This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.
Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,
educated educators talking education.
Ah, there it is, Friday Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk,
educated educators talking education.
The number is 8557524842.
Johnny Lupinacci, it's TGI.
Thank God it's FBP Friday Busted Pencils.
No, no, not a BPF.
Busted Pencils Friday.
Thank God TGI BPF.
TGI, there's how it is.
Come on, it's not that funny.
Hey, it's been a week, man.
It's been a week, you say, I got, you know, trapped in that alternative universe there on Monday being caught up in the bright, you know,
the electromagnetic storm.
The electromagnetic storm.
I'm trying to lack this, this, this dimension.
I remember him.
Yeah, up in Northern Michigan.
I got sucked up in the peninsula up there.
I was hanging out and I disappeared, but if we're back, we got the show Tuesday.
You know, awesome Wednesday, educators amplified in the house.
And then last night, you know, great show, Aaron McKelkey.
You know, so just a little rehash, you know, we talked about, and we've talked about AI on the show.
Lots of different ways with lots of different guests.
And I know Johnny and I kind of play around each other is like, you know, pro and con like Tim's pro pro AI Johnny's anti AI.
The reality is this here again, we keep really wanting to just bring this discussion because, you know, educated educators talk education.
And right now, artificial intelligence is, you know, whether you like it, whether you think it's the most awesome thing.
It's here and it is presenting some situations.
And for teachers, it can be a real eye opener to figure out what it is you're doing.
So we had a guest, Aaron McKelkey, who came on.
He's a high school teacher lives in lives in Wyoming and has gone kind of full force into saying, you know what?
I'm going to bring artificial intelligence into my classroom intentionally.
I'm going to empower the students to use it. We're going to actually not worry about whether we're cheating.
We're going to actually put this forward and we're going to bring this technology.
And Aaron just talked about that pathway of going, you know, like I'm going to put it in and guess what?
He found resistance in his school by some of his own colleagues, teachers saying, what are you doing?
Johnny, I liked his example too specifically, you know, the English faculty, the English department.
Like, oh my God, you know, all the students are leaving your class and coming in. Now they're cheating in English class.
And man, it's a powerful thing, but he really, and I got a lot of feedback on this.
He relayed the story though about a special education student in his world history class.
And you know, they read some pretty verbose texts verbose for anybody.
But, you know, a student with an IEP with a really, you know, low, lower reading level.
The ability for AI to take that passage and put it into a great appropriate framing and allow this student then access to the content that they were talking about in this world history.
That was pretty powerful stuff, Lupinachi.
Well, I mean, Tim, I just want to, I don't want to distract from that. It's just like just good teaching.
Yeah. Well, exactly.
Kind of ridiculous to me that I'm kind of, I'm part of my stance against AI is just the frustration with the infatuation.
We seem to have the obsession, especially teachers seem to have about this.
Oh, it's going to cause cheating.
It's like turn the lens inward. If you think something's causing cheating nine times out of 10.
It's your prompt, your assignment, or your teaching that's disengaging or confusing.
So, I love the way that it's becoming, you know, a more powerful tool to accompany good teaching and classrooms.
But, you know, the thing that's frustrating to me about it is AI is not new.
It's also not intelligence. That's a marketing slope.
You know, it's, it's really helping, you know, it's coding that's helping process, you know, tasks quicker or more efficiently.
It's not doing that in all cases perfectly. And, and part in part, I kind of blame in terms of the talking about it in classrooms.
I blame teachers who are, who are quick to ban anything.
Like, come on. Then you've kind of, I can oversimplify things on a Friday.
If you're an educator, I can within two or three sentences figure out what kind of educator you are.
Right. And you're going to fall into one of two categories.
You're going to fall into an adult who seeks to control other people and including in that, especially young people.
Or you're an adult who likes to be present at the birth of ideas and be kind of part of an education process.
And those two types to oversimplify this, kind of how I break it down.
And I feel like all the people I know who are engaged and excited about the being present at learn at the space of learning.
Actually, that's the, the etymology of the word education, right, to draw out of to be present at the birth of right.
So the Greek origins of that word ed to curry.
But I'm going to come back to that other version, the more schooling version.
