-out orange juice container that served as a bailer (one of the few reasons I am still jealous of men while camping), a fish almost landed in our boat of its own accord.
In the dimming light, we saw the dock that marked out campsite. We were camping on private land – owned by a friend of OB – which consisted of a small white house (with space to pitch our tents beside it) and an enormous wooden dock across from a turtle preservation area.
Jinky and Katie gathered the rest of the team as Simon and Emily and I passed out snack (corn nuts) and decided on a plan for unloading boats in the dark – complicated by the fact that none of the students are allowed to have their own headlamp/flashlight, and that the boats had to remain tied up to the docks instead of on shore. Jinky and Katie broke their circle. “Behavior Sim 3 has begun.” Now the game was on. Jinky was the first to show the signs and symptoms: sad face, little responsiveness, wanting to go home. I had a homesickness case on my hands. I let Jinky take a step-back and tried to get him to talk to me a few minutes later. No problems – I’ve dealt with this before. Until I noticed that three or four other students were also on step-backs. I consulted with Simon and Emily. “What happened to Kristin, and Jim, and Luke, and Nicole?” we asked each other. Until we realized: they’re all on step-backs. They’re all playing homesick…who is unloading the boats?
Only JoAnna was left unloading the boats – the rest of our team had gone limp with homesickness fever. Until JoAnna quit in frustration, and admitted that she was homesick too. Luckily, by that time, we had Jinky and a couple of other students back on their feet, feeling better and getting dinner ready. It was a whirlwind, and over before we could carry out all of the restore and discussion we had planned for the evening: our final dinner on the river, “Jinky’s mystery meal” of cous-cous, dried broccoli, tomato sauce, and mashed potatoes – world’s strangest shepherd’s pie, was served. We sat down to a hot-seat debrief, and then moved on to the main event of the evening: our transition to Final.
The entire team moved out onto the dock, where earlier that evening a full harvest moon had risen in a bold orange over the majestic, silent expanse of river we now faced. Now, at midnight, the moon had made its transition to silver goddess and had risen high in the night sky. We faced it. Behind us were Jinky and Katie, offering us the words of Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s “The Invitation” to begin the Final leg of our journey.
"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive. …
I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."
….
As Jinky’s voice boomed over the water with conviction and passion for the meaning of the poetry that flew from his lips, a single bird swooped over the silver water. It cut across the path of the moon reflected in its depths, and again I looked up. “Yes,” I thought again. “This is me.”
“This is what I was made to live for.”
At the end of the poem, we were each given an orange bead to put on our double-fisherman bracelet alongside the blue one we had received for Main. The orange – to hold my memory of the moon that night. And orange to be the fire of Outward Bound. We were only to accept the bead if we were willing to carry and to pass on that fire. We were each given a bead – not to keep, but to give away. Sometime on the river the next day, we were to pass along our fire bead to another, and so continue the circle of energy and compassion that encompasses OB.
Night Paddle
We walked from the dock, ears full of poetry and eyes full of moonlight, back to the campfire, where Katie explained our final task. It was now almost 1:00 a.m. Sometime between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. that same morning, we were to arrive at our pick-up point at Muir State Park, 11 miles down the river. Katie showed us where to go on the map, and left us to make a plan. We would navigate, decide our departure time, and organize the re-packing of all the gear. The debate ensued: to leave now, and guarantee ourselves enough time to arrive on time, or to sleep for a while, and then depart. I was of the former persuasion. We had been averaging 2-4 miles per hour in canoes thus far – in the daylight, with help on navigation if we got stuck. However, being strongly outvoted, the team decided to sleep for one hour and break camp at 2:15 a.m.
Just before heading to our tents, Jesse points to the river and says “Look!” There were Katie and Jinky, paddling away in their canoe. Inside of their now nearly-empty tent we found an emergency cell-phone, a note, and a back-packer’s cheesecake made on the underside of a Frisbee. We were on our own.
We arose at 2:15 and started loading boats. By 3:00 we were nearly ready, and re-juvinated our blood sugar with a cheesecake ceremony – nine sporks digging into one sugar-laden Frisbee. Excellent. At 3:23 we hit paddle to water, trying to make miles as fast as we could. Luckily, weather was on our side that night.
