“Experience” in Outdoor Education based on Body theory by Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

This study examines what is experience in outdoor education, referring to Merleau-Ponty's "body theory". The results of organizing "experience" with reference to his theories in "PHENOMENOLOGIE DE LA PERCEPTION" and "LA STRUCTURE DU COMPORTEMENT" are as follows.

・Experience is an event that is inevitable and indivisible intrinsic to the world (nature).

・Experience is an event that is always open to the environment (situation).

・Experience is an event that is cyclical and reciprocal with the environment (situation).

・Experience is an event that includes many perceptual and sensory phenomena in the living world, either prior to verbalization (reflective observation) or unconsciously.

・Experience is an event in an environment (situation) that the body, with its hierarchical structure of behavior, carves out according to that structure.

In addition, by applying the elements of experience to both outdoor and education, it was possible to explain outdoor and educational experiences in outdoor education more logically and clearly.