Into the Big Wide World: Sustainable Experiential Education for the 21st Century

This paper considers the complexity of learning and decision-making in modern society and argues that experiential education should embrace this complexity. It argues that experiential programmes should provide independent learning experiences that address the capacities of learners, the value contexts in which they learn, and that taking responsibility for actions should be an important programme focus. Furthermore, realising the limitations to learning through direct experience recognises the role of critical reflection on knowledge, understanding, and personal decision-making. To make experiential education relevant to the needs of modern society, a focus on education about and action on the big issues of the day, (e.g,, global climate change) is an imperative that outdoor educators are well equipped to address. However, action requires knowledge, and therefore programmes require content. Such an approach may prove attractive to educational policy makers and represents an opportunity for experiential education to contribute meaningfully to mainstream education.