Journey Toward the Caring Classroom: Using Adventure to Create Community in the Classroom

Collaborative group members must approach a task as equals, willing to take risks that will cause all to sink or swim together. This collective stake in an outcome implies a group that thrives on respect, trust, and common goals. --Journey Toward the Caring Classroom

Children attend school to acquire skills for contribution in society; yet schools traditionally champion a sit-down-and-listen atmosphere. Journey Toward the Caring Classroom stipulates that a classroom should instead support a community of students and teachers who collaborate to achieve common goals in order to create a community of citizens who do the same.

Utilizing the principles of adventure based education, the author presents a curriculum of games and activities for a variety of age levels that build trust, cooperation, and problem-solving skills and which teach personal responsibility to groups as well as setting and achieving individualized goals. The development of the text provides a map for building community, tips on group/classroom facilitation, and makes the program easy to implement.