Transcript: Dr. Carlson on Adventure’s, Outdoor Learning, and the Power of Perseverance

Good morning, and welcome back to the show. We are here with science teacher, cross-country coach, and biologist, Dr. Carlson, also known as Doc C. How are you, Doc C?

I'm doing well. How are you, Charlie? I'm doing super good. Yeah, great to have you here.

You know, we got to know you as a science teacher at the U.S. Shaker campus, but obviously you had a long journey to this point. Can you tell us about where you grew up and your point two here? So when people ask me where I'm from, I say America, because my dad was in the Navy, so we bounced around a lot.

So I've lived in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Virginia, California, Delaware, Michigan, Colorado, Illinois, and then finally Ohio. And each of those places, for the most part, was only three or four years. I spent 10 years in Colorado where I did my grad school. But otherwise, I'm just from all over, coast to coast, and in the middle sometimes.

Did you have any sports or activities that kind of shaped your experience? Later, I didn't do anything as a kid, which I regret. I understand why, because my parents were just busy. My dad was at sea for six months at a time.

And so it was just my mom with the three kids. So the first sport I actually really did was wrestling as a freshman in high school. So I carried that through four years. I ended up being pretty good at it by the end.

And then I picked up running to condition myself for wrestling. So I didn't run because I wanted to. I ran because I felt like I needed to to get into shape. And that's the one that I've carried through the longest and have done the most in.

Wrestling is a little bit harder to kind of like continue on. In college, I started rowing at Michigan State, which was a new thing I picked up. Just I don't know why. Never done it before.

Never had any friends that did it before. It just seemed interesting. So I did that for three years. me uh physically it was a three season sport you did it fall winter and spring um and it was it was grueling and so the mental formation of how to like persevere like that was the one that did it um i also dabbled in um and i know some of you guys will remember uh ultimate frisbee so i played ultimate frisbee for michigan state um then i picked up cycling and did cycling at michigan state and then um at colorado state also different disciplines, road biking, cyclocross, track biking, and mountain biking. So all four of those.

Yeah. You mentioned your dad was in the Navy. Do you think you learned any lessons that were kind of unique because your dad was in the Navy? I mean, because he was gone so much, it was kind of hard to learn anything from him that way.

But just, I mean, he was very disciplined at home with things and he was very focused and he was very focused on detail because he was a nuclear engineer. And so he ran the nuclear reactor that powered submarines. And so there's not that many people to do that. And so you got to be like really good at what you do.

You know, you kind of have this interest in nature, but what kind of made you pursue it further? And I mean, kind of even into college. So I was a Boy Scout and I did my Eagle Scout stuff, which, you know, is kind of a higher level kind of where you top out there. being out in the woods. And so my friends in high school, we would go from Delaware, the state, not the town in Ohio.

We would drive, and it wasn't even that far of a drive. It was maybe three or four hours. So we would drive to Virginia and go to Shenandoah Valley National Park. And we would go hiking there and hike to waterfalls.

We would do it in the fall, in the spring, in the summer. It was just a really fun way to kind of get out with friends. And then my brother, who's a couple years younger, we started doing this adventure thing where in the middle of winter, we would find some mountain to climb. First thing we did, we went to the upper peninsula of Michigan and we snowshoed along Lake Superior in January.

That was cold. Then we went to and we climbed the highest mountain in New York on New Year's Eve, also very cold. The next year we went to the Grand Tetons to try to climb that. That didn't go so well.

Then we came back a second year, tried to do that, also didn't go as well. And that kind of like, It was just the progression up in difficulty and adventure that we were kind of seeking. Yeah. Well, I've seen these memes where it's like the two different types of people on vacation.

The one where like sleeps in and the other one gets up at like 4.30 to go hiking. So you obviously seem like the 4.30 to go hiking person. But what's the coolest place that you've been to on like a vacation or just going on an adventure? So in Wyoming, I come to this place called the Wind River Mountains. diagonal in the middle of Wyoming sticks up.

