Ep. 13 Designing Transformational Learning Beyond the Classroom with Haena Kim

In this episode of The Outdoor Education Podcast, Rob Carmichael speaks with Haena Kim, a global leader in experiential education and a driving force behind WildChina Education and Beyond Classrooms. Haenna shares how her early experiences in education sparked a lifelong passion for immersive learning and how she began designing programs as a teenager.

The conversation explores how experiential education operates in a globalized world, the importance of cross-cultural engagement, and how thoughtfully designed field programs can deepen learning outcomes for students. Haenna also discusses the realities of running experiential programs at scale, from safety systems and risk culture to building trust with schools and parents.

They also dive into service learning, and why honest engagement with communities, rather than romanticized narratives, is key to meaningful global citizenship programs.

Finally, Haenna reflects on the future of experiential learning in an AI-driven world and why embodied, real-world experiences may become more valuable than ever.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• How early outdoor experiences can shape lifelong learning journeys
• Designing experiential programs that support real academic outcomes
• Building global citizenship through cross-cultural engagement
• The difference between service learning and transactional volunteering
• Managing safety, risk, and scale in international experiential programs
• Why experiential education may be more important in an AI-driven future

If you care about outdoor education, global learning, and the power of experiences beyond the classroom, this episode offers practical insights and inspiring ideas.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Welcome to the Outdoor Education Podcast. Honest conversations about nature, learning, and leadership. We explore stories from the field that remind us why outdoor and experiential education matters now more than ever. Hanna has spent her career designing immersive learning journeys that take students far beyond textbooks and into real world contexts, including everything from rural villages and conservation landscapes to complex urban systems. Her work connects sustainability, cross-cultural engagement, and student agency in ways that continue to challenge conventional education models. In this conversation, we'll explore how experiential education functions in a globalized world and how to design meaningful field programs across cultures and what it takes to create transformative learning outside traditional classrooms. Henna, it's wonderful to have you on the podcast. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I'm doing great. Thanks, Rob, for having me. That was uh a lot of things that you mentioned that I do in my work, and I'm happy to hopefully um live up to that intro throughout our hour.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

I'm sure it's going to be a fantastic episode. Could you maybe just start, Hannah, by taking us back to the beginning? What was it that made you become interested in experiential learning? And obviously, this is the Outdoor Education podcast. Were there any of those first experiences that really sparked for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I have to give a shout out to my kindergarten teacher at Brent International Schools called Joanna Prieto. I actually spent more than a decade trying to track her down to just say thank you. Because I remember when I was in kindergarten, she had a club. I think it was called um Planet Warriors or Eco Warriors or something like that. And I remember we we signed up for the club, this after school club, and and we all on the first day held hands together and pledged to protect our planet and save our planet. Um and she was the coolest lady, tiny little Spanish lady, just the level of energy was incredible. And in kindergarten, I remember learning about um the food web and um thinking about how the ecosystem is all connected to each other. And that's when I went on my first outdoor program, and she took us to mangrove forests, teaching us about how the mangrove uh forest is its own ecosystem, and it was just absolutely magical. And I think that is what sparked everything is having uh person in your life as a young person that you really looked up to who had this passion and joy about something. Because honestly, at that age, it could have been like handicrafts or it could have been whatever, you know, and and you would have been sucked into it if you were shown that level of passion and joy about something, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yeah. And one of the things that we hear so often on the podcast is those initial moments as you know, a young child having such a profound impact on the people that we become as we grow older. We've heard that time and time again, and it always makes me think on just the responsibility that our uh early years teachers or lower primary teachers have on students as well and how they show up and the experiences that they facilitate. And it it it continues to blow me away hearing how many of us have found our ways into our careers because of those first early moments in an educational setting, or even not in an educational setting, the exposure that our parents have provided us to the outdoors as well. Now, Hannah, you actually started designing programs when you were a teenager. Could you explain and tell us a little bit more about how you ended up actually running programs as a teenager?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah, um, absolutely. And you'll really have to excuse what I will call the arrogance of youth at the time, where now I'm doing this full-time. I I really realize how much responsibility um and risk there is running programs. To think that I did that for the first time when I was a teenager is just flabbergasting, to be frank. But yeah, it was actually my mom's idea. She's a herself is a school founder and principal, and she had um a connection to some other schools in Korea, and they were looking for an English uh-language summer camp. Uh, and they needed native speakers. And well, I guess they didn't want to fly anyone from the US, but I sound pretty American. So she asked if I wanted to do it, and I was like, okay, that sounds cool. Um, let's do it. So yeah, leading up to the summer program, uh, I worked, it was me, uh, my best friend, Natalie Ring, and and my mom who worked on the program, and it was wonderful. Like, because I was young, like I made up uh, I must have written like four or five songs specifically for that camp so that we could use them in the classroom.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Yeah. And and the concept was that because I was coming into this without any prior experience of camp design, or I'm not a professional, right? So I'm really thinking from um scratch. So I was thinking, how about you know, these kids aren't going abroad, but what if we created the concept of a world, right? So I came up with the idea of having a little passport. So on day one to enter the camp, to enter the school, it was uh on campus, they get a little uh stamp to come in, and then we used recycled materials to make these uh trains, right? Like with cardboard boxes so they could pick up. Um, and then every single classroom uh we designated into a theme. So this classroom was food, this classroom was uh travel, this classroom was dance, and it's approaching English language learning from different uh concepts, right? And so each room Super cool. Yeah, in the the the bell rings at you know, after 50 minutes, they they get out, they get their exit stamp, they get into the train, and then they go to the next like destination.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

