Bootcamp Curriculum

- link here to detailed curriculum -

field.tools bootcamp provides an experiential learning environment that challenge our residents to think critically and to work effectively in times of stress and periods of adjustment to new fieldwork contexts.

Our curriculum is uniquely-tailored especially for early-career social development practitioners as well as graduate students of development studies, anthropology, and other disciplines that emphasize fieldwork.

Program Overview

Over the 15-day course, students will come to be highly appreciative of the overall experience—having solved a variety of daily problems and thought, shared, and learned about larger-scale problem of community and sustainable living.

Challenges are scheduled day by day.

Each day of the first week, we expose students to a new problem that is likely to be encountered in the developing world. These problems are intended to test the students problem solving skills and ability to think in a reflective and critical way when under pressure. From figuring out the logistics of reaching a field site to dealing with headaches of permitting and bureaucracy to dealing with the pragmatics of putting a plan into action, the first week of the field schools is about "breaking down" students to help re-enforce the lesson that life is filled with unexpected challenges.

The second week of the field school introduced students to a wide variety of practical issues for communities in the developing world: how to access water; how to access and produce electricity in meaningful and sustainable ways, where to put garbage, how to reduce the possible breeding grounds for insects and other vectors of disease, etc.

In the beginning, things will be tough. The setting and set-up at the camp is semi-rugged (and we actually go to lengths to make it more difficult for you at times).

Heuristic Components

Three main educational components comprise the field.tools bootcamp curriculum:

1. Training in Rapid Adaptation to Different Cultural Contexts

Field Tools Bootcamp emphasizes the need for development practitioners to be able to rapidly adapt to new cultural environments. Development practitioners are typically deployed to the field for only short periods of time—expected to deliver significant achievements during their stay.

A long way from home and far from things that are familiar, fieldworkers must be able to quickly come to understand "how things work" in their host communities.

Especially critical to the success of most development initiatives is the capacity of the fieldworker to be able to communicate both casually and operationally with members of one's host community. Many development practitioners—from ecologists and anthropologists to engineers and urban planners—begin their careers on assignment in remote areas and among communities that speak unique local languages, dialects, or vernaculars. Yet with some 6,500 languages in the world (many of which have very few native speakers), pre-field training may not be available for pre-field language training may not be available, and the fieldworker will have to be able to learn on the fly.

To help resident students prepare for such situations, we weave training in rapid language acquisition into the fabric of our two-week curriculum. Our approach is language-independent. While each fieldwork situation will be unique in the challenges it holds for communicating effectively with members of one's host community can be systematiucally learned, practiced, and honed. Our learning strategies can be universally applied in any field environment.

2. Experiential Learning

I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.

~ Confucius, 450 BC

Tell me and I forget, Teach me and I remember, Involve me and I will learn.

~ Benjamin Franklin, 1750

Experiential [learning] is a philosophy and methodology in which educators purposefully engage with students in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills, and clarify values

~ Association for Experiential Education1

field.tools bootcamp residents are exposed each day to real world problems that anticipate the ones they will face in the field. They solve each one, individually or collaboratively, and subsequently assess their own actions and approaches (and those of their group members).

The challenges are intended to help students understand the physical demands of labor in agrarian societies, as well as the demands of implementing a project where access to tools and equipment may be limited, where communication may be difficult, and where development needs may be extreme.

This aspect of the course materializes in the form of chores for which students are responsible as part of the daily operations of working farms.

Example chores include:

• milking sheep, goats and cows
• recycling animal waste as fertilizer

Hands-on learning is then coupled to more broadly-encompassing discussions of global sustainability practices. For example, the following discussions relative to agricultural production may be offered during a workshop:

• principles of veterinary health and medicine
  • how to take care of chickens
• the utilization of agricultural and human effluences for productive purposes
  • harvesting and recycling animal waste
  • harvesting and recycling human waste

3. Sustainability Theory and Practice Modules

E.g.

1. maintaining contact with the developed world
   • principles of low-bandwidth connections
   • turning your phone into a mobile hot-spot
   • tools for establishing an Internet connection via a land-line telephone

As a one-day training module, bootcamp students are also given a crash course in 'survival' skills.