There's a whole lot of people who seek and, and you know what I'm just going to say it on a Friday.
Get off on controlling other people, especially young people.
And so, so if you're that kind of person, you have a propensity.
I'm not hating on you. I'm just saying turn the lens inward.
You have a propensity to find yourself in schools because schools primarily are structured in a way to control situations.
At oftentimes, they expensive the very purpose that they're therefore learning and teaching and being together and the site of education at a curry.
If we go back to the origins of that word, and guess what, I didn't need AI to look that up.
Figure that out quicker, but AI is going to do some exciting things like say, what the heck is that guy talking about?
I'm going to AI the origins of the word education, right?
And then quicker than probably it took me to learn that, although I could pull it up from my human intelligence pretty quickly.
I could pull it up and think it's be like, yeah, man, I know what he's talking about.
Or they could say it also has other origins and other.
So, you know, I think it's important to recognize that we say like, are there tools that help make teaching better?
Yes. Are we often finding ourselves at odds and opposed to them?
And in discussion about it. Yeah, that's democracy. It's messy.
It's important to you.
That said, I think one of the key things from yesterday that resonated with me from Aaron is not so much the opposition because I like good opposition to stuff.
It's not so much the example because I don't want to like supercrip AI, right?
It's not like, oh, it can help the kids who have who have special needs. It's like, man, if it's powerful tool, it's bringing everybody up, especially those who probably only have that level of special need.
Because they're not fitting the control group of what we want schools to be.
Again, I'm picking on the group of people who's like, well, you have a disability. Well, hold on.
How do you know actually that I just don't fit into your complete utter disrespect for divergence, right?
And it's just as all about norming kids into one kind of thing. And if they're not fit in that norm, well, they must be special needs. Let's give them some technology.
Right. And I didn't hear that from Aaron, but I want to like a way from that and get back to the thing I loved about it.
As man, this is a guy who was trying to figure out how something that kids were engaged with might make learning in his classroom more meaningful, more lasting, more powerful, any grappled with it.
Man, he shared with us how he turned the lens where inwards, he made a teacher facing technology for a semester to experiment with it, to learn with it, to ask his students how they use it and then begin to into the classroom.
Man, if that's, you know, using YouTube, if that's bringing Google into your classroom, if that's, you know, the social media.
I know so many teachers who are opposed to artificial intelligence, who are who are using Google Earth in their classroom.
It's like, there you go.
Use flash, the similar technologies.
I just, and I also say I like that we're digging into this because there is some caution around anything that's branded as intelligent.
It's only as smart as it's told what to do.
Remember the limitations on that and Aaron did that well too.
Yeah, he knew technologies and teaching man, new technologies and teaching, I just didn't know who this Ed Curry was.
You were talking about it.
I didn't know if that was a person I hadn't met or something like that.
So, I don't know.
You know, I got you had plenty of time while I was going off.
It's bus defences fully led education talk, educated educators talking education.
The number is 8557524842.
Yes, it's Friday and thank goodness it's busted pencils on a Friday doing a little recap of the week.
You know, great episode last night with Aaron Calkey, artificial intelligence in the classroom.
And there's Johnny's pointing out though to good teaching, good teaching, taking a tool.
And really leveraging it in the way as you said, Johnny, not for schooling, but to bring education to lots and lots of kids.
And I say I only put out the special needs student as the example because you're right.
It takes though that type of an example for somebody go, oh, it works there and you go, hey, and guess what?
This is a powerful teaching and learning tool for everybody, for everybody.
And this is the way to bring that.
But then Johnny, too, I tell you what, a really popular episode this week, I'm looking at the downloads was Tuesday, man, the get real episode on.
I heard that people like that.
It's nice of reading, man, people.
Yeah.
You know, people are just like, I mean, probably one of the most downloaded experts or what used to be called Twitter videos.
You know, people are just running out and then lots of social media kind of coming back and clipping it and putting out comments and quotes.
Largely around the idea of going like, whoa, and Johnny, you called this one going, uh oh, been there done this just a whole another day for us teachers right now caught in the middle of a curriculum war.
Yeah, they beat different day and that really got put out there on social media.
Yeah, man, I got to follow this.
