NCJ Number
123077
Journal
Corrections Today Volume: 51 Issue: 5 Dated: (August 1989) Pages: 38,39,42
Date Published
1989
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Experiential education that provides juveniles active, adaptive, and competitive challenges is more likely to produce behavioral change than cognitive and analytical programs.
Abstract
Experiential programs provide action-oriented tasks that initially seem impossible but are manageable when common sense and skill are applied to them. Challenges -- whether adaptive, competitive, or a combination of the two -- work if they are active and require participants to become involved; concrete and give them something tangible with which to wrestle; social and require peers to interact and solve problems with one another; incremental and give them a growing sense of mastery; manageable and give them problems that can be solved with the right personal tools; and consequential and help them to understand the connection between cause and effect. Optimally, the group should decide how problems will be solved, develop its own internal structure, choose a leader, and organize the execution of tasks. Such a process teaches social skills and creates peer group bonding.