Episode 59: Bonus 5 The Fieldtrip Interviews With Brad Baker and Victor Elderton

The Stunt Brothers hope you’re beginning to relax as you head into Spring Break. There’s no better time to decompress than with another of our bonus Fieldtrip Sessions, this time a remix of two of our favourite guests from Season One. We revisit Episode 14, “Going Forward with Courage,” with Brad Baker, and Episode 20, “Where the Wild Things Are,” with Victor Elderton. 

Roy and Martin start a little slow with a weary adjustment to daylight savings time but soon find their energetic podcast timing with a humorous debate on time changes and scientific thinking. Then it's time for our two for one. First up is Dr. Brad Baker, Superintendent of Indigenous Education for the province of British Columbia and a proud member of the Squamish Nation. Then we go outside with Victor Elderton, who currently teaches at both the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University and has over 30 years of experience as a teacher and principal at North Vancouver's Cheakamus Centre. 

These memorable conversations are full of insight, inspiration, and the kind of storytelling that reminds us why the work we do in education matters. Enjoy this chance to revisit two standout moments from Season One while you recharge for the weeks ahead.

Learn more at stuntbrothers.ca

Key Topics

• The importance of truth before reconciliation and building authentic land relationships
• Strategies for embedding Indigenous ways of knowing in curriculum and teacher training
• How outdoor learning spaces promote mental health, cultural connection, and environmental awareness
• The role of community and family in supporting outdoor and experiential education
• Navigating unconscious biases through brave conversations and professional development
• The significance of Indigenous stories, mentorship, and experiential learning in shaping future educators
• Climate change, ecological responsibility, and Indigenous philosophies of harmony with nature
• Practical examples of outdoor teaching, community dinners, and place-based learning initiatives
• Inspiration from global Indigenous perspectives and natural metaphors for understanding our place in the world
• The power of walking conversations and retreat experiences in cultivating mindfulness and relationship to land

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Transcript

Martin Stuible (00:00.302)
you

Good afternoon podcast listeners everywhere. Welcome to After the Bell.

Stunt Brothers production. I'm Martin Stuible. And I'm Roy Hunt and we share your pain having taught a combined 70 years. 70 years. I know, wow. So get out your marking, organize your supplies or just pour yourself a coffee. I think I need something stronger. That's okay. And listen, engage and interact with After the Bell, a podcast for you, the hardworking, dedicated teacher who wants free lesson plans, free advice and a free meal. Oh, I always show up for a free meal.

Martin Stuible (00:41.774)
Mr. Hunt, are episode 59. This is one of our bonus sessions. 59? Yeah, here in the middle of spring break. gosh. You know? You 59, this is like somebody's age. I am. I'm going to enjoy it for the There you go. So 59, so... Wow, less than a month. Less than a month. 59, so there'd be a season two episode.

That's right. And because it's spring break, we always just package episodes from the past. And this will be one of our bonus episodes because, know, we're all feeling probably a little tired. A few reasons. We've been working hard. Yes, we have. We've finished report cards and we've been hard in the class working away. we also trying to acclimatize to that time change. We've lost that hour, right? We jumped ahead. An hour. You lose an hour of sleep. But it feels longer.

But it feels like I've lost a week of sleep. But it's not going to happen again. It's not going to happen again. Which makes me laugh. Well, I know because it's been talked about. I'm going to say what? You said it since 2019 maybe? 2019 they've been about. So six years, seven years. I said, we're going to do this. So we're going to go back to daylight savings time and then we're not going to move it from it forever. And you know, when they did a survey and

hundreds of thousands of British Columbians filled that survey out. 93 % said, yeah, this is what they want. But I've been saying for six years, I don't think they realize what they want. And so our government goes ahead and makes an announcement without any fanfare. And all of sudden people are like, what? Yeah. What? I wasn't consulted? Yes, you were. But the thing is, I know in December when kids are going to school in the dark,

They're going to go, I didn't realize it meant this. I didn't get that. didn't get that. No one told me that blah, blah, blah, that, okay, I would get an extra hour of light in the summer, but the winters are going to be more miserable. I thought it somehow created more light all the time, right? I didn't know that you're just shifting hours around. I I like that extra hour in the evening. So I'm fine with this, but I think some people say maybe it's better to do it the other way. Keep, on standard time.

Martin Stuible (03:04.942)
So in the summers, you don't have that extra hour, but you always have that extra hour of sun in the morning. Adjustment is hard and I get them saying, let's just stick onto one time. I don't know, we have a science literate population anymore, right? So these things are often decided with a lack of science understanding and the teachers keep doing what you're doing and keep teaching about the seasons and light and all those things. Cause I think we need to inform people. And in 10 years time, we're going to have...

revisit this with maybe a new government will say like, there's been a lot of public demand. will be change the time. my words. You heard it here first. Again, episode 59 of After the Bell. We know that will come. But this is a bonus episode. So we always repackage previous field trip sessions in the spring break time. So we're putting Dr. Brad Baker, who's the superintendent of indigenous education in British Columbia and Victor Alderton, who's a wonderful

educational thinker on all things environment and outdoor learning. And we had two great interviews with them. So I've given you two for one. Wow, that's two amazing interviews for one. Yeah, pretty good deal. Low, low price. All for the low price of nothing. There you go. So if you're finding in your spring break, you're just dying to listen to something again, hear these two episodes packed together in one package, well, this is for you.

We hope you enjoy. Yes.

Well, welcome, Brad. We really appreciate you coming on after the bell. There's lots we want to get into, but we always start off with an icebreaker just to get our interviewees all settled. So just, you're going to say the first thing that pops into your mind. So we're going to ask you some questions. Have you ever seen the Colbert questionnaire and with Stephen Colbert? So it's kind of like that, right? Just the first thing, there's no right or wrong. Just say it. So you're going to start off, Roy, with ABC? That's me. Okay. So it's called ABC 123. Okay. All right.

Martin Stuible (05:07.82)
A. Recess or lunch? Lunch. B. Red or blue? Blue. C. Math or P.E.? Math. Okay, thank you. So here's one, two, three. One, fiction or non-fiction? Non-fiction. Two, football or hockey? European football.

Yeah, soccer, football, soccer, yeah. Three, who was your favorite teacher and why? Someone who taught you that... Favorite teacher would have been Mr. Okay, tell us a little social studies 10-11 teacher at Sutherland Secondary School. I had Mr. White at Sutherland Secondary. It made me love And my brother had him in North Van Nuys, Small world, eh? Yeah. So he made me love history and that's why made me go to school to study my major's history and become a teacher. I owe a lot to Mr. White.

It's amazing that power of that one person, right? Yes, connections, connections for sure. And our surprise question is. surprise. A surprise. Yes. Uh-oh. NFL or CFL? NFL. NFL. And why, why NFL? I think the CFL is just too slow to, not very much action in the CFL games, that's for sure. Real football fans seem to prefer the NFL, I find. Yes. So let's just jump into it. Roy, you want to start with our first question and then like I say, it's.

It's a conversation. Just be at ease. Could you tell us about your previous role working with the North Vancouver school district? If I want to, do want to go all the way back to my start of my career? My whole, my- Go back to the beginning. Why not? Because you have a long history I got a long history in North Vancouver. Born and raised. Obviously went to elementary school here at Queen Mary, went to Southern secondary school. But my first job in the district was a primary teacher on a letter of permission because I was one of the first,

First Nations person to get a teacher ed degree in the process in North Van. So they hired me on letter of permission to get seniority based. And then I started teaching at Carson Graham and Oslo Han Learning Center with specifically with indigenous learners. And then I became a vice principal at Carson Graham in my early years of my career that I moved into being a district administrator working with Ken Neal for Safe Schools.

Martin Stuible (07:27.378)
Save Schools, and then he retired. I was Save Schools guy for a long time, and I took over the Indigenous education portfolio. So my last three or four years in North Vancouver, I was the district principal for Indigenous education and Save Schools, and then Equity, and then some anti-racism files. By look at that work, I was able to work across the entire school district with schools, elementary, secondary, with teachers, NVTA, CUPE.

And probably more importantly with kids in every school in the district. Yeah, I was very, very like that. Can I ask what year you graduated from Sutherland? I graduated from Sutherland in 1988. Okay, so we were, I was 84. Yeah. So we are four years apart. Yeah. Yeah. So you would have been in grade eight or... Grade eight or nine. Yeah, interesting. I loved Sutherland back then too, right? Because it was, I love the semester system. Yeah. I know most of our high schools in North Vancouver are linear right now, but I love the semesters, concentrate on...

four subjects, four topics. And I always wanted to make sure my prep was in the second semester in the afternoon, preferably, so I can leave school a little bit early if I could. You didn't have the doctor who wasn't a doctor, did you? I did have the doctor the first year. My grade eight year was the first year. Yes, I do recall that. I just remember all of a sudden, grade nine, hey, we got a new principal. So yeah. interesting. We won't go into that any further than that. During your time, though, with North Van working as an educator,

What would you think was your greatest success? I think probably if I break it into segments, probably the first segment would be just working with colleagues like you both of you and other teachers in the district of Manhattan, their abilities and understanding around indigenous peoples, the history of our local lands, the Squamish and Saletooth. And probably the last part of it was around we saw some real improvement in student success. When I say student success, not only for indigenous learners, but for everyone. I think part of

as we're all probably, we're all close in the same generation. We all know indigenous education started out just for indigenous people only. But I think by the time I left North Vancouver three years ago, it was a strong case around an entire district for everyone that was part of our district. And I was really proud of probably the work we did as a collective as adults, where we came together on many cases across the district to.

