On a Friday in early December, a group of eighth graders from the Oak Bluffs School gathered under a series of ropes and cables strung between electric poles. They planned to haul a classmate 40 feet into the air by a rope and let her swing through the air like Tarzan. Of course, then they would collaboratively lower the classmate back to the ground.
The exercise was part of a 10-week course in adventure-based experiential education developed by Sheriff-elect Robert Ogden as a continuation of the D.A.R.E. program. Mr. Ogden has served on the Duke County Sheriff’s Office drug prevention task force since 1994. He got his first taste of experiential education 20 years ago when he took a course with Project Adventure, a Massachusetts-based program that takes the tenets of outdoor education into the classroom.
Experiential education uses hands-on games and physical tasks to build confidence and decisionmaking skills. Groups are taken through an activity designed to challenge them, then debriefed about the experience afterward, a process crafted to facilitate personal growth and build connections in a group.
“There’s a real potential for experiential education to change the way we communicate with our children,’” Mr. Ogden told The Times. “I wanted physical education brought into the classroom, to bring the adventure home. On Martha’s Vineyard we don’t have mountains to climb, so we created our own.”
Mr. Ogden saw experiential education as one way to address the Island’s drug problem. By engaging with youth at a critical period in their lives, Mr. Ogden hoped to put them on a path toward a drug-free life. He sought funding through donations and a state grant from the Governor’s Alliance Against Drugs, and in 2001 turned an empty plot of land near the airport into a ropes course. He then crafted a curriculum based on Project Adventure’s lessons, which he implemented in the eighth grade classes of all the Island elementary schools. “I always thought eighth grade was a turning point in a child’s life,” Mr. Ogden said. “This is their first experience going from being a young teenager to dealing with 17- and 18-year-olds who have a lot more world experience. How do you defend yourself from those elements that are coming in to change your world view? It’s all about self-worth and self-sufficiency.”
The course culminates in a day on the ropes course. “This is the carrot,” Mr.
Ogden said. “The students think this is the real part of it, but the meat and potatoes is in the classroom.”
On the course, Mr. Ogden gives students a task to complete. They discuss their approach as a group, complete the task, and then evaluate their experience. The debriefing is considered one of the most important steps of this process, as it allows students to think critically about their own behavior and performance in relation to their peers.
“We ask the kids to think about what they just did,” Mr. Ogden said. “What happened during the game? What did it mean to us? How do we use that in life? How do we build friendships, and how do we move forward?”
Mr. Ogden requires only two things of his participants: be prepared, and push yourself two steps farther than you want to go. Maybe this is the day that you do a backflip on a zipline. Or maybe you just climb a ladder.
“I think sometimes in our society today, we’re too much of a support system for our children,” Mr. Ogden said. “We need to make sure they learn to be a little bit self-sufficient. Everything in life has consequences, whether good or bad. When you start to prepare kids for that in an eighth grade class, that can move them toward high school, college, and beyond. They have to find their own ways and their own path. That equates with drug and alcohol use. Make your own choices, decide for yourself.”
The ropes course is not exclusively for Island eighth graders. Mr. Ogden has hosted Island school staff, law enforcement officers, and business groups.
Mr. Ogden would love to expand his curriculum to the regional high school. “The problem is I’m only one person,” he said. “I can manage this at the sheriff’s office as experiential programming, but my time is limited, and I have to get all this done in the school year.”
Mr. Ogden will soon become the Sheriff of Dukes County, and is currently
looking for local candidates to take his place as manager for the ropes course, though he hopes to remain involved.
“I’m committed to this type of public service,” Mr. Ogden said. “But it breaks my heart that I won’t have that huge connection with the kids. I’ll always be around, I’m not going to hide in the sheriff’s office; but it’s sad that I won’t be there.”
For more information on the ropes course, contact Robert Ogden at 508-527-6972, or the Duke’s County Sheriff’s Office at 508-627-5173.