That's so cool, and it's really interesting to see those ideas thinking about it now, looking back at just the the early like seedlings of global citizenship and sustainability and using recycled products and all those kind of things just coming through from you know a young person's design. Sometimes having a a blank canvas to start from, not having the experience can be a really wonderful thing. You don't know where the ceiling is. So that you're it it's easy to go past it really well. And at what point then, Heina, did you realize this could become your life's work in working within these kind of programs?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

So I'm Korean, so I'm a Korean national, so I think a lot of the listeners who are in education will understand what Korean moms are like. And especially even in Korea, the most scary moms are the school teachers and school principal moms. So I had one of those. And so um I hadn't really, I was a typical Asian kid in the sense that I vacillated between wanting to become a prosecutor, um, a uh public defendant, uh business person, and um I don't know, I think I wanted to be a vet at one point. That was very different. Um, but you know, typical like that. But it kind of I will say that the joy and love of seeing experiences change people never left me. After university, I went to work in tech at a Fortune 100 company. Uh and then after that, I went to work in travel. Um yeah, I think because for me, I realized that I cannot do something that I don't feel like is moving the world towards a better place. When I had the chance to jump into experiential education again, I definitely did it with the thought that I'm this is my final destination, you know?

SPEAKER_02 10:03

It's very cool. And right now you are involved in several different organizations, but one of them is uh Beyond Classrooms, that you were instrumental in getting off the ground. Could you tell us a little bit about Beyond Classrooms and what was the gap that you were trying to fill in the market with uh establishing that?

SPEAKER_00 10:27

So the thing that I always say to schools is that you make a certain promise to your stakeholders when you open a school and you collect tuition for students' education? You're you have your brand, you know, you have your standards. And I feel like, however, schools tend to let that standard slip a little bit when it comes to um going beyond the classroom. I don't think that's what administration wants either. Because how come, like in the classroom, you have Ivy League graduates with PhDs, and then when it's time for your expedition, you're gonna use a you know third-rate operator with no world-leading experience? To me, that's just a little bit of a mismatch. Why are you allocating less resources and expecting less from your programs outside of the classroom when it's a school week that parents have paid tuition for?

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yeah, I totally get that. So could you give us some context on who it is that Beyond Classrooms works with as well for any of our listeners who are unaware of what your organization is?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Ah, yeah, absolutely. So beyond classrooms, I would say that the fundamental thing that I would say sets us apart is that I truly view our organization as a consultancy to total solution um organization. So that means that we like to build partnerships with schools and we help them to brainstorm um and co-create curriculum, which we then help to deliver on the ground from an executional perspective. And so who do we co-create programs with? Um I'm very proud to say that I work with Stanford University professors working on their courses, their actual semester courses. Um and we also work with some big names in education, like um Nord Anglia Schools, Dulliches, Wellington's Harrows, um, etc. And we work with uh over a hundred institutions around the world.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Wow, it's it's such a huge, huge market that you're working with. And obviously, with beyond classrooms, your focus is not just within outdoor education, but also experiential learning. Um, could you kind of define what that is within your context?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Sure, absolutely. Um firstly, let's agree that experiential education is such a mouthful.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Right?

