A fresh look at outdoor education

Most Albertans think of the dead of winter as the best time to get out of Dodge. But if you're a transplanted New Zealander on an academic mission, that brass monkey, bone-numbing cold just migh

25 May 2010

Most Albertans think of the dead of winter as the best time to get out of Dodge. But if you're a transplanted New Zealander on an academic mission, that brass monkey, bone-numbing cold just might be seen as a peak experience.

That was one of the attractions, along with experiencing the prairie climate, and working with one of Canada's top social theorists, Pirkko Markula, that brought post doctoral fellow Robyn Zink from New Zealand to the University of Alberta. "I wanted to work with Pirkko because I (wanted to learn more about applying the theories of influential philosophers) Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze to extend my theoretical understanding of outdoor education," says Zink, an expert in outdoor education with a passion for sailing.

Applying Foucaultian and Deleuzian theories, says Zink, "lets me ask some very different questions than are generally asked within outdoor education research. The main focus in outdoor education is still very much concerned with the question of 'does it work?' There's more being asked around the question of 'how does it work?' now. I'm more interested in finding out, 'what work does it do?'"

Zink's doctoral studies at Otago University in New Zealand looked at outdoor education within the secondary education context there. "I was looking at how did those practices come to be seen as best practices? Why are we doing what we do? Who said we should do it this way and what does it mean in terms of what students can learn when they do it this way?"

Her post-doctoral studies have taken the questioning deeper. "What I'm particularly interested in is how relationships and connections (between people, and people and places) can develop and flourish in an outdoor context. I'm also looking at it in terms of how that works when we (physically) move together. For example, when we're walking or canoeing together - often there's a connection that occurs when we do something physical together. I'm interested in exploring that further."

In doing so, she'll continue to be guided by the social theories of Deleuze, who makes no distinction between humans and inanimate objects in their capacity to connect in their unique way.

To Zink, understanding more about our human and non-human relationships and connections is key to "making a better, more connected world."

"Deleuze and Foucault's work has a very strong ethical current running through it," explains Zink. "What they are trying to do is to move away from an ethics-based morality in terms of mandating how one should behave, and certainly there's a lot of that in outdoor education, that there's a right and a wrong way to do things, and if you're not doing it this way, you're not doing it properly.

I happen to think the outdoors is a much bigger church than that and there are many ways of being in the outdoors. In terms of my own teaching I want to understand how to teach in a way that gives students the skills and abilities to engage in those questions, rather than just following the rules of camping, for example, and to question what they're doing, why and for whom," and to increase their ability to connect to others more broadly.

As her post-doctoral year winds down, Zink will take time to explore some of Canada's rugged beauty in the Yukon, where she plans to canoe from Whitehorse to Dawson with her partner, Maurice, and then to Salt Spring Island for a taste of BC's ocean playground before heading home.

After that?

She smiles. "Life after that is a bit of mystery."

Robyn Zink is in Canada for a year's post-doctoral study and is funded through Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which brings scholars from different countries here as part of an internationalization strategy. Forty two scholars from eight different countries are currently visiting Canada under this program; two of them are from New Zealand.