Max Fripp: Expert Spotlight Throwback

We are excited to share this edition of the Expert Spotlight where we're featuring one of our very own, an inspiring alumnus who has taken the lessons of play and applied them in a big way. We’re thrilled to spotlight Max Fripp, who is making waves with his work at Playworks, an organization dedicated to creating joyful and safe school environments through the power of play. In this feature, you'll learn how Max is helping schools reclaim instructional time and reduce conflict, all by transforming recess into a truly positive experience. Read on to discover how he’s building a new program and learn why putting joy and play at the center of a child's day is more critical than ever. 

What does Experiential Learning (EL) mean to you, and why is it important? What would it look like to truly learn experientially? For me, Experiential Learning is when students, educators, mentors, are in a guided experience that intentionally feels a little bit messy because there's no direct answer. It is about wrestling with the content, playing and experimenting to figure out what the end outcome is, and requires more facilitating vs. teaching. I think Experiential Learning has many great outcomes for young people. It can reinforce academic concepts and is loaded with 21st century skills like innovation and collaboration. There are opportunities for social emotional and physical skill development too, and it’s an amazing way to hook kids into being lifelong learners.

When I think about learning now, a lot of notes are put up on the board, kids take them down, we ask them to put together decks of information or they get a test and then they get a numerical grade. We have been doing that for hundreds of years and the world has changed a lot but our schools have not. I was a Teaching Fellow at Citizen Schools from 2003 to 2005 and I think about those 7th graders at the Irving Middle School a lot now that AI has been introduced. The reality is we still have a way to go until schools know how to effectively integrate this technology. So right now, those 7th graders can use ChatGPT or whatever bot to write their essays, do their math etc. based on the way we currently have schools set up. It’s Experiential Learning that is going to get the young people to have the skills they need to continue to thrive as our society adapts. I think it is critical now more than ever that we think about Experiential Learning on a larger scale.

What do you believe is the best first step towards advancing the future of learning? What is necessary to make it successful? I think we need to meet kids where they are and we tend to focus on that being about technology. I don’t think being on Chromebooks, putting together documents or focusing on how to use AI is what they need. I think it is about unplugging and getting kids really curious about the world around them and helping them figure out what it is that they love. Exposing them to the world and letting them play and experiment with it. In order for this to happen, people in education and youth development need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. They need to help kids dream and aspire to what could be out there and rethink the skills that are going to be important in 15-20 years. We are already seeing a shift in career pathways due to the rise of AI in the workplace. I think this technology will open up new possibilities when this generation is entering the workforce, but I think we need to focus on building the skills that people will need to unleash the power of this technology and still be productive as the facilitators of the technology. By focusing on skills like curiosity, openness and clear communication it allows kids to build important, transferable skills that will help them link ideas effectively for the future. 

Who is the most influential mentor you have had throughout your life? What qualities did they impart that you continue to embody in your work? I feel really grateful that I have had a few mentors throughout my life. Mentorship requires two way communication, so I am diligent about keeping in touch with my mentors. I also have found that the role mentors play, at different stages of life, feel really radically different. The first mentor who fundamentally changed my life was Polly Bixby. I grew up in a small and rural, post-industrial mill town, where five towns went to the same school, and we had 82 kids in my graduating class. Polly was a phys-ed teacher at my high school and the advisor of our Gay Straight Alliance. We had one of the first GSAs in the state of Massachusetts and I was part of a student group that helped create the Safe Schools program for gay and lesbian youth. Ms. Bixby was all about Experiential Learning. Every year we would do a week long bike trip, living off our bikes, staying in youth hostels. We would have cooking groups with a set budget and you had to figure out how to feed the full group on $100. I was a kid that did not do well in school and at times was an at-risk kid. She said to me junior year that I had two options, I could get my life together and go to college and change my circumstances, or I could keep doing what I was doing and stay exactly where I was. In my town it was getting harder and harder to graduate from high school alone and have a nice middle class life and most of the jobs were gone. She changed the direction of my life. 

Next came the introduction of Experiential Learning and Citizen Schools. I think about the CS co-founders, Ned Rimer and Eric Schwarz who were both amazing mentors. To be a 25 year old who grew up in a rural town, moving to Boston to become a Fellow was a big change for me. I worked with Ned a lot to launch Citizen Schools in Texas and I was able to watch the amazing way that he navigated meetings. And Eric as a leader showed up differently but in a similarly inspiring way where he could take big, inspirational thinking and then start the teams to get it done. I have been able to still work with Eric by hosting a College of Social Innovation Fellow here at Playworks. I also think about Adrian Haugabrook who asked me a question that blew my mind at that time. He was teaching a social justice class and he said to me, ‘I want you to think about the intersection between idealism and equity.’ Again, as the kid coming from rural New Hampshire, I was living in idealism and so this was a big frame that I had to think of. 

