Introduction
1.Life Skills.
The 21st Century work environment is a much more complex and dynamic one, requiring people to possess tenacity, be innovative, should be willing to overcome great odds, face challenges and step out into unknown and uncharted territory. These characteristics could be grouped together as essential life skills and school/ college education and parental upbringing forms a foundation for the future work force. However, conventional methods of teaching and our prevalent education system do not impart such learning. When we consider ‘learning’, the earliest associations most of us make are with schools, teachers and textbooks. Traditionally the schools, colleges and institutions condition us to think of learning as a process in which the teacher – the trained expert has the primary responsibility of teaching. All the child has to do is absorb, memorize and repeat as and when necessary. Unfortunately this model seems ineffective in a world where accelerating change is one of the few constants. The ability to learn and apply what is learnt quickly is the important skills we must develop in the student during his/ her school/ college years. Parents and teachers too need to understand this concept in order to help the students embrace the paradigm shift in life skills development.
2.Life Skills & Joint Families.
Modern day work places, the fast materialistic life and nuclear families do not afford a healthy climate for developing the above traits. The traditional joint families provided for a perfect setting in which various dynamics of team working and leadership could be seen and experienced. A perfect setting for what is termed as experiential learning.
Experiential Learning and Life Skills Development
3.Experiential Learning.
What is experiential learning? In the olden days we had the Gurukul concept of schooling – a boarding school with a vast difference. In a Gurukul the pupil would stay with the Guru at his place and spend a number of years learning various arts. Apart from the usual discourses, the type of life itself gave ample opportunities for experiential learning to develop an individual. However, the education pattern established in India places a great deal of emphasis on the chalk and talk, learn by rote methods of learning. These methods while important have a number of drawbacks and does not prepare a modern day worker to face the innumerable challenges that a business or the organisation faces at whatever level one is working at.
4.This debate on the value of different types of education would probably continue for a long time. At the very least it can be convincingly said that tasting adventure even in its mildest and ‘controlled’ form can act not only as a stimulant and confidence booster, but also as a very real piece of therapy through the sheer concentration and surge of adrenalin that clinging to a vertical cliff or barreling down rapids in a rubber raft can command. It also helps individuals to understand more about themselves in overtly stressful situations and learn more about team dynamics, wherein the consequences of an act of commission or omission are immediate and painfully obvious. Perhaps most importantly of all it’s not only challenging and different, it’s also a great deal of fun.
5.Experiential learning is based on following assumptions:-
That students learn best when personally involved in the learning experience.
That knowledge to be truly meaningful has to be discovered by the individual.
That students are more committed to learning when they are free to identify and pursue their own goals.
6. Experiential learning therefore places emphasis on
Direct personal experience
Building individual’s commitment to development
Giving learners as great a responsibility as possible for drawing conclusions.
Outbound Life Skills Development (OLSD)
7.The crux of an OLSD programme lies in taking a group of students, parents and even managers away from their normal environment into the Outbound, and placing a new, unfamiliar set of challenges before them, in the solving of which a whole lot of new equations and dynamics are thrown up. The programme works on the principle that when a group is thrown together in wilderness or adventure settings, where they have to fend for themselves and meet challenges together, there is growth in many directions. An OLSD programme is particularly relevant to today’s society as it demonstrates to people that they in fact do possess the necessary internal resources required of them; that in spite of differences in backgrounds they can live and work together; and that it is intrinsic to human nature to be helpful.
8.OLSD programmes take place in the Outbound and uses sports, physical activities and semi- adventure and adventure-based activities that require minimum skills as a vehicle for learning (not as an end in themselves). There is intense planning, debriefing of the event – both task and process, to mine the rich human experiences and draw lessons that are lasting and transferable to the modern day work content. Development involves enabling people to fulfill their potential and expand and celebrate their talents and to enjoy a meaningful and satisfying work life. Over the last half century an Outbound development module is included in virtually all MBA and higher education courses offered abroad. Many companies abroad have a rich tradition of using OLSD (generally referred to as Outbound Management Development – OMD) for various levels of managers, which has become part of their corporate cultures. In India too a number of corporates have taken up OMDs as a Management development tool in a fairly big way
10.OLSD Theory.
Based on the conceptual foundation of experiential learning, OLSD has evolved as a scientific, successful and well-accepted technique of our times. The OLSD theory is based on certain premises, which are founded on human psychology and group behavior. These important premises are: –
People generally have more resources and are more capable than they think they are.
A small heterogeneous group is capable of successfully coping with significant physical and mental challenges.
Learning is more successful when problems are presented rather than solutions or methodologies.
Stress and shared adventure serve as important catalysts in the discovery process.
The single most important factor that determines a person’s future is his idea of self.
Significant, long-lasting learning can be achieved through an intensive, short-term experience.
11.OLSD programmes provide real and tangible gains in aspects such as leadership training, team working, improving communication, dealing better with change and speeding up decision-making. There is remarkable learning in the above aspects, but also more importantly a participant undergoing an OLSD programme also takes in more individual learnings such as overcoming fears, conducting a personal audit of resources, renewing their efforts to stay physically fit and counteracting stress and burn-out. Depending on the programme design, intensity and willingness or otherwise of the management in placing its personnel in challenging situations, an OLSD programme tries to introduce various facets of life skills to the participants.
Conclusion
12. Our centuries old tradition of the Gurukul concept of learning has seen a minor resurgence in the modern day Outbound Life Skills Development programmes. Experiential learning to be truly effective requires the participants to undergo intense experiences in the physical, intellectual and emotional spectrum of human nature. A good OLSD programme strives to awaken the latent talent hidden within ourselves and in the process make the organisation a far more responsive, dynamic and vibrant one and unequivocally brings to life the words of Robin Sharma the author of The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari, “The only limits on your life are those that you set yourself. When you push beyond your limits, you unlock mental and physical resources that you never thought you had”.