Saying Yes: A Conversation about Community, Agency, and Resilience

In this episode we sit down with Steve Frisbee, camp director at the Chippewa Nature Center. We discuss the importance of experiential learning and community in childhood development. Steve emphasizes the shift from content-driven to experience-focused education, highlighting the transformative impact of nature on children's lives. We hear how the center's programs foster risk-taking, social interaction, and personal growth, using examples like frogging and group adventures. This conversation underscores the need for collaboration between parents, educators, and the community to create safe, nature-rich spaces that nurture children's development. You won't want to miss it! 

Intro Music by: David Biedenbender

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Transcript

Julie Cunningham: 0:00

I'm wondering, for me, that resonates with the idea that if we take away those experiences, we're also not even allowing kids to fail, right? So if we're learning from failure, and failure can be a celebration because we're learning from it, but we don't allow the experience to even happen. Like, where are we? Short changing these practices in this community.

Introduction: 0:29

Okay, now we're recording. So welcome to teach wonder. Yes, welcome to teach wonder up high. Podcast hosted byAshley O'Neil and Julie Cunningham.

Unknown: 0:51

You're hearing us talk about a lot of words in our season this spring, community agency, extinction, of experience, joy, and we're trying to make connections between these words to ideas that were perhaps unrelated previously in your mind. Because one of the cool parts of our job is that we get to dance with schools, with informal educators, with teachers, parents, kids, families, and we get to create our own programming as well. And I see aspects of the system now that I didn't or couldn't see when I was in the classroom. And what we're hoping to achieve with this podcast is to share some of these stories and examples with you, to show you the connections we see in education and to make some new meaning to these maybe previously unrelated terms. Our conversation with our guest today moves between some of these topics. We talk about community, we talk about giving kids experiences, what risk taking looks like, about generational differences in childhood and parenting styles. And it can be easy to think of each portion of this conversation in isolation, but I want to highlight how these things are all related, how parenting styles show up in the classroom, how the types of experiences that students have in and out of school shape their sense of self and how they build a community, because childhood does not happen in a vacuum. It happens at summer camp. It happens in the classroom, around the dinner table with friends on bike rides and in front of the screen, it's all of it. And we are people who care so much about the places and the moments that build a person that we want to keep talking about them. So I hope the conversation today sparks some questions and gets you thinking about childhood and education in some new ways. Today, we learned a lot from our guest, and we hope that you do too. So welcome and we're really glad that you're here. It'd be great if you could just start by sharing a little bit about who you are and what your role is and what you do. If that's okay, sure.

Steve Frisbee: 2:50

My name is Steve Frisbee. I'm the camp director at the Chippewa Nature Center in Midland, Michigan. I am a passionate advocate for helping children have happy, healthy childhoods. I've been at the nature center for 18 years. Before I took the camp director role, I was a nature preschool teacher for over 10 years, and just absolutely fell in love with the mission of connecting children to the outdoors and helping them have positive experiences that hopefully will impact their lives and their family lives. So I've been blessed to be able to do that for a good portion of my career. That's awesome. Um, I guess I didn't realize that you were preschool teacher first at the nature center. One of Were you one of the original preschool teachers?

Unknown: 3:39

Yeah, that was interesting. I came to the nature center Australia college. I went to Penn State, and when I got here, they hired me for the camp staff. I had a pretty extensive camp experience across the East Coast, but they were starting a pilot project of a nature preschool, which was one of like 13 in the country at the time, and most of my experience was upper elementary and middle school. And when the director asked me, Hey, would you think about teaching three to five year old, it's always like, let me think on it. I'm getting married in a couple days, and I absolutely love the philosophy of having kids outside every day, September to May, and then just the way they incorporated, like play and just these real, authentic experiences. I absolutely fell in love with the mission, and it transformed my life. So I taught and grew that program for 10 years, and I did camp in the summer, I didn't give up camp because I think camp is a really powerful tool for children, but preschool allowed me to actually do camp year round. So

