This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.
Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,
educated educators talking education.
Welcome Monday Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk.
Educated educators talking education.
It's a new week, Johnny Lupinacci, man. Look at you.
Anybody in the Facebook? Yeah.
The new month, you know, and guess what?
It is not going, well, we'll see how we get with this month.
Gotta love the hat, though, man.
That is sweet for anybody on the Facebook and the YouTube and the Twitter.
Johnny is sporting a seriously yellow hat.
I am. It's a, it's a number two.
It's a special color.
Number two pencil color for the Busted Pencils show.
You know, I had all kinds of ideas, Tim, for April Fool's stuff,
but by the time you get me in the evening,
I've had so much amateur comedy already today that I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm like over it.
It's already, it might as well be April 2nd.
But the day's not over yet and actually we'll get to,
I think there is actually one of the best April Fool's out there.
We'll talk about one of our, one of our friends was engaging into,
but Johnny, I got this thing here.
We're coming into Monday all week and I'm looking at this,
this article coming out of K-12 dive, you know,
the Busted Pencils, I'm confused, bringing joy and learning to preschoolers
through science lessons and I'm looking through this and I'm like,
whoa, wait, preschool, you're talking like two, three, four-year-olds
in science and I'm thinking, wait a minute, science, that's like, you know,
sophomores, junior seniors in high schools, little kids doing science
and I got a little pushback and I thought, you know what,
there are times in the past and we're going to go to this,
there have been times where I've been perplexed and I don't know where to turn
and guess what though, we have a place to turn and I was just thinking about this,
you know what, we have our good friend, Dr. Nancy Carlson Page,
Matt Damon's mom, I wonder on you what Matt Damon's mom would say
when it comes to teaching science to little kids.
Wait, what, you want to know what my mom would say?
All right, well, just ask her.
Oh, there she is, Dr. Nancy Carlson Page, welcome to Busted Pencils, Nancy, how are you?
Hey, I'm great, it's great to see you, it's great to be here.
Ah, it's so good to have you back.
And Johnny and I've been waiting, you know, we said the show, we started this show,
we're going to do a lot more kind of intro to this, but we started the what
would Matt Damon's mom segment, Nancy, what was that?
2011 at the Save Our Schools Rally when we met and just, just great stuff.
But Nancy, okay, little kids, two, three, four years old,
science education really, um, your intro had a key word in there
that gave me chills, you said science lessons.
Okay. Okay, here's the thing, if you think about little kids,
they have a natural interest and draw to nature.
You watch any child, they love sand, they love water, they love running water,
they love mud, they love flowers and bugs and trees and they,
they absolutely connect to the amazing nature that's around them.
So, if we can build on that in early childhood classrooms and this is the
ideal, uh, build on that interest and bring it into the
classroom and help children, um, grow that interest through curriculum that
connects to what has already naturally been
of interest and engagement for them before they got to school.
It's a beautiful thing, but when you say science lessons, it's worrying me
because what we've seen are the trends in early childhood education ever
since Ed reform of the almost now last 25 years
that have pushed down academic learning, teacher directed learning,
skill-based learning and, um, and, and, and skills and, uh, you know,
focused endpoint concepts onto little kids that
disconnect them from genuine learning, from play-based and activity-based
learning. So, it's not the idea that's, it's wrong to teach them science,
it's how do you do it? One, I think so. Yeah, I mean, so,
I mean, the article, too, I think the lessons part throws it because yeah,
it's a concern, but I just say early childhood educators can help young
students develop a scientific mindset by avoiding
wrote memorization of facts and by introducing inquiry-based and engaging
activities. I think that's kind of what you're talking about, Nancy, right?
It is, you know, I know a teacher once in an urban school setting
who had a kindergarten classroom, and, um, every, once a week she walked with her
whole class outside to observe one tree that they had chosen,
and they watched the changes in the tree. They observed the changes, they came
back to the classroom, they talked about what they saw,
then they drew it, and they record, documented it, they, um,
they hypothesized, if you will, about what the changes were
and what they might see next. This is the scientific method, really.