Around 5:00 a.m. we came to a confluence in the river. We came to what seemed to be a dead end, and our navigator informed the group that we were probably in a small inlet, and that we needed to go back and turn around to find the main river again. We did, but our location still didn’t make sense. We took bearings on compasses and passed maps around to try to determine where we were, but to no avail. We went back to explore our original position, but found the same result: a dead end. We again returned to our second guess. We sent a boat out to “scout out” the bend ahead to see if we could get a better bearing. At this point I was very frustrated, like many in the group – in my particular case, I was thinking “If you all had tried listening to me at the beginning, we would have left earlier and had time for mistakes like this!” As it was, we were running out of time. I was also bothered by the fact that we had broken our promise to follow policy by letting one boat go ahead of the group (we were supposed to stay within one boat length of each other).
Luckily, my boat partner, JoAnna, had an excellent sense of humor that turned complaints into four-letter words and four-letter words into laughs, and laughs into a positive, determined attitude. And there was Simon in the boat behind us, a kindred spirit always ready with a joke or comment to make me laugh off the situation. Around 5:30 Simon noticed the colors begin to appear in the east. “There’s the sun,” he said. Now it was on. We knew we had at least 6 miles to go, and not much time. The group had come to the verge of falling apart, but with the light of day, we got it together. We decided to try our original route one last time. It worked. The river bent sharply to the right, a feature that, without the help of daylight, we had been unable to see and unwilling to explore.
The waterway opened up to a wide expanse of river leading to the Gulf, as buildings and powerlines and fishermen began to appear with the sunrise. The wind picked up, the birds came out, and we hauled our canooty-booties as fast as they would go, stopping only once to pee off the sides of the boats. At 7:55 we crossed underneath the giant I-10 bridge that connects Mobile, Alabama to Fairhope across the bay on which we were now paddling our tiny crafts. The entrance to Muir State Park was not clear, but by good fortune and 9-minded map-reading skills, we found the inlet that led us to Katie and Jinky and the 15-passenger van at 8:02 a.m. Luckily, the 2-minutes-past-due was not in our debrief that evening, and there was much rejoicing. We made it.
It was 8:00 a.m., although with our internal clocks disturbed by one hour’s sleep, we couldn’t tell exactly what time it was. We stopped at the gas station at 9:30 a.m., and JoAnna bought herself a hot dog. Jesse bought candy for the group with $10 he’d found on the ground. We had a long day ahead – gear clean-up was a three-hour ordeal. Each gear-bag, bucket, and piece of rain-gear had to be scrubbed in giant black tubs which, when we finished, looked as if they had been dipped to the bottom of the river. I was perfectly at home with a laundry brush and a board, although – I have never scrubbed so many rubber suits in my life. Still, it was a joyous day, with music, chatter, and laughter over last night’s adventure.
That evening, we were re-united with the other team and were assigned the challenge of a joint “craftsmanship dinner.” This meant we were to come up with the craftiest menu, presentation, and atmosphere we could, using the few materials that we had. It turned out spectacular. With vines from behind the shed, tea-lights from the dollar store, and headlamps illuminating gallon water-jugs, we served up veggie spaghetti, and – I cannot describe to you the atmosphere of that night. It was as if someone had stopped time and all that existed were those people and those moments – “look at this community that you have created,” someone spoke. And we looked. It didn’t have many things or expensive tastes. But it had diversity, it embodied integrity, it was alive with compassion, it included everyone present, and it was dripping with excellence. We looked around, and we saw that these simple surroundings had been made beautiful by these qualities – the values taught at every Outward Bound school – and that they had come alive to us in these past ten days.
“There is more in you that you know.”
- Kurt Hahn
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Outward Bound Discovery 101
To help you all better understand the program I am working for, I would like to share some of the basic information and terms I learned during NST. It will help things make a lot more sense, I think, and will help me so that I can talk about them later without feeling as if I must be confusing people. If this seems a little bit “drier” than some of my other entries, it is because I was trying to be efficient. Not all of the information here is necessarily applicable to Outward Bound in its entirety, as it is a nation-wide (world-wide, actually) program, and I can only speak of what I know. So here are the basics of Outward Bound Discovery, which is made up of the four bases in Alabama and Florida, where I will be working.
Course Tools
In OB Discovery there is a fairly well-set curriculum that we present to our students. This curriculum is divided in to two parts: Outdoor Education and Life Skills Management. Outdoor Education is pretty simple – all the “hard” skills such as setting up a tent, paddling a canoe, tying a trucker’s hitch, etc fall into this category. Life Skills Management deals to a large degree with assertive communication, decision making, and positive leadership skills.