Julie Cunningham: 4:50

my question says this, have you seen a lot of change in that programming or change in the like? Can you just think about maybe big picture changes or high. Right, high leverage changes like, oh

Steve Frisbee: 5:03

my goodness, yes. So the philosophy of of why we're doing it has not changed. So getting kids outside, falling in love with nature that has always been the goal that remains the goal our practice and just being connected to other early childhood organizations and institutions across the state in the country, we just learn the best practices for early childhood education, which is like decades of research and experience that has really transformed how we serve youth at the center now. So when I first came to Nature Center, was very content driven. We were very much interested in kids leaving our camps and our programs with knowledge that has completely shifted to developing experiences where the processes of learning so being curious and asking questions and collaborating with others and developing the whole child is much more prominent in our program today than it was 18 years ago. So I'm really happy to say that we are I feel like we're doing really quality work and caring for children and their families, not just with science in nature topics, but just throughout their development to be happy, healthy people so really excited and really, really need to see that how early childhood has influenced, influenced that journey. That was the perfect segue question. Julie, so well done, because my first question is, and Steve, we have, I feel like we kind of bump into each other professionally on and off, and you're in a meeting that I'm in, and I have you talk to teachers for us. And one of the things I really like hearing you talk about is this kind of childhood experiences. And I know you just mentioned that. So can you talk a little bit about what an experience rich childhood means or looks like to you? Yeah, we the experiences we're trying to cultivate is ones that are like you're fully present for its hands on Active Minds, on it just kind of fully involves the person. So if we can find these key moments in childhood and provide them consistently, and have these avenues to have these experiences. I've been in my role so long that I can see the transformative effect on the person later in life. So so now it's our job at the nature center and our teams to cultivate and make sure these experience happens. So what am I talking about? An example of an experience rich environment is okay? Is the child exploring, discovering things on their own and not just being told? Are they reflecting on what they're doing and do Do we have enough time where they actually have time to just process and play and think about what the experience they just had, and kind of take it apart and tear it apart and rework it and try again. And so do they even have, you know, the the structure of the day, to be able to really, to learn from these and to grow from these. So, you know, catching a frog for the first time, I've just seen, you know, students eyes like you can read about frogs, but until you have one in your hand, and like trying to get away from you or jumping at your feet, the fuel, the smell, the look like being at the pond like that's an experience, rich moment sleeping in a tent for the first time away from your family. It is challenging and hard, but we're there for it, and if we can put the right people in the space to nurture them and to help them feel safe and trusted. They learn something about themselves doing that experience with us that absolutely will help them be ready for the next adventure in life. So, yeah, yeah, that was perfect. Thank you. And I, I, we had just had another guest on the podcast, and she also talked about like, just learning about your body comes from those experiences, right? And she mentioned that you can tell a kid you're gonna get cold if you don't have your coat, but if they don't know what that means, because they haven't experienced it yet, it doesn't mean anything. And I hear that parallel with you, that you're not there to shortcut anybody's process to figure something. Out, because that process is the way that it really gets integrated into their whole system, which is really cool. Um, you do a lot of things in camp, in informal community, right? Camps happen in community. Preschool, you have this ongoing community. What do you think community means for children and for families? Yeah, I think community is, you know, for children and families, it's the people in the space with you going through something together. And usually you have, like, a uniting factor or a common interest or a common value, but like, you're all in it together, and for a positive, really, you know, supportive community, it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of intentionality to to create this. So this is why I do what I do every single day. Camps are so they they have the secret sauce of finding these communities where children can be their true, authentic selves. They can be vulnerable, they can make mistakes, and that's what they need to to that time and space to do. They're not being graded or judged if we do it right. So if we put the right people, the right teachers in the space, and we create these core values of like, No, we're all life long learners, we're all going to make mistakes. And that's actually a celebration, because that's when we oftentimes learn the most. And if we can, if we can get our teachers to buy in, our children to buy in, and then we show that to the parents, they'll become our biggest advocates. And then when we have this community that's dedicated to preserving the sacred space for people to develop, that's where the magic is, and it can't spin on this for a while now. And yeah, I, I that's, I mean, that's my daily work with schools, the teams I'm putting together every off season in January and February. That's what we're looking for. We're looking for the people to make those safe places for kids.

