00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to the seera mark podcast episode 88 we're talking field schools and Doug you have some personal experience. You want to relate to the audience. 00:11.00 Doug And well it was it was off of Bill's sort of different ways of doing it and weirdly enough. Um, just what he was describing on on ways of going about it reminded me of actually um, high school. So ah I was lucky enough that. 1 it was a massively large high school. We had 3000 plus kids um and one of our teachers was an old. Well he used to do crm. Um, and so he taught an anthropology and archeology class that we could take as some of our electives. And 1 of the things that he had us do was broke us up into teams and then we actually created situations or civilizations or wherever you want. We basically ah create ah an archeological site. Um, at the time like. High school is out in the middle of the mee out in the middle of nowhere and basically each group would go out and we'd like create artifacts bury them and then the other team would excavate them and then um, the different teams would compare and be like all right? So this is what we excavate and this is the story we think we came up with and. All that sort of stuff obviously because like we're in high school and you know you you were trying to we. We knew very little and you were actually trying to create what you thought the evidence would be all the stories never lined up which is a fun exercise because like. 01:41.36 Doug Yeah, the 1 group would be like oh yeah, we thought this was this and and you're like yeah actually no one hundred percent totally different and stuff like that. But it was actually a fairly interesting exercise and sort of remind me of what bill was talking about. It could be something that you know people can do with ah projects is you actually have the students. Think about is a pretty good exercise thinking about like what would survive. What would you think the evidence would be and then seeing if actually someone else can see that evidence and interpret it in the same way I suspect. It'll be a lot similar to it'll be fairly similar to what we ended up with which is completely different wild stories. Um, not related at all to what we thought was going to be but um, there are a lot of ways where you can engage students to actually create the very sites that they're going to be excavating and get the practice that way. 02:35.90 Heather Um, Andrew does a really great exercise in his class where he has. It's funny because if you have no idea what's going on and you haven't been told. Um you could get yourself into a lot more work but um sue has. 02:48.79 Andrew Kinkella Hey. 02:51.76 Heather He tells everybody to you know what? let's have dinner together. Everybody bring your food. We're gonna you know I with Lecture. We'll have kind of a informal type of class and and but we'll have dinner like everybody bring your dinner and ah just it'll be fun. And then you show up and then you you eat and he's talking and then he says ok, nobody' throw anything away now I don't know if you've changed what you you know if you same thing but ok. 03:16.70 Andrew Kinkella You know I have a little but like like I don't I don't shock them anymore because because because my because did Heather I'm just like too popular in my classes were getting too big but but ah, no, but the but the idea is the same right? The idea is basically. 03:30.26 Heather Yeah. 03:33.65 Andrew Kinkella To record I call it the lunch project. It's like to record the remains of your lunch so you got to stop like put it down and then you're like rappers or whatever you got to like draw your rapper to scale. You got you got to? yeah you got list all the attributes and all that and then you do a little like. 03:34.71 Heather Yeah, yeah. 03:44.94 Heather Forks everything. Oh Mike yeah. 03:51.30 Andrew Kinkella 2 paragraph summary of what does this tell you if archaeologists were digging 1000 years in the future. What does this say of this culture your you know your ah granola rapper yeah that one goes pretty good. 03:51.79 Heather Um, yeah, right? So the nicest yeah, the nicest or the most healthy food like if you do a salad with a fork and a knife you're in more trouble if you eat healthy than if you eat crappy food. 04:04.77 Andrew Kinkella Yeah, totally it's hilarious. Yeah, every time. Yeah I doubt yeah full. 04:11.70 Heather So if you come in with a burrito right? All you have is a foil wrapper lucky you I had salads so I had all these utensils and a tin thing it was foolish foolish. 