The Role of Wilderness Survival Training

Here is a question to ponder: What is the Role of "Wilderness Survival Training" in Modern Outdoor Education? What Skills should we really be teaching and which are the most critical? I have been pondering these questions lately having noticed that both general Outdoor Education & Wilderness Survival Training has been in a Decline for the last decade. Survival TV has not helped the growth of professional survival education, in fact it has been a major hindrance. Many students today want to learn skills that are not really relevant to their survival when stranded in the wilderness or believe they have learned all the skills they need by watching TV. Has the growth of large urbanized cities and mass entertainment media so reduced our want to travel into the wilderness that we no longer need or want to travel their safely? What survival skills are really essential and what skills are just nice to know about? I am a firm believer in teaching hands-on outdoor education to small groups, but I can see a future where outdoor education is limited to speeches, TV, climbing walls, and city parks because of liability and lack of experience of those who still bothered to travel into the wilderness. As our society loses touch with the wilderness Outdoor Education becomes less essential and considered an activity for the elite or rich. So what is the Role of "Wilderness Survival Training" in Modern Outdoor Education? We Need as an Outdoor Education Community to seriously begin to tack this issue, before we face a major skill fade.