My pedagogy of teaching social justice through the moving body has derived from wide-ranging experiences of human-powered travel.
These experiences have guided my questioning of the historical circumstances of right of passage over settled land and my seeking out of experiential education approaches to histories of constriction of movement in the US settler-state.
In 2015, I stepped away from a Harvard PhD program to spend one year living outdoors, which turned into seven years of experiential education teaching and traveling in wild places. This is a selection of blog posts written during that time.
Antisana, Ecuador, 2017.
Santa Elena Canyon, Texas, 2019. Voyageur Outward Bound School Whitewater Canoeing Staff Invitational in Big Bend National Park. Photo: Rachel Pace.
Nogales, Sonora, 2018.
Androscoggin River, Maine, 2019.
Mahoosuc Mountains, Maine, 2015.
Boundary Waters, Minnesota, 2016. Voyageur Outward Bound School Dog Sledding Staff Invitational.
Northern Ecuador, 2017
Photo credit: Rachel Pace
Outdoor Leadership (2011-2021): Whitewater Canoeing, Bikepacking and Backpacking
Wilderness First Responder and CPR, Wilderness Medical Associates, 2014-Present
Hurricane Island Outward Bound School Lead Instructor; Backpacking, Flat water and Whitewater Canoeing, Rock Climbing; 357 field days leading wilderness expeditions for teens, Maine, Seasonally 2011-2021
Kroka Expeditions Semester School Lead Instructor, Winter Semester Program and Ecuador Semester Program; Bike packing, Trekking and Canoeing; August 2017-May 2018
Naturalist Leader, Naturalists at Large, Joshua Tree National Park and Lower Colorado River; Caving and River Canoeing, September-December 2016
ACA Swiftwater Rescue, June 2017 and ACA Level 4 Whitewater Canoeing, May 2016
Personal Expedition Experience
Borderland Education Research Trip, Desert Bike packing, 17 days in Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora, Mexico, 450 miles, November-December 2018
New England Bike Tour, Road Biking, 10 days, 330 miles, June-July 2018
Virginia to New Hampshire Bike Tour, Road Biking, 14 days, 700 miles, March 2017
Personal expeditions in Ecuador and Peru, Trekking, 49 days, January- February 2017
Personal expedition in New Zealand, Trekking, 24 days, February-March 2016
Deer Isle and Acadia Bike Tour, Road Biking, 6 days, July 2016
Personal back country expedition in Patagonia; Torres del Paine and Cabo Froward, Chile; Fitz Roy Range, Argentina; Trekking, December 2015-January 2016
Coast to Coast Bike Tour of England, Road Biking, 6 days, July 2013
Netherlands Bike Tour, Road Biking, 5 days, July 2012
Personal Backpacking Orienteering Expeditions in England and Scotland; Isle of Skye (7 days), Scottish Highlands (8 days), Snowdonia (3 days), 2010-2011
Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award Backpacking; Peak District (5 days), June 2010
55- mile Ten Tors Backpacking Orienteering Challenge; Dartmoor, England; Training in England and Wales, May 2010
45- mile Ten Tors Backpacking Orienteering Challenge; Dartmoor, England; Training in England and Wales, May 2009
Teaching Philosophy
My experiential approaches to education respond to cultures of separation present in traditional academic institutions that are rooted in colonial knowledge, by instead connecting students to body and place.
Collaborative Learning
In building community within the class setting, I draw on my background as a wilderness guide. On an expedition, the task of forming a trusting and cohesive group where each member has a sense of belonging is of first priority and of high consequence. Each member must feel needed by the whole learning community, and this happens through delegation of roles, frequent group and individual check-ins, and ample opportunities for sharing personal connections and meaning-making. Building this container creates the possibility of confronting hard history in ways that face head-on the consequences of those histories today. My constructivist approach guides learners in making investigations, and provides structures for sharing and horizontal teaching within the learning community, where each member has opportunities to be teacher and learner.
Place-based Study
My teaching is rooted in the understanding that the only sense of history that we can ever have comes through our ability to perceive what is around us right now—experiences, geographies, environments, interactions. Our ability to sense our place and our moment is our ability to know history. My teaching of history is therefore based in sensory and embodied experience of locality.
One tool I use in this study is audio scores, inviting students out of the ‘classroom’ to listen to material while moving outdoors with a particular lens of attention. Another is a curriculum of orientation and navigation, inspired by teaching these concepts in wilderness settings. Through a study of imperial roots of mapping, students interrogate ways of representing space and place through drawing, audio recordings, and video. I aim to make present the sensation of place and time that elapses during the course through invitations to study the sky and seasonal change.
This approach to historical study is part of wider movements fostering self-sufficiency and cultivating relationships in order to develop reciprocal communities and stewardship of place. That includes skills from growing local food, to building dwellings from local materials, to running small literary presses, to having knowledge of wellness practices. During this political moment, I recognize in my teaching that it is ever more important to take ownership of listening to, creating and sharing historical understanding on a local scale.
Community of Practice
A student in my course in Place-based US History described "the shaking-up-ed-ness of the approach as a whole– study not as pursuit of catalogues and archives, but as a way of being in the world.”
I guide learners in discovering how to become lifelong creators of historical understanding. This takes place through the cultivation of historical practices and habits. My curriculum is structured to create intellectual infrastructures within which learners can continue to build new historical knowledge through investigation. I frame historical study through very simple questions that are inherently connected to daily lived experiences.
My goal is to create a community of practice within my class, where historical study is not just a textual activity, but includes lived habits. Some of the habits that I teach through include analyzing monuments, visiting grave sites, reading on the landscape, taking audio walks, following place-name lineages, discovering the routes of food in a meal, dissecting linguistic etymologies, and re-tracing historical journeys.
Expeditionary Learning
These traits of teaching— collaborative learning, place-based study, and cultivating a community of practice, all are part of an expeditionary learning approach. I aim to create the environment for students to have a direct encounter with material. On a wilderness expedition, this takes place through the route planning and means of travel. Online learning poses excellent opportunities for pursuing this model in a remote way. As on an expedition, I begin by giving overview of the terrain and providing exemplars for how to move through it. As the course progresses, I move into a position of coaching, providing thoughtful, personalized feedback. I then impel students towards formative experiences of independent learning. I have shaped the conditions of the expedition, but the course of the journey emerges from what students create together.