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My last blog was about the power of immersive classes to foster attention and presence in students. Here I want to focus on another aspect of learning that immersive classes are uniquely suited to produce: a community of learners.Let me set the scene: A group of hungry undergraduates and I have arrived at our campsite for the night and set up camp after ten miles of trekking with full packs. Because they’re perpetually hungry and I believe in luxurious trail meals (ask me sometime about our Mediterranean quinoa and Thai curry dinners), our food bags are full: enough for ten people for five days. And because we are in bear country, we have to hang the bags from a tree limb before we sleep. Not even the most macho of the students can pull the bags up on his own. (He tried. His name was Joel.) We need every person pulling on the rope. Or, on different trip, in an Arizona slot canyon, hanging our food away from bears was not an issue, but sleeping warm on a twenty-degree night was. We all snaked into our sleeping bags and then piled together like puppies snuggling against one another for warmth, never mind that most of us were strangers to each other that first night.Wilderness trips are by nature and necessity participatory ventures. Everyone is essential for a successful trip, at the level of making sure everyone eats and keeps safe as well as at the level of maximum enjoyment and meaning. It’s not unlike the most effective classrooms, where everyone’s voice is essential for everyone’s learning. The reality is just more obvious on the trail where you might genuinely need someone else’s warmth beside you on a cold night.Because of the visceral need for one another in daily chores or while crossing a river, students rely on each other much more quickly than in a classroom, and their physical need quickly becomes a need for one another’s ideas at class discussion around the campfire. Students see each other as human beings, as comrades, as companions, as fellow community members, because of the way of life on the trail. They have had to be vulnerable with one another and recognize their limits, ask for help, and so when they talk with one another, they already have a foundation of some trust. Plus, when we hike with someone side by side or one in front of the other, we can say more meaningful things because we don’t have to look each other in the eye. So students listen to and learn from one another, unthreatened by one another.I saw this on an immersive Jan-term that didn’t involve backpacking too. I took students to a monastery for three weeks for a class on the history, theology, and spirituality of monasticism. There they also had to rely on each other and on the sisters. The need was less immediate, but it was there in the shared work of washing dishes and shoveling snow. Then when a stomach bug ravaged us one by one we needed each other for basic things again. The bug hit me first, and I had to rely on the students too, just as I do on the trail. That example of dependence—of asking for help getting food or reaching out for a hand up a steep embankment—is something my students mark as invaluable. If their leader and professor is willing to throw in her lot with them, they can drop their guards and do the same with one another.Often this reliance on one another not only persists as we return from the trail and finish the immersive course (the rest of the Jan-term) at a monastery or retreat center, but even when students are back on campus the following semester. I see them around campus and hear how they are still talking together about course ideas. This spring my Jan-term group were competing together to see if they could collectively keep their screen time below a three-hour/week average. Building a community of learners on an immersive trip builds a community of learners beyond that trip. Certainly, students in the group are that for each other, but hopefully they are also able to see their next set of classmates as a community and be willing to risk needing them, transforming that classroom and their learning experience into something more than a grade or a checkbox.What kind of risks can you introduce in your classes that require students to need each other and so build a community of learners? Can you create a classroom that is by nature and necessity participatory? Better yet, can you begin class with an immersive experience that does this and binds students to one another in ways that will change their experience of your classroom for the rest of the semester? May you find experiences that do this, and may they transform your students’ learning.

