Episode 9: Using Joy and Wonder to Create Culturally-Centered, Nature-Based Education with Dr. Ashley Brailsford

Weirdschooling: Season One, Episode 9

Episode 9: Using Joy and Wonder to Create Culturally-Centered, Nature-Based Education with Dr. Ashley Brailsford

Originally Released October 25th, 2023

Intro: <Original bright piano sea shanty music rising in the background with school bell sound.>

Sarah: Welcome to Weirdschooling. I’m Sarah.

Jennie: And I’m Jennie. We’re parents, friends, lifelong learners and self-proclaimed weirdos.

Sarah: We’ve found that some of the best educational methods have emerged when we let go of conformity and explore the unconventional and unique.

Jennie: Because no one’s brain operates the same way and that’s exciting. And what works today may not work tomorrow, and we can adapt.

Sarah: We’re all in this weird and wonderful world together.

Jennie: So let’s learn outside the box!

<Original cheerful, organ and piano sea shanty music fading out in the background.>

Sarah: Jennie and I are so excited about our guests today. Um, we are talking with Ashley Brailsford from, Unearthing Joy, which is an incredible organization based out of the Nashville area. Instead of one of us sort of, um, describing Ashley, because we have Ashley here and it's all about primary sourcing, let's go ahead and hear from you, Ashley. Would you like to sort of introduce yourself and tell us about all the wonderful work that you do?

Ashley: I fell into nature education, um, kind of by accident. My background, um, was as a early childhood educator. I, um, taught Montessori school, Stanford Montessori in Nashville, um, first through third grade. And that was my my training, right? My undergrad degree was in Montessori education. I did that. I moved to Nashville after college, which was in Cincinnati. Um, Xavier went there and came here to go to grad school at Vanderbilt, but I wanted to teach at the same time. It was important to me that I had, like, real life experience in the classroom and not just, graduate degrees.

So I was doing that and, loved, you know, loved higher education and ended up working with, you know, getting the opportunity to teach some classes at Belmont and, um, really loved that. And so I was like, Oh, what do I have to do to, you know, teach in higher ed full time? And they said, Oh, uh, you gotta go back to grad school.

And so I did. And I went to Indiana University, focused on curriculum and instruction in early childhood and education leadership, and I, um, also started to become, you know, really interested in family engagement, And so that took me on the path of higher education, right? So I moved after finishing that degree out to Omaha, Nebraska. Um, early childhood, people were like, why'd you move to Omaha? Like, so early childhood, early childhood was actually booming at the time. They had this, um, Buffett Institute, Early Childhood Institute, and they were just getting started.

It was an exciting project and work they're doing. And so, um, so it was out there, you know, teaching and doing research in those areas of family engagement with diverse families and, um. Then was like after a negative 20 degree Winter was like, and after having my son, we moved to the opposite climate and to be closer for me, home is Greensboro, North Carolina. Well, we didn't move there. We moved to Charleston, South Carolina, and so I was doing the same thing, teaching and research at the College of Charleston, but we live by the beach or near the beach, and I love that.

Um, and so I just found myself outdoors all the time, right? And I found this group called Outdoor Afro and started spending, you know, time outside with them and, um, and it's a national organization to reconnect black folks to nature. like once a month, they would do these different outings and it was a way for me to find community.

But what was fascinating about those outings was the real intention around connecting stories of African Americans or indigenous people to the activities we were doing. Right. So whether we were doing Like, we had this indigo dye, um, dyeing experience, and we talked about, you know, how indigo was, a major crop, during enslavement, but the knowledge of Africans with indigo, you know, that's why they were enslaved, and to really harvest that crop and grow it and cultivate it, and so it wasn't just, you know, like, this experience of, oh, we're gonna, you know, do plant dyeing just for the sake of plant, you know, dyeing, um, or clothes dyeing, um, and It was like the rich history behind it.

And that's how every experience was. Even if we were kayaking, we were talking about, you know, how that has been a part of our culture, our history forever, right? There was a spark there. Life happened and life goes on. I moved back to Nashville worked for a national non-profit doing family literacy work, program development work, traveled a lot, and then the pandemic hits, right?

