Outdoor Education

The Outdoor Education program at De la Salle College presents a significant challenge to its students from Grade 4 to VCE. The focus of our program is teaching basic life skills, developing awareness about important environmental issues, and providing students with opportunities to show initiative and leadership. With the classroom walls removed, learning doesn’t just place between 9am and 3pm. It becomes a way of life, taking place at different times, be it night or day. In this environment, learning is experiential and meaningful. Furthermore, it reinforces the need to be independent and organized, as the consequence of an individual’s action, or inaction, is both immediate and obvious. So here we are one late afternoon in winter, paddling downstream, misty rain is falling, the cold has seeped beneath the layers of the wetsuit and thermal clothing, and we feel each breath as it hits the back of our lungs. The group is tired, really tired, hungry, rumbling vague complaints and starting to demand how much further it will be. This is a critical time. As an Outdoor Education teacher, we need to orchestrate as much as we can. Tell jokes, pose conundrums, set goals such as getting to the next bend in the river, or propose competitions to see which raft can paddle most quickly to the take-out point. It really doesn’t matter what diversion we choose, as long as it makes a distraction from the present. However, despite the hardships, we are amazed how at the end of it all, everyone is able to look back on that dreary winter’s afternoon as one of the biggest highlights of the trip. Perhaps this is because we all achieved goals, rose to a challenge, worked together and had fun, to overcome the odds. From Grade 4 to VCE our students enjoy activities which promote personal adventure to achieve learning goals. For example, in Grade 4 the most enjoyable activity is building great sand walls in a valiant but vain attempt to defy the tide. The highlight for Grade 5 is the adventure of the ‘Great Race’, while for Grade 6 it is hurtling high over a river on a zip wire. Our Year 7s enjoy attempts to crack a big wave down on the west coast, while our Year 8s set out on a coastal journey of bushwalking and canoeing. The Year 9s spend a tranquil evening sleeping on rafts on the Murray River, and for Year 10s it is conquering whitewater rapids on the Macalister River. Finally, the VCE class is challenged by a fear of height during a series of multi-pitch climbs and abseils at Mt Arapiles. This year, the Outdoor Education program has blossomed. Students at every level have enjoyed their camps more than ever, as have Homeroom teachers and the Outdoor Education staff.