We were lucky to catch up with Samm Azen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Samm, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

The educational system is broken. We’ve known it for years to varying degrees, but it’s really come to a head post-pandemic. Many people are talking about how teachers are quitting en masse because they are poorly supported by apathetic or ineffective administration, which is absolutely true, but it takes the focus off the system and the way it is truly failing the students as well as the teachers.
I believe that the students aren’t worse than they used to be. Teachers have trouble motivating students because there is nothing intrinsically motivating about our current school system. A’s and B’s are arbitrary, and students don’t have the context of the world to understand whether any of it even matters. If you go online and read how adults talk about the world, none of it does matter.
So what does matter? Passion. Self-efficacy. Self-expression.
As a digression, there is a growing rate of anxiety and depression in young people. It is easy to blame the state of disrepair and conflict in the world, but if you compare today to other periods in our history, these times are not particularly worse than others. In fact, the world is arguably the best it’s ever been if you account for the number of people of have a certain standard of comfort. A lot of people blame “brain chemistry” for depression and anxiety, but there is a growing pool of research that fully disputes this, including studies that show that antidepressants do not help at least half of people who suffer from depression. What these studies point to is the importance of appropriately developed neural pathways.
Here’s how that ties into what the education system is doing wrong, and what I am actively working to change as an educator. Schools do not focus on building the appropriate neural pathways in the plastic brains of children. I have seen teachers yell at children for not knowing something. Even if they don’t get yelled at, they are in an environment where they are constantly judged and given grades for their every action. At home, they may be punished for not getting good enough grades. C, the average score, is seen as a poor grade. When kids get a poor grade, they are not given a chance to redeem themselves, they just move on for another opportunity to feel humiliated.
In my adult life, I would very quickly quit a job with such an environment. Getting yelled at for my mistakes, no chance for redemption, condescending attitudes from my superiors. What are we actually teaching children when we are so willing to say “quiet, an adult is talking,” as I have so often seen teachers spit at their children. No wonder young people have a constant sense of anxiety, as if they might be doing something wrong at any moment.
Ok, enough about the problems, let’s talk about my solutions. Teaching children in a respectful environment where they are free to be expressive of themselves. When I talk to children, I also listen to them. I problem-solve with them. I give them space to feel their emotions, and I validate them. They feel safe to cry, and to scream. They also feel safe to laugh and to sing. It’s incredible what a difference this makes. Curious children given a safe environment actually learn on their own accord, and do not have to be punished into learning. This is true of babies, and it’s true of healthy adults who learn hobbies; why would it not be true of school-age children?
Our classic idea of school is designed in a way that a certain portion of students to fail because not everyone succeeds in that environment. Many methods of education that are currently considered “alternative” are effective because they allow children to follow their own passions, learning what they want to learn. The early years of education should focus on evidence-based methods to build a love of learning and feelings of success before they focus too hard on what kids learn. Books without a bookshelf are a loose and unorganized stack. You would be hard-pressed to find information that you are looking for in a large, loose stack of books. Building proper neural pathways in children is like building bookshelves and inventing the dewey decimal system before bringing books into a library. Their ability to access their own feelings, information that they know, to make connections and to grow on their own is astoundingly more pronounced.
This response may have come off as a little rant-like, so here’s a summary and synthesis. Schools prioritize standards of learning that parents can appreciate but do not prioritize mental health, love of learning, or forms of growth that children actually need for success in real life once they are adults. The answer is to restructure schools to prioritize social-emotional intelligence, self-expression, and love of learning. This can be done by releasing our need for structure in child education. After all, the most successful people are often the ones who are best at emotional regulation and creative thought, not the ones who listen best to authority.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When I was in high school, I started working on a ropes course, where I led students from other schools through games that forced them to think differently about the world around them, pushing their comfort zones in order to grow. I knew it was my calling, so I went to college to get a B.S. in outdoor education. I have filled many roles since then, all of which revolve around working with students at schools to use games to expand their comfort-zones while teaching them teamwork and problem-solving. I have always loved this work, but I started longing for a chance to get to know students and interact with them over longer periods of time so that I could make sure to have a more lasting impact. That’s when I found my job as Director of Frog Creek Adventure School, an enrichment program that uses the forest environment to help kids better understand themselves, each other, and their passions as well as growing their creativity, confidence, resilience, and social ability. From here I plan to expand into a full-time school that uses activity and adventure to teach children their entire curriculum while promoting emotional wellbeing.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

I’m sure this is a common story, but COVID hit our education institution pretty hard. Our entire program relies completely on joining together as a group and playing in the woods – something that cannot be replicated online. We could not function, therefore we could not charge tuition. We made an outreach campaign, recognizing that these were tough times for all, but beseeching those who love our program to make donations in order to keep the program alive. Our community came through for us and donated enough to stop the business from going under. The lesson here is that community is equivalent resilience. By remaining connected to your community and staying an active part of it, your business will be able to overcome or adapt to any situation that may come up, even something as hard to manage as a global pandemic.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

It is impossible to overstate just how important word of mouth is. Friends trust each other’s judgment, and people talk about things they like. Most of my clients come to me because another client told them about my program. They come already on-board and excited about my program because I treat my current clientele so well, leading to their trust and high praise. I take their trust seriously, and I act with integrity and respect as the leader of a business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://frogcreekadventureschool.org
• Instagram: @frogcreekadventureschool
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/frogcreekadventureschool

Image Credits

Frog Creek Adventure School