Abstract
Diane Silver was active in the early years of the Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center. She created education curriculum with Deb Yandala and helped integrate an emphasis in art and music into science based education.
Loading...
Interviewee
Silver, Diane (interviewee)
Interviewer
Jones Macko, Rebecca (interviewer); Schnack, Erich (participant)
Project
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Date
2-16-2022
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
52 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Diane Silver interview, 16 February 2022" (2022). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 343004.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1446
Transcript
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:00:00] So this is Rebecca Jones Mako. I’m on the phone with Diane Silver on February 16, 2022. First of all, I want to thank you for sharing this hour with us, Diane, I really do appreciate it because I haven’t heard from you in a long time.
Diane Silver [00:00:19] So, yeah, I’m delighted to be with you, and thank you for the invitation.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:00:25] So we are collecting stories about women who played a role in the Valley, and you were instrumental in the early days of the Environmental Education Center, so we wanted to catch your story.
Diane Silver [00:00:38] Great.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:00:39] To start with, tell us a little bit about your background, like, where did you grow up?
Diane Silver [00:00:46] I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, So a very different environment than the Cuyahoga Valley. You know, I grew up in the Sonoran Desert, and I loved the desert. My family was somewhat outdoorsy. My father was an avid hiker, and as I was growing up, we used to go on day hikes a lot until I, you know, we were old enough to do, to do longer hikes, and he used to go off on big wilderness trips and come back with amazing pictures. And so, yeah, I really grew up with a love of the outdoors. And I went to summer camp for years and years in my childhood in Prescott, Arizona, and also in California in Kings Canyon National Park. And so I had really strong influences in my childhood to just really love the outdoors.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:01:49] Alright. Well, ironically, my next question was, what early experiences led you to environmental career? So were there other things that also pointed you in that direction?
Diane Silver [00:02:01] Well, there you go. Yeah, I would say that it was a combination of those childhood experiences where I just really loved the outdoors. And then, you know, you know, by the late 80s and early 90s, you know, with a lot going on with at that time, you know, environmental problems at that time were air pollution, you know, the ozone layer. There was all that concern about the ozone layer. And then obviously solid waste and water pollution, you know, clean drinking water, you know, air, land and water, the basic environmental issues. And, and it just, you know, as many young people do, I just got really concerned for the health of our planet. And I was worried that future generations wouldn’t have the opportunity to enjoy the outdoor world in the way that I had. And so it really became a passion in my college years and in my young twenties.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:03:06] So what did you study in college then? And where was that?
Diane Silver [00:03:10] Yeah, so actually in my undergrad years, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do yet. And so I went to a liberal arts college. I went to a small liberal arts college. It was one of The Claremont Colleges in California, Claremont McKenna College. And I got a liberal arts degree. I majored in economics and psychology. I just thought those were good disciplines for sort of a, to open doors for a range of possible careers. You know, business, working with people, that sort of thing. And then it was in after graduation, my first job, when I started getting really interested in environmental issues. Actually, you know, the story, the story is I was working in Washington D.C. I was actually working on Capitol Hill. I was an aide in the United States Senate, which was very cool. And I was interested in environmental issues. But concurrently, I was working as a volunteer for this amazing organization that was called Youth Ambassadors International. And it was a nonprofit organization that had this vision of achieving world peace literally through a process of getting young people together. You know, that was still in the days of. It was kind of the very end of the Cold War, but the Soviet Union was still the Soviet Union. And it was this program with the idea of if we could get American kids and Soviet kids together when they’re in their early teens or early to mid teens and let them get to know each other as people and come to understand that they have far more in common than what might divide them, then that would set them up to be leaders in that next generation, to maybe be able to work on the problems that divide us in a better way than what was going on at the time. And so I thought that was very cool. And I got involved with this group and I actually got to participate in a youth summit. I was a chaperone and administrator to bring a group of American students actually to the Soviet Union. This was in 1990. I think it was right before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And it was this really amazing program with lots of different task forces where these students would get together and work on some issue that they had chosen. And it was big issues like poverty and arms control and literacy and world hunger and things like that. The environment was one of these task forces. And what was really interesting to me was that all of the students wanted to be on the environment task force and they couldn’t all be on one task force. So some of them kind of got their second choice. But outside of the meetings, in the dining hall, on the bus, and anytime that we were just sort of in social time, kids were talking about environmental issues, it was clear to me that this was an issue that really, really resonated with young people. And so that is when I kind of put all of that together and said, I want to go, I want to do environmental education like this is going to be the mechanism for saving the planet. Instead of going into advocacy and protesting in the streets or, or becoming a scientist and trying to convince the political influencers to listen to the science. I felt like this feels like a really good strategy. Just like the strategy of trying to get kids to work together on peace or hunger or poverty or any other issue. This is a great avenue for getting the next generation of leaders caring about the environment and being those problem solvers. Let’s get them while they’re young. And so that’s what got me interested in environmental education. And so then I sought out a graduate program to get a degree in environmental education. And I did that at the University of Michigan with a leader in the field whose name was Bill Stapp. And he was a pretty famous environmental education leader. So I felt very privileged to get into that program and be a Stapp student.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:07:56] Yeah. And I have encountered him before. So was there.