It's forming and testing hypotheses and observing and recording,
and they, and they loved it. They were so excited about the tree and the changes
the tree made. They went back out there once a week, they saw whether or not the
ideas they had about what the tree might be doing might happen or
was something different. This went on for six months,
and this is New England, so from spring through fall, it went through summer,
to observe this, and not only did it teach them scientific method, but it taught
them love of the tree too, the connection to nature, the appreciation
of nature, and the whole holistic experience in science, that to me
was just a perfect example of what we can do if we build science education onto
what is children's natural love of nature and interest in nature.
But it's not how it's happening now. It's happening. Johnny.
Oh yeah, so we'll get to that. We'll get to that. I'll ask you Nancy, what,
what are some of the sort of the dangers of what's happening now?
And just a moment, but first I want to thank you for being on the show with us.
It's great to see you and hear you again. And then, and then second,
I love for all of our listeners and especially the teachers out there, right?
Especially early childhood teachers out there do so much. I mean, you know this,
we're not telling you, we're preaching to the choir, you're telling us more often,
you know, this is stuff we've been doing or we can do in really fun ways.
But for you upper level teachers out there, maybe like hear what Nancy is saying,
hear what we're saying here, too often, school seeps in, and we teach children
to think less scientifically. We start to provide answers. We start to say there's one way
to do things instead of, you know, this sort of, I love Nancy that you're bringing up not only
the way young children have a natural affinity for inquiry, but their capacity, all of our human
capacity, especially when we're young, for all the divergent thinking, for all of the ideas,
for all of the, they were even say kind of crazy hypotheses that that are in your mind as a young
person. What a beautiful thing, right? Because what we know is the more time you spend in school,
unfortunately, the less creative and divergent we are at thinking. And so if we think about this way,
young people are the future scientists of our community. They're also, they don't have to become
scientists to be scientifically literate or to value science, but they learn, they have, we all have
this capacity as young, young learners, and somehow it's taught out of us. So, so I believe,
I like to believe early childhood educators are doing so much of this, like that example with
the tree. And as a science teacher, I think, oh, so cool, because how fun is it to scaffold on
then in those early grades? Guess what? I'll go to our friend, the tree that we have a relationship
with. Guess what? That tree's civic duty in our democracy, which includes the tree,
is a clean air that we have. Yeah, photos, we start to layer on these concepts and children have
already a working knowledge of, you know, of inquiry and respect and reverence and reciprocity
with the tree and the, and the natural world around them. So it's so beautiful,
but Nancy, because I'll just fall into romanticizing this because I already love early childhood
so much. I think we all should learn from our early year educators more. But tell us, Nancy,
what's under threat here? Because that's, that sounds like a great preschooler, K program,
kindergarten program, where we're learning science by observing, by playing, by asking questions,
you know, but too often now, what's happening? What's happening now, and it's really unfortunate,
is that all of the things we've seen with the negative effects of Ed reform have pushed down
to early childhood, sadly. And unfortunately, now a lot of, a lot of states now, the departments
of education have taken over early childhood and they've been incorporated into elementary schools,
and studies show that the more that's happened, they're dominated by whole group instruction
and focusing on specific skills and not on inquiry, not on child-centered observation,
activity, play-based learning. The thing about early childhood education that I'm glad you care
about it, and I do, is that the groundwork that you lay with young children for not only
what they understand, but how to think about the world. So you're using the word inquiry,
or we could say hypothesis testing, it sounds fancy, but it's, it actually children do it all the
time. Like, what do I think will happen? Oh, this happened. Oh, wow, interesting. Why?
It's a natural way that does get drummed out, a natural way of thinking that gets drummed out
of kids really early, and they get convinced, told that they're already information out there,
scientific in this case, and then they're told what it is, and they have to learn the concepts,
but it's completely separate. A, from the content, they've already discovered on their own
explorations in nature, and B, the way that it's understood, which is through their own inquiry,
and their own discovery method, and not from being told from an adult teacher, but they already
lose that even now at the ages of three and four. They don't actually get to develop it fully,
and they're get, they're told, actually, that there's a different way to see the world
than what they naturally are capable of doing. You talk about that, too. It's just that,
that keep hearing this word, natural, natural comes across nature, natural. The natural state of
early childhood is science, scientific inquiry. It is. Towards anything. So even if you say it's not
science, it could be towards anything, right? Not just a natural world, but asking any questions about
anything, and having an inquiring mind and a critical thinking mind. Well, Dr. Nancy Carlson
Paige, Matt Damon's mom, thank you for setting the record straight on that, because I was getting
ready to go. It's like early childhood. Man, they're, they're too young to be thinking about scientific
things. I need to learn to read and write and stuff first, but not only is that it. So you've got
a warning, first of all, it's like, let's not make this too hard, but Matt Damon's mom,
thank you for busting pencils with us. The Dr. Nancy Carlson Paige, thank you,
buddy for joining me. And thanks for caring about young kids. Absolutely. And when we get back,
back to the phones, busted pencils back after the break.
