People of Northwest Arkansas
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People of Northwest Arkansas
Sam Dean - How The Amazeum Builds Confident Learners In Northwest Arkansas
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We sit down with Amazeum CEO, Sam Dean, to talk about how hands-on play, real tools, and authentic design choices spark learning for kids and families across Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas. We also dig into the Amazeum’s expansion plans and why building a culture of curiosity can shape a fast-changing community for decades.
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Welcome And What To Expect
SPEAKER_04Hey, welcome to the People of Northwest Arkansas podcast. Today we have a great guest for you, Sam Dean. He's the CEO of the Scott Family Amazum in Bentonville, Arkansas. We're gonna talk all the things the Amazum
Watching The Amazeum And Bentonville Grow
SPEAKER_04is doing with early education, the expansion, and we learn Sam's first movie that he ever saw in a theater. So make sure you tune in and listen to the whole episode and you can hear all those things. Hey Danielle, have you seen all the construction that's happening at the Amazum?
SPEAKER_01Yes. So I'm there twice a week. We have soccer over in Memorial Park, but also we just frequent all the museums over there. And I'm always a homeroom mom, so I'm always on a field trip, which is I think I actually like more than the kids do.
SPEAKER_04Always. I love a field trip. I love a good field trip too. I think it's really awesome to see all the growth that's happening in that area of Bentonville. And just having been here and lived here for 11 years in Bettonville specifically, it's it's really been fun to watch it grow. I actually just wrote a piece for the Bettonville City Lifestyle magazine talking about watching my kids grow as Northwest Arkansas is growing. And we taught I talked a lot about the amazing. We were we were members from day one. We got to do the like member preview. It was back in like July of 2015. Our daily was just a few months old. We were members of the amazing before we officially moved into our house here in Bentonville. And so it's really fun to see all the growth that's happened and all the things that are happening in Bentonville, but specifically
Meet Sam Dean And ASTC
SPEAKER_04with the amazing and the museums in the area. And so today we have a guest who is pretty I mean he's kind of connected to the amazing, I guess. Very connected. Very connected. Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we have Sam Dean here. He is the chief executive officer of the Ehmasium, and he's also been elected to serve as chair elect of the ASTC Board of Directors. And just explain to us what that stands for.
SPEAKER_05Sure. ASTC is the Association of Science and Technology Centers, and it's the membership-based organization for gosh, 600 organizations, science centers, and science museums across North America, some across South America, Europe, and Asia.
SPEAKER_04So really I know it's awesome. We have you ever used that as part of your membership at the museum?
SPEAKER_01You know what? I wish that I would have. Actually, I take that back. I think I did in Dallas once at the Perot. Yeah. The Perot Museum when my kids were little. Because I was like you when I moved here in 2017. I didn't get the preview there because we weren't there that long. But as soon as we moved here, I was just literally talking to my daughter this morning. I was like, do you remember when we how we lived at the Amazum when you were little? I mean, that place was literally a godsend for me. It really was. It really was. Having a toddler and then like a five-year-old at the time. They had so much fun. We were talking
From The Exploratorium To Northwest Arkansas
SPEAKER_01about how they used to play with other kids at the cabin and pretend they were little house on the prairie lifestyle. Anyway. I love that so much. So, Sam, tell us what brought you to Northwest Arkansas.
SPEAKER_05You know, uh, Northwest Arkansas was was never on my my plan, but thank goodness I have a tendency not to listen to the to plans. You know, I was I've been in the museum field for about 30 years now, and the museum I was working with at that time, gosh, 14 plus years ago, was a place called the Exploratorium, and it's in the Bay Area, San Francisco, and one of the first hands-on science museums in North America, in fact. And my job there was taking the work of the exploratorium and exporting it and taking and partnering with museums all around the country and internationally to help them think about either creating spaces of their own, so doing master plans, or helping them think about inquiry-based learning. The exploratorium is a museum of art, science, and human perception. And we had, I had clients here in Arkansas, partners, the Arkansas Discovery Network, and we were building these seven making and tinkering studio studios for seven museums all across the state. Awesome. It was fun work. We're bringing a lot of Arkansans out to the Exploratory in the Bay Area and doing a lot of training. And I so I was spending a lot of time in Little Rock. And it turns out while I was doing this work, there was this group up here in Northwest Arkansas that was looking to start a children's museum. And I can talk about that more in a minute, but I someone who I was working with in the Discovery Network said, You you should go, you should go talk to them. That Northwest Arkansas, there's something happening there. And you know, the the first two times she told me, I said, Oh, I'm I'm sure it's great. Oh, I'm I'm sure it's great, it's wonderful. And then I I made a trip to Northwest Arkansas and was just blown away. There was clearly some amazing things that were happening and and ready to happen. And the ability to start a museum from from scratch is is is not very often. So decided to to take leave a job that I love doing work around the world and take a jump to join this community that's on this funny pathway to figure out what it wants to be and move to build the Amazum, build build the organization, and then build the museum itself.