Martin Stuible (09:48.458)
to unlearn what we all learned when we were in kids, to relearn, and then transpose that into the classroom. thought that was very impressive. So could you tell us about your current role with the Ministry of Education? Yeah, I'm currently the superintendent of Indigenous education for the province and the superintendent of appeals. And so I'll take the latter one. So I'm the superintendent of appeals, which means anything that goes past board suspensions, if you want to come to me. But that's a...

That's not my main job. My main job is the superintendent of Indigenous education, which means I work with all 60 public school districts and some of the independent schools. And I work with the 204 First Nations, Métis organizations, other Indigenous organizations to try to continue to strive to close the gap between achievement rates of Indigenous learners and non-Indigenous learners across the province.

Part of it also is bringing some teachings and learning to the Ministry of Education. I'm very fortunate to sit on the executive of education and childcare. I'm the first on reserve First Nations person ever to sit on the executive. So I bring a lived experience to the deputy minister and other assistant deputy ministers of what Indigenous voices have to be at the table. It's very nice. And you talked about having to unlearn things from the past.

And I feel that as a settler kind of thing. I see that, but from your perspective, how do you see that we've made that transition? Yeah. I I love that comment unlearned because I even had to unlearn myself, right? Because I obviously I have my home, my home life, my home teachings from my own Squamish community. But what, you know, through my whole kindergarten, the grade 12 experience, my post-secondary at Simon Fraser and CAPU, CAP college.

We were never really taught about the true history or indigenous knowledge or indigenous ways of knowing. So I had unlearned when I started unpack what my responsibility was as a teacher to, to make sure that the indigenous point of view was brought to the forefront. And I think it's important. what I've, what I'm a big believer in is I never want to ask anyone settlers to, get rid of the Western point of view. All I want people to do is to, bring in an indigenous point of view and work them intertwined together.

Martin Stuible (11:59.439)
Because we're all humans first and foremost, right? And so we all have a responsibility to enhance the opportunities for ourselves and for the kids that we work with. And if we're able to marry in worldviews, it's only especially for everybody. Right, yeah. Because it just felt like it was separate at one time, right? 100%. There's more tokenism. Here we go, we touch it. And from my perspective, it just feels more real. And it's more what we can gain too.

Right? All of us can gain, you know, this connection to place and all those things. That's the power. I love the way you say that because I think part of it is building authentic relationships between people, but also relationship with the land, right? Because the land provides so much teaching for us, right? And as we all know, in North Vancouver, you know, the natural place to learn. A lot of that's, you know, outdoor-based, place-based, whatever you want to call it. It's just part of the work that we do on a daily basis. How has your father's experience attending a residential school shaped you?

I think a lot of it shaped me when I was younger. really had no, I didn't really grasp the difficulties he had raising us, my siblings, because of the difficulties he had in residential school. But when I got to, later on in my life, when I was just graduating high school, going into post-secondary, I was able to have more conversations with him about what he had endured and what it meant to our family. And an extension of that, some of the mentors that I worked with with Squamish Nation were also survivors.

And so they able to bring to me, a different perspective of, of how we were, we were taught that unlearning part as Canadians, but also how we continue to strive to, to honor that past, but use it as a, as a tool to increase awareness and responsibility, but also to, okay, how do we go past that now? How do we strive for excellence? That's the big thing for me. And my dad is a big believer in that striving for excellence. mean, he's still with us. He's 86 now. And so he's, he's a brilliant man still.

Still love it. Obviously I love the guy. yeah, love the guy. Yeah. Was it hard for him though to, when he saw you in public school and public education, knowing what the result was for him? Yeah, I was, you know, I think the biggest thing for myself and my siblings was when we went to Queen Mary Elementary School, you know, it was a very lower Lonsdale back when I was there in the seventies and eighties, was a very low socioeconomic area, very rough and tumble school.

Martin Stuible (14:14.94)
And so my mother and father didn't want me to to Carson Graham because they were struggling with graduation back then. And so they sent us to Sutherland. They fought with the Board of Education. And the trustees at that time kept saying no, but my mother, my late mother was very, very strong and saying, no, no, want my kids to have a proper education. Power of sport too, right? Because I played sports at high school and the combination, my dad was very into sports and I played basketball, rugby and soccer at Sutherland. And it was just, helped strive to be a good student.

You did refer to graduation rates there and they certainly improved. But do think we still have ways to go and what can we do to get further? We get more to rates that we see among the rest of the population. Yeah, and I think that's big thing. know, my role with the ministry right now is to close the gap and we're actually looking at 15 year trends now and Martin, I appreciate the way you say we have made strong steps, we're successful, we're making strides.

But how do we, our on reserve population achievement rates aren't as quite as high as the off reserve population for the indigenous. And the non-indigenous are still, know, 93 to 96%, whatever they are, right? But I think if we're able to continue to ensure that we're at numeracy, literacy rate, interventions are for everyone, it's gonna be better. But I think ultimately too, the North Vancouver's grad rates are significantly gone up in the last five years, which is brilliant.

But if we went back to those kids, you know, two or three years after graduation, ask them what they were doing, did we provide, were they ready for the next step of life? Either post-secondary, a high paying job, or were we pushing them through the system? So I think that's one thing we're looking at now is high expectations, right? I like that, because that's really what matters and counts, right? It's just, the other is just a statistic, right? Yes, yes. But what is really happening, right? Good, yeah.

Reconciliation Commission calls to action number 6 to 12, identify specifically with education. How do we help teachers implement indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing in the curriculum? Yeah, that's a great question. I know when the TRC first came out, you know, a decade ago now, 10 years ago now it came out, and then the new curriculum, I guess it's not new anymore, came out roughly around the same time. And I think about the transition that we were in as teachers at that time.

Martin Stuible (16:39.4)
It was a complex world because we were so early on the journey of understanding what our true history was and then we were pushing reconciliation on everybody. And so I think that's one of the reasons why I always use the motto in North Van, truth before reconciliation, because it allowed us as an understanding piece to go on a journey together of who we are as individuals, but also bring people along with us that were still even before us.

I think the TRC, those actions 6 to 12, that unlearned piece is so important because yes, we need resources for teachers, but also we also need teachers to tackle their unconscious biases. So teachers are able to tackle their unconscious biases because we were all taught a certain way of who indigenous people were, that we were living off the backs of non-indigenous people, that everything was given free to us.

So there's unconscious biases and moving away and all of us become an anti-racist. That's where true change happens. And then that's where I think a lot of the, the resources, when the, when the new CRC came out and the new curriculum, there were zero resources out there. First one to say that, first one to say that. you look at the last five or six years, you know, with the development, you know, working with the first nations organizations of resources, I think it where teachers are better off today.

than we were 10 years ago with resource development. But I think in the big picture, I think that the introduction of Standard 9, professional Standard 9 has also helped certificate holders. think just the awareness piece is, I don't wanna say it's forced people, because we never wanna force people to do things, but I think the awareness piece is making people think, okay, well, if I don't get on the pathway like everyone else, I'm gonna be left behind.

That's a big thing for me. How do you think we help people to overcome their unconscious biases? Like I think I'm aware of them, right? We all know those who are. I know. am not racist. not. I think the big thing is probably just around, small opportunities to have brave conversations with each other. And if that means it's like, it's us three having conversations or it's one-on-one, then you expand it into larger groups. Cause I think sometimes the real.

Martin Stuible (19:00.762)
the real positive people that are on the journey of implementing Indigenous world reason on daily basis, sometimes they're not sharing that information with other colleagues. They're in their silos of their classroom because they've got so much going on, but also those people that are not on their journey at all, they're also in their silos. So how do we bring people together? think that's where the ongoing professional development that we do in British Columbia is very important. yeah, just creating space for dialogue because...

We have to remember it was over 150 years of policies of oppression. We're very early on this journey. I I look at 2013, the late Senator Murray Sinclair was at the Coliseum. We had like 10,000 kids there from across the province, talking about truth and reconciliation before it was released. That's only 12 years ago. And so if you look over, when we talk with our kids or our grandkids,

their knowledge base is gonna be way more than ours was as I want to say, I don't know, not middle-aged, we're young guys. But patience is important. Patience is so important. It took so long to get here. You can't snap your fingers and go, okay, it's all good now. I agree. And I also think too, there's, and I think that's one thing that I've always been grateful of when my time in North Vancouver working with, you know, the board office or the North NVTA or CUPE or in the parent or D-PAC.

was that there was a willingness to have conversation. But also I think to us as, myself as a First Nations person, I can't go into a room and say, have to do this tomorrow, because we have to. Because ultimately, we've all entered this door of truth and reconciliation together. And if we're not gonna walk the journey together, all we're doing is repeating that cycle of negativity. I don't wanna do that.

Okay, so this is a good leading question then. Can you share a specific story or an experience that shows the impact of bringing Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities together? Well, I mean, there's so many. I go back to my North Vancouver School District days. I remember some of our early professional days where we did it jointly with all three organizations like the Board Office, NVTA and CUPE around Indigenous knowledge systems and bringing in...