04:23.89 Andrew Kinkella I know but no, it gets him to think it's like you know what Doug and and and you know others of us are saying it's like it gets you to think in that archaeological mindset and you don't have to be like at the archeology site. Yeah, that 1 works good. You know and it's it behooves us like me and bill and others just to. 04:32.85 Heather Um, yeah, yeah. 04:43.13 Andrew Kinkella Try this stuff out because sometimes it works Sometimes it doesn't you know I've had other things I've tried I'm like I didn't work or the damn but the lunch project works pretty pretty good. 04:51.67 Heather I'd like it I I think I think it's a really good example of we have to be intentional in what the practical experiences we're giving students and what the field school is for. 05:02.50 Andrew Kinkella Yep. 05:05.41 Heather So at the field school is the opportunity for the professor to have free labor labor or paid people are actually paying to labor um to work on their project and that is if it is if that's what it is. It is what it is and on the part of it. They they get an opportunity to learn along the way. That's fine. But I think there needs to be an intentional ah ah method to the to the creation of these of these field Schools. So The yeah, the field schools cannot just be Okay, we're digging. 05:38.19 Andrew Kinkella Right. 05:44.36 Heather Ah, holes and I mean yeah I understand you never know sometimes what you're going to encounter right? as an archeologist and that's part of the learning process. But if you go out there and let's say you go and you're not you have no um curriculum along with it and I see a lot of field schools like that. 05:59.57 Andrew Kinkella Yeah, that's the key. That's the key word. You said was curriculum. They either have a curriculum or they don't. 06:03.92 Heather I See a lot of field schools. Yeah I Yeah and I think that there are different. It could be bitten off in smaller ah segments. So if you have curriculum and you're using these practical. 06:16.17 Andrew Kinkella E. 06:22.42 Heather Practicums right? These practical um ah lessons throughout maybe the semester. So it's not a field school where you actually go away I mean there's so many different ways of doing this where you're actually teaching. 06:37.38 Andrew Kinkella Yeah. 06:37.77 Heather The archaeologists what they're going to need in a practical sense in the field whether they go into academia or they go into Crm and in crm I mean I can tell you there's so few schools that are teaching um soils and what it is that you're encountering. How do you. 06:52.59 Andrew Kinkella Here. 06:56.82 Heather Read the soils. How do you describe the soils you know, ah the geolog you know right now because I'm cross training certain disciplines. Oh my gosh I love geologists. They're like they're perfect for for cross training archeology. Um, yeah. 07:00.62 Andrew Kinkella Um. 07:08.23 Andrew Kinkella Yeah, every time every time. Yeah mind Attacker I've had students who are in geology and they kind of you know, crossed over um to to our side or kept both going. You know? um. 07:19.16 Heather You. 07:22.66 Andrew Kinkella Yeah I do think it's important as as we talk like again archeology is so far behind academic archeology in terms of teaching this stuff. You know it's kind of sad they won't do that just nuts and bolts fun sort of sandbox thing. But I do want to say the best of all is if you have the 2 stage approach is if you do the sort of sandbox the lunch project stuff. But then work at a real site too. You know you want like if I'm creating the world's most perfect archeologists I want all of it. You know I want the skill set to be in there first. But then I do want them to have real experience and see like oh this is what a real artifact looks like in the soil because. 07:42.12 Heather Yes, yes. 07:54.35 Heather Um, yes, nope. 07:57.29 Andrew Kinkella Ah, replication won't look the same. It won't feel the same like if all you know is replications. You won't know what's going on in the real world. So yeah, perfect world yet. You have the 2 stage approach. 08:04.70 Heather Right. 08:07.92 Bill White I Yeah I've it's interesting I've kind of moved into a space where I'm just kind of more interested in just getting contracts with local parks and nps and other things and then just hiring students to work on the projects and just training them that way because you know as an employee you. 08:23.21 Heather Yep. 08:27.50 Bill White It's your actual job I only get people who are serious not the ones who just want to get Instagram photos on the beach and you know monkey around and like this isn't really for me and I'm like doesn't matter. You still have five more weeks of being with me so you get folks who like really want to do it for real. You know the the agencies get help. 08:33.10 Heather Yep. 08:44.81 Bill White You know because they're overwhelmed with how much stuff that they have to do then people get their first actual line on their resume without having to worry about it. You know going through a field school first and so if it was me I would just set up you know collaborations with local agencies and stuff to just do part of their obligation since it's a state. Funded agency helping another 1 right? like it's you know people working for 1 university helping another state