SPEAKER_01That's a really cool the way that he said that last bit about the way that it's kind of we're forging what we want to be here. I very much feel that right now. Like all around town. Really incredible. I like what the town is evolving into, though.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and has been evolving for the past five, ten, fifteen years, and each step of the process just gets really just just more amazing I'm I don't even know what the word is that I want to use for that, but it's just incredible. Although sometimes living next to construction is a little bit hard. Yes. I have had to grin and parrot. Yes. And I'm in the Bay Area too. Well, I my my parents grew up in the Bay Area. I grew up in Modesto, which is east of about a couple hours east of San Francisco, but we went to San Francisco a lot and actually we used our membership with the museum to go to several museums when we were out in California. Man, when was it when we went? My kids were pretty little, my daughter was very young, and we had just, I mean, we had the membership maybe a year. I think the amazing was one year old. And we went to several museums in San Francisco. I think the exploratorium was one, the the California Academy of Sciences was another, which is amazing. Oh man, that like earthquake simulator. My kids were like, we don't ever want to be in a real earthquake. I was like, no, no, you you really don't. And then we went to a kids' museum in Sal Salito, which was amazing. It was on the other side. Oh, yes, the Bayer Discovery Museum is incredible. Barrack buildings, it's so cool. And like you can literally have you have like this amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge from that museum. And that's so cool. That is my favorite bridge. Anyway, we're not talking about San Francisco, we're talking about Northwest Arkansas. We are to pull myself back.
SPEAKER_05Because you're built in California. I still have my 415 number because I just you know I had to keep one link to the video at all times.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so I've spent a lot of time in San Francisco.
Building A Culture Of Curiosity
SPEAKER_04It's my favorite city, and right. I mean, I would say it's my favorite city, San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Cruz, that's the city. I love Malik.
SPEAKER_01But yes, Northwest Arkansas.
SPEAKER_04Northwest Arkansas. Let's get back to it.
SPEAKER_01So we we heard about how, you know, why you came here and why you decided to stay. What about the mission of the Emazium drew you in?
SPEAKER_05Well, the I mean the just the mission of of building a family-centric learning organization just to add its bare bones itself is amazing and enticing. You know, I I have a bit of a uh I didn't know this till later. I guess it's an entrepreneurial spirit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I love doing big projects and and seeing them through. So, you know, that's so what it turns out the the idea of taking on a big project like this was exciting. The other piece is that they're the it's not only to build an institution and a in a space, but to build a culture of curiosity and learning, of curiosity and creativity in particular, and to think about it in a way that might be a little bit different than many other museums around the country might look at it was also exciting. It was a chance to really stretch some, you know, hitting the point in my own career and trajectory where I had some thoughts. And it was really fun to be able to see how I can gather some like-minded people and and try some ideas out in a community that I think was ready and and of course clearly receptive to some of these ideas. So I think there was like this entrepreneurial spirit, this sort of like I just love kind of big projects and I and I and I wanted to, we we wanted to build a place that was so embedded with curiosity that it just kind of oozed from every pore.
SPEAKER_04Yes. I yeah, wow, I'm like turn I'm like holding back tears right now just because of good gracious. She's she's feeling emotional because it is a special place for children too. It's such a special place and is such a special place for my family and good memories.
SPEAKER_01Here, I'll be able to do that. So many, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Go ahead and continue because I know that curiosity piece.
SPEAKER_01I echo your sentiments huge for my kids because my next question, you kind of already answered about what makes it unique. And I, as you were talking, talking about entrepreneurial and it literally, I just was talking to my daughter this morning. You loved the water part where you had to like pipe the water to come out of start. I'm like, you were learning to plumb and you didn't even know. You know what I mean? And I feel like every time I would bring them there, and I've brought them to other museums and other cities, and they're beautiful museums, but I'd never been to one that was just dedicated to children. And I actually like that because usually it's like one level, and they're like I said, they're great, but I feel like each time the kids are allowed to go, like one time years ago, there was a slide made out of duct tape that I think the kids had helped the Amazon members make. And there's always something tape tunnels. Yeah, tape tunnels, and there's always something going on where the kids get to explore making something that is actually in use. Yeah. Because usually I feel like in children's museums they get to paint or they get to build. But I I like what you
Realness Matters From Trucks To Tools
SPEAKER_01said when you said you know said the entrepreneurial, because you kind of let them have creative freedom to make, create, share, explore, play, all those things.