SPEAKER_02 13:13

It certainly is.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

It's and even if you switch it to experiential learning, it doesn't get much shorter.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

No, it really doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

But um, I would say about 45% of what we do is outdoor. And uh we have built up intentionally capabilities around outdoor with great partners like Teratribes. Um, they do, you know, health and safety for all of um Discovery's Asia documentaries. Um, so they're really world top-level health and safety guys. Um, so we do that part of the outdoor ed. But when I say experiential, it really refers to purposefully designed activities that support learning outcomes inside of the classroom through outdoor, outside of the classroom activities. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

And and I know that one of the things that Beyond Classrooms works with as well is that community engagement and service piece. Uh, what are some of the standout programs that you have within that?

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Our flagship service learning or learning service or community engagement um program would be the diploma in global citizenship. So this is through our partnership with the Center for Global Citizenship Studies. Um, and what we've done is we've integrated academic scaffolding into um place-based learning um where we do uh service. So one of the ones that I went on a few years ago was uh rural revitalization in Vietnam. So we had students from China who went to Vietnam and then we were working on building a road uh in a rural village. And but I think you know, this part is not the hard part to organize. For us, every single one of our programs have come with workbooks. And so because these were older kids, they were grade 11, grade 12 students, um, we would do the physical work during the day, and then we would do some really um high-reaching academic theory work in the evenings, such as why are roads important in alleviating poverty. Like there's so many studies, like there's UNESCO studies, there's UNHCR studies about this fact, right? And I think that giving that context is not just powerful but respectful.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Uh I think it takes the the experience beyond we're going there to perform charity, or we're helicoptering in, we're doing this one thing, and then we're leaving again, which many of the times, whilst we think it's going to provide a net positive result, is quite self-serving. And it it has a way of making us feel good rather than truly learning within that context as well, to serve both the community, but also to serve us as we come back from it. And extending the the academic process alongside that experiential component is I I think it's really important. So it sounds like incredible work that you guys are doing there. Now, much of your work operates in China and in other culturally complex regions. How is it that your company helps to prepare students to engage thoughtfully in those places and processes?

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Well, firstly, we ourselves are a very diverse group of people and we are also quite decentralized, um, meaning that we're based all around the world. Um, so we have a very diverse team. And I think that the key to being able to deliver lessons in cross-cultural understanding is to first seek to reflect cross-culturalism in your organization. So that's where it starts for us. Um, in our senior leadership team, besides myself, um, I'm Korean. We have someone from China, someone from the US, someone from Holland, and someone from the UK. So that's our top management. It's very diverse. And and you know, diversity not just in terms of nationality, but socioeconomic level, upbringing style, um, what they studied in university. And what I find is that because the people interacting with students are in love with diversity and learning about new cultures, the students feed off of that energy. So I wouldn't say so much it's like this flagship product really teaches global citizenship. Um, it's more that we create an environment where our instructors feel like global citizens first.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

With that idea of currently where we are in in place and time with uh geopolitical tensions as well. Uh, and this is something, you know, maybe going in an offshoot than our typical content that we cover on here. But how do you see experiential learning helping to maybe uh address some of those uh systems and systemic problems that we see uh arising all over the world?