Busted pencils, fully-led education talk to numbers 8557524842. It's educated educators talking
education. Dr. Nancy Carlson Paige was our guest at the beginning science. Yes, Matt Damon's mom
right to the phone. So LA Tom is right there knocking on the door. LA Tom, what's happening,
our friend? Yeah, good afternoon, guys. First off, we the people ultimately are the government,
and we must never forget that. And that means all of us. That just doesn't mean the left or the right,
or the LGBTQ plus or anybody else. It's all of us. Make up. That's right. We the people government.
I love what Nancy was saying. I'm going to go back to the thing I think was soon as kids start
reading, that they should start reading positive affirmations to themselves. The biggest obstacle
that I see is that there's a lot of insecure, I'll call them boys, even though they're old enough
to be men, that they seem to think that creativity goes along somehow with being a terminator,
being gay. And I think that's something that we really have to look at in terms of women
raise boys. And these boys when they grow up for some reason don't treat women very nice,
especially the ones that are from a certain political persuasion, it seems to me anyway,
not putting it all as a broad blanket on them. But like today, Crudey and Dom had some guy
called up and said, you guys are gay. And it's like, you know what? Take your title mask,
you want to be crap and get it out of here. Because that's what it is. It's a guy that thinks
that he's some masculine or masculinity equals gay or non-gay. And I just think that when Nancy
was talking there and I was hearing about creativity and I was hearing about young children,
boys or girls, loving nature. And doing all that, and all I could think to myself was,
oh my god, they probably think that this is some type of left wing takeover or something,
where people can't be free to think. And I really think that's something that we need to
in our culture. You know, because you could have the most wonderful teacher in the world.
But to me, if that kid gets home and here's his father, talk a certain way or whatever it might be,
that just destroys that young kid. And I think that, you know, we really need to listen to
into the woods, which is, you know, be careful. The words you say, because children are listening.
You know, LA Tom. LA Tom, man, you brought that into the point here to really land it. And in
fact, I don't know if you're referring directly to the book into the woods. One of the best
books about taking kids out into the woods is just point that out. But yeah, the creativity and
then bringing that in and at say LA Tom, yeah, the sensitivity towards, you know, masculinity,
masculinity, femininity, all those things are definitely things. We're talking about, though,
too, I think the concern really with the early childhood, particularly when we were talking with
Nancy with science, is is to take that natural. And that's the word Johnny that I really like,
Nancy was using that natural kind of propensity to want to know, to understand, to dig deep,
the encouragement. And this is where I think LA Tom saying, all of us then in those moments were
students. And I guess any age, right? But particularly young, when they start at, you know,
expressing desires and creativity and wants and the ability for, you know, an adult to potentially
squash that, you know, from a perception in Tom's case, you know, perception of boy, you know,
being creative in nature sounds feminine. Well, no, no, no, no, it's like we need great scientists
and being curious about nature. Wait a minute. You know, Johnny, that's where I'm trying to link all
of things Tom was putting together there. I want to link it together too, because I mean, Tom,
thanks for the call. Always love when you give a call. That's all of our listeners. I don't think
we have any callers that we're like, oh, not this car. I know. I'm hearing from you. But,
you know, LA Tom coming through with a reminder that it is we the people. That means all the people
means it's complex and we have a lot of perspectives on things. And our job then is to be really