Martin Stuible (21:21.752)
keynote speakers and then multiple workshops led by indigenous and non-indigenous teachers in the district. Cause I think that's positive for me because I think some of the biggest fears by non-indigenous educators as well, I'm not indigenous, so I can't do it. But if there's a non-indigenous person that's providing the workshop that can model the work, that's success. Right. And so I think that's, that's a highlight for me. I also look at some of the.

the engagement from the local communities here and local First Nations communities and local indigenous communities where they actually became more prominent in the schools. Because for the longest time, many of our families and extended families were afraid to come to school because of past experiences. And I think with the trust that was built, the open spaces for dialogue, the visual representation in our schools of First Nations art, it just allowed a more of a positive relationship between our families and the schools.

And I'm proud of that, what we did in North Vancouver. I also look back to, I was an NVTA rep for Oslo Learn Center way back in the day. And I remember when we started talking about Indigenous focus, pro-D, but Indigenous committees and have Indigenous reps, that was profound because it allowed Indigenous people to have voice at the local union.

Because I think that's one thing that sometimes is missing across the province where sometimes they're not, I don't want say they're excluded, but sometimes they're not welcome. When I say welcome, know, if somebody's picking up the phone, say, hey, why don't you come be part of this group to make it better, right? So, yeah. I mean, your dad must be amazed to have watched you and knowing what he went through and to see you rise to superintendent of the province. Yeah. It must just, right? Go go ahead. No, no, it's just, just.

It blows his mind. it does. does. I? We talk about being patient, but also things. That's an example that I think we can be positive and say things are changing, right? Yeah, I mean, I go back to one of our your first questions of who influenced me. I mean, if Mr. White was still with us, I don't know if he's passed on or not. I I would love to have a five minute coffee with him and say thank you to where I am today. And then also have my dad meet him. Right. Because, you know, if you look at the impact that my teachers had

Martin Stuible (23:47.716)
especially Mr. White and my mom and dad had on me, if they did not combine back in the late 80s, I wouldn't be here today in front of you, right? And so I think that's, I mean that's, and I owe a lot to North Vancouver School District, right? And so, and sometimes I think I forget what they, that Board of Education of the day, couldn't tell you who it was, who finally said yes to my mom and dad, said to go to Sutherland.

Who knows where I'd be, man? No idea, right? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just end with, during your many successful years in North Vancouver, educators became familiar with your motto of truth before reconciliation and go forward with courage. Yes. For our listeners who may not be familiar with these terms, can you elaborate? I mean, you've certainly touched on it. Yeah. The big one for me is that truth before reconciliation because I think...

When the TRC report came out like 10 years ago, the 94 Calls to Action, people were jumping, okay, what action are we gonna do? What action are gonna do tomorrow? Well, let's slow down a little bit because here in North Vancouver, we had a residential school within our boundaries. Do you guys all know that? Do people know that? And some people didn't. So just understand that broader scope of not only the residential school system, but the reserve system, the PASS system, the multiple policies that were placed upon indigenous peoples.

So that was a big thing for once we get a base understand that we can start talking about the reconciliation initiatives we want to do within the district. And also I think when we talked about go forward with courage is roughly around the same time we started using that because of when the curriculum came out from K to nine, right? It was like, throwing on the desk to teachers, okay, go. And so, and some of it was, and I think the big thing that was a big belief in my mind and my system, my heart and my mind was.

take the courage to go forward, but also I'd rather have people try something and fail than not try it all. Cause that means you going forward with courage to try something. That's where it started from. I've heard many people talk about that being empowering when they heard you say that because there's a lot of fear when people go, my, am I going to make a mistake here? And when you were in the district, no one felt that with you leading us on that journey, right? That's awesome. That's awesome. And I just know that there are many,

Martin Stuible (26:03.444)
Aboriginal education groups in schools and I've been part of one at Ridgeway and I know it's been amazing because we've read a number of books and then I remember doing the blanket exercise and just for many educators to have those experiences, not just that they share with the classrooms but personal experiences of learning so that

It actually broadens their understanding and broadens their understanding in the ways of knowing. I'm grateful for those opportunities. That's awesome. think, you know, we always, we always ask kids when we were teaching here in North Bend to know, do and understand. We also as adults needed to know, do and understand. And those hands-on experiential learning opportunities, we learn from all of those. Right. And I think, you know, myself and a couple of colleagues that used to run the blanket exercise here in the district, after every one, we learned something new ourselves.

because we're learning along with our colleagues. think that's the biggest thing is those. I think in North Vancouver, we're able to build those authentic relationships amongst adults first, which meant the kids benefited from us, which is the most important part. Well, thank you, Brad. We really appreciate this and this journey. And I know people in North Vancouver really appreciate the work you did here. And we wish you all the best. Thank you very much. Thank you, Brad. was great. for having me. Good.

Martin Stuible (27:34.21)
So welcome, today we have Victor Elderton and we really appreciate you coming on After the Bell with Roy and Martin. Before we get into anything, we always start with a little icebreaker. Sure. Just to set the tone. So just say the first thing that comes into your mind. It's called ABC123. Okay. Roy's gonna start with ABC. So A, hiking or biking? Walking. Nice.

be farm study or forest study? A forest. Forest. And the last one, David Suzuki or Bill Nye? Can we create a hybrid here? Absolutely. Yeah. If there's aspects, both of those are people I would take as personal kind of mentors in a lot of ways.

the excitement that Bill and I brought about. I use that in lots of different kind of teaching techniques and things like that. And the fact that David Suzuki, I have had more than one direct interaction with him. And one of the best things he said to me, they needed a spot to take pictures of eagles. And of course, Brackendale, there on the Chacumas River where I spent a lifetime.

was a really good place to do that. And so he was coming down, was when he was hosting The Nature of Things. And so I had David Suzuki and I could ask him, you know, kind of thing. And so I asked him, like, what would you say? You know, because at that time Shell Oil was offering money, you know, if you wanted to do environmental projects. And I said, there's a little bit of a, you know, isn't that a conflict of interest? And he said, I guess you could say that, but he said, I would take the money.

because what you're going to do with the money is so much stronger than what they could potentially do. And the other interaction that I had with him was that it was at a book signing. And I was there with another person from the outdoor school and we went to listen and there was a book signing and we went up and we wanted to chat. And he didn't really have much time of the day to talk to adults.

Martin Stuible (29:53.238)
but right after this there was a little child and they brought forward this little crocheted i don't know washcloth or something and he just opened up and he just like was so gracious to this child and so welcoming to this child and i went okay while he's telling me kind of where the priorities are some some somebody who's already invested in everything else that's not really that important

but this child, a genuine moment and it was really, yeah, yeah, so was pretty cool. Awesome, okay, now one, two, three. Fiction or non-fiction? Depending on my mood. Okay. Sometimes non-fiction is, I like to have non-fiction in short form. Okay.

Fiction is more sort of my long form kind of read. And I would tell you also that I would prefer if there's a one, two, three on this, I would do the audio version. I have sometimes done the audio version while I do the reading version, because I'm quite a slow reader.

but I retain stuff for a long time. you're listening while you're reading? Yes. nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I did that with Robin Wall Kimmermer's book, you know, and Braiding Sweetgrass. And it was really interesting to hear her voice as I'm reading her words. She has a great voice. Yeah, she does have a great voice. And she's, you know, just an amazing person. Good.

Okay, number two, UBC or SFU? That's interesting because I work at both places. I tell the SFU people that I do faculty advising at UBC, they go, that place. And when I tell people that I met SFU from UBC, they go, that place. So they have different flavors.

Martin Stuible (32:01.931)
There are some aspects, I get to do some really special work, mentoring work at SFU that I don't think would be possible in some ways at UBC, especially experiential learning work at SFU that isn't so prevalent at UBC. However, at UBC, I work with a very small group of people who are going to be new teachers, and I love that mentoring work.

So I would tell you the change in the work that I do now is before maybe I was more of a frontline person. Now I'm sort of working with people who are going to be frontline people and how can I facilitate their learning. So the thing that's a common thread between what I did and now after the bell, you know, kind of thing is centered a lot on mentorship. If you wanted to find a stream through all of that stuff,

It's about mentorship. There's an aspect of mentorship that I really like. And I think it's because I also had amazing mentors. It must be nice for you to then, if you have experiences that are different at SIVU and UBC to kind of cover the whole gambit. Yeah, it is. It is. And there are different flavors. I have been welcomed, I want to say, at both places. But the nice thing about being after the bell, I don't have to be in the deep.

trenches, right? So, I can just sort of, I remember one time Anthony Hopkins said that where he was in his career as an actor was that he's at a point that he can pick and choose the things that he wants to do the most. that's what I find both at UBC and SFU. I can choose the pieces that I want to do the most because I had a great career and a nice pension and everything else to support me. But

I can choose what I want to do. That's what I enjoy most about retirement is choosing. Yeah. I'm busier than ever, but I'm in control of that. And I love my teaching career, love the kids, love teaching, but the noise gets to you, right? All that background noise that wears you down. the things that you have to do. And whenever I confront the things that you have to do, that's when I kind of went, I'm going to walk away from that.