My absolute favorite way to teach is sitting around a camp stove on a bed of pine needles with students eating mac and cheese and laughing about the day’s challenges. If I’m lucky, my favorite wool socks are on my feet and the hat my friend Tess knit for me is on my head. If I’m really lucky, the students have moved from “That canoe carry was so hard!” to “I was thinking this afternoon about the point Belden Lane makes in the chapter on struggle as teaching us attention and indifference…”As much as I enjoy taking students outside for my regular semester classes, taking them through immersion courses—usually a week backpacking, sometimes canoeing—is a whole other level. All the good that happens in an outdoor session on campus is enhanced by being outdoors for a whole week or more. Students forget that they’re in class, become curious, and learn rather than ask me repeatedly if they’re doing the paper “right.” Students are less distracted on these trips, more able to focus on readings, reflections, experiences, each other. We all feel like we’re getting away with something, and we play, which makes us even more curious and open to learning. We are all more alive in the world. My teaching and my students’ learning becomes more attentive, more responsive, more active, more unpredictable in the best ways because that’s the reality of life on the trail: wild, unpredictable, active, requiring attention and response.All of these things happen, but for this post I’ll focus on just one aspect of the immersive experience: how present students become and how much that positively affects their learning and, more significantly, their lives.Two aspects of immersive outdoor trips especially facilitate students’ presence in their own lives. First, the places I backpack with students usually have no cell service, and I take their phones anyway, requiring them to go screen-free for the duration of not just the trip but the Jan-term (three weeks). Many of us make rules about devices in our classrooms and enforce presence for three hours a week, but imagine how the extended absence of their devices, the immersion into the non-virtual world, brings students into a more sustained experience of attention and therefore a deeper experience of presence. Students are not distracted by people who are not physically present. They cannot spend time staring at a video, leaving their reality behind. The things that distract them from their learning must be more interesting than those on a screen. Students tend to be much more engaged in their reading and read with more focus and depth on these trips, too! Without the numbing kinds of distraction available, students find themselves paying attention to their world and their community—each other. Their minds might wander, but they wander in ways our minds were meant to wander, making connections and noticing the world and the people around them, discovering the humanity of others and reaching out to meet needs they wouldn’t otherwise notice. They may even perceive internal movements of their own souls.The other aspect of the immersive trips that makes students so present is the pace of the trail. We are only ever doing one thing at a time. We’re hiking or sleeping or cooking or eating or playing or sitting around a campfire with one another, but never two of those at the same time (well, we can eat and do most of the other things at the same time, but these are undergraduates we’re talking about). Those are also the only things we do each day, every day, day after day. The pace and the rhythm slows us all down. We can focus. There is nothing vying for our attention. We just have to walk awhile, attend to our feet, attend to the person beside us.What happens when students are present, then, is an exponential increase in learning. Imagine conversations that last longer than thirty seconds because students have read deeply and brought questions and thoughts about the text. Imagine real conversation with real listening to one another and building ideas together because they are not wondering in the backs of their minds about who is texting them or what other conversation they are missing out on. Imagine a full day to ponder and digest the ideas of the previous night, a whole week for the course material to sink deep into students’ bones as they engage it with different people in different conversations over and over with nothing else to do but go for a walk and chat about it.Perhaps backpacking with students is not an option for you, but I imagine some kind of immersive experience is. Could you require a weekend retreat without phones and with a manageable amount of reading you do while at the retreat? Could you schedule even a single day immersion with students? Could you take them to a museum, take their phones, and give them a single task they have to do for several hours, slowly? Could you assign them a weekly meal where they have to be present to one another? May you find your immersive classroom and come to know your absolute favorite way to teach, with or without the wool socks.

