Brendan Sloan Clarke, M.A.T.

Founder | Lead Mentor

Brendan (he/him) is a hapa father, husband, writer, rites of passage guide, and ecological educator with fifteen years of experience working with youth and adults in a variety of contexts. In addition to receiving his M.A. in Teaching in 2011, he holds two California CLEAR teaching credentials, and a Bilingual Spanish certificate from Illinois, where he began his career as an educator with Teach For America, teaching fifth grade in southwest Chicago. For Brendan, social justice, equity and education have been inextricably linked from the beginning.

Born in Washington D.C., and raised in the traditional territory of the Piscataway or what is also known as Maryland, Brendan’s passion for the natural world and awareness of the urgent issues related to climate change ultimately led him to California to explore alternative, nature-based education. He spent three years in an adult nature-immersion program with the Regenerative Design Institute and Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education, where he subsequently became the program coordinator for the youth and teen programs.

During this time and over the past decade he has worked with numerous individuals, groups, and organizations, including: The Pt. Reyes Summer Camp, Pt. Reyes National Seashore Association, San Geronimo Waldorf School, Credo Public Waldorf High School, The Synapse School, Riekes Center for Human Development, 1Revolution, West Marin School of Trackers, The Art of Mentoring, The Buckeye Gathering, and private homeschool students. He has worked with youth and adults in the field and also trained other educators, including when he received the tremendous honor to support the rematriation of nature-based education practices to members of the Hupa and Yurok tribes and local teachers and principals.

Brendan’s work with nature-based education brought him into the field of rites of passage and he eventually came to guide this work as well. He has, in various iterations, designed and guided rites of passage with Credo High School, Marin Academy, Archie Williams High School, The FIRE Fellowship, and numerous other community-supported ceremonies. He has also assisted with the School of Lost Borders.

Most recently, Brendan served as co-director for The Ojai Foundation, a 40-plus-year-old, land-based educational non-profit in Southern California. His work included bottom-line responsibility for the 36-acre campus and wildlife sanctuary, designing and building natural buildings, leading council trainings, launching The Foundations in Resilience Education (FIRE) Fellowship, and consulting with local schools about rites of passage curriculum for their students, alongside myriad other duties.

He holds certifications as a Wilderness First Responder, Iyengar Yoga teacher, Permaculture Designer, North America Wildlife Tracker (Level III), Council Trainer, and Type II Wildland Firefighter through his engagement with cultural and prescribed burns.

His passions include: cooking, bird language, tracking and trailing, crafting, archery, writing, mythology, gardening, natural building, woodworking, watercolor painting, and ancestry. His favorite bird is (probably) the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, but please don’t mention anything about it to the other birds.

He lives with his wife, Shay, and son, Kian, in ancestral Mechoopda homelands in Chico, California.

ADVISORS

Advisors are people who have been essential in shaping the vision and curriculum of Watershed Schoolhouse. They support from the wings and deepen the work with their generosity, experience and wisdom.

Meet the Advisors

  • David Bryan

    David Bryan, J.D., Ph.D., has taught at the middle school, high school, and university levels at various institutions in the United States. In 1995 he co-founded New Roads School, a unique independent school in southern California, where he served as a faculty member, the Founding Head of School and President from 1995 until he left in 2013 to found his own consulting business and teach at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

    He was the inaugural director of The Center for The Common Good, a joint venture of The Herb Alpert Foundation and New Roads School, to incubate creative innovation in business, education and community partnerships.

  • j. nyla mcneill

    mx. j. nyla mcneill, DIY PhD (they/m) is a nonbinary, Nigerian-Visayan-Hispanic+ diasporic polymath: a researcher and writer invested in contributing to a more affirming Black and brown, Two-Spirit, trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive mental healthcare; an artist; City of Long Beach-contracted community worker; musician; poet; skater; model.

    mx. j. owns a consulting and coaching biz, Mx. Lifestyling, that aids individuals, organizations, and institutions though major life and systems changes.

  • Kelly Munson

    Kelly Munson (she/her) has a passion for building community, fostering creativity, and supporting people young and old to find and use their gifts. Her roots are in experiential and outdoor education where she directed the Paul Petzoldt Outdoor Leadership School and guided for the Wilderness Education Association.

    For the last 20 years, she has served on the faculty at Butte College, classroom teaching and mentoring student leaders and youth activists, along with supporting myriad community building projects in Chico, CA. She has raised 2 children through a creative education and personal growth journey and is now enjoying witnessing them out in the world learning and exploring through their passions.

    You can often find her in her art studio, hosting a themed dinner party, or out enjoying the wild outdoors.

  • Margo Robbins

    Margo Robbins is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Cultural Fire Management Council (CFMC). She is one of the key planners and organizers of the Cultural Burn Training Exchange (TREX) that takes place on the Yurok Reservation twice a year. She is also a co-lead and advisor for the Indigenous People’s Burn Network.

    Margo comes from the traditional Yurok village of Morek, and is an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe. She gathers and prepares traditional food and medicine, is a basket weaver, and regalia maker.

    She previously served as the Indian Education Director for the Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified School district. She is a mom and a grandma.

  • Michelle Sauceda

    Michelle Sauceda (she/her) is Executive Director of Gaia Passages. She has 25 years of experience rooted in mentoring youth and adults in their connection to nature in the greater Bay Area.

    Michelle has been blessed to spend years being mentored by a number of Indigenous elders, including her family who have been loving guides and support for her in her life and work. She has also facilitated youth and adults in marking the key transitions of life through rites of passage work. And as an instructor, she shares her favorite way to learn by being in nature with play, laughter, games, music, medicine making, and wild edibles, in balance with the rhythms of nature.

    She is a mother and naturalist who has been committed to supporting youth of all ages.

Our Gratitude

Watershed Schoolhouse is a work in progress (and it always will be). Integral to this work are many individuals, groups, and places who have been part of this ongoing exchange of gifts and learning. Special thanks to the Indigenous teachers who have shared their wisdom generously, including Margo Robbins (Yurok), Paul Raphael (Odawa), Sobonfu Somé (Dagara), Jeanette Acosta (Chumash), Elena Rios (Nahuatl), Julie Tumamait (Chumash), Ilarion Mercullief (Unangan), Edward Willie (Pomo), Kalani Souza (Hawaiian), and many more.