Martin Stuible (34:24.479)
you know, to a certain things. And I find that a little bit in my PhD work, right? There's things that I have to do. So I've been playing at my PhD for quite a long time, partially because of personal things that have happened in my life, mostly centered around, unfortunately, my mom and her end of life, dimension, end of life stuff, and COVID that all got it, that just sort of knocked it out of the ballpark. But also, I like the playing part. I find myself like,

I have two metaphors or two analogies that I work with. One is that I feel that what I'm doing right now, it's like if you go swimming in salt water, you know that when you come out of the salt water and if you just let the sun dry your skin, there's these little crystals that form on your skin. So one way that I've envisioned this is like what I'm doing right now is I am swimming through learning. And when I come out of these experiences, it's my job to

discover what these little crystals are. that's one way that I have of looking at it. Another way that I have of looking at it is that in the work that I'm doing, it's like I'm letting the learning kind of, once again, it's a water metaphor, of wash over who I am. And then I sort of say, OK, so the water washed over me, so where is that stream taking me now?

And I have those affordances. Number three, and you mentioned mentorship in your life. If you go back to your early years, maybe a student in elementary or high school, is there a teacher that stands out for you in your memory? Oh, yeah. And you could share that? Just the other day, I have a teacher who is UBC program. They have this three week.

education experience that's outside of their practicum. They call it their community field experience, the CFE. Anyway, so I have someone that's going to be at one of our elementary schools. I walked in to talk to the person that was sponsoring the student. It's my grade five classroom. I want to say my life at Upper Lynn changed. Grade one and two were good.

Martin Stuible (36:48.917)
Miss Kelly and Mrs. Bailey were my two teachers, grade one, grade two. But it's in grade three where the world really opened up. I had this amazing teacher in grade three, her name was Beverly Oram. And Beverly had spent a life with her husband. He was a civil engineer. And she told us stories of the Amazon. She told us stories of these amazing...

places that she had been to and told us what she did there. And she lived on the road, you know, just past end of the line. Sort of there's a road that goes up there. She lived there. one day she said, there's a monkey in my backyard. And she really meant it. Somebody, this, this monkey.

I got on my bike because at that time you rode your bike anywhere. And I was in her backyard. I never saw the monkey, but there was a potential of seeing the monkey. And so she was very important. then I went from that was then I had this other teacher, Miss Keely. She was actually from the U.S. And we at that time at Upper Lynn must have been expanding because our classroom was in the gym.

She was an amazing teacher. And then I went from there to Marilyn Vesely, who I ended up doing the early pilot project with for the Skonawas program, the Big House program at the Chakma Center. And she was my grade five teacher. And then I had this grade six teacher. He was an exchange teacher from New Zealand who brought in sort of inquiry science. So I want to say three, four, five, six, those years.

when my parents moved, we moved to Maple Bridge, I ended up in a class of grade sixes and sevens. It was a very small group of grade sevens in this grade six class, we were all new. And I had an amazing teacher there as well, his name was Ken Smith. And Ken, you wouldn't, I don't think this would be allowed today. And so he was particularly interested in, you know, experiential history. So there were three boys in this grade,

Martin Stuible (39:04.521)
seven group and three girls in this grade seven group and he basically said go find out in you know maple ridge, Haney, Pitt Meadows who would be people that might have stories about this place and literally we would get on and this is going to really age me we would get on

our Mustang bikes, these lemon green young bikes with the big banana seats. And the high handlebars. I'm right there with you. And we would get on those things and we would take off. We would just sort of say we're going to Mr. Mrs. So-and-So's house and we collected oral history from those folks and then

He allowed us to use the stage in the small gymnasium and we put together this whole history report based on interviews. And one of the people that was in my class, his family was like second generation living in Haney or Maple Ridge. So he had some really good family contacts. And it was like, in research now, there's this term called snowballing. You get this idea and then the ball rolls and then they give you somebody else. So they would say, well, we have a story about this, but you need to have a story about that. Yeah. Yeah.

I always find with education, you know, they always come up with new terms, inquiry learning, experiential learning, but you look back at great teachers, they were doing that a long time ago, right? were. Or the term came up. And I think typically what happens is all good teachers are. I think Suzuki once said this, actually, the best work comes from doing and then looking at the theory of why that happens.

So his big thing was one of the reasons why we are in sort of, we aren't sort of, we are in an environmental crisis, existential crisis, is because most of human life was experience leading theory. With the development of the atomic bomb, that was theory began leading what we do.

Martin Stuible (41:21.313)
And you know, I hear the same thing, you know, from the person from Eastern Canada who said is the godfather of AI, for example, he now laments that he played a role in that. He played a role in that. And it was very interesting because in a trip that I once did, I went to Los Alamos. It was part of New Mexico and we went to Los Alamos. And in the visitor center in Los Alamos,

they have reproductions of the letters between Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Truman. And you can see within the writing is some very cautionary thing. Should we actually be doing this? Where's the moral aspects of doing this? Should we be thinking about doing these things? Oppenheimer dealt with that his whole life. Yes, he did. He did. And the movie, you know, that on his life kind of got into that, right?

And so the question then becomes, should you do that? There's a term in ecological thinking called conservatism. And when I say that term now, people think of it in political terms. And it can be seen as a very sort of non-progressive way of thinking about things. But in ecological terms, it really means to be cautious. There's an aspect of being conservative to go slow.

not simply do things because they can be done. And I think what I draw from some of Suzuki's writings and thinking is exactly that. We have to think about this a little bit more. And this is where, you know, in more recent time, in a more serious way, you know, what I say, explicit way, I've been looking a lot more in terms of Indigenous thinking, not only Indigenous thinking of the Pacific coast.

which is where I've grown up, but Indigenous thinking from around the world. even Indigenous thinking from what my heritage would, which would be Northern European, what's the Indigenous thinking that was going on in those times, you know? And what do they have to say about people who basically live in place? When you have to live in a place and you don't have the luxury or

Martin Stuible (43:44.865)
privilege or however you want to describe it of just simply going wherever you want to go and think you can just go wherever you want to go.

there's an aspect of permanence. There's an aspect of understanding what place is. Don't you think, I mean, with climate change now more than ever, that's what we need, that way of thinking? gosh, And do you see conservatism taking it slow with climate change? mean, we're facing an existential crisis in that. Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess, but there's a part of me that also knows enough, and I don't...

This is this is my lament my lament is if humans Don't exist that's our problem We created this scenario. I don't want to think about that but as We go down That's the issue that's that's that's that's what goes to my heart. Yeah, you know, that's really what goes to my heart and my passion is that

If we the way of the dinosaurs, that's fine. But what we've left behind, that's the worry. Yeah, that's right. And not only what we leave behind, but what did we take out on our way through? You know, when a giant asteroid hits the planet, That's not making sort of

a conscious decision about okay i'm gonna hit the planet and i'm gonna hit the planet in the shallow sea you know close to what we call yukatan today and if that's going to create a whole bunch of scenarios which by the way is if you haven't listened to it my favorite podcast is a bad day for dinosaurs okay and and yeah it's a fantastic i'm that down it's from radio lab it's it's dramatized and i think they've done it also as a stage kind of presentation as well

Martin Stuible (45:41.451)
but that's a fascinating podcast and it's called A Bad Day for Dinosaurs because the thing that always fascinated me as a child going up and even today, like, why did certain things survive and not other things survive? Well, our kind, our mammalian kind at that time, we were generally kind of tiny and to stay out of the clutches of things that might like to eat us, we generally lived underground. So,

Unless it's changed a lot, unless the science has changed a lot since the last time I sort of got into this a little bit, all it took was living underground by about four or five inches, and you were protected. Anything that was above the four or five inches, because that was the other thing I could never understand, and what they go through very well with regards to this piece, is there's one thing, it's the explosion, okay? And the explosion is like, you know,

sad to think about it. We think about it as so many atomic bombs, know, kind of thing. But anyhow, there's this pyroplastic flow, there's all this other kind of stuff, but that doesn't go around the world. But dinosaurs died all around the planet at the time. So what they did in that particular podcast that I hadn't really thought about is it wasn't that. What killed everything everywhere was

all the material that went up into the atmosphere and then what happens is most of it, like something like 80 to 90 percent of it, rained down as fire. Because all this got heated up in the atmosphere and just the friction of coming down the atmosphere and that went around the world. So it was like a firestorm around the world. They said in that podcast that some of the material, believe it or not,

had enough escape velocity that it probably made it to Mars. That's phenomenal. It just blew me away. It just blew me away. And so when I think about these things, Robert Bateman once told me, he said, the thing about nature is it's hard to understand, but it's more than we can understand.

Martin Stuible (48:05.735)
And so, you know, it's this aspect of thinking and having time to think in these terms. And see, that's the plus and minus of the world that we live in right now. I live in this amazing place in what I call the Canadian Southwest, in the Canadian Southwest on the coast. And I have the time, I have the resources that allow me to think.

And I can sort of play around with these ideas. If I'm in a crisis situation, I can't think of these ideas. You just start thinking like, where's my water gonna come from next? Where's my food gonna come from next? And so I think that if I have any responsibility, it's the fact that if I am coming from this kind of place, then I have a moral responsibility because in this work,

We basically, I believe, and some of my good colleagues believe that it's really about morals and ethics. It's not about the content, it's not about learning about the complexity or anything else, it's about what...

what drives those things. It's about the morals and the ethics that you have. I've worked on three versions of the environmental education guidelines for environmental learning in the province. The first one, which was in the 90s, another one that came out in the early 2000s, and we're just completing a third version of that. basically, it comes down to what are your ethics.

you know, what are your ethics, what are your values, and how do you make the decision to choose what those are? Especially in this day and age. Yeah. We're seeing all kinds of decisions about morals and ethics. Morals and ethics, you know, and it all comes down to that. And so, and I also believe if we can't create a scenario where we can extend the morals and ethics to other humans,

Martin Stuible (50:14.422)
that we hopefully will understand, how can we then extend it to forests like cedar or rivers or whatever? And there's going to be, there's a new book that Robert McFarland, who's a really great author, and it's called something like, If a River is Alive, Are Rivers Alive? Yes, Are Rivers Alive?