good at figuring it out. And that doesn't mean fighting to have your one way. And that doesn't
mean letting insecurities or, you know, or violence is that you naturalize, because I'm going to
break up that term natural that we used earlier a little bit, because not it says some things can
be naturalized. Like what like what LA times bring. We're socialized in a patriarchy. And yes,
I'm sure this means like now we're left wing exposing. But again, you know, to be feminist doesn't
mean that you're specifically on the left or on the right. You just are against, you know,
misogyny and and the dominance of patriarchy. We can get into a whole show about that nonetheless
in our culture right now too often young people learn that it's a particular thing to be male
or masculine. It's a particular thing to be female or feminine and that it's really direct in
one to one. And it's far more complex to that. Thank you future generations that are
blowing up those patterns right now, which we're very excited about. But the idea here is that
first thing, you know, whoever the caller was that called up the dominant crudey earlier and
called him gay. I thank you for like sorry that you do that, but thank you for bringing that to
all of our attention, because come on, man. Like, you know what I'm saying? Come on, man. Seriously,
that's what you got. But what what what what that person likely meant was they meant to put
down dominant crudey when there's absolutely nothing about masculinity, a healthy masculinity that
is hardwired to your sexuality, right? To what you desire or what you like. So that kind of that
kind of use of language, there I say, what did the youth call it? They say it's cringe. It's
absolutely more than that, right? It is it is it is remnants of a violent world, right? That still
exists for too many people. And so, you know, shame on that person. Yeah, I said it like I've rarely
shame people. But I think, you know, some public shame in for calling somebody gay, like other than
in a celebratory way, like high five, like you're out, you're proud and let's have less,
let's hope you have the best life out there knowing that it's not an easy road for anybody in this
in this kind of violence that that folks, particularly in the LGBTQ community are exposed to. So
yeah, I'm shame in you shame on you for calling dominant crudey gay. You can disagree with them,
but that use of language is far too violent and destructive and remnants of an old world, right?
A world we no longer want part of our lives, but too often have have all around us. And so,
we're working to make that change. Thanks Tom for bringing that up. But Tim, you know, sometimes
when we say, Hey, we got to let things be natural. Well, different people have understood what
natural means, like natural order, natural law. These kinds of things can get highly conservative
quick. And that's not the version, nothing that that version, like this, as a diverse opinion.
But it's often utilized as a way to say natural means, and I can just hear it, right? Maybe
the same. I know, I know. Yeah, you make it. Yeah, I mean, natural means that these kids are,
you know, aren't, aren't learning to love trees. I'll tell you what trees are gods,
you know, are gods creation for man to dominate and rule. You know, that's natural. You got to
make two by fours out of them trees. So I want to differentiate. And I think Tom brought that up,
you know, I think he said like, Hey, let's talk about when we are talking about, we're talking
about the natural world. We're talking about, you know, a multi species diversity, you know,
diverse things, a bio region rich with life. And it's our relationship with that diversity of things
and our understanding and wonder for the value, recognizing the value in something like a tree
or the natural world that we're in. So I mean, I took up some time there, but I appreciate Tom's call.
I'm glad we got to shame the person who was insecure and called up and, you know,
used violent language towards dominant cruelty. And when we come back to him,
let's chop it up some more. Let's get into this April Fool's stuff and things happening in
the world. All right. All right, man.
