Inspiration for Interpreters

Moving Beyond Treeline and Other Stories: Inspiration for Interpreters offers stories that focus on how we can sustain ourselves given a professional trend toward engagement with uncomfortable interpretation. The stories were chosen to help guide a shift toward a “real live movement” as National Association for Interpretation Executive Director Paul Caputo noted, “committed to being a force for good, and there’s no looking back.” The stories shed light on the complexities of where we find ourselves in this moment of increasingly challenging circumstances.

Each of the stories in this collection employ Sam Ham’s TORE (Theme, Organized, Relevant and Enjoyable) framework in which interpretation is designed strategically with a theme, is organized, is relevant, and is enjoyable. They also employ the various principles first generated by Enos Mills and Freeman Tilden in their attempts to relate the material to the audience, reveal deeper meanings, and provide provocation to think more deeply about something or do something differently. Finally, the stories showcase universal principles from National Park Service leader David Larsen at the 2000 NAI national conference in Tucson, Arizona. Universal concepts that include opposites such as contemplation and action, solitude and community, work and leisure, victory and defeat, good and evil, life and death. Other universal concepts employed include freedom, patriotism, companionship, suffering, justice, responsibility, kindness, courage, joy, and love.

Larry Beck, PhD, is emeritus professor at San Diego State University where he received the Monty (Distinguished Faculty) Award for his scholarship and teaching, the university’s highest honor. He received the National Association for Interpretation’s Meritorious Service Award and Fellow Award (NAI’s highest honor). Beck has written extensively in the interpretive field as lead author of The Gifts of Interpretation: Fifteen Guiding Principles for Interpreting Nature and Culture, Interpretive Perspectives, and Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage: For a Better World. Prior to more than four decades at San Diego State University he worked as a field interpreter at several units of the National Park Service including Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Most recently he received NAI’s President’s Award for his 2018-2024 “Justice for All” series in Legacy magazine that focused on justice, equity, diversity, accessibility, and inclusion issues.

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