“Can we please go outside?!” my students begged. “Allow me to be your fully-formed pre-frontal cortex,” I told them. “In five minutes, you will be cold just sitting still, and none of you actually wants to sit in the snow.” An unusually long and unseasonably warm fall last year meant that my classes took place outdoors until the end of October. Then, in an unseasonably early snow dump, we were back inside. The students in my history of Christianity class were not pleased. They persisted: “We could do a walking class!” As our day on the crusades approached, I thought, I could make this happen. I told them to come prepared for an outdoor walking class. That morning, while I ran, I planned my adapted lesson. It was one of the best classes I have ever taught. If you had told me when I began teaching ten years ago that I would plan an entire lesson on a 35-minute run the morning of the class, I would have questioned your sanity. I needed detailed plans that I had read over several times so that things would move smoothly. I needed back-up plans for when something didn’t quite work right or an activity didn’t take long enough. I needed to know everything there was to know in case a student asked the question I hadn’t prepared for. Something had changed. Yes, some of the change is from teaching in general. Doing a thing long enough gives confidence, and teaching long enough teaches flexibility, or at least being okay with flexibility, because no plan survives contact with living, breathing students. But I have noticed that teaching outdoors has emboldened me as a teacher. So much so that I would try something as absurd as an Oregon-Trail-style role-play of the crusades in the snow—students kept dying of dysentery and cholera on our trek around campus. One reason teaching outside emboldens me is simply that I feel more myself outside. The more I feel like myself—or the more comfortable I feel—when I’m in front of a class, the more likely I am to feel the freedom to risk failure by trying something new or trying something I haven’t fully thought through. What space do you feel most comfortable, most yourself, in? Could you hold a class there? Could you make your classroom feel more like that comfortable place? Is it possible that our students might find it more comfortable too, that they might risk more? Another thing I’ve discovered is that when I’m teaching outside I feel like I’m getting away with something. So do the students. Class is supposed to be in a cinder-block room at desks with harsh lighting and cause extreme boredom. We almost whisper to each other as we head outside, “Don’t enjoy this too much or the administrators will find out and make us stop!” If I feel like I’m getting away with something, I’m a little exhilarated by the risk and willing to try more. There’s also a conspiratorial spirit I develop with the students: we’re all in this rule-breaking together, so let’s go for broke. They’re more willing to try things. Even better, if they feel they’re getting away with something, they drop their guard and are more willing to play, to try new things, to risk failure. They’re more willing to learn because it doesn’t feel like what they’ve been taught learning feels like. Finally, things are less likely to go to plan outside, so I have gained a lot of experience about decision-making and confidence. Did it start raining? Is it heavy enough to go inside, or do we wait it out? From those experiences and choices, I have learned that once I make the decision, I need stick with it, no going back and forth. Lawn mowers come too near? I have learned what points are most important in each lesson. Knowing that, I can have fun with the details. Did a student have a medical emergency on a backpacking trip? I learned I can handle real emergencies and think through the steps that need to be taken. These lessons transfer to the classroom as well, where I’ve become a better teacher for knowing my main points and sticking with a decision to keep momentum in a new activity (unless it’s really going poorly and needs intervention) and being able to react calmly to minor incidents. Having experienced a range of interruptions and impetuses for improvisation, I am emboldened to think that I can handle anything. Sure, I will still be surprised. I will still need help. I can’t handle everything. But the confidence—and also humility—that has risen from teaching outdoors has resulted in more creative lessons, more engaged students, and more effective learning. Emboldened to risk, my students are emboldened to risk, and that’s when all of us can learn. Even while we’re pretending to die of dysentery.   Appendix Crusades role-play walking class lesson plan Students have read Justo Gonzalez, Story of Christianity vol. 1, pp. 345-351, and Bernard of Clairvaux, “In Praise of the New Knighthood” Numbers are for a class of 15, but could be adjusted for a bigger class (i.e., could have 2 people play the pope collectively, have a couple of assistants to Bernard, etc.) Explain to the students that we will be role-playing today and walking around campus Assign major parts: 2-3 pilgrims returning from the Holy Land with reports of persecution Pope Urban: Will convene the Council of Clermont and lead 3-4 Advisors to the Pope: Advise at the Council of Clermont Bernard of Clairvaux: Will lead “knight training camp” Everyone else is variously council members, crusaders, knights *Since I was doing this for the first time, I asked two students who I knew were good at understanding the material they had read and who would be game for this kind of role play to be Pope Urban and Bernard, and asked for volunteers to be pilgrims and advisors. It could be done as all volunteer, but it’s good to have in mind who might be especially good and make a direct request as a way of avoiding silence when asking for volunteers. If I hadn’t had those two particular students, I would have needed to get my volunteers the day before so they had time to prepare. I led them walking around campus and stopped periodically to have an activity and lesson. First stop: Near the Holy Land 2-3 pilgrims run up to our group and tell us what it was like for them on their pilgrimage in the Holy Land—how they were treated, what difficulties Muslim rulers are causing, etc. When the pilgrims run out of their own ideas, ask the rest of