Comfort Zones, Adventure Paradigm and Experiential Learning

Leadership in the mountains has to be flexible to adjust to the ever changing environment, however this doesn’t change the fact that you always reflect on past situations and think that you could have done something differently. For instance on a recent trip to Snowdonia when climbing Pen yr Ole Wen even though it is a steep sometimes scrabble slope no learning took place.

This is likely to have occurred because all members of the group and us two leaders, were well within our comfort zones. In Senninger’s (2000, cited in ThemPra, ca 2008) Learning Zone Model the comfort zone is important, as is gives us a safe place to return to. However in order to learn we need to be in the learning zone, outside the comfort but, not into the panic zone (Senninger, 2000, cited in ThemPra, ca 2008). Being in the comfort zone, resulted in a lack of learning taking place, as the steep ground location was too comfortable and familiar to our group members, all of whom climb regularly. For learning to take place we as leaders would have needed to be in our comfort zones whilst, group members needed to be in the learning zone. With both the leaders, and the group members being of equal competence on steep ground, us as leaders had the inability to push group members into the learning zone.

(Senninger, 2000, cited in ThemPra, ca 2008)

The situation can also be related to Priest’s (1990, cited in Neill, 2007) adventure paradigm. Both leaders, and the group were in adventure, however for learning to take place the group members needed to be in peak adventure (Priest, 1990, cited in Neill, 2007). For this to take place we as leaders would need to be of a much higher competence than the group. We would have ideally been in exploration and experimentation or adventure, to then take the group into situations that they deem as risky, so that they could learn from the situation.

(Priest, 1990, cited in Neill, 2007)

Gibbons and Hopkins (1980, cited in Neill, 2005) created a ten step scale of experiential learning; with one being that somebody is stimulated and receptive by seeing something on TV or in pictures, and ten being that tasks can be completed, with maturity and others can learn at the same time. I believe that when climbing Pen yr Ole Wen as leaders we were on stage four where we analysed the situations and experience (Gibbons and Hopkins, 1980, cited in Neill, 2005). I believe our group members however, were on stage three, where they were playing and exploring in the situation but not necessarily learning much from it (Gibbons and Hopkins, 1980, cited in Neill, 2005).

(Gibbons and Hopkins, 1980, cited in Neill, 2005)

On reflection to become a better leader additional time in the hills will improve my competence and confidence, which then gives me the ability to push my group further, to enable them to learn and gain more from the experience by being in peak adventure and in the learning zone.

References:

Gibbons and Hopkins (1980, cited in Neill, 2005) Scale of Experientiality. [on-line] Available: http://wilderdom.com/theory/ScaleOfExperientiality.html [date accessed: 2nd December 2011]

Priest, S. (1990, cited in Neill, 2007) The Adventure Experience Paradigm. [on-line] Available: http://wilderdom.com/philosophy/PriestAdventureExperienceParadigm.html [date accessed: 2nd December 2011]

Senninger. (2000, cited in ThemPra, ca 2008) The Learning Zone Model. [on-line] Available: http://social-pedagogy.co.uk/concepts_lzm.htm [date accessed: 2nd.  December 2011]