To help students practice assertive communication, a specific set of “course tools” has been designed for them to use. During NST, we again learned about these course tools through experience. The first day at camp, one member of our team (“S”) happened to trip over another member of our team (“M”) while M was putting away the dishes. S did not apologize, and M got upset. Our trainers immediately called a “circle-up!” and introduced to the group the oft-used CFR.
C- Concern
F – Feeling
R – Assertive Request to the person or group
This is an extremely structured way for one person to express frustration to another person or group of people without the concern exploding into an all-out attack. The person practicing the CFR is only allowed to address the three questions above, with the stipulation that the concern and feeling be authentic and un-offensive, and the request be reasonable. When they are finished speaking, the person or people being addressed are asked: “Can you honor that request? Flag in if you can honor it.”
“Flagging in” to a circle-up means that you stick your fist into the center of the circle. It is just like raising your hand, except that in OB we go camping a lot, and we do not like to raise hands because everyone’s armpits usually smell bad. So we flag in.
Other assertive communication tools used during a program include:
WOMPs: Used when two people are simultaneously frustrated with each other.
W – What’s up?
O – Ownership. What can you “own” or take responsibility for in this situation?
M – Walk a Mile in their Moccasins. How would you feel if you were the other person?
P – Plan. What are you going to do in the future?
This is such an amazing tool because it precludes any sort of blaming or fighting. It gets right to the point and addresses the feelings of both parties without dramatizing either.
Step-Backs: A student can choose to take a “step-back” for any reason if they feel as though they cannot participate with the group at a certain time. If they miss out on an activity that includes work, such as running or setting up camp, that student must do some sort of “restore” to make up the work they missed. They are formally re-introduced to the group at the end of their step-back.
Separations: A student is separated from the group by an instructor if they are not meeting expectations and/or are being disruptive to the group. This is not a student choice. A lot of importance is put on the group, and being a member of the group – thus, a separation is a consequence, not a reward. Again, a student is formally re-introduced to the group, stating why they were separated, what they need from the group, and what their plan is to move forward. The group is then given the chance to say what they need from the separated student. Again -- assertive, assertive assertive.
Choice Theory: Ben basically described this to me when giving me behavior management techniques for substitute teaching last winter. When we went over this during NST, I said “hm, now that looks, familiar.” It is a very simple way of managing behaviors, and here it is:
What do you want?
What are you doing?
Is what you are doing getting you what you want?
Example:
I am tired and hungry and I want to go to bed.
I am whining and complaining instead of setting up camp.
Is this getting me any closer to going to bed?
No.
How can I change what I am doing to get what I want?
I can help set up camp so we can cook dinner faster, so that everyone can eat and go to bed.
Conveniently for instructors, the way a student can get what they want is generally to do what they are supposed to be doing.
We also use techniques called Reality Therapy and Motivational Interviewing. These are a bit more involved, and I know I will understand them more once I used them with students, so I’ll leave these for another day.
Contracts: Throughout course, students write contracts with instructors to further their goals for course, or to correct negative behavior. Contracts can be positive (to continue doing something such as showing positive leadership within the group), or negative (to find positive alternatives to negative behavior, such as using course tools to communicate assertively instead of yelling). In STEP courses, contracts are used to show the judge responsible for each student’s case that she/he is making progress. In non-adjudicated courses, contracts are simply a way to help students document their progress and give them SMART goals to work toward.
S-Specific
M-Measurable
A-Attainable
R-Realistic
T-Timely
…did I mention OB uses a unbelievable amount of acronyms? Don’t worry, there are more…
STEP, FINS, and Intercept
Many people have been asking me: “how can adolescents complete courses during the school year?” The answer is…
*STEP and FINS students receive a full semester’s coursework for one class for completing and OB course.
*Many students, especially those in STEP, have already dropped out of school for various reasons.
*Those FINS students that have not dropped out and choose to complete a course during the school year somehow get permission from their school/teachers to take time off for the course and then come back to school. I do not know exactly how this works, but I do know it is possible. Also, some courses are run during the summer months.
*Many Intercept courses are run for 18-20 year-olds, who have finished or dropped out of high school and are not in college. I don’t know what happens for 14-17 yr old Intercept courses.
Now the next question is: What are STEP, FINS and Intercept?