Diane Silver [00:08:01] Yeah.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:08:03] Obviously he would have an influence on the career path. But did anyone have special influence over your career paths?
Diane Silver [00:08:13] Well, absolutely. Those Michigan connections then played a really strong role because the alumni network of graduates from the University of Michigan Environmental Ed program is extensive. And there’s this tremendous network of leaders in the environmental education field who were all Bill Stapp students before me. I was one of the very last ones. He retired my last year of that graduate program. I was his very last TA. It was really an honor to get to work with him in that way. But I got going to conferences. Then I met all of these other folks in the environmental education world who were all Michigan alums and who were all Bill Stapp alums. I got to know them. And so this leads to how I got in with the Environmental Education Center. As the Environmental Ed Center was. Was being developed in the Cuyahoga Valley, I was just at the place of finishing my graduate program. So I was looking for a job. And it was through that alumni network that I learned about the job opportunity that came open to help the founding part of the founding team as this environmental Education Center was being opened.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:09:35] So who was the alum that connected you to the EEC?
Diane Silver [00:09:39] I think that was Deb Yandala, who was the curriculum. I think she had been brought on as the curriculum developer. And I think it was through her and also Jim Bull, who was the original director, the first director of the center. I think that he. One of them had posted there were job listings and he made sure that they got sent to like the University of Michigan list. I don’t even know if we had email lists back in the day, maybe, maybe we had early versions of email lists and I was on some list as a Michigan person and that’s how I learned about the job opening.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:10:24] Okay, so tell us about the time when you were working at the Environmental Education Center. So when did you work there? What years?
Diane Silver [00:10:30] I came on board in 1993. Let’s see. I guess it was. I don’t remember exactly what month was it? Spring. I graduated. You know, I finished my graduate program in the spring of 93. So maybe I started. I don’t remember if I started that summer or if it was that fall somewhere in there. And I worked there until December of ’96, I think.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:11:08] Oh, so how long had the EEC been in operation at that point?
Diane Silver [00:11:10] It had not been in operation. I was part of the team that first opened it. We had the very first- I think I came on board and was working with the team for a month or so before the very first group of students where we were working as a curriculum team. Deb Yandala was as the lead curriculum developer, but all of us on staff were part of the curriculum development process and we worked together figuring out what this program was going to look like and working out. A big part of what I did was all of the logistics. We had these grand plans with really cool, interesting, relevant lessons and big lesson blocks. We had this vision of- We, Deb especially had this vision of three-hour lesson blocks. You know, rather than just an hour or 50 minutes like most school periods are, where students would have the time to be out on a hike, you know, instructors would be able to take their group out on a hike and pause along the way to have some kind of a lesson, you know, to have an activity or a discussion or you know, to discover things on along the trail and build a whole in depth lesson out of that experience in the park. And so we needed time to hike a trail and also stop along the way. So we had these long, long meetings day after day of these curriculum development conversations about what is this going to look like. And so I did a lot of the logistics of figuring out, OK, we’ve got six groups and 10 instructors and this many trails and what if it rains when we need inside spaces for each of these groups to be able to come inside and do a rainy day alternative and, you know, all of the puzzle pieces of, you know, plugging all the variables in and making them work. That was a big part of my job.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:13:17] So what else was your role besides logistics?