Welcome back to pencils fully-led education talk. Educated educators talking education 8557524842 is the
number if you want to call get in here. Yeah, we were, yes, we were just talking to Matt Damon's mom,
Dr. Nancy Carlson Page, science, little kids, yes, little kids, and then L.A. Tom gave us a call,
put us in a direction that, you know, really comprehensively helped us make two different points
there, Johnny. You were kind of talking about this too and the potential to say, you know,
because Nancy kept saying natural. And I was like, yeah, that's the word that's the word. And you
were pointing out, oh, it is. Be careful. Yeah, but be careful with that word because that word
itself can be used very conservatively to point out going, what's natural is, you know, and it's,
you know, boys liking girls and girls liking boys and all, you know, and cutting down trees to make
wood and shooting animals to eat. And that's the natural order of things. Well, it wasn't really
making that reference. And I think that it's good to be cautious. The innate state of childhood
is curiosity. And scientific literacy, and it doesn't run antithetical to also for folks
out there who may say, wait, hold on a minute, but you know, I don't necessarily only listen to
it's not antithetical also to different religious beliefs of children. Unfortunately, though, we have
kind of an adult supremacist world we live in. And so kids aren't always valued, right? And we
often think about needing to control them or needing or knowing what's best for them. And then
sometimes actually we don't always know or we haven't historically always been on the side of,
you know, caring for children in the way that they best grow and develop. And so when Nancy used
the term natural and tell me you were using it, and I'm going along with it because, yes,
there is sort of a natural affinity that we as human beings have across all cultures for inquiry,
especially when we're young, for learning to play, for observation, for creativity. And, you know,
and so we want to, you know, to harness that to foster that growth, you know, and then I just
pointed out because Tom said he could imagine the same kind of guys who called up Dom and Crudy,
you know, with their garbage language and, you know, violent remnants of a past world we hope
goes away soon. But the idea, you know, that those kinds of folks might be listening and saying,
well, you know, this sounds like some, you know, some real liberal washing of what we know kids
actually need, they need more structure, more discipline and, you know, discipline classroom
and early childhood, especially, looks like a lot of playing and it has structure to it,
but it's how children learn. It is natural to where they are developmentally, to their growth,
to the to the diverse ideas and identities that are budding at that, right? And so,
and so, you know, it's not punishing. And too often, school, we understand discipline as
punishment. Luckily, you know, when we have ed amplified on educators amplified, we have teacher
Halle and teacher Joanna who come in and they break this down, you know, every day, how they work
for engagement and not compliance, right? So that's a beautiful thing. We get to it later in the week,
but Tim, so you know what else is going on in the world's baseball season?
Okay, I'll start up, especially I think the brewers out there listeners in Milwaukee area,
right? You got a home opener. But then on baseball season, in the spirit of that, because I told
you already, I'm not an April Fool's guy, I'm amateur comedy out by evening here, but I'm
going to lob one up to you so you get to hit a home. Okay, I'm ready. Because I don't know,
I'm going to steer the show a little bit. I don't know if it's what we had on the agenda.
That's a, every time I see in here, because if you're on the live stream, you can see and watch us,
but every time I see in here, you and Dr. Nancy Carlson page talk, I'm reminded of like,
you guys have been talking about this stuff for years. So like, give me the bird, like tell
them a little bit like how this come to be like, come on. I know, get to ask Matt Damon's mom,
play with that whole idea, because we know Dr. Nancy Carlson page as a peer, you know, as a,
you know, as an established professor in education, but connect the dots for the listeners out there,
because I mean, I have pieces of the story, but I've never actually asked you. So I'm lob
in the back story, man. All right, I got, I got my, I got my favorite Louisville slugger in hand
for this one for the, for the lob pitch, 2011. Now, the height of no child left behind,
and you even heard Nancy referring to it, Ed reform, the Ed reform movement is just destroying
schools. And there was a movement of educators across the country through what was called save
our schools. We went with the SOS call sign. And we put together a rally in Washington, DC to get
there and to say, we're going to advocate for public schools. And one, one of the key speakers,
and you can YouTube search this Matt Damon speech save our school speech. You can pull it up
where Matt was giving a speech for save our schools. And I was there because I was a father
who had opted his son out of no child left behind. And I was invited to come and do a little
conversation about what it means to opt out. And during Matt's speech, I was behind the scenes
in one of those tents where Matt's mom was Dr. Nancy Carlson page. And we met. And I did this
kind of like, I'm like, like somebody's like, you know who that was? I was like, yeah, Dr. Nancy
Carlson page. She's an early childhood educator. No, that was Matt's mom. I'm like, really? Oh, my
goodness. And but we had really just struck up a conversation about education advocacy and how we
were happy to be here. And here's what happened, though, once I realized that that was Matt's mom.