And my son at this time is five, and like that kindergarten year he was in public school, and um, just seeing how they spent so little time outside. Right. Like they were lucky to get 10 minutes outside or 15 minutes outside. And I knew this, like I've worked in enough schools or been around enough schools all across the country to know, like none of our kids are getting time outside, but his, his little questions of wonder started to dwindle and I had invested all his early childhood experiences were in these, Reggio inspired programs and Montessori programs and, you know, nature based programs. And then he went from that into this setting and it was like, you could see like, that wonder just leaving him, right?

He wasn't asking or playing in the same way. So that's another spark, right? So all these little things are happening along this whole journey. and so I kind of just decided whatever I do next needs to bring me joy and, I need to, to kind of do this thing on my own, right?

Whatever it is, right? So I decided to homeschool in the Fall. I knew the schools wouldn't be ready. I know that we need to be in the community safely. The pandemic is still going on. So where can we be? Oh, outside. Right. So I started looking into nature education, all the programs, none of them, of course, look like my son and the other kids.Uh, it was very rare.

And so I was like, well, I'll just kind of create this once a week thing, put it out there, see who comes right. And so our first experience was at. this poultry farm. I'll read a book about, you know, John Lewis preaching to the chickens and who John Lewis was and his significance to Nashville and civil rights. So yeah, it just kind of took off from there. So it's, you know, long story, but all those pieces of, you know, working with families, and that background and research and all of that was important to, Being in South Carolina and having that experience with Outdoor Afro, now having free time to explore again, all of that came together to, really inspire, I think, creating Unearthing Joy.

Sarah: That's incredible. As Jennie and I have been doing this, when we have been lucky enough to talk to people who have all these different goals and journeys and experiences. None of the stories are directly linear. None of them are short, and that's why they're interesting um, and it sounds like, not only was this sort of like an organic experience for you, but one that was also born of really the weird experience of a global pandemic, which nobody could have ever predicted that we would have had.

Jennie: Yeah. I think you're right, Sarah, and I think that the stories might not be linear, but I feel like a lot of our stories are kind of spiraling, like they're, they're definitely looped back on each other, because it sounds like you went on this kind of journey of gaining all sorts of knowledge and experience that brought you back during the pandemic to what's serving your child and your community in that moment.

Sarah: So I'm almost wondering, like, as a kiddo, what was it about your own educational experience that made you interested in teaching or interested in, um, nature or, or were there things, um, in your, in your childhood that did that for you?

Ashley: I think growing up, you know, my parents grew up on farms, right? Um, and they grew up during Jim Crow in the south. My dad's, um, from South Carolina. My mom's from North Carolina and their parents were farmers.

We spent uh, quite a bit of time in the Summers, um, with our grandparents, you know having nothing to do on the farm my sister's two years older than I so it was the two of us and so my my grandparents of course were like, oh, there's there's plenty to do right like go outside and play figure it out. But also, I would say maybe more in uh, intentional around nature was Girl Scouts. My mom was very intentional about who we were around. And so she had friends who, um, wanted us to have experiences that really, really developed our self identity as black girls.

And so, um, they started a black Girl Scout troop. And I always say, one of the things, at the time I didn't realize it, but I know now, that was really significant about that was, we had our meetings at Bennett College. Bennett College is only one of two historically black colleges for women. And it's still there. It's still open. And the second thing that was significant about that was the president at the time was the first, uh, black president of Girl Scouts nationally. Right? So she left that post to come to be the president at Bennett College. So she would come out there in her uniform, you know, whenever we would have ceremonies or whatever. That's huge, right? And so you're getting all these little experiences, in addition to that, we would also, you know, that's where I first experienced going camping and, and, being out community and nature and singing songs and cooking over fires and all of those things.

So I was a Girl Scout from first grade through 10th grade, all of, it was a long time, um, but all those, all that mothering that came from Black women, in those spaces, um, certainly shaped my experiences in nature. And I'd say probably the third significant thing, was when I was, uh, 16, I had an opportunity to go to New Zealand, You traveled from the southernmost point to the northernmost point and you did all this adventure stuff, right?