STEP stands for Short Term Expeditionary Program. This is a program run by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (FDJJ). Not all teens who are arrested and go through the FDJJ come to this program – only those who are arrested of non-violent crimes and sentenced to it by a judge. The program is 30 days longs, and the students must graduate the course or enter into the juvenile detention system. If they try to “run away” while on course, it is a felony and they go to jail. Students generally spend about 5 days on base, 7-8 days on the river, 3 days on solo, 7-8 more days on the river, and 5 more days on base, where they complete their final 7.6 mile run and graduate. All STEP courses are run from the Yulee, Florida base.
FINS stands for Families in Need of Services. This is another program run by the FDJJ, although it is a prevention program, targeted at teens who are at risk of becoming offenders for one reason or another – sometimes drugs, fighting, truancy, etc, etc. The major differences between FINS and STEP are: FINS youth are not adjudicated, they must apply to be in the program (or a parent must apply for them), and their course is 20 days long with 10 days of follow-up (instructors make scheduled home visits to work with the students and their families about transferring the learning that happened on course to their home environment.) The tuition is paid by the State of Florida.
Intercept: This is a nation-wide OB Outreach program that OB Discovery participates in. Most importantly, it is not an acronym! Like FINS, it is targeted at at-risk youth. Unlike FINS, it is not paid for by the State of Florida, so each student must pay their own tuition, which is usually about $6,000. As you can imagine, the demographics change pretty drastically from one type of course to the next. Intercept also has courses for youth ages 14-17 as well as for young adults ages 18-20. (FINS and STEP are all for youth ages 13-17.)
Next question: Where do you actually live?
At the moment I kind of live everywhere. This is a nice way of saying I am homeless with various places to stay. I am a “floater” like many OB employees. Each base has a number of cabins available for staff to stay in, as well as space for pitching tent. (I now own the best tent EVER – thanks dad and Connie for giving me the family Eureka!) I am re-imbursed for gas money when transporting myself from base to base, which is nice, and as an intern, I also get a bit of money for food. Honestly, what is this concept of earning money all about?
The OB Discovery Bases are:
*Five Rivers Base in Fairhope, AL (where we had NST) – STEP, FINS, and Intercept
*STEP Base in Yulee, FL - STEP only
*Scottsmoor, FL Base (where I am now!) – FINS and Intercept
*Key Largo, FL Base – FINS and Intercept (I have not been to this base yet – they do Everglades trips during the winter months)
I hope that helps clear up a bit of the mystery bubble as to what I've been doing lately. It really is a bit like a bubble - it is it's own little world, and it is difficult to explain one piece without explaining it all. A bit like Vanuatu - I feel as if I can talk about it all day, but the only way to truly understand it is to live in it. I can explain all of the pieces, but on top of all of those pieces are all the people, and the culture, and the little things that make it unique. But I will do my best, and I hope this has been a good start!
Course Tools
In OB Discovery there is a fairly well-set curriculum that we present to our students. This curriculum is divided in to two parts: Outdoor Education and Life Skills Management. Outdoor Education is pretty simple – all the “hard” skills such as setting up a tent, paddling a canoe, tying a trucker’s hitch, etc fall into this category. Life Skills Management deals to a large degree with assertive communication, decision making, and positive leadership skills.
To help students practice assertive communication, a specific set of “course tools” has been designed for them to use. During NST, we again learned about these course tools through experience. The first day at camp, one member of our team (“S”) happened to trip over another member of our team (“M”) while M was putting away the dishes. S did not apologize, and M got upset. Our trainers immediately called a “circle-up!” and introduced to the group the oft-used CFR.
C- Concern
F – Feeling
R – Assertive Request to the person or group
This is an extremely structured way for one person to express frustration to another person or group of people without the concern exploding into an all-out attack. The person practicing the CFR is only allowed to address the three questions above, with the stipulation that the concern and feeling be authentic and un-offensive, and the request be reasonable. When they are finished speaking, the person or people being addressed are asked: “Can you honor that request? Flag in if you can honor it.”
“Flagging in” to a circle-up means that you stick your fist into the center of the circle. It is just like raising your hand, except that in OB we go camping a lot, and we do not like to raise hands because everyone’s armpits usually smell bad. So we flag in.
Other assertive communication tools used during a program include:
WOMPs: Used when two people are simultaneously frustrated with each other.
W – What’s up?
