Vipul Shaha S-504 Final Paper Draft (Assignment 3) Introduction: Education has been hailed as the route to progress,

poverty alleviation and a more just, equitable and an orderly society. Mass schooling around the world is a fairly recent phenomena adopted by mankind in more recent centuries. Given the increased attention on education, we need to critically think about the desirable outcomes of education and if our current investments into education are leading to those desirable outcomes. While students and schools are under ever increasing pressure to perform better on state defined learning standards, it is necessary to pause and reflect on what learning experiences, have a deeper positive influence on students. It can be argued that preparing students for standardized tests alone in traditional school settings cannot completely fulfill the larger purpose of education. As Harold Berlak (2005) argues, the mindless and ubiquitous use of standardized tests as the sole measure of educational progress is as unjust as it is absurd. (pp.3) As someone who taught in a low-income private school Grade 3 and 4 children for two years and felt the constant need to go beyond the prescribed curriculum towards a more holistic learning, I became increasingly interested to find ways and means to have a long-term impact on kids lives. As I strived to achieve this goal, I found myself trying to invent and define what transformative teaching looks like without any access to a clear conceptual framework and practical tools to implement it. It would not be too difficult for any sincere educator to agree upon the fact that education should have a transformative impact on the lives of students. Unless education promises to cause a personal change towards a better life trajectory of those who benefit from it, the entire exercise can be deemed to be futile. The problem arises because of the ambiguity in deciding what truly counts as transformative and how that transformation can be affected.

This paper endeavors to better understand on what particular learning experiences count as transformational for students. I focus my research on 3 camp sites in America and the specific aspects of their approach that the camp counselors believe lead to student transformation. In this paper, I first attempt to define transformative learning, describe my research sample and methods in brief, then I present my findings from the research with camp counselors and identify three key elements of transformative learning in camp settings. I conclude by citing implications of these findings and how they could possibly be incorporated in the conventional schools. Transformative Learning: Transformative learning is that which is life changing (Shushok, 2009). It is a type of an education that unlocks the dormant potential, sets up a child for a life of inner and outer fulfillment mental as well as material, a life with responsible and moral citizenship. J.Krishnamurti lends a very philosophical and a profound meaning to the idea of learning. To educate the student rightly is to help him to understand the total process of himself; for it is only when there is integration of the mind and heart in everyday action that there can be intelligence and inward transformation. (Krishnamurti, 1953 pp. 31). Transformative learning comes in many ways and forms; it could be an incidence from childhood, a conversation with a teacher, a friendship, a project, a book that one may read, an encounter with a new place, person or a thing. It may vary from one individual to another. Many people attribute their success to such transformative experiences they had in their own upbringing. Gandhi for example was transformed by a drama play he saw as a child and that inspired him to lead a life of absolute truthfulness (Gandhi, 1927). If I am to recall from my own childhood, I can attribute my transformative

learning to two particular teachers I had and how they challenged my imagination and creativity. I am thus keen to find out what are those positive lasting impressions that influence the kids the most in the process of learning.

Why Camps? A TIME magazine article estimated approximately 6 million American children attending varied types of summer camps each year ranging from marine biology, video shooting, arts and craft, wellness camps and adventure camps to name a few. It was also noteworthy to observe the growing trend among parents to send their children to these camps so that they can get ahead of school (Orecklin et. al. 2005). There must be something that these camps are promising to offer that our schools may not be providing our children. I chose to study camps as the following question intrigued me: why does there arise a need for an alternative experiential learning camp when the job of imparting education is already entrusted in our schools? This research holds importance because it attempts to define what matters the most in education: transformative learning experience for a child. It will serve as a guide to parents, teachers, governments and future education entrepreneurs who attempt to improve and reform education. Without a clear understanding of what is truly transformative for children, we will continue to design tests and teaching strategies that may not necessarily lead up to such a transformation. It, therefore, is imperative to have a clear understanding of what type of learning experiences count towards life changing transformation so that they can be incorporated in our education system more widely and not remain limited to summer camps or a few unconventional schools. Previous Findings: While the history of education reform and development brings to attention innumerable education philosophers, thought leaders, experimenters and practitioners, education approaches and models of every kind and shape, there appears to be no clear consensus on what the basic purpose of education is and what is the best approach to educating human beings. Much of the literature so far has focused on specific models that have worked in various contexts and parts of the world. While researches have

attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of these specific and unique approaches; it remains to be seen as to how education community, as a whole, perceives transformative teaching and learning. There is no one-stop document that pulls together a list of comprehensive transformative learning experiences for children. While looking at the research particularly on camp sites, one would soon come to the realization that most of it focuses on a particular camp site and its effectiveness in terms of before and after impact on students. A group of researchers, for example, reported significant positive changes in confidence, values, and future intentions of a summer camp participants (Crombie, Walsh, & Trinneer, 2003). In other instances campers have reported less social isolation and experienced improvements in self-esteem (Michalski et.al. 2003). What really goes on in these camps that causes this transformation is not covered well enough. In many, if not most, cases, the idea of personal transformation has been left to the studies of philosophy, theology or religious domains (Baldwin, 2006) and thus this all important purpose of education does not receive full attention in our wide-spread traditional school settings. In the ensuing paper, using the data that I collected, I discern three broad types of experiences that appear to have a transformative effect on children and therefore need to be possibly integrated in larger main-stream education settings. Sample: I chose to interview three American educators currently studying at Harvard Graduate School of Education. To protect their identity, I refer my participants with pseudonyms as follows: Leo, Sasha and Paul. All three of them have worked at least for a year with teenager and adolescent (age 12 to 20) population at an educational camp site. The camps that they worked at as counselors are privately owned and act in addition to mainstream schooling (meaning they are not school replacements). While Leo and Sasha worked at an after-school and a summer camp, Paul spent his year with troubled youth at a

wilderness therapy camp. The reason I chose to study these three camps in particular is because they seem to have what one may call as a high success ratestudents returning year after year in case of Leo and Sashas camp, students giving up troublesome behavior such as drug abuse and gang involvement in case of Pauls wilderness camp. This offers an interesting opportunity to pull out from my data, common factors that make these camps effective with children. Methods: I chose to conduct 60 minutes in-person interviews with all three of my participants. A

questionnaire was prepared in advance (attached in the Appendix), however the interview tended to be semi-structured as the flow of conversation allowed great opportunities for new learning and rich data. All the interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and later coded and analyzed. The coding procedure followed data-bucketing in one of the three common emerging theme categories of experiences which the counselors found to be having a transformational impact on students. Findings / Data Analysis: Although the camp settings and approaches of Leo, Sasha, and Paul varied widely, common themes emerged from an analysis of their interviews. I identified three common elements which all three participants highlighted as significant factors contributing to student transformation. I examine findings in each of these three areas (presented in no particular order of importance) before going on to consider limitations and implications of these findings. All of these findings are not mutually excusive and in fact they are inter-related and interdependent in many ways. 1. Nature and outdoor learning: All three of these camps extensively relied on outdoor activities and were located in a very naturalistic setting. Most the activities that children did at these camps were directly or indirectly related to nature such as bird watching, swimming and climbing, kids building their own shelter, making fire by

finding the right fire stones, making river rafts, tree houses and long hikes. Leo expressed his concern about urban children spending more time on computers, video-games and T.V. and not so much out in the nature, which makes them feel alienated from their surroundings. He says that wilderness at the camp is a safe space for children to explore nature in a fun and open manner. When asked about what an ideal school should look like, he says, I would like to see a lot less concreteI would like to see kids playing outside in equal proportion to the time they spend inside because I think that the things they do inside the classroom have no relevance unless theyre interacting and engaging with the world in a meaningful way. To Leo, therefore, a camp is making available something that is missing in our schools and urban life. Paul gives the example of how if a student does not build his/her own shelter in a prudent manner, and if it starts raining or snowing at night, the consequences of the action are immediately felt. He also mentions how much sense of achievement and pride kids derive simply by inventing how to make fire in wilderness. It becomes a very clear connection between the effort that (camper) put in and the comfort and enjoyment (they get)whereas, in a regular classroom the teacher really needs to teach that. He goes on to say that conventional schools do not offer this immediate feedback and that poor grades on a test may not necessarily move a student to realize its negative consequences until only after a few years. Sasha mentions the intrinsically beautiful quality of natural surroundings that draws her and others to the camp and how various activities at her camp are inter-woven with nature as a medium of learning. It seems like, for her, natural surroundings of her camp, acting as a hook, is one of the key reasons why students and counselors keep coming back to the camp. There is also a vast body of scientific research substantiating various benefits that come from children who learn in a more outdoor, naturalistic environment. To name a few, these include but are not limited to, a greater environmental awareness, increased concentration, a better motor fitness and a

