Discovery
Published July 21, 2010 | 
I told you ’bout the Fool on the hill, I tell you man he’s living there still,
Well, here’s another place you can be, Listen to me,
Fixing a hole in the ocean,
Trying to make a dovetail joint,
Looking through the glass onion.
– beatles
Here’s one of those strange and yet weirdly meditative kayak play moves.. this is an open lotus.. to make it more challenging bring your feet in further underneath your body then bring your arms inward, turn your hands up and rest them on the paddle just above your knees. Of course do that funky thumb & forefinger thing as well… Let me know if you become one with the universe!
Yesterday I went on a short rant about the concept of “fun”. The main point of the story of course is that fun is not a commodity, but an organic result of an experience. Some people struggle with the concept of fun and yet know it to be important, so they say the word repeatedly in hopes of conjuring it into existence. I think this has consequences as well when we start mainstreaming “experiential learning” & learning through play” under the recently hip label of “Discovery Learning”. Experiential learning and learning through play are actually fairly slippery concepts and doomed to become failures and distractions if we don’t “feel” what we’re doing out there. We again can’t simply say we’re all about “Discovery”.
I’ve been a experiential learning evangelist almost since I began kayaking some 6 or 7 years back now. When I first saw what Shawna Franklin & Leon Somme were doing with their classes while attending a symposium in California, it struck me like a lightning bolt. What they were doing totally rang my bells. They were teaching students by sending them off to do things, and giving them some clues as to how to be successful along the way. But it’s not the “discovery” that got me jazzed, it was the bullsh*t bypass and instant gratification that had me excited. (I know, that’s so American of me!) Let me see if I can lay this out.
You can’t just hide your head in the cockpit!
In our coach training we learned all about the stuff that would stop students from learning; distraction, fear, etc., But what we really never talked about was simply ethereal goals, like “learning to be a better kayaker”. Vague goals are certainly a barrier to learning. So, for that matter, is lack of enjoyment in a task which also rarely makes the list. To me “being a better kayaker” is way too broad of a goal to sit through 4-6 hours of “describe, demonstrate, do”. I’d rather just go paddling around a lake somewhere than try to awkwardly wrestle a kayak sideways because that’s what my class is doing for some reason. At that very moment the goal, “becoming a better kayaker” does not justify the effort. It’s too distant & ethereal. All I’m thinking at that very moment is “I HATE THIS F#@KING BOAT!?!!!!
So my first wacky observation is this; It’s hard to learn without quick, enjoyable and tangible rewards as motivation. So to better be able to learn we need quick shots of enjoyable successes. The process of learning has to make us happy (see the word, “fun”) in order to for us to keep at it long enough to see results. Think about weight control for example. The goal of losing weight is not usually enough to motivate us to cut calories for long or to do 100 jumping jacks or get on a treadmill for 45 minutes a day. That weight loss goal is just way too distant to inspire, and most people fail. Repeatedly. However, if we find some activity we love to do (Running, biking, etc.) or can develop a joy in inventive low cal cooking, we’ll stay on task because we love what we are doing and TADA!, we lose weight as an accidental byproduct. We get a payoff each day from doing something we enjoy that over time adds up to a larger win. In paddling classes we can set up small goals or experiences that give our students, “quick hits” of enjoyable success that will keep them motivated throughout the day. This doesn’t always mean chasing sponges, but it can be. 
The other thing I’ve learned is that subterfuge conquers anxiety and fear. When I got turned on to this new way of teaching, I put my focus into using various forms of play to overcome fears and anxieties that you often face with new students or folks hesitant around water. Mostly I started inviting my students to do the stuff I did when I was playing with my boat at home while my son played on the beach. (This is where the lotus in the pic above came from.) I’ve also found some great stuff from other coaches around the planet who have also been traveling this road. Kelly Blades in Michigan is a great example. In fact, I was just filling in for him for a kayak play session in Grand Marais over the weekend! The point is that play can distract a student from their anxieties, fears and preconceptions much like a magician uses sleight of hand to distract the eyes from where the action is really going on. Covertly participants learn the skills to overcome their fears before their fears had a chance to overcome them.
Here’s an example. Put a new student in a kayak and paddle out to begin the class. Most start the day with some level of fear about falling out. It’s pretty common that if you asked a new student to just fall out of their kayak, they will almost freeze. Some can’t do it at all. Ok, so here’s how you avoid that. Don’t put them in the kayak. The first time I take a beginner class out on the water we sit on the back deck and launch out. Even if they have never been in (or on) a kayak before. If they fall in, I will take the opportunity to teach holding onto your paddle & boat and then help them back in. Most of the time I simply talk the student through a cowboy recovery. Being new to kayaking they don’t know it’s supposed to be difficult. I certainly don’t tell them that! 99.9% of the time they are successful and right back to sitting on the back deck in just 30 seconds or so. For the occasional student who struggles with it, I can quickly assist as well of course but that is an amazingly rare event.
This is NOT, part of the outline!
Once on the water, we go through a variety of exercises in balance and silliness without actually getting in the kayak. 60% or so will fall in eventually. Some will rise to the challenge and pull off everything I ask of them. In the end, by the time they actually do sit in the kayak I have a bunch of confident students who feel stable in their boats and who no longer fear pushing it as we head into braces & edging exercises. (Not to mention how this will apply as we move into rescues as well.)
This is just one example, but my classes are stacked with subterfuge and clandestine learning.
I’m sort of wandering off a bit, but the point is that kayak play only works when you know where you are going with it.
sitting side-saddle is a good beginner move to learn about keeping you body centered on the boat
When I started inserting play into my classes it stood out where I’m at and for that reason I’d sometimes be challenged about the value of what I was doing out there. Fair enough. I needed to be able to justify and clarify my choices. Sometimes I could just say, “I ripped this off from so and so!” and that would give me a pass but other times it was my baby and I had to stand up for it. As it was, I did have a clear goal to help me manage the chaos. My goal was that my beginners were going to be more confident and more adept at moving their boats around at the end of the day than a student who went through the more traditional beginners courses. (Yeah, I can break that down further.. but I won’t today!) That meant examining each skill and figuring out which was best learned by an activity or play, or best learned through more standard “describe, demonstrate” methods. It also meant figuring out how to sequence my classes logically through skill sets. I learned to be able to easily outline how a game or activity played into a particular skill I wanted to teach and how that lead to the next in the day’s sequence. I cut up the standard class outline and drew up a new one. I learned that while the old wet-exit to strokes, etc., made sense on paper it was not very intuitive. Again, I was prepared to defend walking away from the status quo if necessary.
Zooming back to today, It’s so exciting to see how it’s becoming OK to play in a big, big way. Still, popularity always entails risk. The risk of course is that like “fun” we can suck the life out of “Discovery”, homogenize it and kill it’s potency. It will just become the hot phrase of the day, a passing fad that appears to offer questionable results. I think it’s important right now as the fire really kicks into high gear, to remind ourselves to expect quantifiable results from whatever we’re doing out there. (At least in a class setting) “Discovery” shouldn’t just become a list of activities with a lack of focus or foundation. In a formal class setting we have limited time and a number of skills to hit and we do want competent students at the end of the day. ”Discovery Learning” should be a contribution and not a distraction. Again, I’ve been pushing for this sea change, I simply want to make sure we’re asking ourselves while we’re out there playing.., “Where the hell am I going with this?”
On the other hand… What do I know!? 
Related Posts:
Recent Comments