SPEAKER_05We we believe in one of our core values. So if I go through some of the core values of the amazeum and our purpose, real and authentic authenticity and realness are important. And so it it meant like when we were building the amazeum, you know, some early designs had a kind of a plywood truck in there, which would be great. A lot of role-playing places have that. But we were working with a board member from from Walmart, and we're just chatting with him, and we're like, hey, can we get a can we get a real truck? It's like, yeah, I think we can make that happen. And so you know, they found one that they was that had was a million plus miler that they were ready to retire, and they said, you know, I think we can bring it in instead of putting it in a scrap heap somewhere for parts. Like, do you want it? Yeah. Well, and so a couple things. We brought a real truck in. The team from Walmart did the work on cutting it up to get it so it could fit in our building. By the way, our building is built around the truck. We had to wait, we had to bring the truck in before we could build the walls.
SPEAKER_04So amazing.
SPEAKER_05No idea how this thing's gonna get out of the building, although maybe kids will have to take it apart for us. And then the trailer. No, no, it's we have to we have to keep we built up and around it. And then the trailer was built by the fleet services team. So they brought in raw materials like they were building a uh trailer for the fleet, and the one of the Easter eggs is the the number on the side of the trailer on the back is the address of of their of their uh fleet services shop. Yeah, their distribution center. So I love the fact that it was real and it's authentic, this realness. And so tools are another thing that we you know, we love to put tools developmentally appropriate in kids' hands, but I think often we sell kids short on what they're capable of. We want creative, confident, capable kids who who are ready to dive into and and take on a world that is complexifying in such interesting ways. But so, you know, we do kind we do tool time with with kindergartners, you know. We do tool time all the way up through adults who often are using tools for the first time and we want to put real tools in their hand. What can you do with it? If you have an idea in your head, how can you then figure out how to express it in lots of different ways?
SPEAKER_04That's a really cool yeah.
SPEAKER_01I think we do underestimate them because we don't want our kids to get hurt, feel failure but then failure. I was just thinking the other day about the story about Thomas Edison, how they're like, You tried 99,000 times to find Flint or to try to make this work. And he's like, No, this was great. I found 99,000 things that do not do this, you know what I mean? So true, but can serve another you know, use. But I I think that's great that we give them the opportunity to try and not interfere unless it's dangerous, of course.
SPEAKER_04Lots of hands-on, I think, is really valuable for kids. I mean, I witnessed it personally as a mom for so many years. Yeah. So many years and so many multiple days in a row. Yeah, and I have to say the people when she says that she lived at the museum. Yep, we lived there too. The people that worked there are so nice that are from there too, who worked. Oh, you did? Yes, we really did. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Are you stealing employees from the employees? Yeah, I stole employees.
SPEAKER_04No, they were they were working. No, I mean, well, partially, okay, so I have to kind of dial this back a little bit, a little history. So I worked for John Brown University for many years. And when my last year working at JBUs, when we moved to Tentonville, and so I was still connected with a lot of JBU. They had hired a handful of JBU grads that worked at the Amazum. Several of my students, former students, worked there. So I knew people, so like Sarah, I've known her for years, ever since she was a student. I'm totally blanking on her last name right now: blonde hair, curly blonde hair, Sarah Whedon, yes. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_05I've known her since she was now head of professional learning at the time. She's amazing, yeah.
SPEAKER_04She's incredible. So I've known her since she was a freshman in college, and and her husband as well. And so they're amazing people, and so we would see Sarah all the time. And then there was another student named Jed who worked there in the early days. And my son just loved Jed. Loved him, loved him, loved him. And so we were like, Hey, would you ever be interested in babysitting our kids? So random. And he was like, Yeah, totally. And so it's like one of our best babysitter. We had some amazing babysitters. I mean, one came from the amazium, who also happened to be a JBC.
SPEAKER_01My neighbor retired from the amazing.
SPEAKER_04And full circle, Liam just my son, who is now almost 14, had his first babysitting gig the other night. And so I know it's the best. I love it. It's just all coming back around and just the impact that the amazing had on my kids was huge.
Why Museums Feel So Joyful
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. So getting back to you, Sam, we want to talk about your journey and your just what you believe in and the things that you care about surrounding play and science. And you talked a little bit about how science centers and museums are some of the most joyful places on earth. What makes them so joyful to you?
SPEAKER_05Oh, to me. Yes, to you. I feel like that's a twist. I know.
SPEAKER_04I mean, it's so easy to see other people have joy, but like what makes it joyful for you? How do you find play in the work that you do?