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Uh I'm gonna give the very like the unsexy answer first. But a very significant part of why what we're doing is important is because at least for for beyond classrooms, we serve the most elite institutions in the world. Um now, you know in education there's always some back and forth about working with privileged kids and versus underprivileged kids. And um, but I think one one one effect that our programs will have is that these kids who are in the 1% and will continue to most likely be in the 1% will have a different perspective. So I think that is one big change that we would be able to see. Now, this is delayed. I can't measure this within, you know, one year or two years, or maybe sometimes even five years of them going on our program. Um, but it we do need to stay focused on the fact that we're not necessarily going to see um that change uh come quickly.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

It's it's something that, you know, and and again, uh to reference another podcast we recorded with uh Darcy Lunn, we talked about that. It's about sowing a seed.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

And many outdoor educators do that. Whenever they help a child climb to the top of a rock wall, they're not going to immediately see the improvement of that kid's perseverance or resilience or confidence. But we know that we've sown the seed in that place as well. And it seems to be that that idea of uh exposing these young people to these different cultural contexts can potentially help suicide for how they view the world later on in their life as well.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah, and if and then and if I may just continue to give the kind of more straightforward answer of how we do this on our programs, because we are running programs in 14 plus countries. Um practical tip is like don't try and beautify anything. Generally, uh with the thousands of students that I've been with traveling in different cultures, they really want a straight up idea, like the straight up of of wherever they are. So So you really need to have a leader who is able to thread the needle between what is acceptable to say but also what is important to discuss, even if a little awkward. Yeah. Yeah. Because teenagers, they like to be controversial, you know, they like something that goes anti-narrative. They don't want to go to a country like and be fed propaganda. That makes things so deeply uninteresting. And it defeats the purpose of true cultural connection, which stems from actual understanding. Right?

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

And so that's the rule of thumb. If you really want to try and get students um truly interested in a culture, then you gotta give them the good, the bad, and the ugly. But you gotta do it well.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Yeah, I I think it's important that students are not getting the rose-tinted glasses, particularly as you get the the older kids coming in, the older students or even university students, to be able to show them uh the actual realities of the of the place that they're they're in. And I I think that's in my perspective, what makes it more within the experiential realm than traveling.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Okay. We're not just going to to visit the country or see the place, but we're actually going to engage with the place and the processes that these people actually have to engage with on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah. And you know, one really um good example of this not being done well is sometimes when uh usually on day one or day two, I'll be with a group of students in a very beautiful rural location, and they'll be like, oh, it's it's just wouldn't be this is the better way to live life. Like it's much better to live in the countryside. Like there's less stress, and um, yeah, they don't have that much money, but actually their lives are better than ours. Why are we here like helping them, you know? So this kind of comment, you can hear it from teenagers often, but that is that is an opportunity for you as a teacher and a leader to push, like, okay, you think their lives are better? That's definitely possible. But what about when this happens? You know, what about when someone gets deathly ill? How far are they from the hospital? You know, because yeah, because you also don't want teenagers to feel that to have this false sense of um you know romanticism.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Special thanks to our sponsors at Offsees who support outdoor learning and professional collaboration across Asia and beyond. Don't forget to sign up for the Offseas 2026 conference hosted at Garden International School in Kuala Lumpur, where educators, adventurers, and change makers come together to share ideas, connect, and shape the future of outdoor and experiential education in the region. What has leading at that scale taught you on safety and systems?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Um, I'll share as much as I can because the more knowledge that gets to people about how to make our students safer, the better. Um, the first thing that we do is that we invest a lot of um money and time into uh getting the right resources for it. The first resource is um humans, obviously, human resources. So looking for someone who can build a system that works at scale. Um, so you really need to invest in that. Like so, whoever your board members are or whoever your manager is, um it's also unfair of them to ask uh you if it is not within your structural remit to manage all health and safety, right? So that's the first thing you need to do. You need to actually put money where your mouth is. If you say it's important, spend on it.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Yeah, totally. Um, the second thing is uh leveraging tech. So uh every single one of our vendors is audited and this they do a self, we have a self-auditing um platform. So once you pass the initial interview, uh and then we will send you um an onboarding link. And then this is where you need to upload all of your um incident reports, all of your licenses, all of the qualifications, um, everything. And so we do these audits and we have specialized audits for kayak providers, um rope providers, you know, buses, accommodations. So you really because it's at scale, right? I'm like running things in 14 plus countries across 300 plus programs a year. You need to make sure that the system is robust and then it's being done on a systems level, not on a human to human level, because you can't trust you can't trust that to um subjectivity.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

