To say folks are frustrated with much of the US education system is an understatement, many people are fighting angry, spitting mad. For many of us part of the US's founding intentions were to provide the best education in the world and evolved into a bragging right for the US. While there are many quality teachers to be had and good classroom programs, the diversity in our childrens' education is virtually gone. Will stories of the good old days of school begin with, once upon a time there was driver's education? The argument rages as to how this happened or why but we're not going to develop that argument here. How we can help our children, what we can do for them is our focus.

The approach now taken with our school systems, wherein they must meet the National benchmarks of "teaching" is failing our kids. Test scores, when compared internationally continue to decrease as the US is losing its footing. The classrooms have become machinations of school wherein all it's parts are pushed through the same hole whether or not that's appropriate. We're not looking at the standardized test model or its efficacy, we need to look at the steps we can take to protect our kids where the system is failing them in their education.

You don't need to reach too far into our past to find a time when our schools actually supplied our children with the tools they needed to be students. Nowadays a student comes home from the first day of school with a laundry list of items the child has to bring to class. Often, supplementing the "required" list, the teacher sends their own "wish list" for the school year. More often than not on the wish list is BOOKS!

As school budgets tighten and retract, class options are being cut from the curriculum. With each cut, our children are robbed of a potential learning experience. Here, in Northern California, children no longer take driver's education in school, no more home economic / cooking classes, gymnastics is nearly gone from every school, these and many more, simply no longer exist on the curriculum.

Accountability is important in life, it's certainly a skill our children should learn; thus, in the air of full accountability it should be noted, since I'm complaining, it's our fault things got to this state. Yes, I said our fault. It's our fault because we trusted our political representatives to represent us, we grew jaded to the entire political process. In our defense, most of us had our nose to the proverbial grindstone and were busy trying to put food on the table. And in our silliness, our trust of our officials, we were led astray. We can fix this, with focused and mass effort. Until then, we need to look at what we can do, as parents and grandparents for the children in our lives. There are organizations that can help offset the experiential losses.

More so in Europe and the British Commonwealth at large than here in the US outdoor education and experiential education is valued and part of curriculum. If you research and or speak to someone who is involved with experiential education, be it an administrator or a teacher or a student, you'll find great enthusiasm and belief in the efficacy of this type of environment for student performance and learning. In the US the private school is the more likely place to find regular outdoor programs. The problem for most of us is access to the private education, it is simply more cost than most homes can justify adding to the monthly budget.

So, we must find alternative, such as adventure camps.

Experiential outdoor education programs help in a great many ways, here are a few main points of impact this type of education will have on a student:

1. An environmental / ecological awareness

2. Physical challenge and accomplishment positive for both the physical and emotional well-being

3. Self-awareness / empowerment

4. Interpersonal relations, communication and leadership skills

5. Socialization and community development

There are many studies on environmental-, experiential-, outdoor-education and all those researched for this commentary, tout the benefits of this type of exposure. Reciprocally, they speak to what a child misses when this experience is pulled from their reach, from their opportunity to sample the experience. What is commonly difficult in the research is delivering the results. Overwhelmingly the results are anecdotal; as its each persons response to the experience, were interested. This is not easily explained by predictable measuring devices i.e., tests. We know if we teach a child basic addition and then test the child on 2+2 and the child responds with 4, the teaching was a success; the result is measurable and it can be repeated over and over. With experiential education, its difficult to give clear, concrete results.

Precisely because we cannot produce a neat diagram, a test result, for these types of courses, they're the first to go in any budget cutting process. It's much easier to kill the community garden project than it is cutting a biology class.

If we happened upon a child who demonstrated positive self awareness with a sensitivity to the environment around them. We could agree this is positive. If the child also demonstrated healthy physical prowess and a positive attitude, could make positive choices when confronted with peer pressure, can communicate with confidence and integrity as well as have a sense of the communities they traveled in at large, we'd think this was a great happening. Summer adventure camps that speak to experiential education can help stir these behaviors in the campers.

This concludes part 1 of this two part look at the benefits of outdoor education. Part 2 will explore each of the 5 points further and provide first hand anecdotes of summer campers.

Christopher Pyle has a degree in Humanities emphasizing children' literature and the coming of age saga. He has 20-years of whitewater rafting experience and is owner / director of Action Whitewater and a youth adventure summer camp. He aims at building better people through better experience.