Julie Cunningham: 12:14

I actually have two questions, but my first is probably more relevant to what you just said. I'm curious, then, Steve, do you think that you find maybe it's some of each, but you find the right people to put in those positions? Or do you find yourself having to do a lot of training? Or is it some of each? Does it depend

Steve Frisbee: 12:36

both? Yeah, absolutely, some of each. This is one of the really fascinating things I get to watch, is being at the same organization over a long stretch of time, is our campers are now the ones becoming our teachers. And to be able, like, I'm really proud of the the Chippewa Nature Center for investing in teens. So teens, 13 to 17 year old, they can actually start to volunteer and teach, and that's a chance for us. So even when they're aging out of our camp programs, they're still a part of our community, and we're still like, this is how you interview for a job, and this is how you talk to parents and communicate. This how you work with coworkers, and it's building those teachers from our from our campers, and still, still the mission, right of that continued development, that growth. So that being said, there are other great organizations just like ours, nurturing these people, but we're looking for the people that are open minded and curious and want to serve children the very best, and then we'll take what we've learned and help train them. So yeah, it's helpful when we we train teachers from 13 and up, but we absolutely bring in teachers all along the way. So it's both. It absolutely is both.

Julie Cunningham: 14:08

My second question is related to you were talking about experiences and specifically failure, and there's a couple of instances lately that I've either read about or heard a term that's called extinction of experience in ways in which kids don't have experiences maybe that prior generations had. And some of the times in which I've seen it used was specifically with like adventure or outdoor experiences, right? That maybe we're trading as adults what we think of as a safety net. Ie keeping kids indoors for like this extinction of experience outdoors. And so I wonder if you can address that, and however you think you want to address it, I don't. There's not a right or wrong answer. I don't think I. Um, maybe just your take on it, but then also, I'm wondering, for me, that resonates with the idea that if we take away those experiences, we're also not even allowing kids to fail, right? So if we're learning from failure, and failure can be a celebration because we're learning from it, but we don't allow the experience to even happen, like, where are we short changing these practices in this community?