SPEAKER_05The because my cranium is gonna have an itch, I need to scratch. I'll I'll get to myself. I mean, I what I love is that when folks come in, I mean, I think there's something about the human condition that we sometimes don't recognize, and it's that human beings are voracious learners. We learn in different ways and in different spaces. But what is it? Like one of the most popular pastimes are are human beings learning. If people are listening to this podcast, it's because they want to learn something. Like I think about how we all look to express ourselves in lots of different ways. So we want to learn and then we want to share. Like these are two base human emotions. So I what I love when people come in to the amazing, they've got these just just in museums across the country. Why did you come to a museum? Often it's I wanted to have fun, I wanted to learn something, and that sort of dictates, you know, one is and then I we wanted to do it together. So we wanted to do it in a social setting. And so we built a place that I think is really rich for that. What gives me joy. What I find joy in in the in the amazing is watching these incredible moments happen. Like like having you tear up talking about coming there almost has me tearing up because that's the joy that that you know I think we get out of it. Is this this moment where you get to see people who are hungry to learn, hungry to have the social experience, want to laugh, kids who want to run and want to learn in lots of different ways that often they're not allowed to, and maybe more systemic systems come alive in places like the Amazum. And then what I also brings me great joy is you're talking about Sarah. Sarah's amazing, our head of professional learning. By the way, all the students that we've had from JBU, because we have a number that come and work at the Amazum, incredible.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05This sense of purpose, the sense of vision, the sense of of something greater, I mean, really plays out in the work that they do, wanting to work in a purpose-driven place. So for me, the this ability to work with a team that are often early in career that are finding themselves, almost no one plans to work at a place like the Amazium. I sure didn't. You sort of fall into it on the way to somewhere else, and then you fall in love with it. And either it might become a career for you or it may launch you to something else. So, you know, we we just had uh uh a going away moment for a longtime team member on Friday who is who is moving on now to take an incredible job working for another nonprofit in the area. And it's you know, it's sort of funny. On one hand, you think about this language of we lost someone, actually, we graduated someone, and she is gonna do amazing work there. And this ability to kind of seed amazing people doing amazing work around the community, I I might argue is one of the greatest impacts we're gonna have. And that brings me great joy. That's people finding work that is deeply connected to purpose that allows to bring them great happiness and advance them in what they want to do, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. When you help someone, you help everyone. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_05We did graduate the mayor of Fayetteville, it was the head of development for Amazing when we opened.
SPEAKER_01Oh god about that.
SPEAKER_04She worked for the Amazing.
SPEAKER_01I I did not even know that. Good old Molly.
SPEAKER_04That that is incredible. I think I think that there is so much opportunity just in this area, but I I just love it. I wish I would have loved working at the Amazum when I was in my 20s. Would have loved it.
SPEAKER_01At this in my 40s. In my 40s, I would love to go. Well, come on over.
SPEAKER_05I will send you a list of open positions.
SPEAKER_01No, my neighbor, she she had a grandbaby, multiple grandbabies, so she decided to retire, but she worked for the amazing for many years. Oh Chris Shepard's?
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh, such a gifted early childhood educator.
SPEAKER_01She's amazing. And she for free offered to teach my daughter how to crochet. Literally refute. Like, she just loves kids and loves, and she'd always let everyone know in our community when there was stuff going on. And she misses it, but she I hear her with their grandkids in the pool. So she's busy. She's busy. Yes, she's very busy.
SPEAKER_05But she still comes and volunteers at the special events, she still pops in.
SPEAKER_01She's great.
SPEAKER_05I I love this the the the community that that's built around folks who are just excited about learning.
SPEAKER_01I'll have to tell her she's in this episode.
SPEAKER_05No, Chris Sheppers, keep coming back. We miss you.
SPEAKER_04What yeah, you you keep talking and going back to learning and curiosity. What what would you say are some of the things that you've learned and that you've been curious through this process? Sorry, this was not a prepare ahead question. No, I like a random one. I love random one.
SPEAKER_05Oh, random question. Well, then I I'll I'll do a judo move here in a minute because I've got a question for you all.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_05Judo move.
SPEAKER_01Uno reverse, yeah. Uno reverse.
SPEAKER_05Uno reverse. I like it. Is there a double-down one? I'm not sure. It's a different game. And I just lost my thread on the question, Danielle. Sorry. So sorry.
SPEAKER_04What have you learned and what has kept you the most curious
Learning To Lead And Keeping Up
SPEAKER_04in this in this role and in the work that you're doing?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things for me that's just been a big learning journey for me. Like, look, I'm I'm a I'm a scientist trained, a biologist trained, I'm a med school dropout. Dropped out to go back to work at a museum that I had fallen in love with. And so, you know, this this pathway I was on and in a great programmatic Educator and creative developer. So, you know, that was the work that led me up to moving here. I've had to learn while being here how to be a business person, a leader, starting an on an organization from just a couple of us in a with a with a thumb drive and a coffee cup when I first got here. Wow. In some ways. So I think the idea of building some of the programmatic aspects of the AMASEUM were 100% in the wheelhouse of myself and our founding team. But having to think about how to start up and run the organization has been an incredible learning journey. I've had to talk with a lot of peers around the country. I mean, museums are great sharing organizations. The number of folks who helped us while we were getting started, uh innumerable. The folks that we're helping as they're getting started, also innumerable. And that field part of our work has been really important and has been almost like a whole nother type of graduate degree. So that's we've been learning a lot. And then this community, you have to learn this community. And what I love, I mean, the crazy part about this community is that the more you learn about it, with the speed at which it changes, you know, I f having moved here in 2012, the end of 2012, I think sort of this acceleration around pandemic time, post-pandemic, the community is almost entirely different. So many folks had moved here, so much acceleration of development that as soon as you feel like you're like, oh, I I think I figured out Northwest Arkansas, you have to turn around and go like, wait a minute, a whole bunch of things just happened. What's going on right now, including our own campus, which, you know, when we opened the amaze, it looked very different than it does today with amazing world-class medical school opening up, and then Heartland Whole Health Institute, a parking deck. I never knew we'd have a parking deck on campus.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Why?
