AEE eNews Update July 2010
News from AEE Board of Directors President, Christian Itin
Accredited Member Profile - Dunn School and Randy Judycki
News from AEE Board of Directors President, Christian Itin
By Dr. Christian M. Itin, MSW, Eureka, California
Envision 2500 experiential educators at this years Vegas conference. I was just in Vegas for our summer Board meeting imagining this number
of experiential educators taking over the strip! I invite you to engage in this vision with me and think about 2500 passionate and committed educators convening in the city that never sleeps! Imagine the energy in keynote addresses with that many people gathered in one place.
Imagine the dialogue and discussion that will happen in workshops with the gathering of such a diverse and varied group. Think about the fun and merriment that could happen in the bars, shows and streets of vegas with that many experiential educators. Now do more than imagine it - go online and take advantage of the early-bird registration before August 15th. I recently booked airfare from my small local airport to Vegas for $250 (it normally costs $500 to fly to anywhere from here) so go online and see if you can find a cheap airfare today. Then to really make it happen - invite a colleague or another practitioner or administrator to join you for and exhilarating and educational experience. Also if you are like me fly in early and take advantage of some climbing in Red Rocks and/or other opportunities for fun- there are lots of hotel rooms for $50 or less a night!
Now back to some business. We have a full agenda and two days of hard work ahead of us in which we will be looking at our audit, providing
feedback to our CEO, doing work on our annual vision project and much more. As the stewards of your organization we take very seriously our job of overseeing the direction and health of AEE. We do this on behalf of you. In the last newsletter I asked for feedback on the size of the board, I received no feedback but this is an important agenda item on our agenda - so if you have thoughts please contact me (or any other board member). The recent changes you made to the bylaws allows us to decrease the size of the board in financially tough times - we
certainly have been surviving through several years of challenging times. There are some compelling reasons to reduce the size of the board
but your input to this specific decision would be helpful. As always the board is looking for feedback from the owners of the association (YOU)
as this is critical to a healthy organization. We will be thinking of you in Vegas and looking forward to seeing you all there in November.
Peace
Dr. Christian M. Itin, MSW
585-317-4196 (cell/pager)
707-826-4451 (work)
707-667-5318 (home)
Accredited Member Profile - Dunn School and Randy Judycki
By Kirsten Kindt from an Interview with Randy
Judycki
Randy Judycki is the Director of the Outdoor Program at the Dunn School in Los Olivos, California – a program that he also helped found 26 years ago. The outdoor program challenges students to look at how they lead themselves and others and how they lead globally.
"The Dunn School is a private prep school that is successful because of the premium we put on close relationships between the faculty and the parents and students, past and present. We keep a close eye on the students so that they can reach their maximum potential"
The Dunn School serves 6th to 8th graders with 20 to 25 students per class and we provide day and boarding school for 9th to 12th grades with classes of up to 40 students. We board roughly 100 students and serve roughly 65 day students.
Randy says, “We expect students to embrace our five core values; Moral Courage, Academic Excellence, Emotional Wellness, Physical Readiness, Social Responsibility.”
“The outdoor program is set up as a sequence of experiences. The activities or tools that the students do are used to teach good expedition behavior. This is defined on the Dunn School website as respectfulness, flexibility, tolerance of others, courtesy, direct communication, self-awareness, and teamwork. These become critical when traveling in small groups in remote areas. These skills are also the hallmark of high-performing teams in the workplace.”
“As an example,” said Randy, “A carpenter has a hammer but it is not the hammer that produces the work, it is the carpenter’s talent. In the same way, kayaking, climbing, planning for and going on expeditions, food preparation, all of these activities produce work. These tools present opportunities for students to develop their talent in the areas of leadership and developing working relationships.”
“The emphasis or our outdoor programming is not the backpacking and climbing it is the trust, perseverance and self reliance. We pair kids with more experience to kids with no experience. The freshman and sophomore trips are the hardest, because they do not yet have all the tools they need, but by junior year the kids experience the challenges and the joy of expeditions.”
“What keeps me engaged, “ said Randy, “is seeing the students grow over the years. I continue to have relationships with them after graduation when the tools have become part of their lives. I believe outdoor education emanates life more than anything and the lessons are more important than on the academic side. The level of friendship and trust the life skills they pick up here become even more apparent when they come back to visit or to give back.”
“A recommended activity that I have the students at Dunn do is to keep journals - from 7th to 12th grade and then 5 years after they graduate from college, I give them their journals. They also receive letters written by seniors on 2-day solo trips to their peers in their class. Students receive those positive letters (‘These are the things I hope for you…’) 5 years from when they are written.”
“I got into this field because I was a juvenile delinquent and school wasn't my thing. This showed up in high school largely because I needed hands on learning. Science was big for me because you can experience it including consequences. Sitting down in class and especially taking tests did not give me any substance. I floundered around went to Prescott College for two years and got my degree. I was one of the first, with Lovejoy, that wanted to have my degree be in outdoor education, not environmental studies. I wanted to pursue action in the outdoors, challenge activities and knowing the environment and psychology. I was interested in student behavioral modification and why do people do what they do. I look at outdoor education as a skill set and environmental studies as developing the psyche.”
“I got involved in AEE around 1995 because of Mark Rowland and then Steve Garvey. The AEE accreditation process is what tuned me in. I see it as important to establish the policies and procedures that govern our industry to make sure you are doing your due diligence for your clientele. In experiential education we often put kids and adults in risky situations and we should manage that risk to get the program to respond using best practices.”