Steve Frisbee: 15:31

Yeah, I think about this a lot. I'm a dad of three children getting into their teenage years and comparing my childhood, you know, before the 90s and their childhood now, and how much that's how much that looks different is, I would say, concerning, because I do think children need autonomy away From away from adults, and I don't know if I see that as much now, like, if you when I drive around my neighborhood, like I used to, like in my childhood, I would have, you know, 25 of my closest friend the bike gang, you know, going down to the Creek, laying down there, playing street hockey on an actual street with cars coming through like and we the parents would, my parents would kick us out, and we come back when it got dark that has like I see. Parents have to be more intentional and make those experiences happen, and they're less frequent than that, so that means, yeah, kids aren't, you know, having that freedom, that autonomy, to even even try. So I mean that becomes our challenges for places like camp and schools and things like that. Can we give children a supportive environment, but also allow them to take risks make mistakes. You know, not big mistakes, but mistakes where they can learn from so they don't make really big mistakes later in life, they have to be able to learn how to accept or manage and assess risk. If they don't do that, that spells out some trouble later, later in life. So, yeah, really important work that that I'll be advocating probably my entire career, of trying to create these environments that allow kids to still fail and not, you know, expect, you know, serve them well when they're that age, right? We need our teenagers to take risks. Oftentimes, you know, I I've even had conversations with my own children, like, there's a camera everywhere, there's a cell phone everywhere, with like, everything will be recorded of what you do. I didn't have to to worry about that. Now, I will say things have changed with parenting styles and things like that. So I was a very fearful child of getting in trouble and parent some parenting strategies now where kids are feeling much more supported to take risks too. So it's yeah, it depends on the individual or the family unit and how they're being raised, yeah, but I would say overall, yeah, there is a decrease in the ability of a child to fail. Hey, I'm really glad you brought that up, Steve. We're just going to, like, hard pivot and just stop here for a minute, because that you said something that I think is a really important contradiction that I think I see happening. So I have a six year old, and so I'm on a bit of a younger end of the parenting journey, and I hear what you're saying about I feel like generations past had a lot more freedom outside, a lot more unsupervised, unstructured time. Like you said, there's no record of anything because we don't have a social media or camera following us around. But on the flip side, also, there is that kind of fear based of the consequences were swift and big. And I think along with that reduction of independence, there is the flip side, where there is a more supported space and a lot more intentional conversations happening with parenting strategies about helping kids learn about their body. We know a whole lot more about neuro development than we used to, right, and a whole lot more about how important movement is for student, for kids. So I feel like it's a both and right, like we have this extinction of experience because the communities aren't this kind of free flowing open space, and also we have parents who have some new tools that are pretty cool, that are helping kids learn about that. And so it's this interesting time to raise children and to be a teacher, where you see that coupling, do you see in your camps and space? Is we had middle schoolers in here today, and we had some middle schoolers who were building a fort. And if I told their parents, they were eighth graders and they were spending time building a fort, that doesn't seem like maybe an age appropriate exercise, right? You're on a college campus, you're in a maker space, you're for building but I could see that that developmentally was where they needed to be. There was so much conversation, so much collaboration, and a lot of mechanical they didn't have the best materials to work with, and so they were doing some pretty ingenious things with the materials. Do you see that where kids haven't maybe done all the things that you'd expect them to do in their 4567, and so it's happening later. And how do you navigate when you have that? You know, the 13 and 14 year olds who are maybe wanting to play in a way that you would say, Well, that was what we did in like third grade camp. Do you know you mean, yeah, we've actually, I mean, this is, if I could give educators any advice, it's just watch children, they'll tell you exactly what they need. And we've actually took our, you know, our younger camp groups, and we watched the older one, and they're craving the same experiences they were having at age seven as now they're nine, and they're like, Oh, we're so devastated that we can't do this camp anymore. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We can offer this program, and we can put this little spin on it, and it's just go be a little more depth, and we go push you a little more in a certain area you might not have thought about. So it won't be the exact same, but still provides the same experiences of that, you know, the process of being imaginative and playful, and, you know, doing things that they really treasured about, you know, like we have a village camp where they make a little village and a character. So what it looks like for a 10 year old is a lot different than a seven year old. So seven year olds really small character really like tangible 10 year olds. It's they are the character, and their their village is not small, it is huge. And they're building shelters, and they get to write the story. They're the secret society in the woods. It's just a little more autonomy, less you know, less you know, guidance from the counselor, and they're more supporting them as a mentor. So yeah, I do see that especially. I mean, I think every three to five year old should be at a pond at some point, holding frogs and things like that. I'll take high schoolers out, and that's their favorite program, is frogging at the pond. So yeah, I mean, it's just, with our program, we just add a little extension to it. So okay, maybe we frog at the pond and allow that to happen for our older students, and then for the last 10 minutes, we bring out cordless microscopes and show them a whole nother world that, you know, they haven't, they've been invest game that they didn't know. So, yeah, that's, that's the part, because we have, you know, kids that have done it all, but some things just never get old, too. So, yeah, we have teachers. I think we've taken teachers out, and their favorite thing is also pound dipping. That's something that they would like to spend more and more time on. It's a good reminder to me that when we put an age limit on Play, we I'm not going to say harm, because I don't think it's intentional, but there are some consequences to that, right? When we say, well, that's something, that's preschooler like, that's a preschool activity. That's what they would do when that playfulness, that imagination, I think anybody, the adults, the campers, the counselors, here in the maker space, I benefit from the playfulness and whimsy that students bring. So it's cool when they can have a space where it's a little judgment free, which goes back to what you were saying about community, where it's safe to show up and be a little silly, or to ask a lot of questions, or to try something like, I haven't had an hour of opportunities to climb a tree, so maybe I was the high schooler who wanted to climb a tree, even though that was a something else all my peers could do. So when you develop a community like that, that's really great, and that's, I mean, that's the best thing about I think that's what early childhood gave us that that perspective is like no, observe, follow the child's lead, and be in an environment that says yes to children and allow them to kind of craft their experience alongside of you. So, yeah. So if we get, you know, wind of some, like, really curious about, you know, like climbing or playing a certain game, will absolutely have them become the leaders and teach through that. So sometimes

