Tag Archives: Reflections

Fluency

Get a group of 20 up-and-coming leaders and lead them! Great. What an assessment! How to lead your peers? In a country you have never been before? In a place you have never visited?

This is sometimes the hardest group to lead, the people around you, I was not the only one amongst the group feeling this way. This I believe looks very different from leading students, which we as up-an-coming teachers have learnt about in our university studies. Putting this into play and taking the approach of a facilitator; a ‘neutral person’ managing the group processes, (Thomas, 2010, p.240) rather than leader; a person who leads, commands or organises a group, looked different from what I first expected (Cross, 2015).

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Dont cry because its over, smile because it happened

“Don’t CRY because its over, SMILE because it happened!” (Unknown, n.d.)

I know what your thinking… doesn’t he normally start off with a Dr Seuss quote? Some of you may even be thinking ‘that is a Dr Seuss 77292741_ec5b47243b_oquote…’ but heres the thing, it’s not. In fact he never wrote this at all. It has simply been associated with him due to the fact it sounds like something he would write, an assumption. My old man used to tell me that you should never ‘assume’ anything. His reasoning for this was that ‘it makes an ass out of you and me‘ and in my experience these words have held true.

Assuming that you know how other people think, what they want, how they will react. That your plan is flawless or even the assumption that because you know all of these things.. nothing could go wrong. Your being an ass, and you are wrong, but we all do it.

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Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple

“Sometimes the questions are COMPLICATED and the answers are SIMPLE” (Dr. Seuss, n.d)

Compare and contrast how Outdoor and Environmental Education (OEE) is run in Australia and Singapore. Focussing on an underlying theme and discuss in relation to the literature.. Sounds like a mouth full doesn’t it. And how does one even start to compare the two? I mean they are both so different right? It would be like comparing apples and oranges for lack of a better analogy. I mean Singapore can fit into Australia over 11,000 times.. and Australia has completely different ecosystems and environments to that found in Singapore. Therefore our Outdoor and Environmental Education has to be completely different right?…. wrong.

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The blind leading the blind

Initially I did think of it as the blind leading the blind. Every person being totally new to Singapore and attempting to lead our peers steadily through an environment we’d never be able to visit before.

After having a little more time to reflect on my facilitation day as well as other groups’ facilitation day in Singapore, I’ve felt more positive about the experiences, and have been able to view them in a more constructive way. Yes, I can still see many ways in which our facilitation could’ve gone better, however after speaking with other groups it has reassured me a little; knowing they faced similar obstacles, perhaps to a lesser extent.

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Do what you love, love what you do!

As I’ve been nearing the end of my degree at university, I’ve been questioning myself, in terms of my readiness for the teaching profession. Am I happy with the level of knowledge that I have? Will my students really gain the experiences and passion for the outdoors that I have?

Outdoor Education in Singapore didn’t appear as those it could ignite this passion for the environment. To me, it seemed to revolve only around recreation, which I used to think meant students would only enjoy the activity, and not gain a deeper connection with the outdoors.

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Are we there yet?

The reason as to why I have chosen this heading for this particular blog is because throughout the days in Singapore this question was running through my head at some points in the trip. It was a very jam packed, full on days that 23 individuals were involved in. There was a lot of ‘go go go!’ and it was sometimes hard to really soak up the place we were in, without feeling rushed.

During the preparation stage of the trip to Singapore, we were all randomly put into groups of about four members, which became our facilitation groups. I was lucky enough to work alongside Kelly, Georgie and Mooey. Upon reflecting my own experience of the day, I expressed in my facilitation blog that I learnt quite a lot about myself as an individual.

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Compare the pair…

 I feel like my feet have hit the ground running since flying in to Tullamarine Airport at 5am. When I asked my peers about how they have been adapting back to the cold Melbourne weather, some of them said they were struggling (which I don’t blame them, it has been freezing!)

But isn’t it funny that the time spent in Singapore now just seems like a dream? … A dream that I will never forget.

Looking back at the two weeks that we spent in Singapore, I have gained a clearer understanding of how Outdoor Education can and has been incorporated in this country. Initially I had no idea what to expect to see in Singapore as it is geographically quite small and very urbanised. I was surprise to see some of the more natural spaces that had been captured in Singapore: these include: Labrador Nature Reserve, MacRitchie Reservoir, Singapore Botanic Gardens, The Green Rail Corridor and The Central Catchment Nature Reserve. But I was also blown away by the ‘human made’ environments that was showcased and promoted sustainability, such as The Super Trees, Cloud Forest, Flower Dome which were displayed within the Gardens by the Bay. Within my blog about nature, I shared my views of the similarities and differences I discovered in regard to nature and the environments of both Australia and Singapore.

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Staring into the mirror

Facilitation is a skill that can be trained through experience, reflection, and planning. The Experiential Learning Cycle proposed by Kolb (1984) can be used to assess and evaluate my performance and time as a facilitator in Singapore.

(Please click here for the planned itinerary to gain a rough idea of the activities and places we visited on our facilitation day)

The Experiential Learning Cycle proposed by Kolb (1984)

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Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success!

Over my time here spent in Singapore, I can’t help but notice how much new knowledge, relationships and connections I have gained over such a short amount of time.

I have meet new people, visited different places, gained a wealth of knowledge about myself, others, nature and the culture of Singapore. But none of this could of happened without the support and guidance of others. How I see it is that when you gather a groups of people from around the world who both share such passion for the Outdoor Environment and the Outdoor Education outcomes, something magical happens. We begin to grow and flourish our ideas together to make something wonderful happen.

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‘Team work divides the task and multiplies the success’

This heading best relates to how my facilitation group and I reflected about how successful we were during our facilitation day to the Singapore Botanical Gardens and the Night Safari P1030453-min

Planning

Right from the start we were a solid unit, the delegation of tasks were efficient and easy. However as the preparation time of the trip began to run out, it was evident that the end of semester work and commitments had caught up to us all.

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