Rite of Passage Practices in Curriculum Design

Abstract

What traditional rites of passage (ROPs), contemporary outdoor education (OE) programs, and Western educational systems share in common is an approach to teaching and learning that is focused on specific, predetermined learning outcomes for individuals. This paper outlines the process of designing and implementing an ROP curriculum for a wilderness summer camp that was informed by theories in emergent design, intersectional feminism, and experiential education and focused on campers’ self-determining desired outcomes. The anecdote circle data collection method created a space for these insights to be shared in a way that ensured their authenticity and reduced facilitator/researcher influence in the outcomes. The resulting themes of the data collected during the anecdote circle illustrate that campers derive significant personal meaning from an ROP wilderness experience. Campers shared experiencing a connection to nature, sense of freedom from time and space and freedom of expression, an appreciation for slowness and simple living, quality sleep and what contributes to that, vulnerability, awareness of resource privilege, presence, their understanding of trees as a marker for nature, and feelings of sadness and anticipation for the challenges of maintaining this perspective after re-entry into their everyday lives. Findings of this study showed that in the absence of specific predetermined learning outcomes, campers derived significant personal meaning from their experiences. These results indicate that the establishment of predetermined outcomes may have little influence on the success of a transformational learning experience.