31 days

I'm back from my 31 day wilderness course. It was an amazing learning experience. Just to give a brief overview: 11 youth between 12-18 years of age are force to complete 31 days of community living in the wilderness. They sleep under tarps, cook for each other, do challenging wilderness things, and learn to share their feelings with the group (my favorite part) I was one of three instructors who facilitated their experience.

My biggest struggle was coming to grips with the effectiveness of my work. At times I felt like I wasn't making a difference and the kids were just going to go back to their lives that had gotten them in trouble. About half way through I watched the movie "Freedom Writers" on an evening off. Its a feel good movie where a school teacher gives it her all and a class of diverse gangster thugs became kind, caring, and respectful by the end of two school years. When I went back in the field the next morning I realized that real life is much different. I had given a lot to my students and attitudes were still centered on selfishness and disrespect. Even up until graduation I had kids tell me "f--- you", "you can't tell me what to do"

But those were the worst kids. Some students had a true desire to change. The recognized their bad attitudes and made significant steps toward curbing them. Those were the cases that gave me energy to get up each day.

During my training I shadowed a course for five days. They just happened to be the group that was being filmed by a Japanese film crew. You can read more at the links below:
indianagazette.com
Diakon