And then I actually, I, I'll have to find the picture. I got a picture backstage or,
you know, behind the scenes in a tent. It was like 98 degrees in DC too. It was horrible with Matt
and his mom and, you know, I get this picture there. But I then afterwards went, you know, developing
the show and putting the show together and thinking, man, I bet I could ask Nancy to ask Matt
to be on my radio show. And, you know, I was, of course, stupid enough, stupid enough,
or ballsy enough, or whatever you want to say it. And I was like, hey, Nancy, I sent this real
nice email. Hi, Nancy Carlson page. This is Dr. Tim Slecker. We met at the Save Our Schools
Rally. Matt was great at speaking at that rally. I have this, no, nobody knows podcast called
Busted Pencils. I was thinking, I was thinking, you know, Matt would be a really good guest on my
no name podcast. And we got back and said, she's like, Tim, I want to tell you, and this really is
where it got solidified, we met again, the following year when, when my group United Opt Out had
an occupy the Department of Education event down in DC. And we got, we got Nancy to come and speak
and she gave me the story and she said, you know, what happened when Matt was goodwill hunting,
when that movie broke, there was a realization that, you know, their lives had changed. And the
promise between her and Matt was is that she would never put him in a position like that where he
would ever have to be anything other than her son. And that, and I was like, you know what,
that is so awesome. We walked the streets of Washington, DC, came back and I went, you know what,
called her, got her in a phone conversation as we were just getting ready to record one of the
first episodes of Busted Pencils. And I said, Nancy, how about this? So I said, I got this,
you've agreed to be on the show. I love Dr. Nancy Carlson page. I said, what do you think though
if we called the segment, what would Matt Damon's mom say? And I'm sitting there going, I'm ready
for her to go, Tim, that's so stupid. My God, I told you not to, she goes, oh my God, that's so funny.
And I said, yeah, I said, I'm glad you think it's funny because I said, what's really great is your
doctor, Nancy Carlson page, early childhood expert, you've written books. And I said, you know,
celebrities, we're always asking celebrities what they think about things. And we're like, who cares
what celebrities think? We want them to act well in movies. We should go to the experts. And I
said, here we have the perfect example. I said, why would we ask Matt Damon? Let's ask his mom,
Dr. Nancy Carlson page. And so yes, since then, 2011. So there we are now here. And this is
every first Monday of the month now, Dr. Nancy Carlson page has agreed to come back on Busted
Pencils. And we will be doing this segment every first Monday of the month. What would Matt
Damon's mom say? And we will have these, you know, issues where Nancy is going to weigh in.
We put it in her, the first one today, April Fool's, he was like, no, this was not an April Fool's
date. That really was Matt Damon's mom, Dr. Nancy Carlson page, no fooling you. And every Monday,
from now on, every first Monday of the month, Dr. Nancy Carlson page will be joining Busted
Pencils where we will put out a question, put it in her wheel yesterday because she is an early
childhood educator, one of the founders of defending the early years. Check out that website. I'm
sure Nancy would want us promoting that. Go to defending the early years. You can see the work she's
doing there. But she's going to be on. And we'll be throwing all kinds of questions at her, Johnny.
So I don't know that's that's the segment. Yeah, that's a great recap of it. And I love it. I
love that segment. I love that Dr. Nancy Carlson page is going to be on here because like you said,
I mean, she's she's just a great advocate for for strong public education and and an expert.
I mean, we love experts like we, you know, when I go to get my car fixed, I take my car to a
to a mechanic I trust as an expert, you know, when I need a job done like I need to get some plumbing
fixed, I call him a plumber. I I want them to be an expert plumber. So when we have a question or
a topic that involves early childhood, we get to have our in house, very good for a Nancy Carlson
page, the Dr. Nancy Carlson page, who also happens to be Matt Damon's mom and so the great connection
there listeners don't know like this isn't just a, you know, grabbing straws because I certainly
met the celebrity and has had great success in film and things. But but he has been just for from
forever's for as long as I can remember a, an advocate of teachers and it makes sense right when
now you can put together some of these pieces, some of the stories that Dr. Nancy Carlson
page shared about raising her sons and about their education and about her experience as a parent
in teaching history and being for you know, teaching them history and being friends and neighbors
with the Howard's and these are the Howard's and Johnny right. I'm going to tell you too. I mean,
one of the great things about Nancy, she's an expert at early childhood education, but she's
she's a public school advocate, like you said, has been there. And so the range of issues that
we'll be covering with Nancy. And in fact, probably that'll be one of the ones that's like,
you know, what is the connection between Dr. Nancy Carlson page, Matt Damon and Howard's in?