O – Ownership. What can you “own” or take responsibility for in this situation?
M – Walk a Mile in their Moccasins. How would you feel if you were the other person?
P – Plan. What are you going to do in the future?
This is such an amazing tool because it precludes any sort of blaming or fighting. It gets right to the point and addresses the feelings of both parties without dramatizing either.
Step-Backs: A student can choose to take a “step-back” for any reason if they feel as though they cannot participate with the group at a certain time. If they miss out on an activity that includes work, such as running or setting up camp, that student must do some sort of “restore” to make up the work they missed. They are formally re-introduced to the group at the end of their step-back.
Separations: A student is separated from the group by an instructor if they are not meeting expectations and/or are being disruptive to the group. This is not a student choice. A lot of importance is put on the group, and being a member of the group – thus, a separation is a consequence, not a reward. Again, a student is formally re-introduced to the group, stating why they were separated, what they need from the group, and what their plan is to move forward. The group is then given the chance to say what they need from the separated student. Again -- assertive, assertive assertive.
Choice Theory: Ben basically described this to me when giving me behavior management techniques for substitute teaching last winter. When we went over this during NST, I said “hm, now that looks, familiar.” It is a very simple way of managing behaviors, and here it is:
What do you want?
What are you doing?
Is what you are doing getting you what you want?
Example:
I am tired and hungry and I want to go to bed.
I am whining and complaining instead of setting up camp.
Is this getting me any closer to going to bed?
No.
How can I change what I am doing to get what I want?
I can help set up camp so we can cook dinner faster, so that everyone can eat and go to bed.
Conveniently for instructors, the way a student can get what they want is generally to do what they are supposed to be doing.
We also use techniques called Reality Therapy and Motivational Interviewing. These are a bit more involved, and I know I will understand them more once I used them with students, so I’ll leave these for another day.
Contracts: Throughout course, students write contracts with instructors to further their goals for course, or to correct negative behavior. Contracts can be positive (to continue doing something such as showing positive leadership within the group), or negative (to find positive alternatives to negative behavior, such as using course tools to communicate assertively instead of yelling). In STEP courses, contracts are used to show the judge responsible for each student’s case that she/he is making progress. In non-adjudicated courses, contracts are simply a way to help students document their progress and give them SMART goals to work toward.
S-Specific
M-Measurable
A-Attainable
R-Realistic
T-Timely
…did I mention OB uses a unbelievable amount of acronyms? Don’t worry, there are more…
STEP, FINS, and Intercept
Many people have been asking me: “how can adolescents complete courses during the school year?” The answer is…
*STEP and FINS students receive a full semester’s coursework for one class for completing and OB course.
*Many students, especially those in STEP, have already dropped out of school for various reasons.
*Those FINS students that have not dropped out and choose to complete a course during the school year somehow get permission from their school/teachers to take time off for the course and then come back to school. I do not know exactly how this works, but I do know it is possible. Also, some courses are run during the summer months.
*Many Intercept courses are run for 18-20 year-olds, who have finished or dropped out of high school and are not in college. I don’t know what happens for 14-17 yr old Intercept courses.
Now the next question is: What are STEP, FINS and Intercept?
STEP stands for Short Term Expeditionary Program. This is a program run by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (FDJJ). Not all teens who are arrested and go through the FDJJ come to this program – only those who are arrested of non-violent crimes and sentenced to it by a judge. The program is 30 days longs, and the students must graduate the course or enter into the juvenile detention system. If they try to “run away” while on course, it is a felony and they go to jail. Students generally spend about 5 days on base, 7-8 days on the river, 3 days on solo, 7-8 more days on the river, and 5 more days on base, where they complete their final 7.6 mile run and graduate. All STEP courses are run from the Yulee, Florida base.
FINS stands for Families in Need of Services. This is another program run by the FDJJ, although it is a prevention program, targeted at teens who are at risk of becoming offenders for one reason or another – sometimes drugs, fighting, truancy, etc, etc. The major differences between FINS and STEP are: FINS youth are not adjudicated, they must apply to be in the program (or a parent must apply for them), and their course is 20 days long with 10 days of follow-up (instructors make scheduled home visits to work with the students and their families about transferring the learning that happened on course to their home environment.) The tuition is paid by the State of Florida.