So it gets like horrendous weather, like all year, but, um, it's as close to, if you've pictured, seen pictures like Patagonia, um, in Argentina, it looks just like that. I mean, these towering 2000 foot granite cliffs just plummeting right down into lakes where they've got these 20 inch trout and waterfalls everywhere. It's just, you feel so small there. Um, and you're, you're a two days hike from a car.

And so you just, you feel like you are, you are in it to win it or lose it depending on how well you, you know, handle yourself in that, in that terrain. You know, you kind of, once you got out of college, you then worked and got obtained a doctorate degree in Bonny, I believe. What made you come up or see your doctorate in general and why in Bonny? And how has that kind of helped push you to where you are today?

So I got my undergrad degree and then I was trying to get out West to work. guys get into the job market, you'll kind of see when you get out of college, it's kind of hard to get a job not where you are. And so I wasn't having much luck getting out there. And so then I was like, well, if I can't get the job I want, I still want to get out west. So I was like, I'll think about grad school.

So I found a grad program at Colorado State University. So I got into that and then got that degree. That was in, it was computer mapping, if anybody had my seventh grade class when we did topography. So I did that along with ecology. for my master's degree, got out of that, and I was actually offered a PhD to continue that work, but I didn't want to be stuck in front of a computer.

It was very computer-based. I wanted to be out in the field, so I stopped. I didn't pursue that PhD. I worked for a couple years doing wetland surveying, so mostly botany stuff, but I got to hike around all the mountains in Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, like all over the place, and then I did that for a couple years, and then I, through colleagues, met who ended up being my PhD advisor.

And I talked to him about some questions that I had that had arisen from work that I had done that I just couldn't find any information on. And so when you pursue, especially like a PhD in anything, medical, engineering, you want to ask a question that doesn't have an answer. And so I couldn't find an answer to these questions, and so I wanted to pursue it. And it was kind of outside of his wheelhouse. which is kind of how I met him.

And this was more like urban ag and wetlands, but still very plant-based. And so he was like, yeah, sure, let's get a grant. So we got a National Science Foundation grant to do it. And we pursued that.

But it was varied. It was plants. That was one third of it. One third of it was the mapping, which I'd already done.

And then the most difficult piece was a biogeochemical cycling of nitrogen and phosphorus. So that kind of like tested my mental capacity, more than the other two. But bringing it all together over the course of four and a half years was just, it was a project, which took a lot. You know, coming out of college, were there those like jobs that you worked that led to your teaching, like teaching career?

What kind of, how did you end up at US and what made teaching appealing to you? So I never thought I was going to be a teacher, not because I didn't want to be. I just, it was never on my palette of things to choose from really. But in that, remember I said, couldn't find a job out of undergrad.

And so what I did is I worked at a nature center. It was just kind of like a stopgap thing just to keep me busy, and it got me outside. And so I would do, you know, work for them, but I would also teach some of the classes. And these were to like little kids.

We're talking like five and six-year-olds. And we'd take them around the woods, and we'd show them Native American things, and we'd take them out in canoes and stuff. So I just thought that was like something that I had to do. Right.

Little kids. And I was only at that point, I was only 22. But then when I did my master's degree, I did only research, no teaching. When I did my Ph.D., I also had funding to only do research.

But my advisor and thankfully told me, he's like, just try teaching, you know, teach a class, be a be a teaching assistant in a class and just just see if you like it. So I did. I taught two classes and it was fun and I enjoyed it. So as I got out of my PhD, there's kind of two tracks that I saw in front of me, or actually three that I saw in front of me from an environmental standpoint.

I could either become a professor. I could work for the feds. So Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, USGS, which is the US Geological Survey. Or I could go private and work for like a development company or something.

I didn't like my chances with the development company because of my ethics. I wanted to protect it. And then right when I was coming out, there was a huge hiring freeze for the feds. So I kind of got pushed into the education side just out of necessity.

But I was also pretty good at it. So I had a few really good connections and that put me down the professor track, which obviously is kind of the teaching track. And then so here I am. And you get very creative with your teaching activities.