So for me nature isn't just like these kind of just kumbaya experiences or like mindful experiences. It's a lot of adventure too. And so, like, we were whitewater rafting. We were, um, scaling glaciers. We were, uh, sand duning, which is like surfing down sand dunes and, all of that, um, during that trip. all of those things, I think Girl Scouts, the farm, you know, the adventure have shaped, you know, my, you know, journey and experiences with nature.

Jennie: Are there any activities that you do, with Unearthing Joy that you feel like, kind of, have an extra element or that you see students getting an extra little something out of in addition to just the joy of being outside?

Ashley: Yeah, I mean, the whole intention behind creating Unearthing Joy really was to center our stories, you know, and by that meaning Indigenous and Black stories and roles in nature, right? And so I think that's what makes the work different and unique from other nature, uh, programs is that there's a lot of intention about who's, uh, leading our programs, uh, what stories are being told.

Who, even if they're not necessarily talking about culture, that I am intentionally saying, I need someone who is indigenous black or another person of the global majority to lead this experience because our children, all of our children need to see that all of us are connected to nature in different ways, uh, and that we can serve in different roles in different ways.

So I'd say that's probably that extra element.

Sarah: One thing that we've been doing in our own homeschooling a lot is working extremely hard to focus on history that is truly inclusive, um, and it's so hard.

Like, you have to work, you have to dig, you can't just like go and buy a book, um, on Amazon or the bookstore or wherever. You have to actually look, like, okay, who is this author? Why are they writing about this? Um, what stories are they including? What are, what are the choices of words that they're using?

What is their intention? What do the pictures look like? Um, all of these things and um, one thing that my daughter has pointed out recently because we've been using a actually fantastic homeschool, secular and very inclusive curriculum, is that she has been surprised that a lot of the stories we've been hearing about are some that I've never heard of, not that I'm like, you know, brilliant and know all the things, but there are a lot of stories that are purposefully not included in history.

And so she was studying about it. She decided, I'm gonna just learn about a scientist that nobody ever talks about. And so, I'm so bad with names, I have to look down at my notes. So she is writing a paper on Solomon Brown, and he was, like, the first African American person to ever be an employee at the Smithsonian Institute, and he was self taught.

He was super into bugs, which is why my daughter likes him. I think he works there for, I think she said, 50 or 60 years, um, you know, in the late 1800s, which is like, not a time when lots of people were getting these opportunities, and he would do lectures, and a lot of his illustrations are there, and are in books that we use, but never credited and I think it's sort of that kind of contextual history that is really important in nature education that it sounds like You are really focused on and unearthing joy is really trying to provide to the community.

Ashley: Yeah, I appreciate that acknowledgement. It's funny because I'm you know, for this call, and even after this call, I'm preparing this presentation on using multicultural literature and the value of that to enrich, you know, education, particularly nature education, to be windows and mirrors for children into these stories.

But the importance of, like you said, who's telling those stories, right? and are they coming from lived experiences? And so all of that is really, really important. I'll say the other. thing that's really important that, you know, aside from using books, but it does take a lot of time to look at localized history.

Right? So often I get questions around, Hey, can you make a curriculum, you know, for us? And can you, uh, sell these, you know, Things that you've created and turned it in that can be used everywhere and I get I've been pushing back on that a lot Because I'm like we really need to understand and children need to understand the histories of the lands that we are on that we inhabit the spaces that we inhabit because there were these individuals like Solomon and people in our community who have contributed to Um, Greatly, right.

We don't have to go look for the same people all the time, but that we have always existed in these spaces. and we've always contributed and we've had this knowledge from the beginning of time. And so it's reclaiming those stories. That's really important to our identity as individuals and what we can be, who we can become.

This isn't new, right? Nature education isn't new to us. We've just been very intentionally pushed away from the spaces because it wasn't always safe. It hasn't. Even now, been safe to enter, into, uh, land if you don't own that land or if you aren't familiar with that land, right? So, I think all of what you're saying is, is very important to acknowledge and, uh, for people to, to really think about what those stories are, uh, where they currently live.

Jennie: So you've mentioned several different components of Unearthing Joy and what you provide, and I was wondering if for listeners who don't know about it, if you could kind of describe a little bit of what are the classes and programming that you offer, as well as you describe maybe creating curriculum.

What other things do you provide, through your website and through the different ways people can connect with you?