Yeah. It has to be done. Yeah. Clearly, yeah. It all has to be kept objective.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

So you do need to centralize quite a bit of knowledge um for that to happen. And then you need to make sure that the people reviewing the audits also know what to look for. And so our staff actually like call them or even in person go through the audit with them so that we make sure to check all of those boxes. Um, and then the last thing is repetition. Anybody in leadership or any parent or any teacher knows that uh you basically need to say something like three, two, three hundred times for someone to actually do it, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:54

I think that maybe speaks a lot. You know, one of the things that I try to implement in the organizations that I work with is uh developing culture. And whether that's about risk, culture, reporting culture, you know, uh culture of uh trust there as well. I think they're the really key important things, especially when it comes to safety. And we see this coming up time and time again when we have these conversations around risk, is making sure that the organizational culture is clear, it is robust, and it is built on goodwill, faith and trust. You know, I think they're they're really key, key components in that. And that it leads me into you know uh my next question, which is when we facilitate outdoor education programs, which is about 50% of what you do with Beyond Classrooms, and the other 50% comes in more in that community engagement side. But with the outdoor education programs specifically, one of the things that parents, students, schools are looking for is an adventurous component. How do we, or how do you and your organization try to maintain that adventurous component while still making sure that the the risk procedures are in place? How do you find and balance that that line?

SPEAKER_00 30:18

It's uh I'm really glad that you brought up this subject because um I think our mutual friend Chris Cartwright, um, when I used to work with him on programs at the parents presentation, he would say, like, he would like he would kick off the presentation by saying, your students will be safer if they stay at home.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

I say very similar things as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Yeah. So um, but I mean, to jump off of that, uh I think it's really again culture building, like what you just said, right? Sometimes it takes a few years, like especially now with schools being less and more and more risk averse, they're less likely to do adventurous activities, right? But if you're the provider that they trust. So for example, we can grant uh uh, you know, we're our programs come with academic credit, you know, you US university transcripts, et cetera. Um if the parents know you and they they know you as a provider of these programs, and it's been a few years. Generally, even if we suggest, like, honestly, after a few years, even if we suggest going to like Antarctica, the parents will be okay with it because they trust you.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

So I think and some school programs do. Yeah. You know, at the uh uh shameless plug for the offseason conference this year, but the keynote speaker is uh Robert Swann, who leads expeditions with young people in Antarctica as well. So I I do think, you know, again, developing that culture, having really clear communication ways is a fantastic way to bring those adventurous components to life with a really clear understanding of where we all sit from an organizational acceptance of risk to the school's acceptance to risk, to the parents' acceptance to risk. And when you get those all in alignment, then I think that's that's where thing like really great transformational programs can take place.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Yeah, but also like I do want to leave a caveat here that the culture piece, yes. But then when things do go wrong, um, and things do go wrong.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

And they will.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

And they will. Uh you have to, there's two different sides. Um, usually, no matter how good the culture is or how willing the parent was for this to happen, eight out of ten times they're still going to be very, very unhappy. And then that's when all of the paperwork that if you are in experiential education, you really should have your ducks in a row when it comes to liability and insurance.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

And that's when the robustness of your processes really gets found out.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

And also you need to have a lot of money in the bank. If you want to scale in experiential, you need to have a rainy day fund.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

And you don't touch that rainy day fund. Um and yeah, like that's some practical advice there. Like if you're if you're trying to run experiential at scale, there's a few things that are unsexy but necessary.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Yeah, uh 100%. I think many organizations, when they set up going into this space, the the idea of uh worst-case scenario planning is something that that doesn't happen very often. And I think all organizations need to be aware that that's something that they need to consider. What happens if the worst does happen, you know, and what are the processes to make sure that it doesn't happen? And again, comes back to a lot of this, uh, what we spoke about before. Having your culture in alignment, making sure your processes are are robust enough to stand up to an incident, be that of legal nature or you know, blame uh as well. And have you done everything to make sure that this wasn't your fault? Have you learned from the incidents that have happened in the past or the near misses that you have? Something that I'm a huge advocate for is uh near miss reporting. They're the cheapest lessons that anyone can learn. And making, but you'll only get near-miss reporting when you've got a safe culture embedded within your organization, and that's the psychological safety of your staff, knowing that they're not going to get called out for reporting something that maybe they did incorrectly or happened on their program that didn't result in an incident. So I think it's really, really important to have those things in. And that idea of having a rainy day fund is certainly something that I don't think we've had any other guest mention before. But if you're a third-party operator, something or or even a school, something that you need to be aware of and and have in place. And where do you think experiential learning will be, you know, in the future?