the class to fill in While walking, ask students to think about how they would feel hearing these reports. Who wanted to do something about it and who didn’t? Assign them different kinds of life (farmer, knight, artisan, monk, etc.) and see what they might think. Second stop: Council of Clermont The Pope needs to convene the council and then receive reports from advisors about what needs to happen This stop is about getting at the reasons people wanted a crusade and the reason the pope ordered the first one (and then later ones) When advisors and pope run out of reasons, the rest of the class fills in further details again Pope makes a decision and begins the first crusade While walking, discussion of how many crusades there were and how they were different, what reasons were similar and different for each one *If group is too big to hear each other while walking, then make another stop quickly after this one to have this discussion. Also while walking, periodically point at a student and say “you have died of _____” fill in various ways and reasons they died so students get a sense of the futility of this. Dysentery, an infected cut, robbers, a battle, etc. Third stop: Knight training camp with Bernard of Clairvaux Bernard convenes knight training camp and leads the rest of us in how to be good knights, based on the “In Praise of the New Knighthood” reading. I also lead some discussion here about the monastic flavor of Bernard’s new knighthood and other things we need to pick up from the text. Help us understand the people who were doing this Wander some more, more discussion about the length and number of crusades, children’s crusades, etc. Continue with “You have died of…” End back at the classroom and ask how many are still alive, so they have a sense of the magnitude of deaths. Concluding conversation, reflections on the experience, final important points about content.

The conversation goes like this: “I saw you having class outside today.” “Yep! Great day!” “Don’t students get distracted outside?” Or … “I would do that, but I have PowerPoints.” Or… “I would, but I have 35 students.” Or… “What do you do with students who don’t want to?” I have this conversation at least twice a week. More when the weather is nice. So, for those of you who are intrigued by the idea, but have your own questions, I offer a practical guide to teaching outdoors. For context, I teach at a small liberal arts school where most of my classes are 30 students. I have taken classes of 38 outdoors, and yes, 12 or even 20 is easier, but it works with more, too. First, to the “I would, but I use PowerPoints” (or other technology), my answer is blunt. I don’t use them. I encourage you to allow the limit (not being able to use plug-in-able technology) and the new space (outdoors) to engender your creativity. How could your classroom be more active? Do you really need that one picture, or can you describe a thing to your students? This might be something my discipline allows for more than others: I don’t need diagrams unless I’m teaching Origen’s theology of the fall of souls. There are times I want a whiteboard, but even then, I find that if I tell students, “If I had a board I’d be writing this down,” they begin writing in their notebooks as if I had. I might spell a word or two that I would normally write, and I repeat myself more outdoors, making sure they catch the main ideas. It actually makes me a more attentive teacher. Some students do not want to go outdoors, or are allergic to grass, and many students do not like wet butts from dewy lawns. If it is borderline too cold, I give them the option and let them vote. Otherwise, on the first day of class in the fall and the first nice day in the spring I inform students that we will be outside and they should come prepared—bring something to sit on, layers and sunscreen. I recommend black pants in case the grass is still wet with dew or sprinklers so no one will be able to tell they are wet. I myself wear black pants for this reason, though like Elizabeth Bennett I don’t care if I have grass stains when I forget. Usually when it is nice the majority of the class wants to be outside, so I have no problem. No one has ever voiced serious hatred or concern. The question of accessibility is real. I have not yet had a student in a wheelchair, but I have had students on crutches and students allergic to grass. Wherever we are going to be, we have taken an accessible sidewalk to get there, so I simply position us close enough to the sidewalk so that students who want or need to sit on the sidewalk instead of the grass may do so. Often there are small walls or benches I can choose to be near if a student can’t get all the way to the ground. And always I tell students they are welcome to stand rather than sit for class. The other major accessibility consideration is hearing. It can be harder to hear outdoors because of ambient noises or simply the fact that they may sit farther away and my voice not carry as far in the open air. To be honest, there are times students have trouble hearing because lawn mowers decide that is the best time to mow the section of the quad next to where we are sitting. I joke about the lawn mowers so students know I am aware of the issue but continue teaching. They are never so close for so long that I cannot hold a lesson. If mowers get really close, I have students talk in small groups for a bit so they can be near and hear each other. For general hearing considerations, I stand rather than sit with them if it’s going to be an issue. If there is a particular disability, I make sure to sit or stand close to that student and make sure they can see my lips. I also repeat student questions and comments when students are not themselves loud enough during whole-class discussion. Additionally, I remind students to sit close together outside. They tend to spread out farther than they do in the classroom, and a simple reminder helps. Finally, the big question: Do students get distracted outside? Yes. But they get distracted inside, too. At least outside they are distracted by more interesting things. I find I am less bothered by it, at least. And in the end, the conversations, exams, and papers show that they are learning just fine. Because they’re doing it with a breeze in their hair, I think they’re learning more than fine.