Intercept: This is a nation-wide OB Outreach program that OB Discovery participates in. Most importantly, it is not an acronym! Like FINS, it is targeted at at-risk youth. Unlike FINS, it is not paid for by the State of Florida, so each student must pay their own tuition, which is usually about $6,000. As you can imagine, the demographics change pretty drastically from one type of course to the next. Intercept also has courses for youth ages 14-17 as well as for young adults ages 18-20. (FINS and STEP are all for youth ages 13-17.)
Next question: Where do you actually live?
At the moment I kind of live everywhere. This is a nice way of saying I am homeless with various places to stay. I am a “floater” like many OB employees. Each base has a number of cabins available for staff to stay in, as well as space for pitching tent. (I now own the best tent EVER – thanks dad and Connie for giving me the family Eureka!) I am re-imbursed for gas money when transporting myself from base to base, which is nice, and as an intern, I also get a bit of money for food. Honestly, what is this concept of earning money all about?
The OB Discovery Bases are:
*Five Rivers Base in Fairhope, AL (where we had NST) – STEP, FINS, and Intercept
*STEP Base in Yulee, FL - STEP only
*Scottsmoor, FL Base (where I am now!) – FINS and Intercept
*Key Largo, FL Base – FINS and Intercept (I have not been to this base yet – they do Everglades trips during the winter months)
I hope that helps clear up a bit of the mystery bubble as to what I've been doing lately. It really is a bit like a bubble - it is it's own little world, and it is difficult to explain one piece without explaining it all. A bit like Vanuatu - I feel as if I can talk about it all day, but the only way to truly understand it is to live in it. I can explain all of the pieces, but on top of all of those pieces are all the people, and the culture, and the little things that make it unique. But I will do my best, and I hope this has been a good start!
New Staff Training (NST) - Part II
Acronyms
In Outward Bound there are many acronyms. OB itself usually becomes an acronym. One of my favorite acronyms in DEBB, which stands for “Denial, Excused, Blame, and Bullshit.” It is a great way to call someone out when they are doing any of these four things instead of taking ownership for what they should be doing, but aren’t. “Have you ever heard the story of Debb? Well, let me tell you about her. She was always coming up with excuses for not getting things done – either she was blaming some of her co-workers, or making excuses because of circumstances, or denying that there was even a problem, or occasionally, feeding everyone a line of B.S. to get out of responsibility for something that looked bad…” From that point on, you can call someone out for “Debb-ing.” (No offense to the Debs, Debras, or Deborahs out there.) So, instead of making excuses for why I haven’t kept as up-to-date with pictures and stories as I would have liked with this blog, I will simply continue where I left off: with the second half of training.
Throughout training our group periodically switched between “student mode” and “adult mode.” We began much of our training as students – our trainers, Katie and Jinky, ran the “daily flow” much as if we were a group of teenagers at the beginning of a course. This was educational, if frustrating at times. I certainly learned what it feels like to be a student on a typical OB Discovery course – all of a sudden you find yourself in a place that is unfamiliar, under the control of elders that you largely do not know, with little personal space, time, or freedom. You are on Training.
Training, Main, and Final
Each course is divided into three main sections: Training, Main, and Final. During Training, students have very few personal and group freedoms. There is a lot to learn, and a lot to prove. To get to Main, students must demonstrate a range of both “hard” skills (such as knot tying and boat loading) and “soft” skills (such as acceptable behavior and assertive communication). Once on Main, students have more freedom, and more responsibilities. They might be able to decide what they would like to eat for dinner, but they must also demonstrate that they can set up camp and make their way through dinner as a group.
To keep things both challenging and fun, students must also pass a certain number of “Instructor Challenges” to progress to the next stage. At our second campsite during New Staff Training (NST – another one to add to the acronym list), our Instructor Challenge was to unload all of the canoes and set up camp in 45 minutes or less. In silence. At dusk. The shore was a steep muddy embankment, and canoes had to be left tied up in the water. We did it. Luckily, almost every activity in OB includes a debrief, and we needed it that night. It is interesting how struggle can show the rifts in a group that we might normally sweep beneath the radar – and how talking about that same struggle can take those rifts and turn them into strong points as people learn about each other, and about the interpersonal dynamics within the group. (Sidenote: to my understanding, this is the theory behind pretty much all we did at The Adventure Centre – create challenge and/or struggle, then talk about it.)