SPEAKER_05With art in embedded into it.
SPEAKER_04I mean anyway.
SPEAKER_05So the learning has has really been about outgrowing
Learning And Design Group Explained
SPEAKER_05the organization and then trying to figure out what we want to be next.
SPEAKER_01And speaking of expansion, um, Amazum recently launched the learning and design group. What is that and what inspired the creation?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the learning and design group is it's not new, it's a new name, but it really represents some work that we've been doing since since we we had truly opened the doors. And what it brings together is is this idea that the Amazum not only is doing this work for ourselves, but what we want to do is help share our learnings with the broader community. So how do we take our work and deeply involved in our work with the educational community, our learning group, and then our work, you know, we have an active shop. We build exhibits. The amazing isn't just built by other people and installed at the aimasium, we build stuff for ourselves and for others. So our active design culture, and we we've been doing work with partners for 10 years, and what we want to do is officially kind of codify it so that when someone said that, hey, I want to work with the aimasium, they kind of knew who and what they'd be working with. And this idea of learning and design practices, you know, we're thinking not just about aesthetics and we're really thinking about the functional environments and spaces and how we can help support learning in lots of different ways, whether it be a classroom. So our work with like making spaces, schools over 30 schools over 10 years, to public spaces like Rainbow Springs, one of our public art pieces we did with artist Eugene Sargent, to most recently the Wonder Wing, the a new exhibition area we partnered with XNA to create in the where the moving sidewalk used to be. Wanted to create a learning space.
SPEAKER_04Looks awesome.
SPEAKER_05And it's it's fun, it's fun. The number of of photos and texts I'm getting from families going through that are like, hey, I'm delayed, and this is like this is a godsend because you know now I can sit. Got a great safe place for my kids to be, and we're having these interesting conversations before we go on this adventure that we're ready to do.
SPEAKER_04That's really wonderful.
SPEAKER_01I love that part of X and A.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01My kids, yeah. Oh, yeah, my kids have enjoyed that as well. Just makes it a little less boring. A little less boring. To sit in the, you know, like sitting in the airport. Yeah. Yes. And or trying to buy like a thousand things. Your kids try to do that in the airport?
SPEAKER_04No, 100% yet. Yeah, okay. I was planning. This is why we plan to be at the airport at the very last minute that we possibly can. Oh. I mean, that's kind of par for the course with me. I was just about to say, I'm like, I'm often late to things. So I do not miss flights, but I do get there at as late as possible.
SPEAKER_05Do you get that adrenaline rush? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I mean, XNA is easy to have that like last minute, like late. You're getting there late. Don't do that at some of the big airports.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_04I don't recommend. But I do have TSA pre-check. All right. Anyway, enough about that.
SPEAKER_01No, I want to talk about some more projects that you're working on or that something that you've, you know, that you've worked on with the design group or the expansion
Expansion Plans Hangout And Early Learning
SPEAKER_01that you're particularly proud of or that you wanted to talk more about.
SPEAKER_05About our expansion. Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. I mean, the hangout is a first phase of kind of multiple phases of expansion. I mean, I think when we when we opened the Amazum in 2015, we expected to see about 120,000 people, 130,000 people a year, which is what most studies would would show for a region our size. And and no matter how much Crystal Bridges warned us that perhaps that might be different. You know, we see we had planned for what we thought was a pretty aggressive number. And we see a quarter million people a year come through the amazing. I don't know. In a place that wasn't built for a quarter million people a year. And you know that on busy days, you know, the place can get a little the place can get a little uh get a little crowded. So our first so we planned an expansion, gosh, started planning it back around 2017, and one of the first things we wanted to do was create more community gathering space. So we're opening up a cafe in there, Headwaters Cafe and Lounge, and then more breakout rooms. What we were finding is that at the museum we had to make the most uncomfortable decision you have to make. Not the most, top 17, most uncomfortable decision, maybe top 20. And it was who were you gonna let down on a given day? Because on a weekend day, we we'd have birthday kids who wanted to celebrate birthdays, and scouts that wanted to do deep learning, and corporate groups who wanted to do a retreat, and yada yada yada. I mean, we just had a full list of folks who wanted to have an amazing experience, and we had two classrooms that could support it. So the hangout allows us to be able to do more type of community gathering space, both breakout spaces, but then collective conversations. And when we think about our growing work with teens and adults, we built a space that allows you to come into the cafe and the and gathering space without having to go up through the museum itself. So we can hold late night hours, we can do things that we just really couldn't experiment with easily. And then on the other end of the spectrum, the other half of it is early childhood. We had heard from a lot of parents that we love the amazing, we would love to have more for the youngest kids, because parents with the youngest kids are are coming 40 times a year, 50 times a year. So we're having an early learning advancement center that both has this great gallery for young young learners, zero to six, but then uh model classroom, a space that we can help train early childhood educators. Because we know that that's a a great need in our community to continue as we grow and early child and just childcare is such an important part of one of the gaps that we we hear in the community. How do we help train the next generations of early childhood professionals who can think about loose parts play, who think deeply about curiosity-driven sort of Reggio Emilia style learning environments? So we're excited about that. Really awesome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think I love that you hit both ends of the suspect. Yeah, because I mean I think it's like a turning baton. Yes. But I I've had birthdays there for my kids, and I've also been involved through the schools, and I know how limited it can be. So I think you guys really hit the nail on the head with optimizing your expansion with what the community would benefit from.