Julie Cunningham: 24:52

it's hard for people to, I don't know, maybe understand or or visualize what it is. Is you're saying, if you could share an example or two of which you've seen, maybe some of your favorite examples of where you've seen children take risk and sort of learn from that taking risk. And then perhaps, I'm thinking like two ways, maybe, maybe they learned to work through some frustration, and that was impressive, right, in taking the risk, or they sort of learned that for the feature, oh my gosh, I could absolutely do this, and I felt safe doing it. So that translated into being able to do something that

Steve Frisbee: 25:32

a risk that we see often is actually that social risk. With our programs, we to to kind of establish our who we are in our community. We have all camp gatherings, and it's a time where we get to celebrate each other, explore differences and interests. But we've been really working hard in the last five years or so to really turn that over to the camp instead of our our leaders, our teachers, just kind of dictating what that looks like. We're allowing our campers to share with what they want to share. So we often have children that will stand in front 50 people for the first time and sing a new song, and we're right there, but that that's incredibly hard, and sometimes it doesn't go well, and it's really uncomfortable, but that's the important part, is what happens right after it? So we can say, oh, that didn't go exactly how you wanted, but look how brave you were, and look how strong you are, and and we get to kind of craft what happens next with with where they want to go so they they get to learn, like, even one of the hardest thing is like, when you fail, are you able to experience that and to be sad and hurt? But then can you trust someone enough to have them work through that with you and to make a plan to move forward, and maybe even sometime, I've seen people try again, and there's just a huge celebration, and that person got through something really hard that could have been like a barrier to their development, and actually gave them grit and perseverance and developed the strength for later in life so that those happen daily. Sharing an idea in front of you know, your peers is always hard, you know, I that's one of my favorite parts of the job. Is like that project is so amazing. Would you be willing to just talk about that at the end of the days and tell all the other camp groups what you're doing, and they're allowed to say yes or no, but providing that opportunity to take that risk, to be in front of others, and then I I mean, we lead adventure trips, and where we go from, you know, doing one night camp outs to nine days immersed in the back country in the wilderness of Michigan, and children learn a lot about themselves. They they're often going where they don't know any of the other group mates, and then they're trying something physically that they haven't ever attempted to do before. And then it's, it's our job to build that, that group, that supportive group, to help them overcome, you know, physically, not even a being able to do that, and maybe have to build some accommodations, but then to be all right with that and know that, you know, we can still try again. We can try a different way. We're designing all kinds of different trips to have these different experiences that have children even push their limits a little bit, be a little uncomfortable to learn learn more about themselves. So

Julie Cunningham: 29:06

those are two great examples. Thank you, Steve, and that, I think they're great examples, because it really sort of doesn't matter what age person you put in that example, right? It could, you could just as easily be talking about an adult who's afraid to go try something new, or to talk in public, or to take the risk. And so, yeah, those are great. Thank you.

