The impact that one of this century's most creative educators had on nearly 4 million girls and boys is chronicled here. For over 75 years up to this present day, Hahn's schools have enrolled students world-wide including such notables as England's Prince Charles and Prince Philip. Though it is his famous Outward Bound program that has received such international recognition, Hahn's tenets of teaching formulated so many years ago still are proving valid today. Surviving in the wilderness and surviving in a complex society requires similar basic character traits. The author, himself a Hahn's school alumnus, presents the life of his subject in an intriguing manner. The book will hopefully shed more light on a man about whom even many of his current students know so little. And Mr. Flavin can be even more illuminating via a telephone interview. His observations are insightful, witty and poignant in recalling the life of Kurt Hahn.

The traditional picture of a Victorian public school assumes that it was founded on Thomas Arnold, Tom Brown’s Schooldays and Rugby football. A Rifle Corps, Oxbridge Blues on the teaching staff, and an ethos of esprit de corps were all part of the system. The cult of athleticism reigned supreme. This was not the case at Uppingham School during Edward Thring’s headmastership from 1853 to 1887. Here a balanced physical education of gymnastics, athletics, games, swimming and country pursuits flourished within a sane but revolutionary educational framework. Thring’s Uppingham, however, was an Athens surrounded by Spartan strongholds. The Spartans were kept at bay during Thring’s lifetime, but, after his death, they closed in and even claimed Thring as one of their own. His ideals were hijacked by the sportsmen and then perverted by the militarists. Thring’s theory and practice of physical education lived on outside the traditional public schools, was adopted by the progressive school movement, and eventually found acceptance in all good schools. Its legacy can be found in the first National Curriculum for Physical Education and in all schools that value physical education as a vital ingredient of holistic education. This book will inform trainee teachers, practising teachers and teacher trainers of the men and women who have strived since 1800 to secure a place for physical education in the curriculum for all pupils. Historians of education, gender, society and sport will find new material to illuminate their fields of study.

Written for instructors who want their classroom experience to be as involving as the field, Teaching Adventure Education Theory offers activities instructors can use to help students make the connections between theory and practice. Top educators provide lesson plans that cover adventure theory, philosophy, history, and conceptual models.

What's wrong with America's schools? Why can't we fix them? How did we wind up with dropout rates of 25 percent and graduates who can barely read and write? Why does the United States spend twice as much on education as the international average and wind up near the bottom of the barrel in global comparisons of student achievement? Why do we lag behind nations such as South Korea, Hungary, and Singapore? And how should we go about improving the situation? Answers to these questions lie at the heart of this volume. David T. Kearns and James Harvey contend we are fine-tuning failure. We have yet to break with the past in order to face a different and challenging future. Despite worshiping at the altar of "local control" we have managed to create cookie-cutter schools across the country. We have been sidestepping the transparent need for common expectations about what students should know and be able to do. Standards, the authors say, are not clear enough or high enough. Above all, we have met the enemy and it is us: all of us support "change" as long as someone else is changing. This book is a fascinating and provocative analysis of where we went wrong and what we need to do to get American education back on track. It defines the kind of education our kids deserve. It calls for a new definition of "public education" in which choice is taken for granted. And it outlines an action agenda to help parents and citizens make first-class schools truly their own. In the future, the authors argue, we should think of a public school as any other non-profit entity—capable of operating in the public interest free of the red tape now strangling public education. It should be paid for by the public and accountable to the public, with its charter or contract routinely revoked when it stops serving public purposes or fails to meet its performance goals.

This sourcebook book provides a much-needed overview and foundations for the field of experiential education, through portraits of philosophers, educators, and other practitioners whose work is relevant to understanding its philosophy and methodology.

Kurt Hahn had a huge influence on the fields of outdoor and experiential learning, adventure education and, not least, badge schemes (Gordonstoun, Moray, and County Badges; and Duke of Edinburgh Award) throughout the world. This book provides a detailed historical account, centred on Hahn and the movement which surrounded him, of the early development of adventure education up to 1944. This includes an examination of themes present throughout Hahn’s educational endeavours. It looks at Hahn’s founding of Salem School (Germany) in 1920 and then Gordonstoun School (Scotland) in 1934. At both of these fee-paying schools activities such as sailing and hill-walking, often through expeditions lasting more than one day, played a prominent role in the education of the students. At Gordonstoun Hahn expanded his educational ventures, through the use of badge schemes, to include young people from the surrounding district who were not students at his school. Hahn expanded his badge schemes, firstly across the county in which Gordonstoun was situated, Morayshire, and then across Britain. The Outward Bound Sea School was founded by Hahn and Lawrence Holt, a ship-owner, at Aberdovey (Wales) in October 1941. It was a training centre where students could go for four week courses and it followed the badge scheme syllabus. During this period Hahn’s educational vision was one of those that influenced the Norwood Report and consequently the 1944 Education Act in terms of outdoor activities. This act provided the framework within which Outdoor Centres were set up by Local Education Authorities in the UK. This book looks at the various contexts, which came together through Hahn, and which help the reader understand his actions: German educational practice; Hahn’s and Prince Max’s (owner of Salem School) experiences of the First World War and its aftermath and the need to educate people to speak out and act upon their convictions; Hahn’s and Prince Max’s inclusive agenda; British educational practice; the Second World War; and Hahn’s expansionist aims. Kurt Hahn was one of the field’s greatest advocates and this book provides a detailed historical examination of his work and brings light to the complex tapestry of events which led to the rise and development of adventure education.

Dynamic and effective leadership skills from the organization that has spent decades helping people discover their own potential to lead