The last portion of any expedition is Final. In this stage of program, students are expected to “take over” their own course. While they must meet certain requirements (for example: they must run for X minutes, must properly set up camp, paddle to X campsite, etc), the structure of their days and moving from one task to the next is determined by them. Instructors do not leave, but “step back” and let students both struggle and succeed. If students do not meet expectations during any phase of course, however, they may always be “bumped back” to the previous phase.
Our transition to Final during NST came our last night on the river, and it was the most memorable part of the course…which I’m not ready to write about yet. Later.
As we moved from Training to Main to Final, we got a sense of who our instructors were, and the kind of people we had to work with on our team. I experienced the same feelings of frustration, helplessness, empowerment, encouragement, helpfulness, and self-confidence that I would imagine – or at least hope – a typical OB Discovery student would experience on course. I was working with amazing, dedicated people who shared many of my values. Over the course of ten days of close quarters in canoes and tents, I found that these amazing people had become my friends, my teachers, and my students.
In Outward Bound there are many acronyms. OB itself usually becomes an acronym. One of my favorite acronyms in DEBB, which stands for “Denial, Excused, Blame, and Bullshit.” It is a great way to call someone out when they are doing any of these four things instead of taking ownership for what they should be doing, but aren’t. “Have you ever heard the story of Debb? Well, let me tell you about her. She was always coming up with excuses for not getting things done – either she was blaming some of her co-workers, or making excuses because of circumstances, or denying that there was even a problem, or occasionally, feeding everyone a line of B.S. to get out of responsibility for something that looked bad…” From that point on, you can call someone out for “Debb-ing.” (No offense to the Debs, Debras, or Deborahs out there.) So, instead of making excuses for why I haven’t kept as up-to-date with pictures and stories as I would have liked with this blog, I will simply continue where I left off: with the second half of training.
Throughout training our group periodically switched between “student mode” and “adult mode.” We began much of our training as students – our trainers, Katie and Jinky, ran the “daily flow” much as if we were a group of teenagers at the beginning of a course. This was educational, if frustrating at times. I certainly learned what it feels like to be a student on a typical OB Discovery course – all of a sudden you find yourself in a place that is unfamiliar, under the control of elders that you largely do not know, with little personal space, time, or freedom. You are on Training.
Training, Main, and Final
Each course is divided into three main sections: Training, Main, and Final. During Training, students have very few personal and group freedoms. There is a lot to learn, and a lot to prove. To get to Main, students must demonstrate a range of both “hard” skills (such as knot tying and boat loading) and “soft” skills (such as acceptable behavior and assertive communication). Once on Main, students have more freedom, and more responsibilities. They might be able to decide what they would like to eat for dinner, but they must also demonstrate that they can set up camp and make their way through dinner as a group.
To keep things both challenging and fun, students must also pass a certain number of “Instructor Challenges” to progress to the next stage. At our second campsite during New Staff Training (NST – another one to add to the acronym list), our Instructor Challenge was to unload all of the canoes and set up camp in 45 minutes or less. In silence. At dusk. The shore was a steep muddy embankment, and canoes had to be left tied up in the water. We did it. Luckily, almost every activity in OB includes a debrief, and we needed it that night. It is interesting how struggle can show the rifts in a group that we might normally sweep beneath the radar – and how talking about that same struggle can take those rifts and turn them into strong points as people learn about each other, and about the interpersonal dynamics within the group. (Sidenote: to my understanding, this is the theory behind pretty much all we did at The Adventure Centre – create challenge and/or struggle, then talk about it.)
The last portion of any expedition is Final. In this stage of program, students are expected to “take over” their own course. While they must meet certain requirements (for example: they must run for X minutes, must properly set up camp, paddle to X campsite, etc), the structure of their days and moving from one task to the next is determined by them. Instructors do not leave, but “step back” and let students both struggle and succeed. If students do not meet expectations during any phase of course, however, they may always be “bumped back” to the previous phase.
Our transition to Final during NST came our last night on the river, and it was the most memorable part of the course…which I’m not ready to write about yet. Later.
As we moved from Training to Main to Final, we got a sense of who our instructors were, and the kind of people we had to work with on our team. I experienced the same feelings of frustration, helplessness, empowerment, encouragement, helpfulness, and self-confidence that I would imagine – or at least hope – a typical OB Discovery student would experience on course. I was working with amazing, dedicated people who shared many of my values. Over the course of ten days of close quarters in canoes and tents, I found that these amazing people had become my friends, my teachers, and my students.
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