SPEAKER_04Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, my kids are 13 and 11 and they still love going to the amazing. So knowing that there's going to be intentional spaces for them as they grow is really encouraging as a parent. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, my kids will go through Crystal Bridges and they in fact do a lot for school, but they if I say the Amazum, and nothing against Crystal Bridges, we love Crystal Bridges, but if I say the Amazium, it's like a unified cheer. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know.
SPEAKER_05We hear this sometimes that we get to be the tail end of a trip that is like we'll stop by the Amazium on the on the way out if you're good.
SPEAKER_01Well, because they can't touch anything in Crystal Bridges, right? Unless they get out into the courtyard, then they can and they have the roots now. They've actually I've my kids have done some gone to expansion. No, they have their expansion's awesome for kids. They're really tapping into more learning and drawing, and anyway, but the Amazon, the the Hershey Lab was my kids' favorite. Did you ever do the Hershey Lab? We did do the Hershey Lab with the chocolate, which chocolate runs the fastest at a melting.
SPEAKER_04A lot of them.
SPEAKER_01I think I've done the Hershey Lab like at least 50 times.
SPEAKER_04That's so funny. That's a different thing.
SPEAKER_05You could have run it yourself.
SPEAKER_01I actually was thinking about that. I actually could run the Hershey Lab.
SPEAKER_04This is the difference between having only girls and having a boy and a girl. No, I know. Because we did the Hershey Lab, but Liam was like, no, I gotta like run like go outside and climb everything. And so it's really it's a lot of fun. Our kids are like their joined like favorite activity. When they were really little, they loved painting, like the paint, the like, I don't know what that section is called, but it's with the like the clear glass walls and they could paint on them. We're creative, we call that the paint room. The paint room. I mean, that's it makes very fun. Or sand turntable. And then next to the painting room, I don't know if it's still the same now, but where you could put the like magnetic tiles and build stuff. My son, oh my gosh. No, for multiple times he would come in and there'd be some kid who spent like I don't even know how long building some masterpiece. And my son would come in and just tear it all down. My daughter was. She loved to build to tear down. And so there were a couple workers they saw Liam come in and we were like trying to bypass him, stop him, and like we can't tear down other people's works. Diverting. We have to do air traffic control. You can tear down yours. I mean, that was his favorite thing to get it as high as he could. And then his favorite part was at the end to tear it down. Yeah, it is a hundred percent.
SPEAKER_01It's like right when you walk in, next you press the air down, the smoke comes or the steam comes up. They always have a little table right there with some, either, you know, look in the telescope, or she built something up with like little build-a-blocks. And it looked, it almost looked like a DNA sequence, right? And I was like, oh, she's gonna add a block to it. And I started videoing, and she just went like real slow, pushed it over, and the look on the lady's face. But then she was super nice about it, and I was like, okay, we're gonna go now. I'm so sorry. We're gonna go now. The work in a leader. They're never like they know it's they know what to expect in kids, but I felt really bad because she had clearly worked very hard.
SPEAKER_04For sure. There was a worker named Sharon. She knew, she knew Liam was coming. Yeah, Sharon, she knew she would help him build, she would help lock him off from tearing down other kids' things. I mean, it was a hoot. It's a hoot. This is the memory, but it's a hundred percent safe.
SPEAKER_05It's for the things that it's funny because sometimes it's the it's it's the parents we have to help figure out how to be around each other. Because kids, yeah, the the learning of what happened, like how do you navigate these situations that are social where you don't know someone and you did something that might have caused a harm to someone else's idea, and you have to figure out how to navigate that space and how to do it with grace.
SPEAKER_01They were so forgiving. I was like, I'm so sorry. I will I was like, we can help. She was like, Nope, just you're good.