Ashley: Yeah, so when I started Unearthing Joy, I wanted it to be Kind of multi-layered and the reason for that was number one I think as Educators it's important even when you're doing workshops with adults that you still are teaching from a place of experience And so I didn't want it to come off as, you know, and having come from higher education background, everything's can be very theoretical.

Right? And you're like, what do they know? Right? They don't know how that really works with a child. Like, let's try that. See how that works out. Right? So starting from that space of creating programming, that I do with children and families was really important. And so that's the first offering, right?

These, these immersive experiences, that we have, uh, in the Spring and the Fall, that's look like, you know, during the past, it was, you know, eight week series that was focused on different topics. So sometimes it was gardening for food justice. Uh, we did exploring the animal kingdom this past spring. I call them skills for liberation, which are basically, you know, kind of rewriting and rethinking what we talk about as wilderness skills to say, you know, these, these were skills out.

Yeah, these are skills that we've always had and kind of a way of saying these are skills that, you know, continue to liberate how we live our lives. And, um, so those were things like foraging and, herbs as medicine and, navigating with the stars. including stories of like Harriet Tubman and all these great, explorers.

So that's, again, the first tier of these immersive experiences. I'm just starting to do some of those immersive experiences for adults too. And so, uh, we did an unconference for, Black women at, I have a family farm in South Carolina, and, um, I really wanted to create a safe space, for other earth educators to come and just talk and be, right?

Sometimes we go to these conferences and I go to a lot of conferences, but they're like in hotels and they're like talking about nature and I'm sitting there like, we're in a hotel talking about nature, not experiencing nature, right? And so, uh, I was like, I don't want to do a PowerPoint. I'm not like, let's just talk.

Let's just have dialogue and see where this goes. And so, I'm going to do it again in May, And we're actually going to embark on, um, and this is for some people like hunting and believe me, I was in that same space too, but I learned to hunt experience, um, this fall, and we're going to start with adults first, just to kind of see how this works, but what was important to me was reclaiming the, conversation around it.

Hunting and fishing including like indigenous and, black perspectives around that because that wasn't something I grew up doing, um, but I'm very curious about and it's relationship to conservation, uh, and talking about it. Uh, in its relationship to health as well, women's health particularly.

So, um, just kind of reframing that whole conversation around hunting in our communities as well. So those are the experiences. The second tier of things that Unearthing Joy does are workshops. and training for adults, right? So adult educators and that has looked like What does it mean to create culturally centered nature programs and what are some strategies you can use to do that, right?

So, I've been for the past couple of years uh, presenting webinars and workshops with different organizations who are like, yes, we need to know how to do that, And then the third tier, is consulting, right? So these for me, for me, consulting are the long term projects, those two to three year projects, ideally, what do these programs look like? Sometimes I'm the one coordinating them. there's a.

organization that got funded a couple of years ago called Tri County Play Collaborative in Charleston, and it is an early childhood initiative to promote the value of play, but giving families and hardest to reach communities access to things they would get from museums and, um, libraries and outdoor organizations and bringing those experiences for children birth to five and their families into community and not expecting them to always go to those institutions, so we work collaboratively with a lot of those institutions down there to. Really think about what those experiences are and send them out. So that's one long term contract.

Jennie: What makes this kind of qualifying as weird? And I ask that because I think that in order for us to define why Unearthing Joy would be unique, what is different about it, we kind of have to frame what is the norm currently. And I think we've described a lot of these things that are amazing about what you're doing, but I think that if people who maybe haven't thought about these spaces and thought about these problems as much, they might not be aware of all of the st difficulties that you're working against and that you're kind of working to take apart and to solve.

And so I was wondering if you could maybe speak a little bit to like, what is the normal quote unquote experience for outdoor education and connections to nature for the global majority

why you felt compelled to kind of fill this space.

Ashley: Yeah, so the, I would say, yeah, the norm I'm trying to solve for is more so, that when I look at programs, because early childhood's my background, when I look at nature education programs in early childhood, right, um, they're often what I see, and this is, I know, not. All of what I see is what's going on, but what I see are like all the cutesy things about this is, you know, the insect or we're painting these cute paintings today and, uh, loose parts and all of those things without any cultural context.

