War Stories

When outdoor instructors gather after work, and perhaps after refreshment has been taken, conversations sometimes turn to "war stories". Usually these are entered into in a spirit of sharing, of informal CPD and "what might I have done differently?", rather than just negative bitching about the job. This one is of the "not bitching" type.

Recently a colleague talked about a group of clients, "young people at risk of offending" as they are described. Often it's more accurately the case that such clients are "young people at risk of getting caught offending again" and they can be difficult to engage.

My colleague told how the group he was assigned to refused to take part in the planned hillwalking activity and they returned early to the centre. He told how frustrating it was that they couldn't see how engaging with the challenge would bring them reward and how surprised, perhaps a little dismayed, he was to find them occupied in damming a stream near the centre that afternoon. "Like 6 year old kids", he said. I can empathise here and, until my own Forest School training, would have felt the same.

It struck me, though, that a Forest Schools practitioner wouldn't necessarily have seen this as a problem. Following the principle that behaviour can be the expression of an unmet need, perhaps the actions of the group are less surprising.

The lives of young offenders are often characterised by degrees of anxiety. Where others might regard the opportunity to climb a mountain as a challenge to lift the monotony of a humdrum routine, young offenders may have a bellyful of challenge and uncertainty in their lives. No matter that many of their challenges and anxieties are the self-inflicted consequences of a career of wrongdoing (though the home lives of many young offenders are also flavoured with a chaos not of their own making).

The unmet need may have been for orderly, restful, absorbing play. Perhaps an expression of one of the group's long remembered happy childhood afternoons? A subconscious desire to return to a guilt-free state?

And the dam building? From a Forest School perspective this is an example of participant-led activity. The practitioner's role would be to support safe practice, to model (perhaps by joining the play) and to facilitate extension of the activity, responding to the group's developing interests. In time, as the group developed their sense of competence, confidence and explored their surroundings, they may have ventured up the mountain of their own accord.

Patterdale Residential with Carnegie GO, June 2014

As with the Grasmere event, I led hill walking activity. In this case these were a series of half day trips over 2 days, for year 7 pupils from Halifax. We walked into the Round How and Rakes Crag areas around Boredale Hause. We stayed at Patterdale Youth Hostel.

It's great to put on boots, pack minimal kit and just walk out of the hostel and onto the hill. Other activities often require specialist equipment and a minibus drive to a crag, cave, gorge or lakeside. Pedestrianism is the essence of being a human traveller. Walking is a neglected mode of transport in what seems a vehicle-centric world.

Aside from my usual goals of promoting individual capacity and teamwork, I also aimed to facilitate "active noticing", greater connection with the environment and sense of place. I did this by asking the students what they noticed as being the same as and different from their home. This sparked some interesting learning conversations...

- Rushes (smell of cucumber), cotton grass (source of fibre) and invasive bracken grow both on the Lake District fells and Halifax moors. The soils are similarly nutrient-leached, acidic and over-grazed.
- Drystone walls abound in both places but the stones are different.
- Halifax rock is sedimentary but in the Lakes it's volcanic.
- Skylarks sing on the moors and the fells. But not on all of them.
- "Cuckoo spit" hosts a froghopper nymph.
- The Wheatear is migratory and it's name has a risqué origin.
- The clean Lake District air supports some colourful lichens.
- Tourists generally prefer the Lakes to Halifax.

Grasmere Residential with Carnegie GO, June 2014

I spent 3 days of mountain leadership and team development work with year 6 pupils from Toftwood Junior School, Dereham, Norfolk. One group climbed Helm Crag, the other Silver Howe and Blea Rigg. With other pupils we played team development games (rollerball and stepping stones) in a woodland setting in the grounds of Grasmere YHA.

While this is not explicitly Forest Schools work, and my role often (by necessity) leans closer to leadership than facilitation, I believe, in my approach, there are close parallels.

In this sort of work I generally have 3 objectives. Depending on the group and the requirements of the client these are usually negotiated to some degree or other -

1 - to help participants realise and develop personal capacity
2 - to help participants realise and develop group working skills
3 - to help participants develop awareness of and connection with and enjoyment of their surroundings

In hillwalking I attempt to develop these through, as much as possible -

1 - Involvement in decision making in the planning and carrying out of the journey.
2 - Deliberate briefing and debriefing of the activity and the pupils' participation and responses in it.
3 - Learning conversations during the activity and promoting "active noticing" of our surroundings, our activity and our feelings about these.

In this case, during the briefings, the group talked first about what equipment they might need. Afterwards we identified their levels of anxiety and confidence in relationship to the activity - holding fingers up to put a level on their confidence. This began a conversation about what might cause anxiety and how individuals and the group might act to reduce this.

During the activity I try to engage students in assisting one another, in navigational decisions and also "active noticing" generally by asking questions about features of the route and the activity itself.

In this case we -

- noticed Herdwick sheep and felt samples of their coarse wool, thinking about their hardiness.
- considered what was natural and man-made, noticing signs of quarrying and the drystone walls.
- identified carnivorous plants (butterwort and sundew) and how and why they were adapted to digest insects.
- identified oak, ash, beech, rowan and juniper.
- identified rushes (and their use in rush lights) and cotton grass, thinking about how it came to grow in the Lake District.
- Discussed and experienced how we might maintain our energy and comfort during a day long mountain journey.
- identified Wheatear, talked about their migration and the origin of their name.
- challenged ourselves physically and mentally on steep ascents and descents.
- identified and held click beetles while they showed their anti-predator adaptation.
- watched an Emperor dragonfly and damselflies hawking damp areas and dry paths.
- talked about the usefulness of cairns and why leaving litter is a bad idea.
- played Pooh sticks and stone dominoes.
- paddled our feet in mountain streams and tarns.
- had "moments" in the sunshine and on summits, thinking about our feelings about the place and our activity.