I can recount numerous. activities that we go outside it's like what's he taking us to do today but um where do you think you get those ideas from and you know how do you stay creative with your teaching um usually it's as you guys remember people remember it's kind of my pet projects if i want something done um i can either spend 10 hours digging a hole or i can get you 10 guys to dig a hole for one hour and get it done um and so usually it's it's it's things like that that i want to use in the future like if i want to do water quality testing In my biology class, I don't have water at the Shaker campus. So we're going to dig a pond, let it fill with water, and now I can test water quality on the Shaker campus. And so it's things like that. I can also see if I'm looking around the classroom when I see boys are just like eyes half closed.

I'm like, all right, let's shake it up. Let's go outside and do something. And even just now that we've got basically an outdoor classroom out there, I can just teach my regular class outside. And, yeah, people are throwing sticks at each other.

Um, but it happens, but I'd rather than like be engaged with the outside than to just be falling asleep. And what do you think is the value of the outdoor education? Cause I know I love going outside for class, but we don't do it a lot. So what do you think is the value that it brings?

Um, other than just, I think it helps people figure out how to focus in an environment where there's more going on, right? There's a squirrel over here. There's a car driving by whatever, but we still have to learn. stuff happening around you. Fresh air is always good.

Sunlight's always good. And then it allows me, because I teach science, like there's, I could pick up anything and relate it to whatever topic we're talking about, whether it's chemistry or physics or biology, like I can, I can pick up anything and incorporate it in and then pass it around. I can make them go out and search for something related to what we're talking about, right? I can't do that in a classroom necessarily.

You know, one of the better classes of science I think I've ever had, was yours in eighth grade where we worked on a circuit and kind of putting stuff together to make an electrical outlet, right? That hands-on teaching to this day has applied in certain things where just last week I set up an electrical outlet, right? How do you think that hands-on teaching experience really makes kids want to learn more? And have you done more projects since then using that type of style?

The circuit one was a new one. It made me nervous when we did the outlets. because we went from like 1.5 volt batteries to 110, 120 volt coming out of the wall, which is like, that's a big jump. And if you get it wrong, it really hurts. So that one, I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but you guys did a really good job.

I think more people got injured just by poking themselves with the wires. I know that we blew a lot of circuit breakers. We had to get those turned on, but that's their job. You know, you look at a wall and you plug something in.

It's kind of nice to know how it works and what's behind the wall. And I guarantee you guys like you're going to have to do something with an outlet or a circuit or something in your life. And it's nice to be able to kind of like think back to it. Same thing like when I take boys out and we dig holes and we plant plants or something like you're going to have to do that at some point.

It's nice to know how to do it. Just how to just do stuff. The one we did this past fall, which is kind of funny. which is basically giving an injection to a log with mushroom sporters. So what you had to do is you had to drill a hole in the log and you pound this little, like it looks like a little peg of sawdust with mushroom stuff in it.

And you have to do like 50 or 60 per log. So the boys had to get the logs out of my truck and we had to stack them up. We identified which kind of logs they were. You had to tag them.

Then you had to drill the holes. I didn't have that many drills. So I had those old school hand crank drills. And I gave them to what I thought were the burlier of my eighth graders.

And they must have spent 30 minutes drilling one hole. And then they were just like, I'm not doing this anymore. So just, but then it gives them credibility to think about like how much easier it is to use a power drill and the advantages we have from that. Like it, it makes it so that you appreciate what we have when you don't have it.

They have to test it out. That's the way I go camping. I appreciate my bed and my air conditioning when I'm sweating it out on the ground somewhere, you know, for a night. And then I come home and I'm like, oh, this is so nice.

Yeah. You know, what are some of the ways you think we as a school can do a better job in utilizing those outdoor spaces that we have? I mean, we're on a huge campus. What are some of the ways that even you think that we could bring just science outside?

Well, I know they've done, at least this year, they've done a big push to get freshmen outside. which I think is great. And now that the weather's improving, they can continue to do that in the springtime. So the science students have been doing a good job with that. The real crunch to all that, it's not the resource which we have, it's the time we have to do it.

So in Shaker, we don't have the big resources, but I can get from my classroom to the Arboretum in one minute. So it's a very quick turnaround. We can still have a full class outside. So I think here what maybe needs to happen to be able to utilize the class, the 50 minute class you have, is that how long your classes are?