funded agency and then have people get paid have them learn for real really survey see actual artifacts and features in the field. Not just a photo but then learn how to take photos fill out the the site forms I mean that's. That's pretty much the dimension I'm moving to instead of going on field schools and. 09:23.10 Heather Yeah I You know my my dream or my ambition is I Really think that students should not be paying for field schools anymore I think they should be paid to go to field schools and that is totally possible. If. 09:36.80 archpodnet Yeah. 09:41.33 Heather Academic academic institutions are collaborating with crm companies which we've talked about at nauseam on this podcast. But I think it's it's important and it's 1 more way to for us to do that. So I think yeah I agree with the public agency I think that's a great idea. Um, but. If we're looking at academic institutions wanting to have a regular stream of opportunities for excavation I think crm is probably going to provide that a little bit more but maybe a combination of both Doug. 10:14.79 Doug Yeah I was just say I mean we've mentioned this you know episodes past and stuff like that and it's one sort of those things where like we all have that classic view with a field school where it's actually excavation and there are occasionally different field schools that will do like. Survey and Monitoring. Um, but that's like that's also one of the sort of letdowns is like yeah actually a huge percentage of what work you're going to be doing um is actually going to be like Pedestrian survey if you're in the states shovel to testing if you're you know out East um. 10:46.99 archpodnet Me here. 10:50.15 Heather Um, in the. 10:52.80 Doug And then like in the U K actually like a huge pre percentage is you're just going to be watching a bulldozer a backhoe for yeah weeks on end if it goes through some nice farmers' fields. Um, and you find nothing but that's you you. 11:07.25 Heather That happens to the states too doug and and st ps happen in California too. But yeah I see what you're saying I mean? Yeah yeah. 11:11.43 Doug I know I know. But yeah I'm being very generic here but again like you should you should get that whole range of skills. Um like it's it's one of those things like yeah if I could really like. Half sure the essence of like what your job's going to be like it's gonna be you standing a field watching a backhoe for like weeks on end and finding nothing and if you can do that you could do archeology um and survive I exaggerate I joke a little bit. Um. 11:38.99 Heather No. 11:40.97 archpodnet Um, yeah. 11:46.20 Doug But yeah I Don know it just seems like there's a lot of ways I think we could be more creative and you could you could do pedestrian survey and you could do survey of areas you know as long as you get like landowned or permission or whatnot you do that as a practice and. Yeah, that put people so much so farther ahead in terms of practical skills of day-to-day and anything else with. 12:05.27 Andrew Kinkella Yeah I do some of that stuff on campus because the campus itself has enough land where you can. You know you can let them walk for a while and kind of take a compass heading and that kind of stuff So a lot of professors could just do it. They don't even have to go anywhere. You know they got. 12:08.36 Heather And. 12:19.62 archpodnet Yeah, that. 12:22.13 Andrew Kinkella Large land areas on their campus and. 12:24.74 Bill White I yeah I also do pedestrian survey on campus too and I teach folks how to use compass and how to draw maps and everything with a pencil and a ruler. But then I also teach them how to use the handheld Gps and and you're right. We just walk out the door. 12:37.98 Andrew Kinkella Yeah, and I I find that the mapping stuff that skill sets. That's the better skill set actually than the excavation one like that because if when you think of it I think mapping takes a lot more skill. 12:38.86 archpodnet See that. 12:49.42 archpodnet Um. 12:52.00 Andrew Kinkella Really you know excavation for the most part. It's not that hard after you start it, you know. 12:56.15 archpodnet I Think that's the big difference between you two though because you guys have done crm right? And and now you're running field schools and you understand what skills are needed and what to put into a field school but you know the the biggest disparity we have here is that. Almost every single C orm job out there requires you to go to a field school and almost every single field school is run by someone who's never done by none C or M and yeah and and not that there's not a cross population of skills there but just understanding how to do excavation and survey and things like that in the context of COrm versus the context of a. 13:15.63 Heather You now? well. 13:18.81 Andrew Kinkella Yeah, that's exactly right? ah. 13:31.33 archpodnet You know a lifelong academic project. You know that somebody might retire on That's a very different way of thinking I mean some of the skills are there. But yeah, it's just it's just not quite the same. Yeah. 13:33.14 Andrew Kinkella Yeah, yeah. 13:40.52 Andrew Kinkella Dude Chris you nailed it like that's the whole. That's the whole thing. Yeah. 13:41.60 Heather With. 13:42.17 Bill White Yeah, yeah, and also I watched the hiring thing too and and there's almost. There's borderline 0 chance of someone who's really good at Crm you know, leaving to take way less wages and way more shit to go to academia or. 13:45.30 archpodnet Yeah. 13:47.29 Doug Um, most. 13:57.86 archpodnet Right. 