healthy body, acquisition of higher cognitive reasoning and observation skills, reduction of anti-social behavior, developed creativity and imagination, a sense of independence and autonomy (White, 2004). It was striking that both Leo and Sasha offered a similar example of how they would go about teaching water and physics concepts related to it by actually getting kids to experience water, building a mini dam and having an open discussions among children about how and where they should plant the tree so that the water would flow there. Nature, it seems, to be playing an important role in enhancing the student learning experience. 2. Use of hands and body: Another important element, and somewhat related to learning in and with the nature, is the focus placed on use of hands and body at all three of these camp sites. At both Sashas and Pauls camp, especially, kids cook their own meals, build tree houses and shelters with wood, make their own backpacks with sticks and leather. For Leo, more physical activity helps direct the high energy that many of the rambunctious childrenas he calls themare endowed with. Both Sasha and Leo have found the benefits of this approach especially when working with Autistic and Aspersers children. Sasha spoke with conviction about the importance of more use of hands and body in learning Theres always something that involves body. Thats a fundamental characteristic of our camp. So, if we did poetry its gonna have to involve your body.Life is richer when your body is involved and one of the problems of modern life is that we dont use our body that muchand its part of problem solving tooyou let your bodys intelligence do it instead that of your mind. What this could mean is that by using more of hands and body, children get the opportunity to learn in a more natural way, as Sasha believes that we human beings have evolved from walking many miles everyday, toiling hard in the woods and always using our body. Mere emphasis on mental activity in schools may thus, in fact, be proving counter-productive to learning. The directness and immediacy of experience when using body and hands can draw a learner into a subject matter much more easily.

3.

A Sense of Community: Perhaps the most striking common thread between all three of my research participants was their

constant emphasis on the transformation that can be achieved through peer interactions, relationship building and a shared sense of community. Leo brings home this point, (In mainstream schools) theres a very little room for personal connection between a teacher and students and between studentsbecause we separate themeven in their mindsbecause we give them individual tasksindividual testsindividual assignmentsand we know that children learn so much better by being asked questions and by being allowed to think about them in groups and by having dialogue with their teacher The fundamental characteristic setting these camps apart from mainstream schools seems to be the fact that they encourage collaboration and peer-learning over competition and individualism. Student transformation is accelerated by mutual involvement in learning processes. Highlighting this transformative power of relationships, Leo cited an incidence of a seven year old boy at his camp, who was feeling homesick. Leo simply connected him with another boy his age and what followed was a mature self-directed conversation between these two little peers who instantly became best friends and went away to play. He says that young kids are capable of doing more things on their own than adults may think. Being left to themselves to make decisions, to negotiate their own disagreements among themselves in a respectful critical thinking manner and to devise their own rules, they feel a sense of ownership over their learning. Paul points out how if one of the campers is being lazy and not performing the required group tasks such as finding wood for cooking a meal, it affects the entire group (not getting the meal on time) and the realization that individual actions have larger ramifications on peers, helps them better understand their responsibility towards the group. His camp seems to have devised an effective

mechanism wherein positive peer pressure pushes students to be more responsible and mindful of their actions.

Sasha too places a great emphasis on how a shared sense of community is the major most component of their programs. She says, The camp is there for you it can absorb what you have and like allow you to become greater than the feeling or whatever is holding you backits like its own organism or system that starts to develop Her observation that a camp is a developing organism is interesting, because it means that for her those involved at the camp site are not separate entities. Students and counselors alike have a chance to go beyond their personal pre-occupations, worries and anxieties and contribute to mutual development in their own unique way. Shared projects and goals make everyone feel important thus bringing the best out of everyone. Sasha also points out incidences where a sense of community acts as a powerful tool of getting over artificial boundaries of racism, classism and gender that divide human beings. You sit down together for all three mealsyoure therepeople cook for you. This transformative impact of

community was confirmed for Sasha when a particular group of boys coming from an economically poor background was initially finding itself isolated from other group of girls coming from wealthier families at the camp. Later during the course of the camp, as they went swimming and splashing water on each other and doing fun things together, the class-divide melted and they became best of friends. Youre learning about things that are good for your emotional wellbeingin the communityand emotionally relating with people says Sasha. Sense of community, therefore, seems to be acting as a major transformative force in helping students become more responsible, learn from each other, get past socio-economic divides, contribute to a larger system of development and to promote emotional well-being of self and others.