Yeah. 45. 45? Yeah. Yeah. Is to have stuff set up closer so you can get to something instead of having to go really, really far, unless you have one of those lab block extensions where you can go farther.

Or just try to figure out a way in the schedule to like get those science classes longer on some of those days. The other thing too is like, and I've been, I've been seeing and encouraging students, and teachers on our campus to have other classes outside, have their music class outside if they don't need their computers, have a reading day where the English class just goes outside and sits and reads and reads aloud and does that kind of thing. They're more willing to do that on nicer days. I'm willing to push the boundary on weather for my guys a little bit.

I told the boys, they're like, well, when do we stop going outside? I was like, well, let's figure out when the whiteboard marker freezes. 32 degrees. Um, so I'll take them outside and all, like we did stuff with snow outside this winter. Um, and we'll go outside if it's raining, like we'll go outside in any weather.

You know, you have the privilege of not only teaching students in science, but also kids just in life, right? What are some of the things that you try to teach them maybe outside of science that you think just apply to just general knowledge? Um, the biggest one I try to teach and I'm working with my son now who's 11 is just perseverance. he can't do something, he immediately looks to me and I throw my hands up and I'm like, figure it out. You've only been trying for 30 seconds.

And so as, as kids get older and then when I take kids out in the woods and camp on these camping trips, you know, I teach them how to do things. And then by the end of a week long camping trip, I'm not pumping the water anymore. I'm not filtering it. I'm not cooking dinner.

I'm not cleaning up. They are. Whereas I started with them seven days ago where I was doing everything. And so if they're having trouble with something, they, they, by the end, they don't ask me anymore.

They kind of figure it out amongst themselves. Um, which is, that's what I want them to do. It's, it's the, it's the troubleshooting. It's the figuring, it's the critical thinking.

And I do that in my classroom. And then when we do other stuff outside, they're like, I can't dig this root up. And I was like, well, figure it out. Like how you have to get that out of there.

Like, how are you going to do it? I'm not going to tell you. It's going to be hard, but figure it out. Yeah.

You mentioned teaching your, your son. Do you ever feel like it's hard to separate that classroom teaching style from dad teaching? style? Oh man. Yeah.

When I'm trying to teach him math, because I remember my dad, remember a nuclear engineer, very good at math, trying to teach me algebra. I was like, dad, letters belong in English class. They don't belong in math class. And he's like, don't think of it as a letter.

It's a number. And I'm like, well, what number is it? He's like, it can be any number. What do you mean it can be any number?

So I think math is the hardest one because math is taught differently, like generationally. They come up with new ways to teach it. So as he gets harder in the math, I'm going to have to talk to like Mr. Jones and Mr.

Kneisel and Mr. Lipford to be like, how are you actually teaching this so I can do it? But I try not to be a teacher at home. But as they get older, like he's 11, so he's in fifth grade now.

So he's going to come up through my classes. And there is going to be some of that where like I have to be parent homework help mode, not teacher mode. But I don't know. We'll see how it goes.

You know, also, in addition to teaching science at the Shaker campus, you also are one of the cross-country coaches for the middle school team, which Jack had the privilege of running on. But why do you love kind of doing that? And what do you think kind of cross-country and all the other sports that you help out with really help the students? I like cross-country because I get to do it with the boys.

Remember, I used to run with you guys. So it kept me in shape. Baseball or basketball, you can coach from the sideline because the person's right there. If you're running three miles through the woods, if you're not with them, you can't coach them.

I try to run with the different groups, the faster, slower guys, the middle guys, and give them coaching as we're going, which also helps keep me in shape. I appreciate it. I can push them, which is fun. We've had some very fast kids that it's harder to coach when you're out of breath running next to somebody. track.

Like I write their training plans. And then I jumped into a few wrestling practices and thought I could hang. I hung for a little bit, but man, like Finn and Doyle, like those guys were just crushing me. I was sore for like a week.

