Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-116).

This richly descriptive qualitative study examines the ability of a Grade 11 outdoor education program to transform student environmental worldviews. This exploratory research investigates the current environmental attitudes and beliefs of a random sample of eight graduates of the G. P. Vanier Secondary School Explore program from the years 2003 through 2006. The research also examines the long-term reflections of these graduates on their experiences in the Explore program. This qualitative research utilizes open-ended interviews to ascertain the depth and breadth of the students‟ experiences. Qualitative findings indicate that a reaffirmation, rather than transformation, in environmental attitudes occurs for the participants in this study. The findings of the study corroborate the results of earlier studies on the positive impact of outdoor education programs and support the notion that outdoor education programs can provide a variety of meaningful experiences for their participants.

This thesis provides a presentation and analysis of Simone Weil’s articulation of the weakness of love vis-à-vis our encounters with others. It does so both as a way to better examine Christian theological claims about the importance of weakness and as a way of accessing the tensional depths of Simone Weil’s work from an often neglected angle. To achieve this engagement, I read Weil alongside Jean Vanier, whose life and work share with Weil a profound emphasis on the centrality of weakness for meeting others truthfully and lovingly. In Chapter One I draw on both Weil and Vanier to present their shared critique of relationships that are reduced to a pursuit of power and influence over others. I call such relationships “territorial” because they posit human beings as competitors for two-dimensional territory and therefore envision human relationships in essentially competitive terms. Chapter Two is a detailed presentation of Weil’s constructive work on the weakness of love that emphasizes her account of the impersonal, non-egoistic, and unattached relationships we ought to pursue with others. Weil claims that we experience the fullness of reality through an uncompromising embrace of all things, which we can only accomplish through the removal of ourselves in the face of others. We get concrete development of these themes in Weil’s presentation of neighbour love and friendship, which she understands as a total openness to another’s position, circumstance, and being. In the third chapter, I use the theme of communion in Vanier’s work to call into question the way Weil demands our total surrender to the other. I suggest that an absent self cannot be truly weak and vulnerable before others. The central problem, I suggest, is a conception in which any sort of positive presence is necessarily an obstacle and any imposition of oneself necessarily competitive. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / In this thesis, I present and examine Simone Weil’s understanding of how we might avoid doing violence to other people and instead treat other people with love and compassion. The first chapter reads Weil together with Jean Vanier to examine the various ways that power and the attempt to dominate others dictates our relationships with others. In the second chapter I systematically present Weil’s understanding of how we might, through a certain kind of personal death, transport ourselves wholly into the perspectives of other people and thereby practice true compassion towards them. In the third and concluding chapter I use Vanier’s compelling presentation of human flourishing as consisting of heart-to-heart interdependent relationships to critique the refusal of being dependent on others that is both implicit and explicit in Weil’s account of compassion.

This study investigated changes in self-esteem and perceived problem solving ability of academically at-risk students participating in a program called Science of Survival. The program combined adventure education and problem based learning approaches. One hundred and fifty-five male and female students, between the ages of 16 and 24 years completed the Self-Esteem Inventory and the Problem Solving Inventory at the beginning of the semester, after an adventure experience weekend, and at the end of the semester. A group of seventy-seven first year social science students, serving as a control group, also completed the inventories on the same time schedule. Self-esteem and perceived problem solving ability scores were analyzed by two one-way (treatment versus control) repeated measures (three assessments times) ANOVAs. Correlations between the two measures were also computed. Results indicated significant (p $<$.05) interactions of group by time for both self-esteem and perceived problem solving ability and significant correlations. Further analysis showed the Explorations II program was effective at increasing self-esteem and perceived problem solving ability and that these two constructs are related. The control group did not change in self-esteem over the period, but showed a deterioration in perceived problem solving ability.

No description available.

The aim of this study is to address the proposition that the spirituality of L'Arche has a great deal of potential to offer people with learning disabilities outside its own community setting. For chaplains who have the task of seeking to nurture and develop the spiritual lives of people with learning disabilities in schools, there exists the opportunity to draw out the fundamental characteristics of the spirituality of L'Arche and incorporate these into their own formation programs. The opportunity to be creative and imaginative in developing formation programs comes from within the context of legislation which requires schools to meet the spiritual needs of the children in their care. / Christian Spirituality / M. Th. (Christian Spirituality)

The aim of this study is to address the proposition that the spirituality of L'Arche has a great deal of potential to offer people with learning disabilities outside its own community setting. For chaplains who have the task of seeking to nurture and develop the spiritual lives of people with learning disabilities in schools, there exists the opportunity to draw out the fundamental characteristics of the spirituality of L'Arche and incorporate these into their own formation programs. The opportunity to be creative and imaginative in developing formation programs comes from within the context of legislation which requires schools to meet the spiritual needs of the children in their care. / Christian Spirituality / M. Th. (Christian Spirituality)