Dartmouth Outward Bound Center and the rise of experiential education, 1957–1976

Abstract

PurposeThe article discusses Outward Bound's participation in the human potential movement through its incorporation of T-group practices and the reform language of experiential education in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Design/methodology/approachThe article reports on original research conducted using materials from Dartmouth College and other Outward Bound collections from 1957 to 1976. It follows a case study approach to illustrate themes pertaining to Outward Bound's creation and evolution in the United States, and the establishment of experiential education more broadly.FindingsBuilding on prior research (Freeman, 2011; Millikan, 2006), the present article elaborates on the conditions under which Outward Bound abandoned muscular Christianity in favor of humanistic psychology. Experiential education provided both a set of practices and a reform language that helped Outward Bound expand into the educational mainstream, which also helped to extend self-expressive pedagogies into formal and nonformal settings.Research limitations/implicationsThe Dartmouth Outward Bound Center's tenure coincided with and reflected broader cultural changes, from the cold war motif of spiritual warfare, frontier masculinity and national service to the rise of self-expression in education. Future scholars can situate specific curricular initiatives in the context of these paradigms, particularly in outdoor education.Originality/valueThe article draws attention to one of the forms that the human potential movement took in education – experiential education – and the reasons for its adoption. It also reinforces emerging understandings of post-WWII American outdoor education as a product of the cold war and reflective of subsequent changes in the wider culture to a narrower focus on the self.

“You can't be an atheist here”: Christianity and Outward Bound in Britain, c.1941–1965

“…Jayson Seaman, in this issue, emphasises the rhetorical influence of Christianity on the early development of the American Outward Bound schools, where it wasas in Britain -yoked to an ideal of "service" that drew heavily on the work of Kurt Hahn himself. This was vitally important in the Cold War context, where "spiritual struggle" was set against godless Communism (Seaman, 2020). In Britain at least, there was also a widely shared concernarticulated by some members of the Outward Bound Trust itselfthat secularisation was undermining the "spiritual life of the nation" (Freeman, 2005).…”

“…5 He saw the first Outward Bound school at Aberdovey as one of four "islands of healing" that he had created, each of which had the "Christian faith" at its core; and he was given to the use of religiously inspired language, notably in his repeated promotion of "Samaritan service". 6 Thus in the Britain of the 1940s and 1950s, under Hahn's direct influence, Outward Bound shared the later American vocabulary of "religion" and "spirituality" (Seaman, 2020), but had more formal Christian elements in its training. It was thus more Christian, at least equally "spiritual", and certainly no less muscular, than its American counterpart; and religious "instruction" was a central, though by no means uncontested, feature of the "character-training" that the schools provided.…”

Smart Sports Outward Bound Training Assistant System Based on WSNs

“…The outward bound training refers to the development of unusual and unexpected experiences and work (Seaman et al 2020). The training refers to controlled and repeated practice as a means to teach or complete a technology or procedure.…”