I still have a scar on my knee actually from Finn's headgear. So, but that like being, it's fun to see students in a different capacity. Like they change from the classroom to the sports field. And I think it's fun for the students to see teachers. in a different capacity which is why i like the fact that so many teachers coach because they get to interact in like this different way for both both folks um and i get to remind them that they still need to do their homework for kids that are in my class like a third reminder if i need to yeah i remember cross-country practice brendan i'll be having a nice run over at the park and then you just pop out of the woods be like all right let's go guys that you have done or coach is hard, then they all take discipline.

But how do you get the kids on the team to buy in to it being hard and just accepting that? I wouldn't say there's not 100% buy-in out the gate. As you guys know, anything you start, that learning curve hurts. I think having intermediate successes, like achievable goals, they're like, I want to run a six-minute mile.

Well, let's start with a seven-minute mile. that one out of the water and then let's go um it also really helps to have boys compete in a friendly way on the team of having like two guys work hard together and push each other um like you and brennan and then and then they can be like oh duking it out and then you're just you're happy when they when they do well you're happy when you beat them or when you get to stay on their heels um and then i think looking back to where they were four weeks ago like it's a short season so you can make major gains but not as much as you might in a longer season like you guys have up here but just look back be like look back before you could only run a half a mile and now you're running the whole two mile race i don't care how fast it is but you ran the whole two mile race without stopping like that's super exciting um and so giving them all that that intermediate feedback and those intermediate successes helps them buy in and want to do well in the future even though it hurts whether it's running, biking, lifting, rowing, all the other different sports, what do you think in the end of the day it really just means to you? For me, I'm not, I mean, I have my individual goals, right? But they're not the driving factor. Like my wife, she has to have, doesn't have to, but likes to have a race and a goal to sort of direct her training.

I just like to get out and feel good. Like I feel better when I sweat each day. And you boys know, like there's a different kind of sweat. There's like an athletic sweat and then there's like a nervous having to give a presentation sweat.

And I like the athletic sweat, like that breathing hard. It just energizes me. When I'm at school, like I have breaks, right? I have like a block off where I don't teach.

And most of those blocks off, as long as it's not after lunch, because Lord knows I can't exercise after eating the huge meal I eat at school. I go out and run and I can get anywhere from four to six and a half miles in. in a teaching block and I come back in and I guarantee you, I teach better that next block. Uh, I might be sweaty, um, and red faced, but I'm, I'm a better teacher. I'm more energized.

I have like more focus. I can drop the other stuff away that's stressful in my life. And then just like, I can hit that, that next class nice and hard. Um, and I do that with all with my life when I'm not like in the summer, same thing.

I can come back with clarity right now. I really need to work on my taxes. So I need to go, I need to go for a run. have some clarity, sit down and hammer out the tack stuff. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I remember we left, well, a couple of kids went down to lift at like 6am on our DC trip and we lasted for one morning and then that was it. But I think you went down there every morning. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember I put, I put Brennan on a, um, on a treadmill, which I didn't, he was like, he wanted to, he had a goal for the spring track. He wanted to run like a really fast 800. I was like, Brennan, you can't take five days off. So he's like, I'll run.

I was like, well, we can't run around the building. I'll put you on a treadmill. And he didn't say anything, but he had never been on a treadmill before. So he was like, he looked so nervous.

I thought he was going to fall off the dang thing. And, but like we had to do speed work and like speed work on a treadmill is, it's tricky. So I was like, let's, let's ease into this speed work. Cause I don't want you to die.

Yeah. Well, speaking of the exercising inside versus outside, what do you think makes exercising outside so much better? I like like like a treadmill run. I don't get a breeze.

And so like I just I sweat so much more and it's just kind of gross. Plus, I like trail running more than running on the road. And so I get it's more interesting. So if I if I go out and run on a trail for 60 minutes versus on a treadmill for 60 minutes, one of them makes me never want to do it again.

And one of them makes me want to keep going. So my trail runs are like that's my bread and butter, which has been hard. this winter. It's been so cold, so icy. Like I'll run in the cold, but it's the iciness.

It's the mud that like really slows me down. I don't want to run for 60 minutes and have to do 60 minutes of laundry. But the spring will warm it up. And so trail running has always been my thing.