14:00.42 Bill White Them to understand that Crm is way better than this weird little dig that someone else loves so much you know and that they should hire someone based on just their ph d scratchings in the sand like it's it's just crazy the hiring system is crazy in academia. 14:05.29 Heather Guest. Um, yeah Up. So So what? I really think get. 14:15.79 Andrew Kinkella Yep. 14:16.65 Doug That's well, that's also influences a bit of yeah I mean I'll throw out just a little bit of def defenseive academia and we've talked about it is like you know, Well as a you put it? There's There's the the field and then there's the school part of it. Um. But honestly like to get tenure and like the entire system is built around the the field part and the schools just sort of there like academia most academics don't Ah I should okay actually I shouldn't say most but a lot of them don't like teaching. Like they do teaching because that allows them to do the fun research stuff that they really want to do and yeah i't want to but I really do think like teaching to sort of tact on as as the day job. Um I think that unfortunately just you. 14:53.55 Andrew Kinkella But unfortunately I think you can say most. But. 14:54.92 Heather And then. 15:09.27 Doug Permanates down into all well across the entire discipline across all departments and all the motivation is basically you have to publish you have to do this and that's the fun part is the digging.. The fun part is not doing the um curation no one likes to do curation except Curators. That's a whole different discipline. You know there's all sorts of stuff. It's It's basically built so that um it's meant to be field, not school. 15:37.59 Heather So I agree. Um, but I do think I think there's an opportunity you don't need to bring on somebody who's crm that's going to quit their crm and the money that goes with serum. Although you hear all the time there is no money in serum. That's not true for those that are listening. Um. I don't know I don't see why institutions don't bring in and I have seen it. It does happen where they don't bring in sear and professionals to teach 1 class or or sear and professionals who understand the regulatory side of things to bring to teach one class they should. 16:09.39 Bill White Because just like Doug said teaching is the extra thing. None of us are teachers. 16:12.62 Heather Yeah, go ahead. 16:16.45 archpodnet So yeah, yeah. 16:17.21 Heather You know what what I'm saying is though if if a if the curriculum right? They're setting up a curriculum for archeology now. The fact that it isn't like this that is what it is but it should be like this like you have these programs. So nova state right? They're trying to they're cre they have a crm specific program. They should be bringing in actual crm professionals who are seasoned cr professionals who've been working in the in it for a long time who understand the regulatoryatory side of things and how Crm fits in the regulatory process. And they should be teaching a class specifically on that one class. That's all it takes nobody has to give up their serra um job and then you getting an expert who's who's in it right now teaching the students that aspect of what they're going into. 17:05.86 Bill White I got I think you're right and I think Sonoma State actually does have people. It's it's everywhere else right? It's like where I work I don't know about where Andrew works. But yeah. 17:07.57 Heather Like if you're going to prepare people. That's what you should be doing. Um. 17:14.64 Heather Yeah, right. 17:17.56 Doug So to be but that's like the part of the teaching though is they have to do that to get paid like if if you're giving over I know you're saying just 1 class other I totally agree with you I think and we're all on the same page. 17:19.15 Andrew Kinkella So yeah, it's it notes the same. 17:27.75 Heather Right. 