Adventure College Tornio (SiteFinder Directory)

The three main pages in English on this site are BIG in every
sense. Together they currently contain 13 articles, large and
small. I can't imagine myself sitting at a campfire reading these
pages - as Steve suggests in his warm introduction (below). I
don't have a glow in the dark laptop computer, Steve. And I lack
the imagination to see my office as a campfire. At a campfire I
would rather lift my eyes up from the texts and join in the 'Lets
make experience dance' (referred to at the end of this review) .

BIGNESS is the point of these pages. Steve thinks BIG. His time
frame is not the last decade or two, but stretches back to
Aristotle, Socrates and Co., and even when Steve is quoting from
more recent literature and research, his sources are scattered
far and wide - around Europe and beyond.

BIGNESS is also about finding SPACE in the outdoors. There is a
strong sense in Steve's writings that we only see the space that
we carry with us. It's as if the computer motto 'rubbish in,
rubbish out' is a universal one that applies to wilderness trips
too. (Ralph Waldo Emerson said it better - something about
needing to take ''wealth'' on your travels if you want to bring
some back.) Steve is particularly keen that we do not take the
CLASSROOM or the OFFICE into the outdoors, and he is forever wary
of ''CONFORMIST PROGRAMMINGS''.

If Steve's writings work, they will encourage visitors to his web
pages to step out of their boxes so that they can enter a BIGGER
world and see the boxes they are in. This may be especially
difficult for people working in Outdoor Adventure Education -
many of whom see it as their job to get other people out of THEIR
boxes. You just have to work even harder at thinking BIGGER.
Maybe.

This is the value of publishing and browsing on the world wide
web. It brings more people into contact with alternative views.
OAE in Finland is not the same as OAE in the USA and the UK - as
Steve makes clear. He invites us all to the warmth of the
campfire. Choose your distance carefully - it's a BIG fire. And
it is full of passion.

Thank you Steve for recognising that the web is world-wide and
that your work with your students does indeed have plenty of
relevance - especially because it's a different voice - a voice
closer to the spirit of adventure than many who now write on the
subject.

This is how the Adventure Education pages at Adventure College
Tornio begin ...

http://www.ppopisto.fi/Users/adventure/ (at archive.org)
Kirvesvartta Päivää & Good day to You!

Mission (Im)possible...

Through lonely Taiga and Tundra, Rambling around with the Lapland
Fells...searching for the truths of life .... ..human-being and
be-coming. Sometimes training with technical skills and adventure
education.... At other times just "being at home" with the
world.( im)Possible or not? This is part of our mission
statement. Come and find your answers through others and through
the mix with the elemental !

http://www.ppopisto.fi/Users/adventure/adventur1.htm (at archive.org)
Adventure..such a interesting word. What does it mean?
From these pages you can get lot of information about adventure,
and outdoor adventure education. Of course adventure is much
more that this, but nobody can tell it all... so please, dream
yourself sitting with the camp fire, read these pages, with time
and enjoy and send some feed back to us if you feel like it and
want to know more.

http://www.ppopisto.fi/Users/adventure/steve.htm (at archive.org)
The pages by Steve Bowles seem to be the only ones in English.
Translations of more of the Finnish pages are on their way.

~> TORNIO - INDEX

Steve Bowles' pages are presented in three sections:

BARE-BONES
lecture-texts are for students to play with. They are
short and provocative. They are texts to "urge onwards".

Adventure College Tornio - Review Comments