Any cultural context, like these things exist in nature because they exist, right? Or, uh, these experiences to run and play and be free, are narratives that don't usually become attached to children of color, right? And so what I'm trying to get, I think, people to understand is that, number one, When we talk about nature, it's really important to connect these experiences we're giving the children to the stories of the land, and the stories of the people who have inhabited that land and continue to inhabit that land, or why they may have been displaced from that land, right, whether we're talking about, Native American tribes, Tribal nations, whether we're talking about gentrification currently, right?

Like what is happening? and so when we just talk about like, oh we can run and play free I'm like, but who for whom, you know, and this goes back to that safety piece, right? And why don't we have these, um spaces and why? The other thing is questioning why don't we have more nature education programs that are in communities that are serving black and brown children, Uh, and why is that seen as a privilege and not a norm? Why is it so structured? Why is the structured discourse and the disciplined discourse relegated to, uh, black and brown children, right? So all of that is what I'm trying to disrupt, uh, and getting people to really question the value of nature.

Not just for the sake of, oh, children get to run and play, but there's cultural pieces to this. That also then lead to, opportunities, I think, for children to solve environmental issues, right? So when we look at stories of Indigenous folks, stories of, of the brilliance of enslaved people that were brought here for a reason, because they were brilliant, You know, how did those things that they already knew how to do?

How can we be using those to solve current day and modern day environmental issues? Right? So it's not just learning for the sake of learning and being free for the sake of being free, but also using that knowledge to then look at it from a social justice perspective as well.

Sarah: That's incredible. With all of the important work that you're doing, this probably may, this may feel like a hard question. I'm not sure. But how do you define success?

Ashley: Yeah, I like that question a lot. For me, it's actually really simple. It's peace, and it's joy, and it's wonder, Am I still able to feel those things?

In the work that I'm doing. Do I feel peace? Do I feel a sense of peace? Do I feel joy? And do I still have a sense of wonder? And so that takes away, what that does is it takes away monetary value on everything and it gets to the core I think of which you value, right? And so those are the same values that I want every child to have, every adult to have, every family to have, um, whether they're at our program or just in life and it's one that guides how I do work too. So I don't take every project that comes on board. I'm like, uh, if this is going to be a busy, busy, busy, project where you're expecting me to be on calls all the time, no thank you. Right? Like that doesn't sound peaceful. Like I got away from that rat race for a reason.

Is it work that is. important and impacting communities that, uh, don't always get the opportunity to have rich nature play experiences. because if not, like that doesn't sound joyful. So I don't want to do that. So, um, you know, and then is there the wonder part, right? Like, Ooh, that project sounds interesting, right? So if I'm still, able to lean on those three values, then that to me is success.

Sarah: We so appreciate your time. Um, but before we can let you go, um, this is weird schooling. So, um, do you have a weird experience, weird fact, weird something that you might have come across in the last week that you could share with us and our listeners?

Ashley: I don't know if it's weird, but maybe it'll be weird to some people.

So, my son, I signed him up for this Tennessee Aquatic Project to participate. And they'll learn diving, wilderness skills, and they'll learn environmental education skills. Even though I love the outdoors, I absolutely love everything, I don't mind bugs, I don't mind doing all the things, but come 10 p.

m., I turn into what I call a Posturepedic Princess. And I need a bed. And so the fact that, you know, this past weekend, I had to go with my son to this camping experience, and I do not enjoy camping. Fun fact, uh, like I said, I'll do all the things all day long, you know, that need to be done.

I'll, I'll be the one making the s'mores, everything, but come 10 o'clock. Yeah, I need a mattress, so, um. In a temperature controlled setting. And so, I yeah, so I was grumpy, and then he pulls the like, they pull names out of the hat to do fire watch, right? So that's to keep the fire going all night.

He pulls 2 to 3 a. m., and I'm like, Uh... It's gonna be a long night. So of course I didn't sleep hardly at all.

Sarah: Oh my god.

Ashley: Hardly at all.

Jennie: Oh, that is dedication.

Sarah:Yeah, that is dedication.

Ashley: It was a rough, rough, rough, rough, rough weekend. But a good one, right? So, like, we do these things because we just love our children and we want them to have these great experiences, but, uh, yeah, the things, the things we will do, and sometimes, you know, you just suck it up and, and, and do it.

