Our Philosophy
Each day, as individuals, we face decisions and experience situations that can have a deep impact on our lives and our futures.
Adventure challenges allow us to understand and process the dynamics of life, as well as providing opportunities to grow as a person – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. The lessons learned through adventure experiences have the potential to produce positive life changes that are both significant and lasting.
The adventure-based programming model has its origins in the early twentieth century work of Dr. Kurt Hahn, on whose work the first Outward Bound course was based. Adventure-based programming has evolved significantly since its inception. Group initiatives and adventure/challenge experiences are used to develop an atmosphere of trust, cooperation, perceived risk and teamwork in which individuals and groups can achieve new levels of growth in a fun, non-threatening manner.
It’s a commonly held belief among adventure facilitators that when given an opportunity and positive support, people are capable of far more than they realize. As humans we build internal boundaries and walls to help guard us against hurt. We develop comfort zones within which we live our daily lives and are often unwilling to step free of them and take a risk, even when doing so would mean a great opportunity to grow as a person.
People often ask, "Why adventure based programming?"
Adventure experiences have a unique way of opening people’s hearts and minds to new ways of thinking and processing life’s challenges. That growth then, opens the door for them to step beyond their normal comfort zones and experience expanded opportunities as they apply those new thinking processes to their daily lives. Adventure is a powerful tool that can speak deeply to the heart.
Experiential Education has long been known to have effects which are different from purely cognitive education. Experiential Education is often called “right-brain education”, that is, it stimulates more of the creative, intuitive side of a person’s brain. Developers of adventure based techniques have used this demonstrated theory to generate a system of experience based learning which seeks to educate not cognitively, but effectively – which targets not the mind but the personality.
At The Adventure Group, whether we’re facilitating a personal growth workshop, leading corporate managers through a team building workshop, facilitating a youth group on a ropes course, or teaching a conflict resolution course at UPEI, our philosophy of life change through adventure based programming is never far from our minds.