At Longacre Expeditions--a summer adventure program for teenagers operating trips from Pennsylvania to British Columbia--many structures are in place to support participants' learning. The following overview of Longacre's structures in practice will introduce readers to the thoughtful curriculum underlying Longacre's challenging outdoor programs, which emphasizes both physical accomplishment and emotional growth. Many summer programs offer the experience of “growth through challenge.” Longacre's equal emphasis on physical challenge and interpersonal skills makes it unique.

Day-hiking along the coast of Nova Scotia (Summer 1989)

Structures
Each of the following elements helps to create an atmosphere of challenge that is integrated with Longacre's philosophy and culture. This coherence of philosophy, culture and practice is powerful for both leaders and adolescent participants. For teenagers, such consistency is critical to creating an environment that supports risk-taking and learning. For leaders, these structures help to focus effort and attention on developing participants' physical and emotional skills. Moreover, the emphasis on group dynamics and thoughtful participation ensures that everyone will have responsibility for each expedition's success. Some specific structures include:
Range of Challenging Outdoor Activities
Trust and Team Work (Ropes Course)
Trip Journals
Jobs and Responsibilities
Group
Sequence
Benchmarks
Letter to Myself

Range of Challenging Outdoor Activities
Each 13 - 28 day expedition is co-ed, grouped by age, and offers a different mix of challenging outdoor activites. Participants backpack, hike, bike, kayak, raft, sail, mountaineer, snowboard, scuba dive, mountain bike, canoe, cave, rock climb, snorkel, surf kayak, and windsurf in world-class settings. I described the impact that such physical achievement had on my self-confidence in my college application. Memories from my own trips include:
 

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Trust & Team Work (Ropes Course)
Each expedition begins with a sequence of team-building activities including trust falls and initiatives that help to establish the tone for the summer. By providing a chance for participants to take risks in a "safe" environment, each member of the group has the opportunity to try something new--to test their limits--before the rigors of the summer's "Big Adventures" are fully underway.  I will never forget my first experience of the high ropes as a teenager. Watching my "own kids" try it as a leader ten years later, was an altogether different thrill.
 

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Trip Journals
Each expedition keeps a daily journal. The job of scribe rotates among the kids. Copies of trip journals are sent to kids and staff in the fall. Stories, songs, poems, quotes are all jotted down, giving kids a chance to reflect on the day.
 

Our journal (Summer 1988)	What a trip! (Summer 1989)

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Jobs and Responsibilities
After a group meeting to discuss tasks, leaders of each expedition create a job chart. Responsibilities rotate throughout the summer.
 

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Group
 

"Group" meetings occur approximately four times per week and are part of each expedition. This is different from any ordinary meeting, where logistics or coordination are the focus. Group has two parts. During the first part, called Sharing, participants have the opportunity to reflect on the events of the day. It is often used as a time to say “thank you” for kindness that could typically have gone unacknowledged. Tone is usually light. There is no obligation to speak.

The second part of group usually involves an exercise. A typical exercise in the beginning of the season might be to pair off with someone who you don't know very well (probably anyone). You talk about yourself for 10 minutes. Your partner talks about him/herself for 10 minutes. Everyone returns to the group. Kids introduce their partners to the group and tell a little of what they learned about them.

As the summer progresses, kids become more comfortable speaking in Group. Trust among the participants increases. Listening skills ? “active listening”, knowing when to be quiet - are learned and practiced. Exercises become more rigorous. Kids are encouraged to identify their feelings and communicate them to the group. The explicit goal for Group is to foster the skills of feelings level communication.

The underlying assumption here is that communicating feelings to another person is a good thing.

This act helps to bond individuals together - as powerfully as the shared experience of a backpacking trip or a cave exploration. When the communication spreads among all members of the trip, the bonds help to broaden and deepen friendships among all Expeditioners.

Longacre further believes that there is no such thing as a “right” or “wrong” feeling.

Anger is not “wrong” any more than “joy” is right. People feel what they are feeling. They cannot alter anger, for instance. What they can do, though, is talk about it in a manner that is helpful to them and the other people on the trip.

Let's assume that there is a problem on the trip: Sam didn't show up for cooking crew as he was supposed to. The crew was short handed, and dinner came out late. If this situation were to be handled poorly, Sam might never hear about it at all. Kids would talk behind his back or make jokes about him. Or he might be dealt with in an authoritarian way by one of the leaders. In Group it would be handled quite differently. Sam would hear something like, “Sam, I felt angry when you didn't show up for cooking crew. Because of that, we didn't get dinner out on time, then we had to clean up dishes in the dark.” What Sam didn't hear was “You're a jerk.” No one said “You're lazy.” He was given feedback about how his actions made another person feel. Sam then can do what he wants to with the information. If he doesn't want to make the person angry again, he'll show up on time for cooking crew in the future.

It is when we deal with uncomfortable feedback that the emotional challenge which is a fundamental part of the Longacre Experience kicks in. If I say to another person, “I felt angry when...” I am taking a risk. This risk is as significant as climbing a 30 foot rock face or tackling a 50 mile biking day.

"When this person hears my feedback will he be angry with me? Will he be hurt? Will he deny that he did such a thing and make me think that I misperceived things?" Only by taking the risk and giving the feedback can the challenge be met.  At this point in the life of the group all components are in place. Feedback such as this is treated by us as a rare gift. "Rare" because it comes in a form that allows kids to hear it and act on it. "Gift" because it allows kids to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, how their actions are affecting other people. When we have had the opportunity to work with the kids on these types of perceptions, the feedback becomes extremely significant. Kids receive feedback about themselves in the spirit in which it is given. Kids who offer the feedback, upon gauging the reaction of the recipient, then gain the confidence to give feedback in the future.

In Group leaders work to instill kids' confidence in themselves and their ability to effectively communicate. However, nobody assumes that people outside of Longacre "play by the same rules" that we do in Group. We spend time at the end of the season setting goals that are realistic, so the kids don't return home and "blow away" their friends with a barrage of feelings-level statements. But they do re-enter their home lives with a new sense of their own personal power - power that might blossom next week, next month, or next year.

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Sequence
Longacre expeditions are designed so that kids progress to more and more challenging activites over the course of the trip. Moreover, participants can return from year to year and take on challenges that are appropriate next steps.

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Benchmarks
Benchmarks are meetings that occur one-on-one or two-on-one between leaders and kids. They are progress reports, reinforcement of positive actions, and gentle encouragement away from negative behaviors. These goal-setting conversations are very meaningful to the kids and extremely useful in helping leaders shape the group. Typically there is one benchmark in the middle and one at the end of the trip.

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Letter to Myself
Each kid writes a Letter to Myself toward the end of the trip. The letters are mailed to the kids in the fall, giving a chance to reflect on the summer and revisit their summer experience again at "home."

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