Adventure Education Exploring the Modern-Day Erdkinder Can Adventure Education be a Substitute for Maria Montessori's Residential Farmhouse?

Date of Award

2004

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Miller, Arthur

Keywords

Adventure Education, Montessori, Maria, Outward Bound

Area of Concentration

General Studies

Abstract

This senior project tells of a practicum in experiential education. My interest in Adventure Education began with my own experience as a participant in an Outward Bound Outdoor Leadership Course, and through my employment with Longacre Expeditions, an Adventure Education company based in Pennsylvania. My interest in Montessori education was sparked by a number of friends who went to Montessori schools, and was strengthened over the past year by my employment at the Center for Education Montessori School in Bradenton, FL. This project is an attempt to introduce to the reader these two non-traditional education systems, and explore how an adventure education program might supplement a Montessori secondary school curriculum. The first two chapters offer an introduction to Maria Montessori, who developed the Montessori Method, and provide a brief synopsis of her educational philosophy. Since this project focuses on the experiences of adolescents in secondary schools, this first section focuses primarily on two lectures presented by Maria Montessori that provide a synopsis of her ideas about how the ideal secondary program should work and why. The third chapter focuses on defining the term 'adventure education,' as I have come to understand it through both research and experience. The fourth chapter is a journalistic piece of creative non-fiction that attempts to capture individual students' experience of an adventure education program, in order to help the reader better understand adventure education as an educative experience. The final chapter of this project attempts to explain how adventure education could work within the current Montessori framework as a substitute for the farmhouse idea touted by Montessori in 'Erdkinder.' An explanation of my attempts at providing qualitative evidence for the appropriateness of this idea through surveys conducted this summer through Longacre Expeditions and Longacre Farm, and reasons for their inconclusiveness, is also provided.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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