Week Nov 17

 Reading responses 11/16

For this week, please share your final assessment on Kurt Hahn. What are some of the Hahnian elements you want to carry forward in your own thinking and practice, and what to you seems outdated or inappropriate for current times, conditions, and needs? Feel free to select specific elements/principles or speak to his ideology as a whole.

(I accidentally closed out of the zoom meeting at the end of class Monday without saving the comments some of you had posted during the lecture. If you still have them in mind, I'd greatly enjoy it if you can elaborate on them in this week's response.)

• Please also share your impressions of the changes that OB experienced in the 1960s from Josh Miner's OB USA book and this week's readings. To aid in your interpretation, here is the logic of the pieces as I imagine it.

• Changes in the 60s

• Enrollment in ‘62: 100, Enrollment in ‘70: 3,800 (p.253)

• National social conscience awakening (p.115), mixing kids “from the ghetto” “able to mix kids from affluent families… “highly motivated” rich kids “got so much out of the interaction.”

• ‘63 “bonanz” following a Reader’s Digest article

• Expansion to Ely, MN, unfinished character of physical plant bespeaks OB’s rapid expansion. Students are involved in construction.

• Adjudicated programs - Kelly-Baer Report

• Armstrong (1990) shows how the Protestant themes that animated Hahn's schools and programs in the UK were decaying in the US in the 1960s, making it unlikely that religious authority was a resource for Outward Bound USA in the way it was for Hahn when he started the program. This is one element of the US context that shaped OB's evolution here.

• Moral Authority

• Freeman (2011) carries this theme further and explores it directly in the context of OB. It illustrates how Hahn's influence was diminishing and younger, more progressive staff introduced new ideas, language, and practices to the organization. "Personal growth" signaled this shift.

• Christianity 

• Katz & Kolb (1968 - yes, that Kolb) provide, albeit unintentionally, a firsthand account of OB in transition. Pay attention to what they describe as the "Outward Bound ideology" and what they propose should become more prominent in OB practice. This marks the introduction of human potentialist thinking in OB (personal growth and group dynamics).

• Transition

Try to pull themes from the readings about what changed around this time and what some of the implications were. For example, what is the shift in moral authority that Armstrong describes? How does he characterize it? In the Freeman piece, what were the debates and controversies all about, and why did they matter so much to people? (Consider also his 2020 article on Christianity.)

In class we'll finish up with Hahn and start rounding the corner to the 1970s and the era of human potentialism. Dan Miner (Josh Miner's son) and Paige Roberts will be joining us. Please identify a couple questions for them (you can copy your questions to Paige from last week).

The mid-century shift in OB away from Hahnian dogma seems to parallel shifts that take place in other movements that have occurred when a dominant founding personality gives way to it’s successors. Religious movements come to mind, just as the 3 main world religions (Islam, Christianity, and Bhudism.) have factionalized innumerably over the ages, so too, it seems, did OB when the influence of it’s founder waned. Despite the efforts of various, as Freeman puts it, “avantguard” factions, Freeman ultimately concludes that efforts to move past “character education” within the OB movement have been largely semantic. Of the criticisms of OB that Freeman describes, the question of empirical effectiveness initially seems the most existentially critical. On the other hand, a question which Freeman doesn’t answer, but which is even more urgent is, what outcome is OB trying to achieve. Only when OB settles on its intention can it begin to measure its effectiveness, and therein lies the problem: the question of what OB intends to achieve remains unsettled. Perhaps, the question of what OB intended to achieve became unsettled the moment Hahn allied himself with the Blue Funnel Line and compromised with industrial interest. Without Hahn’s guiding force of personality, the purpose of OB may be more ambiguous than it has ever been. What is to be done? Early in his article Freeman quotes a parole reformer who said “Reform came to be known in terms of benefit to the individual.” This quote may be presented as a contrast to the societal mindset of Hahn’s early work, but I think it also offers us a clue as to where the OB movement might go next. As a social worker, I have been trained to allow the client to lead. By allowing the client to act as an expert on their own needs, social workers preempt to some degree the danger of paternalism. Paternalism, it seems to me, is fundamentally ingrained in the Hahnian mentality. Long has OB striven to impose it’s values and preconceptions about what is moral, and helpful, onto it’s students. I argue that it is time for OB to ask it’s students “how can we help you?”, “how can we benefit you?”. 

This class and the program here at UNH in general has left me with more torn feelings than ever before in my life. I think that is a good sign - a sign of growth and seeking to understand and testing the realities that I have always believed to be true. But I will start with where I feel most comfortable and most defensive. I don't think I have ever heard anyone who attended an Outward Bound say something negative about it (in my first-hand experience). I reflect on my own experiences also - and when I was challenged, I overcame or I learned. There has always been a fine line between "things that are pop/trendy are that way because there is something fundamentally appealing about them" vs "some Wizard of Oz is pulling the strings." Whether researchers are studying how to behaviorally manage humans or we are analyzing the evils of those researchers, aren't we all part of the same society and working in dynamics with one another? I also come from my experience as a School Social Worker and honestly, 1) I think Character Education is important and 2) I think it's so much better for all of society and the planet if it is done through a program such as Outward Bound - one which incorporates the values that Hahn set forth (when a young person "defeats their defeatism," helping youth who have been affected by systemic discrimination enact their own Hero's Journey, removing the enervating force of privilege, the importance of periods of silence, training through rather than training for). I also believe in the importance of respecting and valuing wisdom that comes from those who are older (ie, the teacher for Dewey, respect that is demonstrated in so many indigenous cultures). And on the other side, it is true - there is a fine line between those who are in positions of power wielding their power as tools of manipulation... At the end of the day, us discussing what OB should or shouldn't do isn't any different than OB providing a program for students where they have the option to take the course or not take the course. I'm excited for the Human Potential unit, however I'm curious to see how the Human Potential movement differs from that of OB and Dewey!