17:33.90 Doug So it should be not what it is but I do think part of that is one They don't you know if they've ever done Cm They don't actually like you don't know what to hire like if I know if I want to go out and hire a philosopher off I don't know where I'd start I Even know if I need a philosopher I Probably do. 17:49.39 Andrew Kinkella And. 17:53.20 Doug But like it's that same sort of concept of like they have no idea and then there's always that risk of like you know they need to teach certain courses. Um, who's going to who's going to take their time. You know, spend extra time to go find someone teach a course that they're not going to get credit for that's not going to count towards. Their tenure not going to count towards their paycheck. Um, it's ah unfortunately I think there's a lot holding it back of what it could be. 18:18.12 Andrew Kinkella Yeah I would say just one last little thing that I also noticed the flip side of people in Crm might not necessarily be very good teachers either like I've I've seen that where you know they don't. 18:18.37 Heather Well there. 18:30.14 Andrew Kinkella Know how to or take Seriously, you're making a syllabus or that kind of stuff they're out there just like there aren't everywhere but that that can be a thing that. 18:32.39 Heather You know I Just think we're giving we're giving all these excuses It doesn't have to be that way if we're intentionally we sit down. We're smart people. We're not like you know if we sit down and we're actually thinking about what what is. 18:36.10 Doug Yeah. 18:50.83 Heather What is getting a degree for it's to prepare you for getting a good job.. That's what it should be ok um I know in some cases. It's to prepare you maybe to be a researcher but that's also a job right? But it's but in Bulk. It should be preparing the students that are in your classes that are in your program to go and be prepared to hit the ground running when they enter the field that is what it should be doing and I think I know that that's not the way it is right now. But I think it could change and I think. You know there's people on this podcast right here hosts that ah are changing it and so I do think it can change and the other thing that I'd like to say just to finish off this subject is that we need to really um shift things in archaeology this concept that archaeologists. 19:26.78 Bill White They are. 19:44.42 Heather Are diggers and monitors. Yes, that is an aspect of what we do. But if you as a professional archeologist are working towards being. Ah you want a longstanding Career. You should not be focusing on monitoring monitoring is important. Um, and it should be supervised and it should be considered an important aspect of the job. But it's not just monitoring and it's not just Digging. We want people to be to be shifting as in their careers into something that is much more complex than that. Um. This concept that people want to become an archeologist and I think it's because they that's what they've been told they become an archeologist and then they're just going to excavate. That's what they want to get paid incrementally more every year a lot of money to excavate. That's all they want to do is dig and excavate and be in the field. Well. If you want to have this as a longstanding career for your health and for your as a professional growing as a professional you have to be able to write you have to be able to understand the regulatory process and work within the regulatory process.. There's so many skill sets that can prepare you for a good. Well-paing job in this discipline and if you're stuck in this mindset that an archeologist is an excavator or a monitor you're being shortsighted and you're not going to go very far in this Business. So I think that again these field schools need to teach more than just excavation. 21:17.79 Heather And it's maybe not field schools. But maybe there should be separate field schools for this regulatory process. Maybe that's where it's at if we're not going to have a separate class with separate adjunct professors that come in from the professional side. Maybe then the field class. There should be a specific regulatory field class if that's. How it needs to happen. But I Just think in general we need to rethink this. We need to rethink it so that we're preparing archaeologists. Well so they can have a longstanding career a well paidid longstanding career and not that yeah I'm I'm not going to go into the union side that you you you. 21:54.62 Doug But welcome to the dark side heather welcome to the text of archology to change up. Um Matt when you're talking about that Heather I just I'll say this last little piece before we we shut off is like my wife and I have this running joke about like every police procedural like. 21:56.56 Heather Ah. 21:57.33 Bill White Ah, ah other yeah. 22:11.36 Doug You know, after like a shooting which seems to happen like every other episode or every episode they really should have like the next episode be like the paperwork episode because you know what you don't ever see is the massive amounts of paperwork and actually like if it was real like there'd be a shooting in the first episode of a season. 22:20.47 Heather Um, yeah. 22:27.69 Doug And the next 8 episodes is just them stuck in a room doing paperwork and talking to lawyers. Um, but yeah, we we also like in archeology we we're in the same thing like we're always excavation as it were the shootouts the fun, the police, the arrests. Um, but we never actually do any of the paperwork and there really should be ah, a paperwork field school. 