SPEAKER_05Sometimes it's the parents that we have to help navigate that moment. Like, it's okay. We're gonna go to different parts of the museum. You're
Favorite Spaces The Shop And New Builds
SPEAKER_05gonna be fine.
SPEAKER_01Like we're gonna put you in a more hands-on part. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so taking it back to when the museum first opened, what were some of your spaces that you were the most excited about? And how has that changed now?
SPEAKER_05I mean, it it's like trying to it's like trying to say which is your favorite child.
SPEAKER_04That is a fair answer.
SPEAKER_05Although, to be fair, most of you I mean, you have one, but you just don't want to say it. Kidding. I'm 80%.
SPEAKER_01It does change day to day. Especially the older they get.
SPEAKER_05So I get to save these things. It changes right. I feel like you've got a scoreboard up with all the just an internal one.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Check, check.
SPEAKER_05My mom always said it's her favorite son, I'm her only son.
SPEAKER_04So that's what I tell my kids too. You're my favorite son. You're my favorite daughter.
SPEAKER_05I mean, the amazing what I what I love about the and the place we kind of built, and I appreciate this. You you alluded to this earlier that what could have been built as a museum for just very young children, when we built our team out, we took really when we took the handoff from the board, because it really was this incredibly strong board that had pushed this through from 2005 to 2012 when I came on on board. I mean, it was seven years of of continuing. This persistence is important. This is how children's museums are built. Persistence of grassroots families that say that this will happen, we will figure out how to make this happen. But we we thought about building a place that wasn't just for very young, that had different modes of play that were built into it for kids of different learning styles, but then also that would hopefully age up with kids through at least 10, 11, 12, and would also be kind of interesting for adults in parts, that it wasn't just about coming in and releasing kids to kind of go play, that there were things in there that were interesting. We wanted to do both science and we wanted it to be both science and art rich because these are just different ways of understanding the world that that we found would also be really interesting to both kids, kids and adults. So anyway, that for me it depends on the day, which area I find amazing. Although, okay, what do I really love? Shop. So we have an active workshop, and when you go back there, what you see are ideas in play, and then the public expression of that was our tinkering hub, tinkering studio space, and the ability to have ideas to then build and create learning mindsets, skill sets, and tool sets are really important. So, and what I love is in the tinkering studio, you could look into the shop and see folks building things using real tools. So I love that. I still love it. In fact, I love it even more. We have a more active shop than than ever. And at any given day, like I just walked in on Friday and we're building some exhibits to go down in the ravine between ourselves and Crystal Bridges, this Ozark Discovery Canopy. One of them's based on these Kugelbahn marble runs that are up in up in the Alps, you know, in the it's crazy with like these you know three-inch balls.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I've seen those. Yes. I had toyed with the idea of taking my kids to Switzerland and I saw like family-friendly parts, and I saw all the tubing where you get to just roll them. It's so cool. Well, it's coming here apparently. I know I don't even have to take them there anymore.
SPEAKER_05Well, I was gonna go the other way. Like now you have to go and take photos for us. It's it's now research and development trip.
SPEAKER_04She's like, deal, I'm gonna be on your research team. This is for work.
SPEAKER_05This is for work. We're gonna have to roll balls for a while and walk 10,000 steps in a day.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_05Do magic. So we've got that going on where Chip Lindsay was working on tuning rocks to play, so cutting rocks down to be able to play, creating a a lithophone, so sort of a musical instrument based out of rocks. And it turns out the dynamic of it, the mat he was doing the math on it, but it wasn't quite right. So he's like, Can you? I'm just gonna I'm gonna cut all these pieces of rock and we're gonna just trim a little bit off to try and get the right note. Meanwhile, you know, in another part of the shop, we've got someone working on this the next version of a polarizing lens, like is in the this giant wheel that we've got.
SPEAKER_01We need Tom to get Tom to get a healer for Polaroid.
SPEAKER_05Well, and and it so I I love so I love the shop because there's things we're working on. And and ironically, we're working with Tom on an installation for our hangout about a creative idea he's had for he's been doing for 42 years with with friends, building these custom cards that for the holidays. And we love that expression of both creativity but care. It comes from this place of this is me saying that I care about you by putting this work into this quirky crazy thing that gets harder and harder every year, I think, because the number grows of people, but also his ideas become bolder and bolder. And he's done a couple of them based on amazing exhibits.
SPEAKER_04So that's really cool.
Rapid Fire Questions And Why Stay
SPEAKER_04Gonna ask you to use the future, but I know we we need to do our this or that. Okay, you want to do it? You want to do it? Yeah, let's do this this or that. Just quick rapid fire. Chemistry or biology?
SPEAKER_05Biology.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Teleportation or time travel.
SPEAKER_05Time travel.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Build a robot or build a rocket.
SPEAKER_05Build a robot with rocket feet.