Yeah, I got to see this.
But then the other part, though, too, on the science of reading, because maybe not use much as me, because I really said, let's get real and let's criticize this whole idea.
What?
Why is you say what?
Again, we came at this though, because the science of reading, what you're seeing is it's only in that word only.
Now, you know, like in states like Florida, states like Ohio, it's only only the science of reading will be used to teach reading to kindergarteners, first graders, second graders, third graders, and only approved curriculum, only approved curriculum.
Or in other words, curriculum that has been offered by a political donor to be able to create such an environment where quote, there's an only curriculum.
Only curriculum can be used to teach the only way to teach kids to read.
And I just going like the problem with the only is is that we need to be really cautious around saying only because Johnny, you pointed out when we're talking about learning, being present at that, you know, that time where learning occurs.
And only is typically the antithesis of learning because there are all kinds of way learning happens.
If we're going to restrict how kids learn to read done only, man, don't be surprised if it doesn't come back and we have kids again in that reading.
It's busted pencils.
It's fully-led at education talk.
It's Friday recap.
I'll tell you what though, Johnny LeBonacci got some great news when we come back.
The only thing you got to do is hang on with us listener.
And we really have to live what I've done.
We'll be remembered what I've done.
But what I have been done is from the night that I feel with each round of life that scares me to death.
There it is.
Busted pencils fully-led at education talk.
Educated educators talking education.
The number is 857524842.
It gives a call.
Did you like the artificial intelligence episode?
Did you hate it?
Science of reading.
What do you think about it?
Johnny, before I get into the news, I do want to just do a little bit more of that because saying with the science of reading with the mandate of it being the only.
You know, you hear teachers are going like, wow, what do you do?
One more thing.
Science of reading.
Same stuff.
Just believe another day.
My goodness.
Here comes somebody else trying to tell us how to teach my god, get out of the way.
But the reality here too is I said, let's try to make this from the point of view of a parent who's hearing about the fact that their child now is going to have a science of reading only curriculum.
And that that's the only way kids are going to learn how to read.
And the possibility is that you might have a child who goes, you know what?
Science of reading methodology, which is largely largely, I didn't say exclusively, largely, phonetically based, junk, you know, reading passages, not reading for enjoyment.
You might already have like my daughter in first grade was already reading.
And so what she needed to become a better reader was not science of reading.
She needed her reading teacher who she had to inspire her to keep reading even better and better books.
And so only would have hurt my daughter because she was the, you know, the opposite of only.
But just being cautious, you know, and thinking about this going, how is it possible that a legislature and an elected group of people can come in and mandate only only something that your kid will only learn this when the reality.
What I talked about this is is that learning, there is no only way of learning, learning occurs in all kinds of different ways with different students through a diversity of methodologies.
Yeah, and it is important to remember like that we have this thing called scientific method.
That's not the science of reading, but like science of reading is kind of co-opt in that language or on a scientific method and then a thing called scientific consensus.
And that was the thing we really broke down on the show this week that we had whole shows on before like what is the difference between, you know, the false equivalency and then scientific, scientific consensus.
So like we know that there are a number of ways that children learn to read.
You know that there are some pretty strong, there's some strong evidence behind a few of those working pretty good.
And we've kind of tried to massage that around things called like balanced reading or even some of the discussion, because I'm going to be fair, I dug into science or reading some more.
And it draws on a lot of literature so that it can sort of feel like it's presenting.
It feels sciencey.
But Tim, here's the thing I think that you're hitting a nail on the head with and probably every listener can resonate with this too.
If someone's telling you this is the only option you have or this is the only thing or this is the best thing.
We all should raise an eyebrow if we can't, I can't raise one.
I wish I could be cool with that kind of like like this.
But I mean, everyone should be looking around like, okay, what's coming next, wait for it, wait for it and there it is.
Because we're the only thing and you need to buy it now.
And that's exactly what this is, is this is, you know, the co-opting.
I'll call it that, but we're just usurping of public government to push your product.
I mean, this is as exterse it gets.
I mean, it's like that the goal is to push product, right?
And the best thing to do is to market your product as the only and or the best, both of those being the ideal.