Diane Silver [00:13:21] Well, I was the program director for that residential program or program coordinator. I forget exactly what the title was, but so my job was hiring, you know, interviewing and eventually hiring the intern staff. We had it, we staffed the program through an internship program. And so we had, I want to say, 10ish interns on staff. So, you know, I wrote job descriptions, I got that job description out there in the world. Applications came in and I collected them. And then it was my job to follow up, interview people on the phone with first round phone interview, and then, you know, move people through a whole interview and hiring process. And then as that first group came on board, we planned together as a team, we planned a really intense three-week training program for them, for the staff, these instructional staff, where we, you know, trained them in the curriculum that they were going to be teaching. And so I was the direct supervisor for, for all of those interns. And I worked out their work schedules. We had a rotation of, I think, two at a time. Actually had a week when they wouldn’t be teaching. They would be helping with administrative work and behind the scenes work that needed to be done. Like we needed people to do that. And so making sure that it was fair across the board that all of the staff were getting a really good learning experience because it was an internship. So we, we were in service not only to the students who were coming and the schools who were essentially the clients of the Environmental Ed Center, but we were also in service to those interns because they were, you know, an internship is a learning experience. And we wanted to make sure that they were getting a really valuable learning experience in doing environmental education. So making sure that, you know, any one intern didn’t teach the same unit over and over and over again, that they got to, they got to teach the whole breadth of the curriculum and gain that experience and that knowledge. I worked with them. If they ever had challenges with their students, which of course you do, you know, teaching is challenging work. I was the mentor, I guess, for those interns along with the whole staff. We had a terrific team with Deb as the curriculum develop, development leader. And Janice Matucci was our art director. We had- And Marvin, no different. Marvin. Marvin. Forget Marvin’s last name. You’ll have to help me. Who was our science director. And we had two park rangers, Pam and Wendy. Pam Barnes and Wendy Paris.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:16:35] Paris.
Diane Silver [00:16:36] And as a team, we all served as mentors for those interns. And so I was the coordinator of all of that. And then of course there was support and evaluation for those interns, you know, so I was, I mean, I was their supervisor, all the things that staff supervision involves.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:17:02] Wow. I’m sorry. It sounds exhausting.
Diane Silver [00:17:05] The other thing that I did, a big part of that was the continuing logistics of doing the schedule each week of, you know, who is teaching what, which group is in which space, on which trail, at which time, with which teachers, with which equipment. All of that was kind of my logistical work, at least that first year. And then in subsequent years, we started an administrative internship where we had two of the interns from the previous year got invited to stay on for another year and work at more of an administrative level. And so then I was able to delegate a lot of that scheduling work and logistical work to the intern, to those administrative interns so that they would, you know, they would get to learn about administration.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:17:53] Wow.
Diane Silver [00:17:54] And then- And then I was involved with some of the curriculum development. We started that first year, the program was for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. And there was a vision for expanding it eventually to include seventh and eighth grade, which we did. So after the first year, I think it was after just the first year, then we started working on the next curriculum. We had to do a whole repeat curriculum process because we were developing a middle grade curriculum. And then I think we had sixth grade as kind of a straddle year where the teachers for the school could choose whether they felt the Level 1 curriculum would be more appropriate for their students or whether the Level 2 curriculum would be. So I was involved in developing some of those units for the for the Level 2 curriculum, you know, as the job wore on.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:18:55] So were you there during the EEC construction period?
