Outward Bound International (OB) is a non-profit, independent experiential learning organization serving schools in 33 countries which more than 250,000 people attend each year.
Outward Bound programs aim to foster the personal growth and social skills of participants by using challenging expeditions in the outdoors.
Video Outward Bound
History
The first Outward Bound school was opened in Aberdovey, Wales in 1941 by Kurt Hahn, and Lawrence Holt with the support of the Blue Funnel Line. Outward Bound grew out of Hahn's work in the development of the Gordonstoun school and what is now known as the Duke of Edinburgh's Award. Outward Bound's founding mission was to improve the survival chances of young seamen after their ships were torpedoed in the mid-Atlantic.
James Martin Hogan served as warden for the first year of the school. This mission was established and then expanded by Capt. J. F. 'Freddy' Fuller who took over the leadership of the Aberdovey school in 1942 and served the Outward Bound movement as senior warden until 1971. Fuller had been seconded from the Blue Funnel Line following wartime experience during the Battle of the Atlantic of surviving two successive torpedo attacks and commanding an open lifeboat in the Atlantic Ocean for thirty-five days without losing a single member of the crew.
A second school at Eskdale Green followed in 1951.
Lumut, Malaysia was the first school outside the United Kingdom, opening in 1958.
From the inception of Outward Bound, community service was an integral part of the program, especially in the areas of sea and mountain rescues and this remains an important part of the training for both staff and students in Outward Bound, Wales. The first Outward Bound program for females was conducted in 1951.
Maps Outward Bound
Name
The name Outward Bound derives from a nautical expression that refers to the moment a ship leaves the harbor. This is signified by Outward Bound's use of the nautical flag, the Blue Peter (a white square inside a blue square). JF Fuller adapted the Outward Bound motto, "To Serve, To Strive and not To Yield," from the poem "Ulysses" by Alfred Lord Tennyson:
Current
Since its founding in the middle of the last century, Outward Bound has encouraged individuals to test their physical and emotional limits in challenging outdoor adventure programs. The experiences are always life-changing: they are a means of building inner strength and a heightened awareness of human interdependence. Outward Bound operates 40 schools in various countries and reports serving over 200,000 students each year. The Compass Rose serves as the logo for almost all the schools around the world.
Course specifics
Outward Bound courses follow a kind of recipe or formula, termed the Outward Bound Process Model which is well described by Walsh and Golins (1976) as:
- Taking a ready, motivated learner
- into a prescribed, unfamiliar physical environment,
- along with a small group of people
- who are faced with a series of incremental, inter-related problem-solving tasks
- which creates in the individual a state of dissonance requiring adaptive coping and
- leads to a sense of mastery or competence when equilibrium is managed.
- The cumulative effect of these experiences leads to a reorganisation of the self-conceptions and information the learner holds about him/herself.
- The learner will then continue to be positively oriented to further learning and development experiences (transfer).
In a typical class, participants are divided into small patrols (or groups) under the guidance of one or more instructors. The first few days, often at a base camp, are spent training for the outdoor education activities that the course will contain and in the philosophy of Outward Bound. After initial confidence-building challenges, the group heads off on an expedition. As the group develops the capacity to do so, the instructors ask the group to make its own decisions.
See also
- Lack of physical education
- Outward Bound Australia
- Outward Bound Costa Rica
- Outward Bound New Zealand
- Outward Bound Singapore
- Outward Bound USA
References
External links
- Outward Bound International official website
- Outward Bound Canada
- Outward Bound Czech Republic
- Outward Bound Netherlands
- Outward Bound New Zealand
- Outward Bound Oman
- Outward Bound Malaysia, Lumut
- Outward Bound Sabah
- Outward Bound UK
Source of article : Wikipedia