If I can say that what I have is the best and it's the only right way or the only way to go, right?
And I can force that like you're saying, we should be really skeptical and quite frankly, we should be up in arms.
We should be pissed off about this because being forced fed the only quote-on quote option.
And then, and then guess what Tim, like you said, so buy these things that will make your teachers and while we're at it, let's put teachers down.
Your teacher is more effective as though they couldn't do their job with the tools that they have or better tools for the students that they're most familiar with and know the needs of.
So, you know, I'm with you, man, it's a scary thing. I'm glad we can shine some light on it.
I'm glad that listeners have contributed and that it's spreading around.
And because, you know what, it is hard to be out there teaching.
That's one of the other things we talked about educators amplified this week.
It's not easy to teach. I don't know that it makes it is, but it's not easy to teach.
And in fact, and in fact, we can say, oh man, I appreciate the teachers out there.
But sometimes, and educators amplified, talk to us on Wednesday.
Sometimes the solutions we have or the kind of ways that we show our appreciation don't really acknowledge the conditions that teachers are working in, that young people are learning in.
And rarely do they result in change that's meaningful or lasting with the improvement to those conditions.
So, you know, I think that was a reminder too is we were really brainstorming that it's not easy to be a teacher out there.
And I come back around to Tim's Friday.
So, teachers listening are like, cool, thank goodness.
Also, for a lot of teachers, it's only a few Fridays left.
And that doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that until you're not working until the work shifts and changes a little bit and hopefully syncs up.
And it's a tough time. It's always tough to be a teacher. It's a tough time to teach right now.
Because I'll tell you what we're feeling much like, oh my gosh, make sure you fit all this.
And I know some schools are still even doing testing.
Absolutely, man.
You know what everyone's thinking about right now is, is closed landing the plane, closed the plane in a way that recognizes growth that talks about the excitement of being present at change for young people, the hard work they've put in, you know, recognizing their emotional energy, their physical energy and trying to vibe all together, trying to resonate so that we land smoothly and go into a break.
In a way that we come back really healthy. So, you know what, I just want to keep complimenting all the teachers out there for all the hard work that they're doing.
And remembering man, it ain't easy, right?
It ain't easy.
It ain't easy.
So hopefully like Aaron brought up, there's some tools that can help us vibe and resonate with our students in a way that recognizes those four key areas that educator amplified talk about, right?
You know, the physical, the emotional, the rational, all the ways they talk about us thinking about being present in a learning space for ourselves, for other adults, for the learners in our room, the young people.
There's lots of exciting stuff happening, lots of exciting stuff. Hey, we got caller Joanne, we got time to take Joanne before we go to the break. No, let's break.
Joanne, we got a break coming up. So rather than cut you short, we're going to hold you over and we'll get to you when we come back.
Tim, man, I'm fucked up, man, it's Friday.
I see that man. I got Johnny Lupinati going. Hey, too, you know what, get in behind, Joanne, 8557524842, because yeah, we want to talk to everybody on a Friday.
It's Friday, a couple more Fridays left as you point not, Johnny, and then we're going to try to land the plane.
Yeah, you know what, though, when we're talking about landing the plane, I know you put this in there.
What is it with recognizing that, you know, there might be one or two Fridays, like the few days, we're going to squeeze more learning and out of the kids and the teachers, you know, like, no, you're not.
This man, yeah, you are not, you're not, you know what, go with the present, appreciate, appreciate the teachers and appreciate the kids learners.
It's busted pencils. It's the end of the school year, celebrate the reality of the present moment.
That's the best color Joanne when we get back.
Oh, yeah, it's new bumper music, 11 at 855752442 busted pencils, fully let it edge and end it.
Yeah, it's new bumper music, 11 at 855752442 busted pencils, fully let it, education, talk, Anya and Jess, thank you so much.
A little bit of mix up there and not mix mixing new music in for the bumpers, 11 at 855752442, Friday, Friday, Friday, weekly wrap up and, you know, doing a little bit of artificial intelligence, science, reading and color Joanne.
Thank you, color Joanne for holding over the break. What's happening, our friend?
The show on Thursday was spectacular on AI, but I had a bit of a tension. Would you have an AI entity, a robot, for example, as a commencement speaker?