And he's doing the Sierra Club is actually has a free online thing next week that I'm looking forward to. I heard one interview that he's done about it and I've read other works that he's worked on. So, you you asked the question before about fiction, nonfiction. That's the kind of that that kind of fiction in some ways is kind of like.

really fascinating to me. And some of my sort of free reading, quite honestly, had to do with historical friction, the idea that you take this idea and you take this idea and then what if you played it out in a certain way? you're learning from it. Yeah.

So when we're talking about outdoor educational experiences, participating actively in the environment, how do we get our students to think about their experience in a way that is reflective and

can help in a deeper understanding of this place that we're living in? Those are really good questions. A while back when Richard Louv's book came out, Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv was a reporter for a San Diego paper, I believe, and he was writing a lot about fatherhood and families. And he, in his interviews,

Martin Stuible (52:19.156)
something would come out about being outside as a family, being in nature as a family. he, like a good journalist, he dug into that more and he started to sort of dig into this perspective of we don't play outside the same way we used to, right? We don't do that. We don't do that. like, yeah, I mean, I know that, you know, the classic Mustang bike is a unique thing to my era, but

I'm not aware now of, you know, sort of something within the child's culture now that would be similar. we all had to, there was something about the image of the Mustang bike, you know, and everything else. But now it's more like, as we just saw, how can we get our hands on the next Nintendo, you know, PlayStation? But to go back to your question about how do we get them. So when we've looked at that,

work of how to get do that There are kind of ten basic things but the three most important things are this one Daily access it becomes part of the practice

It doesn't take anybody, you know, look, if you wanted to be really good at playing guitar, Martin, then you know, you got to practice, you know, and you got to do that. And daily at the beginning is incredibly important, right? If you want to learn how to play soccer, one of the things sometimes I found myself in discussions with is people who really wanted, you know, I worked at a place that was heavily impacted by the 2010 Olympics.

and i really didn't have a problem with the twenty ten olympics my problem was if you're going to two hundred and some odd million dollars to improve the road up to whistler where's the two hundred and some odd million dollars special money that comes in as a little as a legacy to education for example an experiential based learning really ultimately i think the olympics is about getting people outside and experiencing things and things like that where's the two hundred million dollars then to

Martin Stuible (54:31.788)
do that as a legacy, right? That was my issue. My issue was, that's fine, it's about priorities, right? So daily access, easy access. So, you know, in schools, quite often, kindergarten classrooms have an outdoor.

outdoor outdoor you know you that they can just leave and they can go outside yeah yeah why isn't every yeah we were talking about that why why doesn't every classroom have an outside door you know for for me when i will brought my work more into schools i'd have to be quiet when i went down the hall i was lucky enough that my the classroom at the last school that i worked in was only

one classroom away from being outside. Okay? But then there was all of those kinds of rules that I had to be worried about because I didn't want to disrupt the learning of other things, other children. And so easy access, daily access, but this is where the teacher comes in.

You have to have a mentor. You have to have someone who introduces you to that. I don't think within our species we naturally go out and just do stuff automatically. We're not, you know, I mean, no, no, no, mean, look, you know, Martin, I know enough about the fact that you recently got back from Africa.

You know, within probably two or three hours of a gazelle being born, it can run with the herd. I don't know any child within two or three hours of birth that can do any running, you know, kind of thing. It's just a different way. It is just a different survival thing, right? And so, I think that we're pre-programmed to look at where are the mentors. And the mentors doesn't have to necessarily be our parents, but

Martin Stuible (56:31.874)
who is the person that provides that? And you ask that question, you ask the question, who were the mentors? I can list, I just listed from grade three to grade seven, and I could actually give you also a biology teacher in grade eight that I had, Mr. Bjorn, that were the mentors for me, and that they kind of guided my path. And to a point,

than that I could leave off from that. And those three things working together, if we can put those three things working together on a regular basis, then I think the possibilities of that. Now, I would guess, you know, knowing enough about the two of you, because we spent basically a career together, right? That's probably already built into your family structure.

But then I think about where I grew up and one of, definitely I wanted to say that two of my early mentors were my parents. My mother was a very sensitive and very artistic person who was more about the aesthetics of place and a very deep empathy. But my father was very playful and like experiential and adventurous. And they were actually a really good pair.

They're really good pair. And sadly, my mother's mental health issues over time became greater and greater. And I think they became less cohesive as a unit. But in my early years, my formative years, from basically the time I was born until I was 10 or 12 years old, they were amazing. And there wasn't anything we wouldn't do collectively as a family. So me,

There's a form. Different people have different sort of tendencies, different ways of being. I often express myself through biology and through living things. I mean, my first tropical fish tank was given to me by my mom and dad at Christmas, and I've been keeping tropical fish. So if you came to my house today, and as people do,

Martin Stuible (58:52.472)
I have a whole room. That's my man cave. man cave. it. Outdoor school. Yes. You had great tanks. Yeah, yeah. Well, I have like 25 now. fish kind of flow through my life. So my world was that supported by those two things. And my dad's adventurous spirit and experiential way of being.

kind of balanced my mom's aesthetics and sort of sensitivity. And it was a really good combination. And so in my neighborhood, my parents were the ones that went to, at that time, every PTA meeting, or PAC meeting today. They were the ones that volunteered for everything. I remember my dad brought home, at one PAC meeting, my mom was very artistic, as I said. They were doing some clay work.

Well, my mom's clay work came back. was just like this amazing thing that my dad's thing looked like. I don't know. didn't look like what he said it was supposed to look like anyways, because he just didn't have that. he was okay. He was okay with being vulnerable and sort of doing this and kind of go, look at your mom's thing. Mine's supposed to represent the same thing and it doesn't look the same, it? So who's got the talent here anyways? But the two of them together,

provided those opportunities. So they were my first ones and there's a form of learning that two researchers from, I think they're both from Yale, Kellert and a guy by the name of E.O. Wilson talk about being biophilic. And I would tell you I was a biophilic child. One of my early memories is one time

I brought my mom this flower that to me looked different. And she said, where did you get that? And I said, well, just over here. And she said, you know, you just found an endangered species. And thankfully, I didn't pull up the whole plant. was just the flower part. And so my whole, and that was so affirming to me, the rest of my life, I've gone out looking for patterns of things. How does, how to, you know, where to find patterns. So those three things.

Martin Stuible (01:01:14.448)
are really important and one of the things that's a really interesting thing so you know there's there's responses to different crises right so the bc parks foundation has a very pretty you know tremendous plan there

Their idea is that they want to develop outdoor learning places in every school in the province. Every high school, every elementary school. They're going to, they're working on now, they have five pilot districts that they're starting with, and they're going to be saying this is the case. So that theoretically could cover the two points. It could cover easy access and daily access.

My interest now is about how do I help create the mentors that can use these places. You know, you think about, you know, the refuge at Ridgeway, for example. If there's a good mentor there, it gets used on a regular basis. Cleveland has this beautiful courtyard space. If there are good mentors there, it gets used in the... but most of the time it...

they don't get used. And especially in North Van, some of our sites are incredible and I was fortunate in the last five years of my career to work at Mount Royal with two creeks running through and I had easy access and I would establish things every day that was outdoor education. Every Thursday afternoon was all math outside, right? No matter what the weather and you just make it the norm and kids expect it and it just becomes healthy that way but it's that easy access and taking advantage of what we have. Yes and in a hundred percent. So I think it's really admirable what the BC

foundation is doing and they've asked me to participate, you know, to a certain extent. And I'm hoping to help them think about that mentor piece. know, if you have a Martin Stubble there or Roy Hunt there, you know, that really believes in this stuff. Because the other thing that you can go to almost any school and see a garden project,

Martin Stuible (01:03:28.62)
that's now fallen into disrepair. Yes. Or you can see something. I did a, in my last years in the district, I did a survey of every school in the district and tried to suggest on the school grounds, but also near the school grounds, what could be potentially learning sites for them. And obviously at Mount Royal, it was the creeks or Braemar also has a creek that goes right by it. Seymour Heights has a creek that goes right by it.

And what I found as a lasting memory, and you have to remember that that was in 2013, so about 12 years ago now, the kids were actually telling us where they wanted to be. So typically on a school ground, so much space is given over to some kind of artificial field. And most of the time,

less than 10 % of the students in the school are on that playground, right? In that space, because that's how they express themselves. Everywhere around the space, it's like a rabbit's horn. Trails, this, that, quiet spots, all these other kinds of things. So one of the things I think that the BC Parks Foundation is trying to do is bring some of that into the school grounds.

And interestingly, because it's being done by the BC Parks Foundation, if they do it right, they are going to add it to the goals that the provincial government has for how many sort of wild spaces we have. So they almost become extensions of provincial parks. if you think of the best sort of modern urban kinds of places, what are they doing? They're allowing

natural things to come into spaces. think in Japan, I think it's, I might be saying the word wrong, but there's this concept called the Miyagawa Garden. And what it is, is these are small acreages where native plants and things come in and they purposely set up this opportunity for those things to come into the city. And

Martin Stuible (01:05:54.9)
The biodiversity in those places, as you might guess, goes right out the roof. You know, if you compare that to a more manicured space or something like that. So the opportunity of bringing those things, because as we become more urban and suburbanized, which I don't think necessarily is a bad thing, it's just like, how do you want to be that? You know, we have the luxury of living in probably one of the most livable urban, suburban spaces.