Diane Silver [00:19:01] Only at the very, very tail end. It was mostly constructed. By the time I came on board, there were finishing touches yet to be done. And so we certainly had. We had some really interesting, you know, not growing pains, but, you know, those first couple of months, the facility actually was not 100% complete. I think one side of it was. There are two sides of the campus. The Lipscomb side of the white. The White Pines side. Yeah, it’s been a long time. And so I think the Lipscomb side was complete, but the White Pines side wasn’t quite ready yet. And so those first weeks, we had smaller groups. We only had, like, we only had one school in at a time that could all be contained just on that one side. And we had only the one dining room operating. And then subsequently, when White Pines got completed, we were able to book two schools at a time or one big school where they would. They would use both campuses. And then we were running both dining halls. But early on, White Pines was still under construction. And I mean, I really remember that very, very first day of like firing up the kitchen. You know, like, okay, we’re gonna turn on the stove. We’re gonna see how this works. I remember, you know, the dorm over at Lipscomb was ready, but it didn’t have, like, we didn’t have all of the furnishings were just coming in. So there was this whole process of like, we had boxes and boxes and boxes of bunk beds that all needed to be assembled. And we had like, I remember Arrye Rosser like researching vendors for curtains, like, because we didn’t have window coverings, which you don’t think, you don’t think of and you don’t think that’s a big deal. But this is a dorm and kids are going to be changing clothes in, you know, in their various single gendered room. Like, they’re gonna want to be able to draw the curtains when they’re changing clothes. Like, the windows didn’t have curtains.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:21:18] Oh, man.
Diane Silver [00:21:19] So we were like scurrying, scurrying around like, oh my gosh, we gotta get these in place before Monday when these kids show up. So there was definitely some interesting experiences and those finishing touches, you know, getting put in.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:21:37] So were you there during the grand opening? Do you remember anything about it?
Diane Silver [00:21:41] Yeah, I do. I do remember the grand opening. It was exciting. We actually had had students in residence for a while before we had that big grand opening event just because of the way the calendar worked out. So, you know, it was kind of like we got to work out the bugs and do some trial runs, if you will. And then we had this big grand opening event. But I remember we put up a big- There was a big tent got put up in the field so we would have extra space. And there were, there were amazing arts activities. Like, there were arts activities and there was a big arts performance and there was, there were artistic displays. Like, it was actually great that we had had some weeks of programming before that event because we were able to get products from the kids. You know, a big part of the curriculum was the arts integration. It was environment and arts integration, which is really forward-thinking. You know, as I look back on it, I feel like there was some really, really amazing leadership in integrating arts and science well before STEAM, you know, was ever a thing. I think maybe STEM was already sort of coming into the education lingo, although I’m not sure. It might have been even before that. But, you know, there was this big emphasis that got placed on stem, science, technology, engineering and math. Because the United States was, you know, behind other countries in those critical areas. And then there was so much emphasis put on STEM that educators realized they needed some balance and we needed to add the arts into that because it was just, it was too much imbalance and it wasn’t serving students well and being well rounded people. And so then now, you know, the big thing is STEAM with arts added into the STEM curriculum. But we were doing that way back in the early ’90s. And that’s really thanks to vision, like the vision from Deb Yandala and Janice Matteucci as the leaders of that part of the curriculum. Great art products that the kids had done. These big canvas banners as part of one of the units where the students made a big banner representing the Cuyahoga River and all that they were learning about the Cuyahoga river and the Cuyahoga Valley. They depicted that in a big canvas banner. And so these banners got made week after week after week. And then the school usually would take it home to the school and put it up in the classroom or in their cafeteria or something. It was a really big kind of exhibit to represent this whole experience that the class had had. So I think we borrowed back a bunch of those banners and put them on display for the grand opening. And people really oohed and aahed over them. They were really impressive.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:24:55] Wow! So you’ve mentioned Janice. Excuse me, Janice Matteucci and Deb Yandala. So these were early female leaders. So what do you remember about them? And were there other female leaders? What do you remember about them and their influence?