I have mentors now at Playworks and also mentors who teach me about being a great dad and husband. I think mentors are incredibly important and what is important in each of them is that they care about you personally, professionally and they have skills or characteristics that they can help you grow in yourself. I find it one of the great blessings of my life if I get to play a mentor role to someone else as well.

What is a student-led initiative you have seen that has successfully disrupted a flaw in the education system? How can we best position students to be changemakers? I was very fortunate to be the founder and leader of an alternative high school called BEACON, which was an acronym for Believing Every Adolescent Can Open New doors. It wasn’t a perfect acronym but it got to the heart of the work and also called in an actual symbol of the Western Mass region which is a BEACON located in Greenfield, MA. The idea for this school came from a principal who shared that one of the biggest pain points they had was there was a group of kids who were so close to dropping out and there were very limited supports and resources for them. We launched BEACON in September 2021. We focused on kids that were still in school vs. trying to reengage those who had already dropped out. They would spend their mornings at school doing their traditional coursework and then they came to the Community College where they worked with me on a 13 credit course.

Our pillars for the work were academic coaching and credit recovery. We were not teaching typical classroom classes but instead focused on study skills, how they do their work and work with their teachers. We wanted these kids to graduate with individualized coaching and pathway development. Once a week we had one on ones with every student. We would look at their grades, talk about their pathways, think of individualized projects to support them. Another pillar was that this was rooted in project based learning. We focused on entrepreneurship, service learning and community building all through hands-on projects. In my time with them 12 out of the 15 kids graduated from high school. A few of them went on to the Community College, we had two participate in the region's entrepreneurial pitch competition and some went on to open their own businesses. They built skills like math, but it became real as they were finding their purpose, building their own budgets and making money on their ideas. We were putting kids front and center in their learning and helping them see themselves as successful. Seeing those kids graduate year after year are some of the proudest moments of my life. 

If no obstacles stood in the way and you could design the future of education as you see fit, what would that look like for educators and students? I would love to see a world where we rethink when, where and how kids learn. The current schedule of going to school Monday-Friday for 8 hours and then getting summers off does not seem necessary. Elementary school should be play based and we need schools that are more joyful. We need to recognize that kids are meant to move, not sit at desks all day. We should be laser focused on helping kids think about how to build positive and healthy relationships. All the skills that used to be called soft skills we know are super important in the workplace. Of course, kids need to know how to read and do math and I'm not discounting that. I think they should be learning those concepts in the context of fun, joyful experiences that allow them just to experience the world as young people. 

This work is why Playworks so deeply resonates with me and why Citizen Schools did as well because I love thinking about creating opportunities for middle school kids. Middle school kids should have apprenticeships and opportunities to test and explore lots of different things. These hands-on learning experiences should be academic and skill-focused and we should be really clear about the development of these skills without kids being worried about grading and rubrics. If we are intentional about the design, kids will get the skills we want. 

Then high school should be this mix of still giving kids voice and choice, but now really moving into a place where they're having authentic work apprenticeships. My oldest son is a sophomore in high school and it makes me think about senior year. For so many students it can feel like a wasted year, so I think about how we can turn that year into something really moving. During elementary and middle school I think you should come to a school building. I see high school moving to a place where every kid is actually getting to experience whatever work setting they think they want and getting to try out a few different ones. Our moral fabric as a country will be better when CEOs of big companies understand what it's like to be a plumber as well and we have not created that kind of world yet. I think kids should have different experiences, and try something in the trades, and then go work in a laboratory, and this should really be built into their school day. So that's how I would love to see education evolve and students have voice and choice, and educators again becoming facilitators versus teachers. 

What drew you to your organization's mission? What drives you to activate this vision? At Playworks we are focused on play and recess as a way to bring out the best in every kid, and to create schools where kids have a sense of joy and happiness and can focus on learning. We did a randomized control trial, and the results were amazing. In Playworks schools, our kids are more physically active, there's less instances of bullying and aggressive behavior and our teachers are recovering two weeks of instructional time a year. Instead of kids fighting about what happened at kickball, we teach them how to resolve their conflicts so they go back to the classroom quickly, focused and ready to learn. Two weeks of instructional time is a huge investment in learning. 

A new initiative we're launching is called Tag Team, where we are interested in partnering with out of school time providers to train them on how to run recess with our youth leadership program, which we call Junior coaches. Staff that are typically just working in the after-school hours could be placed in their partner school during the day, running recess, doing the junior coach program and deepening their impact. We think it would be a really cool professional development opportunity for folks. It allows them to be in schools and I think now more than ever, putting joy front and center is critical. Creating schools where kids have a sense of inclusion and safety is critical and making play an amazing time of the school day.