Jennie: Absolutely. Oh my goodness. I feel you. Well, Sarah, did you have a quick Weird of the Week that you wanted to do? Oh,

Sarah: Uh, I'm also coming off of being sleep deprived because of children related things. On Saturday, Jennie and I are also obsessed with movies. We have a movie podcast as well. Um, and I kind of live at the Belcourt Theater when I can and they ran a seminar about documentaries and had a professor from Vanderbilt, um, talking about the form of documentaries, which I thought I knew what a documentary was, but now I know I don't. but what I loved about, um, the seminar was that they showed snippets of, um, film. They had a 50 second snippet of a scene of soldiers from Spain, um, in the late 1800s, so there was no sound and it was the weirdest thing, so it was a scene of, um, all these soldiers from Spain dancing, inexplicably, in their uniforms, but there was one dude in the background. standing weirdly, staring creepily at the camera. And, um, the, there have, has been apparently a lot of discussion about why was the one dude standing and looking at the camera, where everybody else was dancing.

And it was because that this guy did not understand that because of the technology that The camera that the filmmakers were using weren't the old still cameras where you'd have to like stand in place for, I don't know, five hours, whatever it was, to get the picture without it being blurry. And so he was posing for a camera, like a photograph, and all of the other soldiers milling around dancing were somehow in the loop and aware that they were being videoed.

So it was, it was a very interesting thing and um, very cool and kind of eerie to see something from the late 1800s.

Jennie: How the learning doesn't ever stop. I love that. I was hoping to learn more about that. Someone

Sarah: I was like, what about you, Jennie? I,

Jennie: I don't know. I felt I've, I've been dealing with a double ear infection.

And so my, my whole life has been a fog right now, but whenever I was trying to rest, I was letting my kids just do whatever they wanted and, um, which, which resulted in, I realized that I taught them how to pickle things. And that came back to be a little bit weird. So, basically, what happened was I'm sleeping.

I'm hearing them mucking around in the kitchen doing something, and then hours later I go into the kitchen and open the fridge and it is full of mason jars of different pickled things. They have got like, and I don't know how, but some of these pickled things are pink, some of them are blue, some of them are yellow, and they have like followed the proper pickling procedures.

There's an acid, there's a salt, there's some kind of sugaring something. But, um, yeah. So I am, it is a science experiment in my fridge right now. Have you tasted them? But I am not so brave. Um, I'm going to have to recover first, but, but yeah, I, I'm at least like, you know, one part terrified, one part, you know, delighted that the lesson on pickling, um, works.

Sarah: Oh my gosh. I love that. Well, pickles, movies, and camping. I love it.

Jennie: Can we also, could you share with us like where people could learn more about you and what the easiest way for them to connect with you are? We'll also share on our socials as well.

Ashley: Yeah, um, the easiest way is to um, take a look at unearthingjoytogether.com and um, also follow us on Instagram at Unearthing Joy together, uh, in Facebook, for like the latest updates on any programs that are coming up and just like sometimes funny things that are happening or recaps of our programs that are, going on as well.

So they can look there. And if you want to reach out to me, you know, the website. The contact form is pretty spammy, and so I may miss something, so I'm okay with, you know, you can reach out to Ashley at unearthingjoytogether.com as well.

Sarah: Well, again, thank you so much, Ashley, for joining us this week and for sharing about your experience and the very important, exciting, interesting, meaningful work that you do in the community.

Sarah: Weirdschooling is a My Kind of Weird Productions podcast and is co-created by hosts Sarah Woolverton-Mohler and Jennie Ziverk Carr with music by Brooks Milgate.

Jennie: You, your ideas and feedback MATTER, so like, subscribe and leave a review! Share your weirdschooling experiences or challenges on our social media channels at instagram, facebook, or our website at www.weirdschooling.com.

Sarah: We’re here for you– so feel free to join our engaging Weirdschooling Community Facebook group for inclusive, open-hearted idea sharing and camaraderie.

Jennie: You’re dismissed to go be the weirdest brick in the wall of this wonderful world!

<Original bright, organ and piano sea shanty music fading in the background with school bell sound.>