Diane Silver [00:25:09] Well, a lot of what I’ve already said just that these were, you know, we had a leadership team, I think, for the Environmental Education Center that was, that was primarily. Well, so we had a, we had a director and an association director. We had the curriculum developer, which was Deb. And then we had an arts specialist and a science specialist. So there was five people, and I guess three of them were men early on. So Jim, Dave and Marvin, director, associate director and science specialist. And then Deb and Janice as the curriculum director and the arts specialist. So I guess I mentioned them a lot because they were the two women in that five person leadership team. And then the next tier of staff at the administrative level was myself as the program coordinator, Arrye Rosser as the park ranger administrator. I forget what her exact title was. And then we had two interpretive rangers, which were Pam and Wendy. And so that whole second-tier team, there were four of us and we were all women. So when you put all of that together the leadership for this center did have a good deal of women leadership, which, which was really enjoyable to work in. You know, I felt like, I know that historically a lot of women have been like the only woman in an environment full of men and they have to work extra hard to deal with the cultural stuff that goes with that. But we had a really nice balance on the team. And of course Diane Chalfont was, was the Chief of Interpretation for the park at that time. And I know that her leadership was a really important component of the center being built in the first place. So I think there was a lot of really good women leadership in the whole thing.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:27:34] So you mentioned that first set of interns that you had to hire. Do you, what do you remember about that first set of interns or any of the first sets of interns?
Diane Silver [00:27:44] The first sets. Wow. You know, it kind of blends in my, in my- What I remember overall was that they were a group of really amazing people. We worked them really hard. The hours are really intense for that internship because your workday starts at 7:30 in the morning. If you’re on breakfast duty. You know, the expectation was that the interns were in the dining hall with the students. And also if they wanted to eat their meals were part of their compensation. That was what we advertised was you get room and board. And so the food availability was in the dining hall for the regularly scheduled meals. So if you wanted breakfast, you had to be there at 7:30. And then they’re teaching multiple units of these long, you know, these long three hour units. They had a little bit of break time at the end of the morning right before lunch, and a little bit of break time in the afternoon before dinner. But then there was an evening program from 7 to 9, you know, so their workday conceivably could be 7:30 in the morning until 9 o’clock at night. With only a couple of breaks during the day. We tried to, to have a shifted day where if you had a morning unit and you had to be there early in the morning, you might not have evening program duty. Maybe your workday would end at 5 o’clock instead of at 9 o’clock. And if you were on evening duty for the evening program, maybe you didn’t have to be there till 11 or something. We tried to shift it, but it didn’t always work. And that was a big part of that logistical job that I had, was making sure that it was fair. You know, if somebody got saddled with a 15-hour day or whatever it is, do the math that that didn’t happen to them day after day after day. But it was really intense and exhausting for them. And I just remember most of them being incredible troopers, terrific attitudes, really great team players, open to anything. And also they were pilot testing a new curriculum. And any curriculum, you know, is always going to have bugs in it. You know, as a curriculum writer, you have a vision and you’re like, hey, here’s a, you know, here’s this great activity. We’re going to have students do this, and we’re going to have them do that, and they’re going to, you know, they’re going to make this thing or they’re going to do these scientific, you know, experiments or whatever. And then when you actually implement it, you realize, oh, you know what? This doesn’t really work so well, or this just isn’t practical, or turns out that at this grade level, students just don’t have the background understanding that we thought they were going to have. And so you have to tweak. So that first set of interns are the ones who had to do all that tweaking. We had big debriefing meetings on Friday afternoons. After the students had departed, we had a big debriefing meeting where we talked about what worked and what didn’t work. And we got a lot of feedback from them where they were like, look, nice idea on the, you know, whatever activity, but it’s just not happening on the ground. And so then we would go back as a curriculum team and try to tweak it or give them suggestions. So there was a lot of iterative process that they were a part of. They didn’t do a lot of writing because they didn’t have time. They were the front line with the students. But they did a lot of creation of the curriculum through their iterative ideas. And then when we finally hit on something that worked, then Deb or I or somebody else on the curriculum team would formalize it, you know, and as we were doing a revision of the curriculum where we, you know, for year two, we recognized, like, what’s on paper is not what’s actually happening on the ground. Because they had been adapting it as weeks went by. And so we needed to then capture all of those adaptations and revise the curriculum for the next time around. So that first set of interns was really integral in the development of the curriculum. And they were all great people. I’d have to go back to my list.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:32:19] They were the first guinea pigs trying the curriculum out.
