The Outdoor Education Podcast With Rob Carmichael
Oct 16, 2026 · 58 min · 14 segments
What would it take to move outdoor learning from an occasional experience to something every young person can access - regularly, progressively and with purpose? In this episode, Rob Carmichael sits…
Rob CarmichaelHost
Jo, what I'd like to do is just kinda refocus back a little on your journey from practitioner to center leader to the leadership roles that you find yourself in now.
How has your understanding of the profession of the outdoor educator or the outdoor leader changed throughout the years?
I think when you first start, I remember... 'Cause I taught first, and then I sort of moved into environmental education first.
We had a strong ethos, and then sort of moved around field studies and, and, and more outdoor adventurous activities.
I think when you first start, you're very focused, aren't you, on the activity? And I used to remember writing, like, minute-by-minute lists of the day or the activity to make sure I didn't forget things and, uh, you know, you're learning, you're learning yourself as you go along.
But I think also what you suddenly become aware of is the other parts of the practitioner.
And I think the IoL, it's, it is a charity that is about championing outdoor learning, but particularly it's about the practitioner.
Uh, in fact, practitioner is the word the IoL in, back in about 2000 coined for this role.
Because so many people have different job titles, don't they? You can be teacher, an educator, teaching assistant.
There's all these different titles, but the key thing is you're using the outdoors to make a positive difference to others.
And it doesn't just happen, and I think this is where I'm learning a, a more, thinking about more closely at the moment.
As we look at different types of outdoor learning, and maybe it's even more important with the shorter experiences because the practitioner is the person that's key to helping that sense-making for the young people.
It's the transfer, that elusiveness, the transfer of the learning to when you go back home.
Or it may just be that till next week, if you, you know, if you've got a, a progressive program in school.
So what the IoL has tried to do for all these different people in all the different settings that outdoor learning takes place, and I'm still learning that.
When I got the job, I, I think I wrote about it once in Horizons magazine- I knew, I thought I knew something about outdoor learning.
But then I, as I've joined the IoL professionally, uh, in a work context, I've realized I know some things about outdoor learning, and it's that where you realize there's just so little that you know.
But all these wonderful people, these practitioners, they're often very dedicated and very thoughtful about what they do, but they are key to it going from an experience to a learning, outdoor learning event.
Jo, what I'd like to do is just kinda refocus back a little on your journey from practitioner to center leader to the leadership roles that you find yourself in now.
How has your understanding of the profession of the outdoor educator or the outdoor leader changed throughout the years?
I think when you first start, I remember... 'Cause I taught first, and then I sort of moved into environmental education first.
We had a strong ethos, and then sort of moved around field studies and, and, and more outdoor adventurous activities.
I think when you first start, you're very focused, aren't you, on the activity? And I used to remember writing, like, minute-by-minute lists of the day or the activity to make sure I didn't forget things and, uh, you know, you're learning, you're learning yourself as you go along.
But I think also what you suddenly become aware of is the other parts of the practitioner.
And I think the IoL, it's, it is a charity that is about championing outdoor learning, but particularly it's about the practitioner.
Uh, in fact, practitioner is the word the IoL in, back in about 2000 coined for this role.
Because so many people have different job titles, don't they? You can be teacher, an educator, teaching assistant.
There's all these different titles, but the key thing is you're using the outdoors to make a positive difference to others.
And it doesn't just happen, and I think this is where I'm learning a, a more, thinking about more closely at the moment.
As we look at different types of outdoor learning, and maybe it's even more important with the shorter experiences because the practitioner is the person that's key to helping that sense-making for the young people.
It's the transfer, that elusiveness, the transfer of the learning to when you go back home.
Or it may just be that till next week, if you, you know, if you've got a, a progressive program in school.
So what the IoL has tried to do for all these different people in all the different settings that outdoor learning takes place, and I'm still learning that.
When I got the job, I, I think I wrote about it once in Horizons magazine- I knew, I thought I knew something about outdoor learning.
But then I, as I've joined the IoL professionally, uh, in a work context, I've realized I know some things about outdoor learning, and it's that where you realize there's just so little that you know.
But all these wonderful people, these practitioners, they're often very dedicated and very thoughtful about what they do, but they are key to it going from an experience to a learning, outdoor learning event.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.