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Yeah, I think it's very positive. More and more schools will be integrating more experiential into the classroom amongst the schools that we work with.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

With that idea of the future of experiential education, where do you see its importance, particularly when we think about the advancements in AI and how much AI is going to have an impact on the in-classroom learning?

SPEAKER_00 36:18

So uh actually one of the things that students don't or young people these days, I feel like don't have is psychological safety when it comes to thinking about future careers in the context of an AI world. Uh and so a few months ago, I came up with a formula for how to calculate um career resilience in the AI world. And one of the uh numerators uh is embodiment. So the concept of having to be physically present, being physically present for whatever job you want to have in the future, like being in a job that requires you to be physically present makes your job more AI proof, right? So there's a few other numerators. Um I'll, you know, um I'm I'm gonna do a workshop on the formula uh this coming weekend, actually, um, at LYIS. But yes, so experiential is embodied experiences, right? So I do think that AI is only going to really split things in so much that what it can do, it will continue to do, but at greater scale. And then what it can't do, we will have to have leaders, human leaders, step up. But, you know, everyone, everyone globally complains about the lack of talent on the global stage now, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:01

I I, you know, one of the things that's came up here is how careers within experiential education are probably gonna be one of those future-proof roles because the idea of needing a facilitator, needing a mentor, needing a guide are always going to take, well, certainly for the next few decades. We hope, we hope anyway.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Uh Hannah, as we start to come towards the end of our conversation today, I've got a couple of rapid fire questions for you as well. So just a few ones, so you can be one word or a couple sentences of answer. So is there a place that you've been to that has changed your perspective?

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Nairobi.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Why?

SPEAKER_00 38:44

It's pretty happening. It's new and it's it's cool. Yeah, it's changed my perspective.

SPEAKER_02 38:50

Wonderful. Uh, is there a book or a thinker that has helped shape your own kind of personal philosophy?

SPEAKER_00 38:58

I would say I share a birthday with Gandhi. So I've always just been very interested in Gandhi from a young age. Um, also growing up in South Asia and Nepal. So I did read a lot about Gandhi growing up.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

What is one essential skill every young person should develop through experiential learning?

SPEAKER_00 39:23

How to enjoy yourself when you don't know much about where you are or speak the language.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

That's a great one. Is there a moment on the program that you'll never forget?

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Once a kid pointed at a chicken and asked me what it was.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

It's an interesting moment for sure. And is there any journey that's still calling to you?

SPEAKER_00 39:50

You mean in the future?

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Um, yes. So currently we are setting up shop in India. Uh and that really calls to me, especially having certain roots in South Asia. Uh, I feel like it's it's I'm really excited to just go back to South Asia.

SPEAKER_02 40:16

Amazing. Okay, so just my final closing question for you is if every student in the world could experience one kind of uh learning journey beyond the classroom, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 40:31

I would definitely want to them to do um what is now called community engagement. Um, but I still love to call service learning.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

And uh why is that so key and important for you?

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Because when you if you can have the privilege of feeling joy from giving back to others, it's almost a short shot that you can be happy throughout your whole life.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Wonderful. Hannah, thank you so much for sharing your journey, your insights. And it's really clear that the the work that you do remind us that education doesn't have to be within the classroom. Uh, it expands and we step into different communities and experience different cultures and the complexity that those bring as well. You'll find links to Wild China Education and Beyond the Classroom in the show notes. And if you've enjoyed today's episode, please like, subscribe, and share this podcast with even more people who care about outdoor and experiential education. Special thanks to Gus Merkel for today's show production. You'll find all the details and links in the show notes. And if you've enjoyed today's conversation, please like, subscribe, and share the outdoor education podcast to help us reach even more people who care about outdoor and experiential learning.