Diane Silver [00:32:23] Remember, all of them.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:32:27] So tell me about challenges and successes in those, those years that you were there. Are there any challenges or successes that stand out?
Diane Silver [00:32:37] Oh, man. Well, sure. I mean, first of all, I think everything that I just said about-
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:32:43] Yeah, I got you.
Diane Silver [00:32:44] You know, needing tweaking. I mean, those were really challenging times when you’re out with a group of kids and, you know, the way that we, that you’ve been trained, like, here’s what you’re gonna do and then you’re doing it and it’s just not working. I know that that was challenging for those interns and it was challenging for the whole team because we wanted to support them as much as we possibly could. And sometimes the turnaround, like we couldn’t just wave a magic wand and have a solution for Monday. They’re telling us on Friday, this did not work all that well. And there’s another group coming in on Monday and we’ve got to do it all. And we couldn’t change it that fast, you know, and so we had to say, you know, look, I know that this is not ideal and I know that this isn’t working well, but you’re going to have to just carry on, you know, until we can work, figure it out. So there was a lot of that. There was a lot of the students not being really adequately prepared for the outdoors, especially because we had a big emphasis on serving low income schools and so, or, you know, schools with a high population of low income students. And so, you know, we had a pack list that was delivered to the schools, you know, for students to bring, but they didn’t necessarily have what they needed. We had a lot of kids showing up with cotton sweatshirts and cotton jeans in the dead of winter, you know, and a light coat or something. But, you know, when what they really needed was high-tech winter gear, you know, warm and light. And, you know, we emphasized dressing in layers, but when your layers are three layers of cotton, it’s still not keeping you all that warm. And so, you know, we had this really strong ethic of we want this to be an outdoor program. Kids, you know, we’re going outside and in the winter, obviously in the Cuyahoga Valley, there’s snow on the ground. And so we were taking kids on hikes in the snow when they really didn’t have adequate equipment. And so then we tried to provide it for them. We ordered a whole supply of really great winter snow boots where if they just had tennis shoes, we could lend them a pair of boots so their feet would be warm. And so there was this whole process then of sizing of, like, if you need boots, arrival was this big orientation process of getting off the bus and getting their bags to the correct dorm and getting them oriented in the dorm. And then there was this whole thing of, if you need boots, you’re going to go over here and we’re going to fit you and try to get you a pair of boots that fit. And I’m sure that kids were walking around with shoes a half size too big or sometimes a half size too small. We tried not to do that. It’s better for them to be too big, too small, you know, but. So that was a huge challenge. Just helping make sure that kids not just safe, but comfortable. You know, we wanted kids to be comfortable because we wanted them to have a positive experience. You know, what would break my heart would be if at the end of the week, kids were like, I can’t wait to go home. I can’t wait to get out of here and get back to my bed and be warm and, you know, watch TV and whatever we wanted the experience to be. This has been the most amazing, you know, week of my life. And I love the outdoors and I love the woods, and when I go home, I’m going to keep on hiking on my own. And, you know, we really wanted to encourage them to come back to the park with their family. You know, this is your national park, and it’s right here, within an hour’s drive of where you live. Come back with your parents and show them what you learned and show them the places you went. You know, that’s what we hoped for. So keeping kids comfortable so that they would have an overall positive experience, and it was a really important thing.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:36:53] And that’s still an issue even today, and I’m aware of that. They keep a cache, still, at EEC, of clothes and hats and coats.
Diane Silver [00:37:05] Yep, that was the other part. Gloves, hats, scarves. Hats are an issue because you have to- You know, there’s health issues about transferring head lice. We actually got a washing machine on campus so that we could wash hats and gloves and scarves and whatever and have them be available for the next week, you know, and make sure that they were clean. We weren’t transferring anything from kid to kid.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:37:37] Wow. So do you have a favorite memory or a funny story from that time?