I would challenge everybody to go back to Matt's, you know, goodwill hunting, where he does a kind
of a monologue and talks about, you know, Howard's in and at that point, it's like, whoa, okay,
but yeah, there's a really cool connection there. We'll be talking about that. So, so Johnny,
yeah, Dr. Nancy Carlson page, what would Matt Damon's mom say? We'll be doing that every Monday,
uh, first Monday of the month. Um, I didn't put this out there too, you know, if you guys have
suggestions for questions that you think Dr. Nancy Carlson page might want to take a stab at,
throw us those questions, you know, we've been recruiting people to be on the show. We're looking
forward to that audience participation. In fact, the numbers 8557524842, if you guys are thinking,
my goodness, they're just talking away tonight. They're not even taking phone calls. We're always
taking phone calls, busted pencils, 8557524842 to jump in there. But yeah, kind of laying that
history out there. And I put it in our current chat, the YouTube that save our school's video of
Matt Damon from 2011. We'll put that in. We'll link that in the podcast tomorrow when we put the
podcast out podcast out on you so that people can see that. And people will be like, whoa, that's
Matt. And he was doing a really cool film at the time. Um, and Johnny, he's, he's got our hairdo in,
in that, uh, in that video with you. Yeah. Now, but it was in his was done intentionally for the,
for the role that he was playing. So I'll just put that out there. But, you know, yeah, man,
it's, it's great. And he said, when there is a phone, you know, whenever there's an issue,
what, what has been great is that Nancy, you know, it's a, hey, what do you think about this
issue? Can you come on, busted pencils and talk about it? And she has been, you know, nonstop now
for, you know, going on 13 years, just an incredibly great supporter of the show. And so, yeah,
we really Nancy, and if you're still listening now, we really, Johnny and I appreciate and thank you
so much for coming on and, you know, being a part of busted pencils. Um, we're just going to continue
to bring that, you know, we're going to bring all kinds of stuff like this. Johnny, this is a great
thing. You know, five days a week, man, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, busted pencils
every day of the week. Man, we got a lot of stuff to talk about. People with it and they're going,
how do they do it? Well, guess what? Man, when we're talking about saving democracy every night of
the week, there is more than enough to talk about because that's what public education is. It's the
corner. It's the foundation of democracy. And we're going to bust pencils every day of the week
to make sure that our public schools are where they need to be the number one issue. When we get back,
Johnny, we'll break that down a little bit more.
Cool. Yeah. Man, seven dust. Love it. Anybody name that tune seven dust busted pencils fully
let it education talk eight five five seven five two four eight four two April fools day, Monday,
but no April fools today. That was Dr. Nancy Carlson Page, Matt Damon's mom.
Hey, but maybe just as important, we have Joanne on the line. Don't wonder what Joanne has to say,
Joanne, what's happened in our friend?
Joanne, you there.
All right, but I do have a question. You weren't you were looking for different themes to
bring into your your once a month segment with Dr. Carlson Page. And I was thinking in general about
questions and the importance of making sure that students young young very, very young students
have their questions honored and maybe recorded in some ways. I'm sure she has the most relevant
and up-to-date research on all of this. And I'm just wondering because there's something that
kind of I'm for lack of a better phrase beats it out of young people that they could ask questions
and get them answered and all that when they get really quiet. And that's what's scary to me
because again, bubbling up with questions and engaging people with questions, that's that's
life in it. And that whole notion of asking questions that goes be you know through all these areas
we're talking about, especially when it comes to democracy. Here I'm thinking of our wonderful
collaborator LA Tom along this line. So again, question asking how to reign it in. You can't
have it all the time, but making it a meaningful part of education. Thank you, Joanne. I was
going to say yeah, reign in it. In fact, I would say one of the issues that I'm more concerned about.
And I think this is what Nancy was saying, Johnny too, is that way too often we spend time very
quickly with with little kids. And as you say, getting them to do school is largely telling them to
stop asking the questions that they bring. So that by the time we see them, you know, in fifth grade
even, you know, seventh grade, eighth grade, you know, one of one of our great guests that Michael
Fullen talks about this for every year, the kids spend in school, they lose a capacity of engagement.
