Aims of Adventure Education

At its heart, the aims of a given field are directed by its developers and users. Adventure education may have certain aims of its own - I'll leave that up to you to decide for yourself.

First, what is an aim?
An aim is a direction. Call it a "long-term goal" or a "final product." If I were a space exploration agency like NASA, my aim might be to explore and catalog the known universe. Obviously that is more than a goal or an objective, because it is grand in scope, and aspirational rather than specific. An aim of the liberal school of education might be to produce a well-rounded and broadly educated citizenry so that the world might benefit from all sorts of knowledge bases.

But that sounds an awful lot like an "objective."
Aims and objectives are different concepts. Back to my space agency idea - my objectives might include building a long-distance space craft, performing faster-than-light transportation, visiting Alpha Centauri, or developing a system to keep my astronauts in suspended animation. As you can see, my objectives are specific, but all fall in the direction of my aim (exploring and cataloging the universe). Some objectives of Fort Lewis College's Adventure Education program might include creating students who are competent in the outdoors, forming close relationships with local business and guiding companies, or gaining enough community support to continue operations.

So, I believe that the aim of adventure education is to promote the value of education by retaining risk, so that globally-minded citizens can change the world for the better without being frozen by fear. Other aims of adventure education might include safely bringing people into their stretch zones and back again, developing educators who are capable of generating foundational change in their students, or using semi-controlled risky activities to forward the social development of humanity.

The most important thing to remember here is what do you think?
No philosopher has a monopoly on aims and objectives. Adventure education has its principles in many philosophies and theories, but that doesn't mean the aims are set in stone. Open this topic to debate, and you will surely find many differing opinions, all backed by genuine belief and curiosity.