SPEAKER_04See the future or visit the past.
SPEAKER_05Oh, see the future.
SPEAKER_04Nice. AI or IRL. Oh, I R. In real life. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I I'm mid. Between IRL. Real and authentic is a core purpose we have. I have to say IRL.
SPEAKER_01It's yeah. Those are my Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Ooh. Star Wars. All right.
SPEAKER_04Easy.
SPEAKER_01I should have to throw it out there. I don't even know. Star Wars or Star Trek.
SPEAKER_04That's where most people get hung up for.
SPEAKER_05Star Wars.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_05The first movie I remember seeing in the theater with my family was Star Wars.
SPEAKER_04So I will never not have that as and and you know, Lucas's studios are in the Bay Area.
SPEAKER_05So I grew up in Modesto, but did you ever do a pilgrimage to the Bronze Yoda?
SPEAKER_04Uh no. Okay. I don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_05So in the, you know, they they opened up a Lucas Lucasfilms in the Presidio, which was right adjacent to the museum I used to work. And on the entryway into one of their buildings, they had a fountain with a bronze Yoda. Of course they did. You just sort of stumbled across walking through the old Letterman hospital campus.
SPEAKER_04That's hilarious.
SPEAKER_01I quote Yoda sometimes where I said, There is no try, there's only do. Doesn't he say something like that?
SPEAKER_02Or do not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02There is no try. Yeah, that's big.
SPEAKER_04How did I know you guys would know that I did it wrong the whole time? How do I know something from pop culture more than you do? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01My kids will be like, I'll say, can you unload the dishwasher? I'll try. And I'm like, no, there is no try. There's only do or something. I get it wrong every time. I mean that works for your kids. Or the Rolling Stones, you can't always get what you want. I'm like, we know you get what you need. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So good. Yeah. How do you how have you not made a book that's like life lessons through through pop culture phrases?
SPEAKER_01Oh, that would be a great book. That would be sponsored by the Amazing.
SPEAKER_05I would buy that book. We used to do a game that was with an old museum colleague of mine that we would try and weave into conversation a lyric from a song but not say it. And if the other person caught it, they just had to sing it from there. And it was it was great. I mean, it was amazing. I I was better at the classic songs, horrible at like any modern songs.
SPEAKER_01Correct. It would have to be an old song. I was thinking of like Take On Me by Aha. Oh. That was how I could. I don't know. It's a good one. Brock would be good at it.
SPEAKER_04Both you and Brock would be good at this. They are very music officiados, aren't they? So we do need to kind of wrap things up because we're getting we could talk with you forever and we're very chatty, as you can see. We are very chatty. We are professional chatty. We're professional yappers. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about what keeps you rooted here in Northwest Arkansas.
SPEAKER_05Where else would you want to live right now?
SPEAKER_04It's kind of true.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I this is a place that I think is what I love about Northwest Arkansas is, you know, you talk about bottle lightning where just this community is growing so fast in so many different ways. You know, I feel like if you put on an ethnographer's hat, it it's just interesting. It is so interesting to watch happen. And what other place of this size is going through this rapid transformation. But I feel like that's partially the easy answer. I think the the harder answer is well, okay, the other easy answer is nature. I mean, it's just beautiful. The access to nature here. I I I ride a motorcycle, I don't so I ride more motorized vehicles and the ability to get out in the in the and the twisties outside of town. Pretty amazing. But I think the part that I love the most is that this is a community that requires all of us to be leaning in to make it turn into something. It's not there isn't a it's not a them group that is trying to grow all of these small towns that are becoming medium-sized cities that will become large cities down the road. Each of us is playing a part to make this place vibrant in a way that wasn't necessarily the case in where I grew up in Toledo, Ohio, or when I moved to when I lived in Fort Worth, right? There were there was a city and it had all these things that could take care of it here. Everyone is leaning in to have ideas and to make this place grow. And for all the changes and all the challenges that that can bring up, I think that that means that collectively this place is really being built strongly by the people here and the work that that you are doing now and the work that that uh amazing and everyone are doing now, I think you know, is really setting the the stage for the next 50 to 70 years.
SPEAKER_01Wonderfully said.
SPEAKER_04Yes, wonderfully said.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you for coming in and just sharing about the amazing, past, present, and future. It was just a pleasure to have you here.
SPEAKER_05Thank you for growing up with the aumasium. And we'll figure out ways to get you all in here to do some more playful
Subscribe Follow And Final Thanks
SPEAKER_05learning here down the road.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, I'm ready to go again. Yeah, let's go. Thank you, Sam. Hey, thanks so much for listening today. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also follow us on Instagram at People of NWA. Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_00People of Northwest Arkansas with the two Danielles, produced by me, Brock Short of Brock Entertainment. Please rate, review, and like us on any podcast platform where you listen. For more information about today's guests and the show, please check the show notes. Thanks for listening.