Experiential Education
Faholo's experiential education program, Apex Adventures, is designed to improve relationships in the church, learning environment in the classroom, and atmosphere in the workplace through team building.
All of the program goals (Communication, Respect, Encouragement, Safety, & Trust) are interconnected. Any one of the low or high challenges will touch on a combination of the program goals. Faholo custom tailors a schedule of challenges that will target development of certain goals. Then the Faholo facilitators help the group find ways to adapt them for use in the church, classroom, community, and workplace.
Consider these scenarios...
- The pastor of your church and key church leadership are on a planning/visioning retreat at Faholo. They have enjoyed a quiet evening taking time for devotions and prayer then a good night’s rest. Before entering into a long day of meetings everyone meets after breakfast for team building. After completing the Whale Watch on the low elements course the facilitator asked the group, “Were you successful?” The group discussed the parameters of the activity which include, getting everyone in the group on top of the platform while keeping it balanced. A number of times the platform touched the ground, requiring the group to re-start. The group decided that they were successful after realizing that in this activity the number of tries was irrelevant. Achieving the goal was the key to success. The group spent the remainder of their three-day retreat planning out events and different ministries for the church. Throughout their meetings they stopped to consider, “Are we planning for success?” Not just thinking about how to grow an individual ministry, but more about how each ministry could build off each other. Each part being a vital piece of the church’s mission to reach out to their community and make believers in the name of Jesus Christ.
- Nine students and their teacher are working on a challenge on the high elements course. Before the group went up to the high elements, they played a ball toss game with their Faholo facilitator. Now that the group is 15 feet in the air, the facilitator is introducing the same ball toss game, but this time if they drop a ball, it’s not as simple as just picking it up and re-starting. In order to be successful, the team must take extra time to develop a strategy and find a way to make the game work. Three days later, the class starts working on a group assignment, but before they begin, the teacher reminds the students to take some extra time to create a strategy for completing the assignment, just like they did on the team building course.
- Everyone from your company is enjoying the weekend at Faholo with their family. During your retreat the employees go up on the high elements. You get mixed up with some co-workers that you know well and some that due to different schedules you really don’t know well. Your challenge is to cross the “Raider Bridge” without breaking contact. Everyone joins hands and starts across. However each time your group tries to cross the bridge your group broke contact in the middle and had to start over again. One of your quieter co-workers indicated to the group that the goal is to not break contact, it doesn’t mean that we have to hold hands all the way. We could touch shoe to shoe even, just as long as were all in contact with each other. While the idea is simple your group found it very helpful as they traversed the crossings that vary in length. Returning to work on Monday the team started to develop a marketing strategy for a new product. The group found themselves practicing some of the strategies they used on the course. Simple things like letting one person speak at a time, giving consideration to each idea, and combining ideas to make their strategy.
Often, life is not cut and dried; we hit bumps in the road and have to make adjustments. Team Building with Apex Adventures at Faholo puts your team in a unique learning environment where they can develop skills stated in our program goals. The structured challenges are unlike anything that a person faces on a day-to-day basis. This makes expanding and adapting skills essential to completing the challenges successfully. Faholo facilitators help the group identify the skills they used and apply them to everyday life. Because people are experiencing the program together, it allows any of the participants to draw back to the skills and thought processes used on the course. Then participants apply their Apex Adventures Team Building adventure to the church, classroom, community, and workplace.
