The Learning Walk

Aims of the tool

To offer an space where participants can think and reflect on some questions individually, and assist them to know themselves better.

We have used it already with:
- self development aim (to know themselves better and reflect in themselves as leaders, how they act as they want or are influenced by others, how and how much they challenge themselves).
- empowerment aim (link to the previous, but more focus in where there are their limits and why they are barriers for them).
- environmental aim (so to reflect in their impact and relationship with the environment).

Description of the tool

We structure it in 3 main parts:

1) The first one an introduction to the activity, explaining the rules and doing a small relaxation exercise to “get in the mood”.

2) Second, the main one, is walk in a circuit outside (nice to be in a forest or a park) where each participant is alone, goes from “station to station” (part in the circuit where you have left the question or small task). Questions can be like “Think in the best moment of your life, why was it so?”, and tasks can be like “Shout as loud and as strong as you can”. The participants are allowed to take as much time as they want; they can choose to follow the instructions or not, to do all or not. We prefer to ask them to do it individually, in silence and respecting the space of others. To have enough space between them, it is nice to have a small group; so an alternative with more participants is to design different circuits. We have done this, and it was also interesting as one circuit was easier (we were in the mountains), other was middle level difficulty regarding the terrain and the third one was a little bit hard so good for people in good shape. Even if they can take as much time as they want, it is important to give a deadline time when they have to be back in the working room (independently if they have finished everything or not).

3) The final part of the activity is the debriefing part. We found interesting starting with an individual / artistic debriefing (in silence), so the participants, as they are back, are invited to express in whatever way they want (drawings, writing, natural sculpture, etc…) how they feel, what they have just experienced. This artistic is also good as time buffer, allowing all the people to be back independently if they were needing more time in the circuit or they were quite fast. Then when everybody is done, there is a group debriefing, so the participants can share if they want their learnings.

Main outcomes:
Self awareness/self development, deeper individual reflection about specific questions, awareness of the feelings and learnings of others, contact with nature.

Advices:
It can get really deep, so it is nice to do it in a group of people where you have already built some trust atmosphere, where the people have been together at least for a couple of days and have done some strong team building activities previous to this activity.
The feedback so far from this activity has been great from all the participants.
The debriefing part is really a key.
It can be dangerous if you do it in the mountains and the way is not clear and close to a climbing area (without tools - we had a real experience with this, but luckily with happy end!).
And of course, it is very exciting from the organizers point of view as you have a lot of ambiguity and stuff you can not control (ej. weather, physical shape of the people, area if it is not a place that you know very very well, etc...)

As with a lot of things in this life, the key is to make the right questions and the atmosphere in the group!

This tool was developed during the practical project of the "Training of Trainers" course (ToT 2010-2011), used in international trainings, and presented in the "6th International Tool Fair" 2011 in Tallinn.