Diane Silver [00:37:44] I think my favorite memories are those evening programs. Evening programs were able to be a little bit less academic, you know, because kids, you know, during the regular year, they’re not in school in the evening, and so they got to be a little bit more, I’m not going to say like summer camp, but we wanted them to be celebratory. We did a lot with music. If we had interns, you know, who had some musical ability, we tried to do some live music, but we also had, you know, a whole, what you today would call a playlist. At the time, we were working off of CDs, but we had a CD player in both campuses where we could put on a CD and play a particular track that would be relevant to the program. And then we had, you know, the evening program might be, you know, working up a skit, you know, with a small group and then presenting it to the group. We always had one night of the week that was a night hike and then a campfire. And so sitting around the campfire and telling stories and singing songs, you know, like you do when you’re camping. Many of those students, they had never done that before. First campfire of their entire life. And so that was really special. I think those evening programs are among my favorite memories.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:39:12] So I’m going to skip ahead on some of our questions because I want to be respectful of your time. So I may go back and wind up picking some of those back up, but I want to capture some of these other stories. So you were at Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center for three years?
Diane Silver [00:39:33] Yeah, a little. I think a little. Just a little more than three years.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:39:37] So why did you leave the Environmental Education Center?
Diane Silver [00:39:41] Yeah, it was really, really hard to leave. The truth is I left because I was- I wasn’t officially engaged to be married, but I was close to engaged. And I moved, you know, for that personal, that personal life reason. It was relocation to another city because it was the practical thing for that relationship. And sometimes you make choices, you know, for your personal life rather than your career. And so. But it was a huge sacrifice. That was- I will say that working at Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Ed Center is probably one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. It was incredibly gratifying. It was a great team of people. It was meaningful work. I think it was really valuable work, and I just loved it. I was very sorry to leave.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:40:48] So I know you’re still involved in advocacy. So how has your time in Cuyahoga Valley influenced your continued advocacy?
Diane Silver [00:41:00] Well, I have- I had a really nice, long career, had about a 20, 25-year career in environmental education doing different things. And I would say that working with that curriculum team when I was young in my career was really a strong influence. I really learned from Deb Yandala how to write curriculum, you know, how to develop an activity and put it on paper and tie in all of the required, you know, learning goals from state curriculum requirements or, you know, state standards and things like that. How to, how to put it on paper for the user, you know, the instructor who’s going to be reading that activity and trying to implement it, you know, how to, how to make it usable and efficient. I learned all of that from Deb and from that iterative process. And I did a lot of curriculum development throughout my career. So I feel like that’s a big, a big thing that I gained professionally from getting to be on that team, you know, as my first job out of graduate school. And I learned a lot about working with students and with teachers. A big part of, you know, a big part of what I did that I didn’t mention earlier is we did pre-site visits at the school. For every school that was booked to come to the center, we go to, we would go to the school in a week, the week or two before and do a lesson with the students that would give them some background information so that they would have some existing knowledge to build on when they were at the, in their week at the center. And then also to give them an idea of, you know, how to prep and what it’s going to be like. We had some slides that we could show to say this is what it’s going to look like and you know, this is where you’re going to be sleeping and this is, you know, what the activities are going to be. Because the notion of going away for a week is pretty scary to those kids. I did a lot of those pre site visits and so I got a lot of experience in working with teachers and with school administrators. And so that was really valuable experience and, you know, helped me in future jobs that I did.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:43:30] So I just have a couple more questions. There’s a lot of questions that I’ve skipped over in the interest of time. So I may wind up emailing you those for email response. But I’m curious, what are you most passionate about today?