So that by the time they're juniors in high school, they've essentially totally checked out and
disengaged. And then when they get to college, we sit there and go, you know, anybody got any
questions and they give us that look like we don't ask questions because we've been taught over
the years. You don't ask questions in school. School's not for questions. I think that's kind of
where, you know, we'd say with Nancy and where Joanne was going, Johnny, what do you think?
Yeah, and I'm excited about it. And you know what? Like folks on the on the first Monday of the
month, give, give us a call, call in. You cannot, you too can ask, you know, Dr. Nancy Carlson
Page, uh, what, what her thoughts are on, on topics related to this. So, so love the participation.
Love the text coming in. Got one. Hey guys. Oh, Matt Damon's mom say intriguing. Great idea. I'm
in. Thanks, Michael. Awesome. Michael. Thanks for calling in our text and insane sort of same thing
these days. You know, right. All this, it's, it's a similar similar similar world.
So thanks. Yeah. Yeah, it's just that. And so, you know, early childhood, but, you know,
let's say we start bringing all these things together. You say school, Johnny, and I think it's
one of the things you've been great about pointing out is the difference between, you know, learning
and going to school and that a lot of times school can be very antithetical to learning.
Because school is a performative function sometimes. And in fact, you'd say some of the most
successful people with school have learned to perform a role. And have really learned that
role. And if you ask students what that role is, it's like my job is to sit there and give you
the answers occasionally when you ask them for me not to ask too many and to do my work to be quiet,
sit back. And then at the, you know, at the end of the day, walk away, do my homework, come back
in the next day. And I go through the, I know the, I know the game of what it means to be in school.
And John, I remember thinking about this working with early, you know, when I was doing early childhood
social studies for, for future early childhood teachers, you know, I'd sit there and sometimes get
really frustrated because they would just look at me like, Dr. Slecker, it's your job to just
keep telling us what we're supposed to do. And our job is to then repeat back to you. Why do you
keep asking us what we think? And it's just like, my goodness, it was really right there. You know,
these, these 19 to 22 year olds that are going to be early childhood educators, they had
communicated loud and clear to me that I have, I was breaking the rules of the game by asking them
to contribute what they think. They had learned very strong that the rules of the game, you don't engage
and you don't have thoughts, you do what you're told. And I, I mean, and this is what we have to worry
about, right? Yeah, Tim, I think, I think I've said it before on here, you know, it's really important
when you're working against the grain or when you're, you know, challenging status quo to recognize
that, you know, schools do a lot to maintain status quo. They do an excellent job of sorting
people out based on how good you are at school. That often does mean like, you have to have some
learning ability, you have to have some success. But what it has done a really great job of socializing
this idea that that you have to be smart or you have to be really intelligent or, you know,
to be successful, you have to get through school. And what we know school has pushed out a lot of
very intelligent, a lot of wonderfully creative people for whom compliance and submission just
doesn't work for. So, you know, we get a lot of students as we're teaching people to become teachers,
they've got, you know, 20-some years of success in school. And when I put the quote to the people
on the live stream, they can see the scare quotes, school is different than education. It is a very
different thing. It is a process by which you follow the rules and often are do what you're told
and you ask questions, but they're not really like inquiry. They're sort of like being present in
the moment in terms of like, I kind of know what the questions are I'm supposed to ask. Let me ask
them. Let me do these tasks and get them completed and and pass along through. And so, you know,
you have to interrupt schooling is a part of process. Now, I will say we talk about it a lot,
it is exhausting. It leads to a lot of teaching moralization. It leads to a lot of what we'll call
push outs. Those are students for whom school are, they're like, enough. It's not like they did
something to fail out of school or that they're not intelligent or, you know, bright young beings.
They are pushed out because simply school is just not a place that they are going to continue
to go to. So, you know, we get into that a lot on here, liberating, you know,
Tim, you're coming in kind of shaky, you're coming in shaky. So we'll just catch it up where I was
talking about is, you know, here on Busted Pencils, one of the things we're doing all the time
is we're working really hard to liberate education and learning from schooling.
And so that's a great way to sum things up. It was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
here on Busted Pencils. Love you listeners. Give us a call. See you tomorrow.