Outdoor and adventure education has always sat on the fringes.
On its surface, it's a mix of outdoor recreation and traditional education, yet it's often misunderstood by both broader communities. We've always aimed for OAE to be more accepted as mainstream.
That struggle is getting harder.
Today's OAE participants are growing up in a world driven by algorithms that shape our likes, our communities, and how we relate to the world around us. We're all feeling these effects.
The perceived value of extended, remote programs has declined, and competition for youth's time is higher. Everyone wants a piece of kids' summer vacations, from travel, sports groups, summer school programs, and screens and just generally overscheduled lives. Complicating it further, parents (generally) have less tolerance for risk than our parents did. Enrollment pressure is real, and it affects the bottom dollar for a field that runs on very thin financial margins.
I caught something on a podcast recently that's really stuck with me. Jack Clark is the co-founder of Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI, which is arguably the leader in the AI game right now (and also, the most ethical AI company as far as I can tell).
He said AI is designed to agree with you by reflecting your own thinking back, in a more polished way. Over time, he said, that mirroring erodes your sense of self. When the world around you is agreeable…too agreeable… you miss out on the normal, human and natural dissonance that comes from working in reality and navigating the ways other people see things differently.
He said a strong, grounded sense of self is the most important quality for people in the future. What stuck with me is that, as a builder of the algorithm-based future, he is choosing to prioritize that in raising his own kids. Adventure ed is antithetical to AI.
The best way to learn about a river is by running it (actually, swimming it, in my opinion). In the field, the weather is the greatest teacher. Other group members don't always see eye to eye, and students have to figure it out together. With thoughtful leadership and facilitation, these experiences are how people develop a grounded sense of who they are, how they relate to others, and what they're capable of.
For the next generation, outdoor programs are the antidote to a world that runs on algorithms. A designer of the future just told us so.
I'm curious what you are hearing from the parents and schools your org works with. Is the personal development value of your program getting harder to explain, or easier?
Does this framing change how you talk about your program to parents and schools?
Stu
P.S. The Jack Clark episode is on the Ezra Klein Show podcast if you want to listen to the full conversation.