Steve Frisbee: 29:30

I think the other thing that makes it work so well, and having been to your camps and spend a lot of time at your preschool, I've seen what that risk taking looks like in action. And something I think that's hard, it's a hard clarification, is that it's not the child against the task, it's you and the child you know kind of approaching that task. And so the risk taking happens when that child knows they have the safety net of the adult, and you're not bailing them out, right? Like. Not singing the song for them, but you're there as a safe person for them, to talk about their frustrations, to feel like that didn't go well, to to hear their grief or their concerns about the failure that they had, and then to be there to support them and problem solve with them, a way to try again. And I think one of the stark differences I noticed coming from formal education to informal is that the circumstances allowed me to be on that side of the student so much more easily, right? Like it wasn't me in the math problem against the child, it's that child is learning something new, and I'm right there with them, kind of supporting them along the way. And so sometimes I hear teachers say, like, well, we have to make things hard for kids. And if we make it easy and they confuse or like, assume that the support, being a supportive adult means that it won't be risky. But in your situation, you're like, Hey, your circumstances are risk. This is uncomfortable. This is the difficult thing. I don't have to contrive risk for them by making it seem harder and saying, Well, you're on your own. So I think the thing that makes it work so well for you is just the magic of how supportive your staff is able to be. Do you use a curriculum or, like, a discipline? I know discipline is not the word I'm looking for, but like, a Conscious Discipline type approach with your staff, yeah, we, we, we absolutely fell in love with Dr Beck. Doctor Becky Bailey's Conscious Discipline on just it's based in brain research. It's gives you Language Tools. It allows you to have some tools when it's really uncomfortable, of what you might say. So that has been instrumental in helping us navigate really hard situations. One of her you know, hours is the power of positive intent and just even changing the way you choose to think about a circumstance or a situation that something happens, you can choose to think it in a positive way or a negative way. And this is life changing for our teachers, and if we're modeling that for our students, that just it helps. I will say that's one of the hardest things of my job is to have new teachers come along and they want kids to be happy and to be struggle free, and as like, Oh, you. You signed up for a camp that believes that struggle is necessary and and we're going to sit in really hard feelings, and we're not going to solve problems necessarily for a child, but we're going to be partners, and we're going to we'll go do the heavy lifting of that. You know, that weight of, you know, acknowledging feelings and emotions and talking through upset and and allowing the child to kind of own that process. So it's, it's it's challenging. What gives me hope is some of these students have been learning these skills since they were three, and I've witnessed them learn these skills. So yeah, they have those scripts from their camp counselors in their head so they're more readily because that voice is inside. Julie, did we miss any questions? I know we deviated. Or Steve, do we miss anything touch on? Well,

Julie Cunningham: 33:31

I think, I mean, we have skipped or sort of blurred the lines on some questions, as we have 10 have a tendency to do, but I the sort of a question at the end. The final question was kind of, and I think this would be helpful for listeners like, what are ways in which parents or teachers or camp counselors, people who work with youth, right? How can maybe without formal training. What are ways in which they can be supportive of young people's community? And I know you've mentioned a number of them, Steve throughout the podcast, but maybe if we could just draw attention to some of those ways in which some takeaways for people who are listening.

Steve Frisbee: 34:16

Yeah, I absolutely love this question. I'm very passionate about this, and I think this is what I kind of discovered throughout, throughout my careers, is we, we have to be connected, parents, educators in the community. We have to open up our environments to each other and look at each other as partners to Yes, we have to have safe environments, but the most impact I've seen is through nature. Preschool is where parents volunteer alongside teachers in the space, and there's not one side that knows more. They just have different strengths in different. Knowledges and different perspectives, and when we're listening to and working together, that's when we learn the most. So I've seen families that have come in and shared their life experience with us that has changed me, how I communicate with families. And then on the flip side, I've seen them, you know what they value, what they value with their time with their child change like I've watched the family go from parking as close as they can to the building to parking at the very end of a parking lot, so they get an extra 10 minutes on trail to nature preschool with their child, and they're intentionally choosing to slow down to kind of like, allow the child a little bit of freedom. And that's transformative. So if they start valuing these kind of environments, they're going to advocate for them more. So when they go off to school, they advocate to their next teachers on you know, my child really needs three recesses, so I saw in my in my career, go from one recess. Now my elementary school has three recesses, and they have an outdoor learning space. And so it takes time, and we've got to be patient, but if we're in it together, we're learning and listening to each other. That's where that support and trust comes in. This has been another episode of teach wonder. Thank you for listening. You can find important links and information in our show notes. You