You know, a lot of teachers talk about what they do and how it impacts students. But what we don't really talk about is the legacy they leave on a school. When you leave years, years, hopefully down the road, What is the kind of legacy that you want to leave for the lower school and even the upper school? I'm thinking about this because Mr.

Harmon, he's got a legacy and he's still here. Something like what kind of legacy he's going to leave and what kind of legacy. I could never match what he's done. But as of right now, I'm still able to hang with the kids, like playing soccer. stuff like that.

And so I think the legacy I want to leave with the boys is that, you know, the older you get, you can still hang, right? Um, I can't really hang with the lingo. I have to learn new, new slang words every year. Um, but I can hang physically and interest wise.

Like, you know, I see boys skiing all the time. Um, and I can, I can hang with them and I'm going to hopefully be able to hang as long as I can, as long as my joints hold up and, and whatever. And I stopped messing myself up, but yeah. You know, speaking of just like the whole passion for just teaching, Jack and I always talk about what our whys are as students, right?

And we've made it a tradition of talking to all our guests and asking them about what is their why. We want to know what makes you want to get up in the morning, work out, and just make such a positive difference in everyone's life. Dr. C, what is your why?

My why is getting stuff done. Like I just, I like to get stuff done. I get up, even if it's just first thing I do is I make coffee. Like I just did that.

Yes, it's done. Not so good on the making the bed thing, although you guys have probably seen that video of like the Marine guy talking about the make your bed first thing in the morning. I don't do that, but I do make coffee. I do clean the kitchen, do the dishes.

So like yesterday, I was sitting on the front porch. It was a nice evening. And I'm just looking out at my kids were selling maple syrup at the end of the driveway. So the wagon was out with the maple syrup stuff in it.

We had planted a bunch of plants. And so I could see the holes that we had dug and where we planted plants. My kids were raking and they had done that. And so seeing things that got done.

Sometimes you can't, like not everything you see. Like, you know, if I have to answer emails, like I can't see that, but I know it got done. And I can't see everything that my kids do. Like if they organized their rock collection or if they counted all their money and put it in little piles, but they got stuff done.

And so my why is to get stuff done and have people see me doing things because then it's going to make them be like, oh, I want to get stuff done. I want to have things that I accomplished today and every day. That's my why. Well, that was a deep question.

Now for a fun question. If you had unlimited funds and unlimited time, trip be? Okay. Well, I don't like helicopters.

Although a friend of mine had shown me some cool pictures of a heli skiing trip, which looked pretty sweet. Wait, do I have unlimited time too? Yeah, unlimited time and funds. Okay.

I've always want, I've hiked part of the Continental Divide Trail, which is the big one that goes north to south from Mexico to Canada and Colorado. I've hiked part of the Appalachian Trail, which is the East Coast one. I would love to do each one. The third one is the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs north to south through California and Oregon and Washington.

So I would like to do each of those. Some people have tried to do it all in one year. That's stupid. Because each one you need to appreciate its season.

So I would like to hike each one of those. But each one takes, you know, funding-wise, not that much. I mean, it's just food. months continental divide same pacific coast pacific crest trail maybe a little bit longer because they get so much snow on the mountains in washington and oregon that your your window to do it is is tighter or you just move really really slow when you get to that section so i would love to be able to do each of those individually and what's the perfect person to bring on that trip like do you want a funny person you want like a strong person um i want Someone strength isn't, isn't the issue. Funny, like being able to like see the humor and being poured on for two days straight and still, and I have, I have some friends that are like that, that I can, I called up when I turned 40 this past fall, I called a buddy mine up and he drove 13 hours to meet me to go hiking in Colorado.

Um, and, uh, that my buddy Roger, like he's got a big bushy beard. Um, he's, as he put it, he's like, I'm moderately out of shape, but he was willing to do it. everything I was with a good spirit about it. So that's the kind of, you want someone who's just willing to do it and be uncomfortable and still smile and joke about it. Don't complain.

Don't complain. Don't complain. Well, Doxy, it has been great having you on the show today. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights, experiences, and all your different stories with us.

To our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in, and we'll hope you'll join us next Wednesday for the next episode of Late Start Show. Thanks, Doxy. Thanks, boys. you