22:29.43 Heather Right. 22:42.40 Heather Well there should. It's not that boring. It's I call me a nerd but that's actually the fun part. But anyway I know we need to get going. But. 22:47.49 Doug Um, where you get you get locked into a room for 8 eight weeks straight um yeah 22:52.66 archpodnet Yeah, okay, yeah, 23 minutes guys let's go all right bill. Did you have one last comment your hands up. 22:55.83 Doug Oh yes. 23:02.43 Bill White Now. Well, the only thing I wanted to say is folks who are listening to this all of us here. We're empowered to make this thing the way we want. Do not don't sit around and wait for universities and don't wait for your crm company their boss to somehow get it right? like. 23:07.80 Heather Yes, yes. 23:07.95 archpodnet Are. 23:18.78 Bill White Don't think that somehow money is going to materialize from a crm um company because they're always whining about money and they never buy assets and it's like a whole company that never buys assets and then just cries about how they don't have any revenue but ah, just just make sure that you know if you want it to be this way. You find the folks you put it together. 23:29.80 Heather Not all of them. 23:37.82 Bill White And you know they're never going to pay you to get the change that you're looking for So you know professors aren't doing it here's a whole network of people who listen to this podcast. There's plenty of people you can join the apn connect with them. You can find folks in your area to teach you these skills because your school's not doing it. 23:42.71 archpodnet Um, Jeff. 23:55.34 Bill White Don't waste your time pushing your professors to hire quality folks because there's no incentive to get anyone who doesn't just do razzle -dazzle grant-f funded. You know, epic stuff so you know they don't they don't get it. They're never going to get it. I've been here for you know 7 years at cal. My department will never get it when it comes to hiring people who are going to teach functional skills to get people jobs I'm telling you from the inside man you'll make way more change on the outside doing what you need to do to get what you need to make it in this world than waiting for someone like me who's got a pension salary and all that stuff and. You know, no one. There's no motivation. Nothing I will get no penalty from teaching people just gibberish I can do it for the next until I decide to retire you know eternity. So don't wait for me. Don't wait for others. You know, find folks on the outside build your own thing use the apn use social media use. Whatever it takes. 24:38.22 archpodnet Um, yeah. 24:48.25 Bill White Meet people in real life learn skills get work get jobs. 24:51.20 archpodnet Yeah, all right guys? Yeah indeed all right? Well hey if anybody listening to this has any comments. We'd love to hear those on either you know, post this on social media. We don't generally do that because we're on the show and you know pages don't generally like that. But we're post it wherever you're. 24:51.84 Doug Then I get any men to build there. 25:10.65 archpodnet Wanting to hear some comments and then also respond to us at the Apn so our podnett dot com all right with that we will see you guys next time all right keeping a rolling for the outro now that's yeah, see that's it out that's cut. It's cut. It's done um, all right here we go. 25:18.87 Doug Goodbye oh already there I'm ah there I beat you? What be? it's cut just good goodbye or did need a third take goodbye you. 25:23.44 Bill White Um, ah the. 25:34.41 Doug Um, I give you all sorts of work with Chris bye bye bye it was. 25:35.86 archpodnet Okay, nice, nice. All right your but you're all doing it now. Can I say my piece so we can get it on the recording now hold on all right? Thanks to everyone for joining me this week thanks also to listeners for tuning in and we'll see in the field. 25:39.57 Andrew Kinkella See you guys next time. 25:42.62 Bill White Um, audios. 25:43.72 Doug Never you each. 25:45.30 Heather Um, five do. Yes. 25:48.30 Bill White Yes, please. 25:55.98 archpodnet Goodbye Badfords Yeah I know you know you know my wife's editing these now so you just gave her a ton of work I'm just saying guys. Yeah. 25:56.87 Heather Thanks for listening. 25:58.74 Doug And see Chris we we took we took bills ah speech to heart and we didn't wait for you to do it. We went out there market buys. 26:00.58 Bill White Ah. 26:05.19 Andrew Kinkella That's right, that's right? Ah dude starry rachel a I blame Chris. 26:08.30 Bill White Um, ah oh no, we're sorry sorry sorry. 26:11.40 Heather Oh flo it no. 26:11.11 Doug Yeah, leave this in leave um leave this in leave this in leave it in a hundred percent 26:14.38 archpodnet Ah, yeah, all right I me sing up it hold on. 26:21.15 Andrew Kinkella Yeah. 26:21.27 Bill White I'm going to go.