My first sunburn of the year is always from teaching. I inherited my father’s skin, so it doesn’t take much sun for me to burst into flame, and that first warm day of spring I take all my classes outside, find a patch of grass to sit on, and hold lessons in fresh air for the first time in months. I usually forget to bring sunscreen. This year, because we had an unseasonably warm May, my Chaco tan was impressive before summer even began. Nice-day-outside classes are only the beginning. I hold office hours outside (a taped-up sign written in sharpie on my door tells students where to find me). I teach a 3-week immersion course in January or May called “Backpacking with the Saints” that includes a week of backpacking. At the request of one special class I taught a peripatetic lesson on the crusades in ten inches of snow, complete with “knight training camp” and deaths from dysentery. It’s even as simple as this: in the classroom I most prefer on campus—for its two walls of windows—I rely on the natural light and avoid turning on the fluorescents unless the day’s light is not cooperating. My wild pedagogy is a running joke-argument with my dean: I contend that class is simply better when nature is the classroom. For me, it’s simple. I learned to teach primarily by working as a wilderness guide at a children’s camp, so teaching outside, or teaching with nature as part of my classroom, just makes sense. The first day I stood in front of students in a classroom as a grad student adjunct, I looked at the faces before me in the windowless room and realized, “I think they think I’m in charge.” The second day, I took them outside because we were talking about Genesis. It didn’t occur to me that someone could teach the creation story anywhere but outside. Sitting on the grass with my students, I realized, “I know how to do this. This is how I am a teacher.” Nine years later, sitting in a canyon with some students in January, I thought, “Yeah, this is where I am my best kind of teacher.” So yes, my first reason for taking classes outside is simply that I like being out. I breathe better outdoors. I feel more myself outdoors. But the longer I do it, the more reasons I discover it’s a great choice pedagogically. Some of you are already with me; I’ll wave at you across the quad. If it’s more ideas for how to make nature the classroom you’re after, or ideas for immersive classes, stay tuned. Future blog posts will talk about those. This one is for those of you who are here because you know you love taking classes outside but haven’t thought about why it works so well, or you love it but need ways to talk about it with your skeptical colleagues. Or perhaps you are skeptical yourself. (If your skepticism is about how to make it work with student accommodations and opinions or technology use, look for my next blog in this series.)  So, hear me out: Why is wild pedagogy a good choice? Teaching seems more like a conversation outdoors. Students almost forget they are in class and actually talk with one another and with me, learning instead of worrying about whether something will be on the test. Students are less distracted—or at least distracted by better things. They reach for their phones less often. Outside, students feel like they’re getting away with something. I feel like I’m getting away with something. And when we feel like we’re getting away with something, we play more, which enlivens our discussions. Play also increases my students’ creativity, which they need as they work to understand the mysteries of God and human lives. Life feels more possible when we’re sitting in the sunshine feeling the breeze rustle our hair, and therefore my students feel that the work of learning is more possible, if only for an hour. Finally, that the world is wild and alive expands my teaching and the students’ conversations. We are all more alive as our spirits encounter the breath of the world. My teaching becomes more wild as I am in the wild world. More attentive, more responsive, more active, more unpredictable in the best ways. I invite you to ponder with me in this series all of these reasons for wild-ing pedagogy. I’ll be here every other month with a discussion of one of these reasons and how it plays out in actual classes. I’ll share some successful ideas and some failures. I’ll tell stories of canoeing with students and how they learn things in that setting that are hard to replicate anywhere else. Come join me around the campfire. I’ll save you a s’more.