But I would tell you, because for a short time, well, eight years, I was involved with the Museum of North Vancouver. was the commission chair while we built the new museum on Esplanade. And when we were doing sort of our exhibit stuff, we started to ask ourselves the question, why is it like this? Like, why is it like this? And it's because of the creeks.

the creeks divide us up and so by dividing us up now we have these little communities like you have a few for the roads go absolutely addicted that's right and so you can have roads everywhere right so you get it it makes you this little community this city within us these cities at least communities within communities neighborhoods within neighborhoods and so

It allows you to be able to do that. And some of the work that I'm doing now, the way that we would describe it is that they're biocultural work. So that term basically means that there's an existing biology or ecology in a particular place, but that existing biology and ecology in a particular place, when people come to that place influences the type of culture that happens there. But then that culture,

also influences the biology of that place or the, you know, the natural world in that place. And these two things are in a dance. The best of those scenarios is when those dances become like very choreography, you know, like they're like a ballet. That's the best. That's the best because that's where both things are kind of working in unison. And I would say that one reason why

Martin Stuible (01:08:16.694)
now we quite often will be looking to indigenous ways of being here, but also in other places, is typically indigenous cultures had found some kind of balance like that. But there are indigenous cultures, before any European showed up, that basically didn't do so well. You know, you can go to the Yucatan today and you can go and you can interact with Mayan people, but they're not the classic Mayan people.

right? And so they had to step back from that highly classic time that we know existed because we have the pyramids and we have the writing from those times and all those kinds of things. And all of that happened well before any, you know, European conquest happened. And you can go to other parts in the world where the European

you know, of Western perspectives of things weren't around, but there were rises and falls of different kinds of these classic kinds of societies. So that's the question. a classic society, and I think that's the great experiment that we're in right now, can sort of like a classic society find a balance? Is that possible? I don't know. It's interesting. I grew up on a farm.

It was a working farm. We had animals. I was outside all the time and I saw that I didn't see the outside space as the outside space. I saw it as a continuation of my living environment. And as a result of that, I had a great appreciation for the land that we were on and the animals that we had. How do we get

teachers, the mentors, and our students to look at the outdoor space as a continuation of their living environment and not just a place that's outside of my home or a place that's outside of my classroom. That's a really good question and I think that the aspect of that question is that how do we make it part of that daily practice? That's what I was trying to say before is that

Martin Stuible (01:10:28.766)
If you can start to make it part of the daily practice, I think also you want to see it as part of the community practice. you know, when I left my full-time work in the school district, I've spent some time with a group of people called Wild Pedagogies. And these people are kind of looking at, they have eight touchstones. And I've done workshops.

even this last year, I've done three or four workshops on what these touchstones are and how we might be able to engage in these touchstones. But what I was leading to with regards to that is in Nordic culture, in Sweden and Norway in particular, they have this term called Frösleif. And Frösleif means outdoor life. Now, from a North American perspective,

that may be that we just go outside and we camp. Right? But from a Scandinavian perspective, it's like you are completely embodied in that place. It goes beyond just the camping, just the outdoor cooking, just the outdoor vistas. It also goes into opportunities for the contemplation of stuff. And I think that if there's anything right now that is really concerning from my perspective is where do we allow

for that contemplation, that reflection, that valuing of those kinds of things. Because you can get caught up in how fast paced things are, right? And so, I don't know if it fits or not, but I know in Norway, one of the core subjects in the senior grades is philosophy.

where, you know, and I'm sure that there are students that hate the philosophy class, you know, kind of thing, but it's saying we as a culture believe that philosophy or understanding where we are in the world and trying to come to some kind of sense of where we are and who we are in the world is incredibly important. And I'm, and I like to think that maybe when I'm in, you know, senior grade, grade 10, 11 or 12,

Martin Stuible (01:12:48.034)
I'm kind of going, well, why am I wasting my time on this? And then some experience happens when I'm an adult where the proverbial penny drops and you kind of go, I'm understanding why that is there. I'm understanding now why these kinds of ideas are important and those kinds of things. And maybe we talked about it earlier, but one of the things that I'm really fascinated with is that

If you're in a position of privilege, which I truly accept I'm in a position of privilege, then what is my responsibility in that privilege? And then what kinds of things can I do? That's why I've continued on. Like people have said, I think that there's been, I know some amazing educators that they finished their time in school and they have every right to do this. I'm not telling them they're not.

but they were so amazing as teachers. They had so many other things to be able to offer. And maybe not offer in the same way that I'm doing, you know, working, you know, in the system really and with universities, but in other kinds of contexts, in other kinds of things. Because if you think of indigenous cultures, who's the first person that gets fed? Who's the first person that gets recognized? It isn't the newest person.

the person who carries the knowledge, who's had the time to think about these things that maybe wasn't able to think about those things. And so some people have said- populations do that too, right? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so sometimes people ask me like, what are you doing a PhD now for? You know, kind of thing. And I sort of said, well, and it was one of my Scandinavian friends that said this, you either do it at the beginning of your career and it sort of defines your career or you use it like I'm doing. It's like a capstone project.

It's allowing me to bring together some kinds of ideas and some kinds of thoughts in the way that I'm doing and and hopefully for Some people they may pick it up You know, I'll try to do some workshops and you know if I'm invited to do Speaking about it, whatever but for me it's been It's it hasn't been cathartic. I wouldn't say it's being cathartic. I would say that it's been really insightful it's

Martin Stuible (01:15:12.846)
It's my opportunity to sort of sit with what has happened to me. mean, part of my thesis talks about, and it's all centered on, you know, what did, you know, the area on the Chequemish River, what did it teach me? Okay. And the research is about that. And when I actually worked it out, because at that time, you know, I lived and worked at the place basically five days a week, over 200 days a year.

I put in 96,000 hours at that place because it was overnight, you know, and I was there overnight and that's the way that the position was and I sort of took it from the perspective, maybe it was from my natural perspectives. It's like, what is this place offering me? So yes, I have to be here overnight, which is not necessarily the best thing in the world.

But if I am going to be here overnight, what can happen overnight? What kinds of things? And it allowed me time to get to know you two, for example, and we would share a meal together. And it wasn't a situation where, you know, see you at lunch and not see you again. I think anybody at that time would say it was part of your soul. yeah. Going out to school and being a Victor and seeing what you were doing for the place. And so and so.

I've had the opportunity now to kind of think about all of those things. And one of my Scandinavian friends pointed that out to me and said, you know, this is a good time to do it because it's a good time to do it because you can kind of think of where you have been and how this place is influenced. And I guess if there's something different about what I'm doing now, I'm also trying to think deeply into who were my other teachers beyond

the people that I worked with. And so the way that this research is structured is around, and this is sort of like what's coming out of the work, there was an educative world that was created. You could call it was a biological world that was created that the education existed in. And it existed in this trifecta.

Martin Stuible (01:17:37.581)
It started with river. River is kind of the foundation of that particular world. In this case, the Chacumas River. The Chacumas River and salmon are the first sort of players on that stage. You can't have salmon there unless you have a river there. And the river came, you know, right after the glaciation, you know, 14,000 to 20,000 years ago.

And then salmon quickly started to inhabit that place. Well, by salmon being in that place, the nutrients that they bring to that place, the physical nutrients they bring to that place, and with the warming of the climate, about 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, cedar starts growing in that place. And those three things interacting with each other create this world that everything else becomes possible.

in terms of a learning space. So for me, that's the learning world that I'm describing in the thesis. But ultimately, what I'm saying is to those people that read it that are maybe motivated by it, I'm challenging you to find what is your world. What's created the space that's made it possible for you to think, to understand, to come to better understand those things.

And how can you do that? And what kinds of things are they? You know, I mean, I could, you know, postulate, for example, that if you are somebody from, you know, the Great Plains, that may be open sky and grasslands and at one time, you know, millions of bison, right, for example. And that was the world that was created in that space. If you came like,

I think you grew up in Ontario. Yes. Right. And so for you, it could be maybe Lake country, for example, and in Muskoka or it could be even southern part of Ontario. know, it could be, you know, that sort of Appalachian, you know, hardwood forest, you know, kind of thing. And those, that's a world that's created. then within that world. So what I'm asking people to do is.

Martin Stuible (01:19:52.255)
I'm telling you my story, but what I'm asking you to do through the research is to say, I want you to think about your place. When you talk about education and the child and it's always seems to go back to the classroom though. And I have you read the anxious generation and also there's a great Netflix series called adolescents. And it's just this online world now and the effect of that.

and it always falls on the school now to correct it. So what do you see as the role that parents play in this to try to get kids outdoors? Because they're often...

I know they have busy lives and they're not like when we were all children that we were on our Mustang bike. And it's actually safer out there. Hey, I got a 10 speed once. I finally did too. But I put a banana seat on it because it more comfortable. It didn't feel right without it, right? And it was actually safer then. People this fear of the out world out there, but it's far more dangerous when they stay in their room and go online. So how do we counter that? And how do we bring parents into this equation, this discussion? Because those parents that are doing it are doing it.

and their partners in this, but some are resistant and they're busy. So the easy thing to do is just let their kid be on the iPad and not get them outside. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great question because I mentioned before in one of my answers to some of the comments was it's about a community. in the same way, Roy, you were saying like, you know, there's no differentiation between, and when I say classroom, I don't see any walls.