Implications and Conclusion: All three of the counselors I interviewed echoed their disappointment with the conventional school system and its inadequacy to provide for a deeper transformative experience for children. By better understanding the teaching approaches of counselors in these camps, we can begin to legitimately question the effectiveness of our traditional school systems. Since not all children have access to such camps, and that these camps were only supplementary to mainstream schooling where kids spend most of their growing up time, it is important to integrate these approaches in our larger education set-ups. In thinking about what works at these camps, we can begin to explore what lessons can be applied more broadly to public schools who face additional challenges of diversity, poverty, standards, and so forth. (Worden, 2009) All of my counselor interviewees see the powerful impact that nature, use of hands and body and a sense of community can have on student learningbetter comprehension, respectful and mutually beneficial social interactions, a greater awareness of ones surroundings, increased responsibility towards ones own actions and a more intrinsic involvement in learning process. From these conversations, it becomes clear that traditional schools can do well by locating themselves in a more naturalistic setting, with more outdoor activities, and a curriculum that integrates learning with nature. A curriculum that integrates nature and outdoor learning with the use of body and hands when learning for example, Math, Geography and Science concepts can prove to be more effective in public schools. Schools could also benefit greatly by including more hands-on and project bases learning approaches, which promise to have a transformative experience for students. This research also makes a strong case for creating more teambased learning opportunities, a more personal dialogue between students and teachers and an evaluation method that does not solely rely on grades but rather takes into account qualitative improvement in students overall being.

Limitations / Avenues for further Research: Although there are some important and interesting findings from this research they cannot be fully generalized because of the small sample with whom the research was carried out. It would be imperative to carry out further research with a larger number of camp counselors to arrive at a more concrete understanding of what it means to have a transformational learning experience. It would also be interesting to find out whether there are any similarities between progressive schools and camps on whether they view nature, use of hands and body and a sense of community as transformational learning factors. Additionally, a limitation of this study was the inexperience of the interviewer combined with the tight time restrictions placed on the study by being part of a semester long course. In an ideal world, I would have liked to have conducted site observations with my participants in order to further elucidate some of the findings above (Worden, 2009). The fact that students come to camps again and again is a testimony to their popularity and impact; however, it remains to be seen whether if these children, when they grow up, take on a different life trajectory or whether there is a long-term behavioral change in its participants attributed to these three key learning experience characteristics. It would also be interesting to find out whether these camp participants identify experiences in these camps as transformative in their lives. It should also be noted that the three elements of transformative learning identified from this research cannot be held as the only effective factors having transformative impact. Further research should build on a more comprehensive and exhaustive set of experiences and approaches that may contribute towards student transformation.

References: Berlak H. (2005). Does the No Child Left Behind Act Improve Schools and Increase Educational Opportunity? Education Policy Studies Laboratory, Arizona State University (EPSL-0504-108-EPRU) Shushok, F. Jr., Douglas V. H., Glenn B., Rishi S. (2009) Learning at any time: supporting student learning wherever it happens, Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) (10.1002/abc.278) Krishnamurti J. (1953) Education and the Significance of Life, Krishnamurti Foundation of America pp.31

Gandhi M. (1927). My experiments with Truth, pp. Navjivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, Chapter Childhood pp. 7. Orecklin, M., Whitaker, L., Winters, R. (2005). The purpose-driven summer camp, Time Magazine, vol 165: 22 (0040781X) Crombie G., Walsh J., & Trinneer A. (2003). Positive Effects of Science and Technology Summer Camps on Confidence, Values, and Future Intentions, Canadian Journal of Counseling vol 37:4, University of Ottawa Michalski J., Mishna F., Worthington C., Cummings R. (2003). A multi-method impact evaluation of a therapeutic summer camp program, Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, vol. 20: 1. Baldwin, G. (2006). From sole learning to soul learning, Teaching theology and religion, vol: 9:3 pp 165174, University of North Dakota. White, R. (2006). Young childrens relationship with nature: its importance to childrens development and the earths future, Taproot, vol 16:2, The coalition for education in the outdoors, Cortland, NY. Worden J. (2009). Final paper for S504 (Introduction to qualitative research class), Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Appendix: Interview Questionnaire: 1. Tell me about your education / schooling / professional background prior to your involvement with the unconventional education set-up. (your journey prior to being an educator)what led you to the particular school / program you taught at? 2. Can you recall a transformative learning experience from your own childhood? If you were to look back on your own schooling what experiences stand out for you? Did they have any influence on how your taught at your school? What was salient about those experiences? 3. What, according to you, is the purpose of education? 4. What educational philosophy / approach is being followed at the school you taught? Did you have your own unique approach? 5. What are some of the unique learning opportunities / activities carried out with students at your institution that are found to be effective? 6. Can you recall any particular instances of transformational learning experience for any particular child or set of children you worked with? 7. What is the assessment criteria carried out by your program to evaluate the students progress? What criteria is used? 8. What aspects of current education scenario you would like to see change? What would you expect the future of education field to look like?
9.

How was the experience transformative to you?

10. Anything else you wish to share on this and that we may have missed out?