Diane Silver [00:43:49] I am still passionate about environmental issues. I have shifted arenas because my whole big idea about how environmental education was going to save the world was this notion that if we could influence individuals at that time in their life when they are most open to being influenced, which is the preteen and teenage years, when kids are kind of breaking away from their parents and forming their own identity and forming the values that they’re going to carry with them as adults. Those are the years, those years when they’re most formative, where I felt like this, you know, theory of environmental education, of giving kids experiences like working on with that affective domain, giving them a positive experience where they’re going to have an emotional response that makes them care about the outdoors and care about the natural world, and then pairing that with science and with information, that cognitive domain, and helping them understand what the problems are and what the solutions are. If people know, if people have knowledge and they also have caring, when you put that together, that should theoretically lead to action. Those are the components that you need to make people actually want to do something about it. Whether it’s individual actions like recycling at home or larger actions like being a political activist or if you become a leader in your community or leader, you know, voting the way that we hope people will vote to put policies in place. Certainly being, being a voter as a citizen, being a voter and voting for elected leaders who will support the policies that we need to protect the environment. That, you know, the idea was the, you know, these experiences in your great, in your school years are going to lead to all of those impact in the big picture. That’s the theory. That theory has fallen apart for me because of the way our political system works, that the problems with our politics these days, with our hyper partisanship, crippling government, and nothing being able to get done in Congress because of the way our partisan politics works. I kind of have peeled back the layers of the onion and felt like there’s a deeper root problem that we need to solve if we want to really solve all of these other problems. And that is the way that we elect our political leaders. And so I now work in electoral reform. I have shifted away from environmental education, which makes me sad because I really love environmental education. But I got really passionate about electoral reform and changing the way we elect people. And I work for an organization called Fair Vote and we advocate for a new way of voting that’s called ranked choice voting, where when you go to vote, instead of just getting to vote for one candidate, you actually rank order them. You say first choice, second choice, third choice. And then the way that the votes are tallied results in a winner who better represents the true will of the people. It, it’s a lot harder to game that system and it reduces the power of special interests and the power of political strategy. And it’s a much better reflection of the true will of the voters. And that’s what democracy is supposed to be. And so I’ve gotten really passionate about this reform. And so I’m now working on that full time. So I’m not in the environmental arena anymore. But it’s always with this feeling of this is in service to problem solving for all the other problems in our society, a huge part of which are the environmental problems that I’m especially passionate about.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:48:04] So where are you doing this advocacy work? I know you’re not in Ohio and you’re not in Michigan anymore, so where are you at now?
Diane Silver [00:48:11] My organization is headquartered in Takoma Park, Maryland, which is part of the greater D.C. area. But I’m a remote worker in the living in the 21st century. And so I actually live in Asheville, North Carolina.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:48:27] And I’m envious.
Diane Silver [00:48:29] Yeah, I love it here on [inaudible] Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited national park in the country, is my understanding. And I am within walking distance of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is also a national park. So I really enjoy the national parks that are close to me, and I enjoy them on a regular basis. And I have always remembered the lessons that we, you know, taught to those students about this is your national park, and it’s, it’s, you know, our legacy for everybody. And I really believe that.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:49:08] Wow. My last question. Who inspires you?
Diane Silver [00:49:16] Who inspires me? I would say that at this point in my life, the next generation of leaders inspire me. When I see someone like Greta Thunberg doing what she’s doing, I imagine a lot of people cite her as an obvious example, but not just, not just her, but so many other people like her who are passionate about the environment and who recognize the problems that are out there and have the energy, that youthful energy to be passionate and act on really gives me hope for the future, that for all of the things that are wrong right now, it feels like we’re going through a really trying time in our society. A lot of the political problems I just talked about, you know, just seem to be getting more and more intense. But I feel like there’s this flip side, which is that there are young people out there who are standing up and being active in the way that, you know, that activists were, you know, generation or two ago, that that still exists, that that new generation isn’t apathetic. Those are the folks who inspire me.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:50:48] Wow. Thank you. Thank you for fitting us in today. I want to give you time before your next departmental meeting, but thank you for fitting us in. Thank you for this hour. I’ll send you the questions I didn’t get to, if you wish to answer them back with email. But thank you for your time and thank you for your work in setting up the Environmental Education Center. And Arrye wanted me to be sure to tell you hello for her.
Diane Silver [00:51:16] Oh, thank you. Thank you. Big hello back. Yeah. To everybody. Great memories. This has been fun. Thank you so much for inviting me and for the opportunity. It’s been really fun to reminisce about those times.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:51:31] Well, thank you. Thank you. And hopefully someday I’ll see you in balance and swing.
Diane Silver [00:51:38] I hope so. Yeah. Take care.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:51:42] Take care, Diane.
Diane Silver [00:51:43] Thanks. Bye, now.
Rebecca Jones Macko [00:51:45] Bye.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