Right? So I want to be clear in that. The classroom is just sort of a learning space to me. Now I'm teaching at the university, I don't think I teach inside ever. Right? I don't have, we're doing this thing called the Akatsum Field School. Akatsum is the school mission name for Howe Sound. anyways, and so we don't teach inside for two months.

Martin Stuible (01:22:00.813)
And so I don't spend much time with regards to that. And I think that I would say the same thing is that the differentiation between community and school, I think some of that needs to dissolve as well. Because I think school is community and community is school.

right? We've lost that. And I think it needs to be that. And now maybe that comes from the fact that I did my, at that time at UBC when I did my teacher training, I came out of a cohort called community education, which was all about the school is community, community is school. You know, and so how do we make that possible? So I think, you know, in more practical terms... there were community schools in Northam? Absolutely. Yes, that's right. That's right, there were, and there were four five of them.

And I think there's only one now because I think it's directly affiliated with Squamish Nation at Norgate, for example. But so the idea is how, you know, what's the permeable aspect of that, right? What's the permeable aspect? And so, you know, maybe in a practical way, one of the things that I did to try and break that down when I was working at Norgate is

I was teaching something on in quotes, extreme environment, environments, you know, was a topic for grade sixes and sevens in science, I think at the time it was a topic. Anyways, I had a problem with that because whose extreme environment is that? You know, for some organisms, that's not extreme, that's their life. Living where in a Mediterranean type climate, that's extreme. That's extreme. That's extreme.

I didn't get into that too much because I didn't want to sort of get kids in grade seven into too much philosophy. But anyways, it probably came out some ways. So I reached out to my community and I found that there was parents who had spent a whole season in the Antarctic. So I didn't tell the kids about the Antarctic. I brought them in. well, Mr. X or Ms. Y or whatever.

Martin Stuible (01:24:20.705)
they're able to talk about the Antarctic and tell us what it was really like. And so the kids would have their interview questions and they would ask those things and then they would develop their reports from that. I had another, another parent that had spent a lifetime in very dry desert like Northern Africa or someplace like that. Had other ones that had hiked in high altitude, you know, these places in quotes, you know, that, you know, and if, you know, if,

Pat Field had been one of my parents, I would have asked him. However, however, however, I did have the people from the Newt suit people come and talk about the deep ocean, because they had spent basically a lifetime in the deep ocean. Right? So these extreme kind of places, it makes it real, but at the same time, it's kind of going, these people have actually been there. It's not just a chapter in a textbook or whatever. And so I think

the dissolving of that. And one of the great lessons that I learned at Norgate, it has a high percentage of students. When I was there, 65 % of the students were indigenous. And when we would typically ask parents to come in and have conferences, we got very little turnout. And I was there with the staff at that particular time and we just sort of said, okay,

How do we get engagement? And so this is where sometimes the teacher has to go into the community and say, what's valued in this community? So I don't know whose idea it was, but somebody said, let's put on a community dinner. We had 200 plus people show up.

200-plus people and it was just a basic dinner, know kind of with some comfort food kind of thing and we went Okay, this is one way of dissolving the walls. Yeah, this is one way of you know changing from that and I sometimes Think if you draw upon our own Western traditions What if we taught the same way Socrates did? Or Plato did he walked around on the streets now?

Martin Stuible (01:26:37.215)
is only wealthy young men that could walk around the streets with him. Okay, so that's another whole problem there, but that's how they learned. They walked around the street, they saw things, they talked about things, they experienced things. And then I think the community in a certain extent is part of that learning as well. You can't tell me the shopkeeper, you know, didn't sort of say, those are those...

Hey, come on over here. I want to talk to you about you know what I'm doing today You know kind of thing and I was really I just recently came back. I Attended a regio Amelia conference in regio and part of that was to I always wanted to go also to Pompeii But we chose to go to herculaneum. It's a smaller site and stuff

And I was really fascinated because the person that was our guide that we had hired, a very, really great interpreter, showed us what their fast food was. There was a fast food stand, you know, there was street food, you know, where you'd be walking down the street and then they would have whatever fish stew or whatever and, you know, this is, that's what they had. You know, and you're kind of going, wow, what a different kind of way of

teaching and learning, right? And I think that part of it, and when I was doing more of that kind of work, I always invited the parents. And even if only a few of the parents could actually partake, then I think that that also helped break down some of the walls. And so they would come with us and I would also give them a responsibility.

It was like, okay, yeah, you're gonna come with us, but these are gonna be your responsibilities and you'll have a learning group with you and these kinds of things. And eventually what happens is that, okay, learning's here, learning's out there. And I think that also because a number of my students in my teaching there were, you know, indigenous, that was much more the way that they felt naturally the way that they would learn anyways.

Martin Stuible (01:28:53.193)
So yeah, well, why would we be? Yeah, it felt better. You know, there was a whole bunch of pluses, you know, that that had. But I think I would tell you my work in biology as an ecologist is that I'm not really going to get close to, you know, different organisms unless I go to their place and be part of their world. Right? And I would say

It's exactly the same thing working with communities. So you're absolutely right. Like how do we make that possible? And I would be saying that if, you know, the BC Parks Foundation is going to be doing this, how do these spaces become community spaces? Because I might have the means and I have, know, I've, you know, one of my passions is tropical fish. And so I have swam in the Amazon with the fish that I had kept as a child, right? And it was a conservation project.

And I'll tell you it was a very interesting, a little bit interesting story. my tropical fish club here in Vancouver at the time was giving money to this thing called Project Piaba. Well, Project Piaba works with, in Portuguese there's this term called piabos. These are the, it's the name for people who catch little ornamental fish. And I was going, what are we funding an organization that's going into the middle of the Amazon?

paying people to catch little fish so that I can put them into my fish tank. There's something wrong ethically with that, right? And I was gonna make us think about it in the club and then this thing came out and it said, how would you like to be part of a Project Piava expedition? Anybody can sign up. So I signed up and then I actually learned more of the story. So

The thing is, is that every year in the Amazon, we know that the Amazon floods, right? And so what happens is when the Amazon floods, many of the fish spawn because that's the best time to spawn. It's like salmon come into the rivers just after the water, usually in November, December around here. That's when they're doing most of their spawning because of course we usually get fall rains, you know, and that's when they come in because that freshen, right?

Martin Stuible (01:31:14.605)
Well, this is exactly what the fish are doing. But when the Amazon recedes, there are pockets of water that dry up where literally millions of little fish perish. And so what the piabos do is find these little pockets of fish and those are the fish that they take from. And they've been doing this for 30, 40, 50 years, okay? So that's the first thing they do.

And they usually are small families or a collection of families in rather remote parts. We were mostly on the Rio Negro, a tributary to the main Amazon. And they're now the watch people. They're watching for the illegal logging.

They're watching for the conservation issues, the illegal burning and reporting those things. Because if the forest doesn't exist, they know the connection. If the forest doesn't exist. We went to one place, for example, and they were raising lots of different species, more than one species of aquatic turtle. And yes, some of those turtles were eaten, but some of them were also released into the environment.

So it changed a lot. So actually working with the piabos, you know, in the Rio Negro and in other scenarios, it actually has some benefits to the long-term, you know, protection of that part of the Amazonian forest, right? So it's a very, so like once again, by having that direct experience and seeing how those things worked, I think that it's important to sort of get out.

I have the ability to do that. How does somebody who doesn't have those means to do that? How do you make that possible? So I think that that's one of the things about having these potential outdoor learning spaces at multiple locations, because schools, especially elementary schools, but schools are easy to get to. mean, let's face it, we...

Martin Stuible (01:33:25.005)
We could go to the Tete farm, for example, and they are growing food and they sell food and everything else. One of the high schools here has a community garden. They took the old school out and they put a community garden in that space. So I think those are places that we can actively get involved with. I'd also say that it's sort of similar. So if I'm going to engage as a parent in

you know, in sports. And we all know that there is a sports culture around hockey, around soccer, around many sports. I would say, well, what's the other side that I'm helping my child in? Right? Because that may develop, you know, the kinesthetic ability, the teamwork, all the great things that can come out of sport. But where are some of the other things that are happening? Where are there opportunities for

other parts of my child's personality to express themselves. Right? And I think there are those things. There's, like, for example, there is Nature Kids BC. There is a variety of different kinds of programs that happen here in North Vancouver around Fort of the Linn Canyon Ecology Centre. just looked at their thing. In the Lower Mainland, you know, Metro Parks has programs that are going on all the time that are part of the programs. So

There are those kinds of things that are happening. So my parents did exactly that. So yes, I was in, you know, Lynn Valley Soccer as a kid, but I was also in the Lynn Valley Cub Group and Scout Group. And guess who one of the leaders was? Who was one of the leaders? my mom was one of the leaders, you know? And, you know, my mom was one of the leaders in the Cub Group. And what did she do? well, her thing wasn't sort of camp skills.

Her thing was art. So I remember there was a bunch of guys in my basement in Lynn Valley and we all built paper mache animal masks. Cause my mom had that talent. I remember mine was a rhino. But anyways, you know, I mean, so that's what we did. So we were creating, you know, these things. So that was what my mom was offering. My mom was an artist. My mom, you know, had those sort of crafting kind of skills. My dad was the guy that...

