Night Walks
It seems that every outdoor program takes them. Night Walks. It is a way of getting your students to view their world in a new way. The use of our senses ususally lasts for a day or two and then they go right back to a smaller less full view of life. I was taking some students last fall on a late night walk through the woods when my view of life changed, not theirs. I was getting to a place where we usually see glow worms and one of the kids asked me "how come you can see things that no one else can see". I said "Its all in what you are looking for". It did not occur to me that I was about to totally change my view of things. When we think we know what we are going to see, it limits what we are looking for. Are we open to new and different experiences when we teach in the outdoors? Is Outdoor Education easy to define for us because we have done it for so long or is it new every time we step off the pavement into the woods? I have taken a "left turn at Albuquerque" as bugs would say, left the known behind and headed off in a new and different direction. The trees seem taller, the sky a little bluer and the air a little fresher even though the future is uncertain. Let the night, reveal something new in your life.