Adventure

Nature also offers the experience of adventure for all; it leads to surpassing oneself and exploring. This is especially crucial for teenagers. Through experience and confidence, everyone will step by step exceed their own limits. In that time of their life, teenagers tend to expand towards the outside, search for meaning and their place in the world (especially in the current ecological, financial and political context), develop autonomous thinking, need adventure and discovery, express their creativity and interact with a wider circle of people, etc.

Teenagers are very curious and open towards the outside. In this time of their growth, they look for widening their circle of relationships. It is important for them to have a group of friends, and to meet new potential friends, and different kind of people. Their curiosity is directed towards a wider range of possible activities, information, places, etc. It is essential to support that spontaneous research.

It is also the time that they build their identity, find out what are their specific desires and talents. The classical school that forces teenagers to sit and do nearly the same activities each day, produces young adults who didn't get to explore, don't know what they want to do, and yet are expected to know which studies, which job they choose.

Outdoor activities also are necessary at that age for physical well-being. Young people who do sport, walking or other physical activities are less tempted by spending too much time on screens, eating junk food, obesity, trying drugs. In classical schools, youth's strength and enthusiasm is tamed by the obligations of school schedules and social pressure, producing the “bored teenagers” that we all know (or have been).

Group activities, often involving teenagers from other schools, are very beneficial to them. In Belgium, associations such as D'une Cîme à l'Autre (“From one Tree-top to the Other”) organizes camps and activities such as canoeing, hiking, climbing. At the school The Tree of Possibilities, we organize this type of activities at least once a month. Group activities of course develop communication skills, self-confidence, bonding with friends, and respond to the need of adventure and discovery.