Martin Stuible (01:35:50.301)
I think he sponsored every sports team in area. He was a coach for baseball. When we went on trips, we had a big station wagon at the time. We'd all pack into the station wagon and we'd go off and play soccer in Washington state or whatever. That was how my dad expressed himself more, but it wasn't like that other stuff was less. It was just the whole thing. A final question, and it's sort of a flip side of when I talked about the anxious generation. In many ways,

This generation has some amazing qualities coming up. They're more open, they're more compassionate, the leadership skills I'm seeing. So with your work with new teachers at the university, what gives you hope in the students that you're working with for the future of teaching and what you're seeing in this generation coming up? I think they're very inspired. You know, we said before that there's two sides of a crisis. When you're confronted by a crisis,

there are different responses. The worst response is to become despondent. And I see some people that are stepping up. And I think part of our work is to support them in stepping up. So this course, this field course that I've had the privilege of working on since 2019, in one of the assignments is a community service. So what are we going to do with that?

How are we going to help that? And we're doing it in Akatsum, how sound. So what is our reciprocity to Akatsum how sound? What is the concept? What are we giving back to that place? Because that place has made it possible. So I would be saying, it's a classic. mean, a classic, some of the ideas from the 1960s, 70s, 1970s.

you know, act locally, right? I would say for that. And definitely that's doable at the family level and the individual level. Now, where they take that later on, it's hard to say, you know, and I worry to a certain extent, you know, I mean, maybe it's just the way I think about the world, but 99.9999 % of the time, things are actually working. Yes. Yeah.

Martin Stuible (01:38:11.905)
We still have air that we can breathe. The sun still warms the planet. There still is water around. And so it's not like a bad day for the dinosaurs. That can happen. I'm not saying that that can't happen. But the bottom line here is that really there's a whole bunch of things that are working. And I think that one of the things I think we can do is

provide somewhat of a better sort of balance. I remember one of the things somebody was talking about, of the, you know, CBC reporters was in at a class or something like that. And one of the children asked, like, why do we only hear about, you know, sort of these bad things? And the reporter said something like, well, you know, if, you know, one of the children in this class

fell and broke their leg. You wouldn't want to hear about that?" And the kid said, no, no, no, no, they went. And, and, but, saying that, I, that answer, you know, and I sort of thought, yeah, but if I knew one of my friends went down the road and found $5, I'd want to hear about that too. So, I'm not talking about just telling

I think we have to be honest and I think we have to have, you know, that whole perspective that I think that we're much more conscious now, you know, truth and then reconciliation, you know, and actually it's become now reconciliation, you know. And there's a whole bunch of things that are happening now where people are thinking it's not about conservation in the environment, it's about regeneration. What can I do in this space to make it possible?

You know, I'm here sitting in your beautiful yard, for example. You're creating a space that allows multiple things to enjoy this space. I think of the work that my partner and I have done where we live in North Vancouver. When we first arrived there, there was a 1960-something house in the middle of two pieces of grass with a couple of big trees. You can't hardly see any of that anymore. You can see the big trees. But we've sort of said this is a space for other things as well.

Martin Stuible (01:40:30.527)
And so we have a bear that sort of wanders through our yard as it makes its way from one place to the next, you know, and it has knocked down the fence, but we just rebuild the fence, you know, and those kinds of things. fence was probably rotting anyways, but it sort of says there's an opportunity there. Or we also use our thinking in that particular scenario and say, okay, this isn't a good time to put out the suit because

The bears are really hungry right now, and so I'm not going to do that. So, but they don't go after the hummingbird feeders, right? You know, and so we have hummingbird feeders out right now because that sort of is a way of sort of saying, hey, look, this is a way. And I do a lot of my work now, a lot of my mentoring work now. And this is an open invitation to you too. Maybe we'll do this that way. Okay. I do walking conversations. So I live very close to a

many trailheads. And we walk into the forest and we have these similar kinds of conversations like the conversations with you two today. And most of the mentoring students that I'm working with that are either graduate students or you know going to be soon graduate students at the university level, I offer that to them. And we have these conversations. And I've come to think that

One way that I can pay this place back for everything that it has given me is by having positive conversations with positive vibes in that space. I have no way of knowing what cedar takes from that. I have no way of knowing what granite takes from that. But in some ways, in my sort of my human limited way,

I'm kind of thinking this is a way that I'm putting positive vibes out into a place that has given me so much and has made it possible for me to be in that place. I just talked about this the other day because we were having a wrap up at the university at UBC about our year working with student teachers and they asked, know, like, what do you think you did well with this year? like, did you rock this year?

Martin Stuible (01:42:49.855)
And I said, coming to where the students were. Because for the last few years, I've offered these walking conversations and a fair number of my students have taken me up on this opportunity, but some can't. So this year, for the first year, I had a couple that didn't and I sort of said, well, what's close to you? Where can we walk? I had half of them.

I walked in their neighborhood. And I also believe that one of the things that's also really heavily influenced me is living with dogs. And every time I walk in the forest with my dog, my dog and I are at the same place at the same time, but he's in a completely different world than I am. He challenges me every time that I go into the forest to see the world differently.

I can't see it in dog world. You know, I don't have 10,000 times, you know, the sense of smell like he does that compared to humans. I don't have the acute hearing that he does. I can't read smell. One of the things I've recently been fascinated about dogs is that, you know, we have a sense of time. Dogs actually can tell time in a physical way because they can tell when something has been there an hour ago, two hours ago.

three hours ago, so they temporally have a sense of time. And that just blows me away.

Well, thank you. What a lovely and hopeful note to end this conversation. And Victor, I really appreciate your wealth of knowledge and experience. And I think we first met when you were a principal at outdoor school, 1991. Were you there in 91? I started there in 84. Okay. So 91, you were there. I was 25 year old teacher coming up to outdoor school. And I remember the day, because we walked into the auditorium and you used your usual introductions to everyone. And then you would point on every teacher to tell them to introduce themselves. I remember you said, and here we have some

Martin Stuible (01:44:53.511)
city slicker from Wansdale. I don't think I was wearing outdoor clothes or whatever, that's a while I always remember you as being a stylish person. There you go. think I was over stylish. Well, I really enjoyed our conversation today and what I really, I love the imagery of dissolving the walls, That just having the walls not there and just going.

any which way. And, you know, in this thesis work that I'm working on, one of my sort of introductory pieces is, said before, it's like walking through this sea of knowledge and only some of the crystals stick to you. The other aspect I would say is that what I've tried to talk about is when I, in my first visit to the place was, it was one of those days

in the summertime, it was July or August or something like that, and there was a sandbar. And there's something about, you know, with, you know, in your clothes and just letting the place absorb into you. And I talk about on that day, at that moment, if I trace back my thing there, it's, that's where I lost myself. I completely, there is no.

you and it. You are it, it is you. And, you know, we do know, for example, you know, at a certain level, you know, if you're a gamma ray, for example, there is no human. It just goes through us, you know? So, so it, and I like to think about how can we dissolve

you know how can we dissolve these edges that we create i think it's important i think it's nice to know but that we think that this is a table here and not a collection of of densely packed molecules or something like that but i think i think it's important i think is a part part aspect and how can we make that possible for all places all people and i love the idea of the walking conversation i think

Martin Stuible (01:47:05.889)
That's so powerful too. When I was president of the NVTA, I often would walk with members that we had things to work out. It was so much different when we did that than if we sat in the office and tried to work it out. just got the mind going in such a different way. There's a whole pedagogy around walking. Because I think, you know, I said before that I don't have the sense of smell or hearing as acute as my dog does. But what we are really good at doing is we're really good walkers.

We are really good walkers. And, you know, so I think that that's an important thing in this sort of movement and thinking. The other thing I think that's really important as well is that movement, thinking and speaking out loud. Because, you know,

We're really good, you know, as one of the people that I follow. There's a really interesting nature journaler whose name is John Muir Laws. And he has a beautiful piece about, you know, you could pick up any object. He picks up a fur cone, for example. And he said there's so much information in this fur cone that you could theoretically pull apart that our brain is really good at throwing out most of it.

So the question is, how do we take that few moments to sort of absorb some of it? And one of the ways of doing that is talking about what you're looking at while you're looking at it. Because in the process of thinking about what you're saying, your brain slows down for a fraction of a second to be able to do that. And one of the other people that I follow is a guy who's now passed on, an eco-philosopher, and his name is Arne Ness.

and we had the opportunity to go to one of his retreat cabins. I have sort of a wish to go to these places that were inspiring to some of the people, the writing that I like, and Arne Ness's writing. And so we had the opportunity of going to his retreat cabin in Norway. And he had a, he said that, and he was a world traveler. And he said, he came to the conclusion in his life that

Martin Stuible (01:49:25.523)
He could find out more about the world one meter from his cabin than going around the world. It's really interesting. know, because, and you know, if you think about, you know, Asian perspectives, that contemplative way of being, you know, and thinking about where you are and who you are, I think, how do we provide those opportunities?

I think is probably one of the biggest future challenges that we face. Well, Roy and I could talk to you all day. We really could. Maybe we should, for season two, we'll have another conversation, maybe a walking conversation too. Yeah, We could record. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Martin Stuible (01:50:17.813)
This podcast is organic, taking shape with each episode. Building resiliency for teachers everywhere. That sounds great. And our website is stuntbrothers.ca That's stuntbrothers.ca We will chat again. After the bell.