Now, commencement is really important and most people remember their commencement speakers.
And it's already happened in DuVille University in New York that a committee that a robot, Sophia the robot, who was developed by Hanson Robotics, was the commencement speaker.
Now, is that a type of sacrilege, or is that what I'm going to expect in the future?
It's funny, you said that Joanne, and it's not funny to point out your question is a powerful one, we do that.
But I just got acquainted to Sophia today, didn't even know she existed out there.
And now you're telling me that she's already got, you know, commencement speech, speech gigs, crap.
We're going to think about that if you're somebody out there making a harder and living by giving speeches. It's like, all of a sudden, now you're out of a job because Sophia can deliver that better than anybody.
I don't know Johnny Lupinach, because there's a part, but there's a part of me saying what Joanne, you said, you know, hopefully your commencement speech is memorable.
I got to imagine that I got to imagine that the the youville students that had Sophia the AI, given the commencement speech, they're going to remember that.
Yeah, I mean, that's not an endorsement. It's not an endorsement. It's just a realization.
I mean, and I you think because I'm kind of the no, no, like enough of this AI stuff, but it's here, it's part of things. And I think it probably what I've been, I don't know what have to be there.
But part of me would be like, really, that's our speaker, but also could be innovative and exciting and memorable in a unique way. There's a possibility.
It's still needed somebody. It's still got introduced. It's still got, and this whole idea of, you know, like, I know no one said this here, neither Joanne nor you Tim, but I mean, you kind of kind of triggered me with the familiar.
Is it coming for our jobs people who give speeches now? Because there is still like, it's just, it's a stick to someone's speech.
Happened at Hansen or the university or the developers of that robot. It's an accompaniment to it.
It's like if we had someone who played the saxophone, give a speech, and they played the saxophone as part of their speech, you know, to me, it's sign of a tool in this case.
However, though it does kind of spark an interest like, is this the direction we're going where we could have a historical figure, you know, give, you know, can somebody of, you know, the past, now be AI generated and give a speech.
We had a caller, you know, just the other day talking about, you know, audio created for a particular singer who lost his voice, and it's like eating.
I mean, so there's lots of gray areas in this again, where I think AI accompanies things and, and a robot gave a speech, I'm willing to bet it's not the first time.
No, I just think it's headlines now, because we're all like, well, AI, AI, it's taking everybody's job. It's taken over. I would be kind of like bummed maybe if I was at the commencement, because I don't know if it was exciting or engaging.
But that's no more, but I'm be honest, that's no more bummed than I'd be if they picked a kind of boring speaker.
I was going to say I was waiting for you to go there, because it's like, guess what, I've been to my fair share of commencement.
And there have been some commencement speakers where I'm like, my, you know, pull out, get the hook, somebody pull them off, tell them to be quiet, shut their mic off, my God.
You know, they're either ridiculously boring, they're saying stupid things. Hey, what if you, you know, you get the most awesome commencement speech ever given by an artificial intelligence.
Is that worth it as opposed to potentially rolling the dice and going, who are we going to give a couple bucks to to save encouraging words to us today.
And we're not going to really know if they're going to do a good job or not, you know, and so, and I know, I know the you, the you bills a small private school right outside of Buffalo, right, the ability to have big money to bring a big speaker.
I don't know, John, I'm putting this out there. If I know that AI is going to give an awesome, awesome, encouraging, inspiring speech.
I don't know what I, what I'd be tempted to say, well, let's do it all the time then.
Well, and it's pretty popular, you know, you know, break through technologically. I mean, it's in, it's in what was in Cosmo was on the cover of a few different pop magazines, right, and the robot has speaking before the UN.
So I think it's aligned. My favorite thing about those like one of the quotes, I think was, was, yeah, it was weird. And I think that's like, like, you know, like that's kind of it.
And as much as I'm like, whoa, are we going there? I'm also like, I kind of think it's unique.
And I'll call the prediction. I'll take a future bet out on this.
We won't, we will have no commencement speeches before we have a bunch of robots giving them. And I do know a lot of a lot of schools have moved away from having a commencement speech.
They might have like some words from different student groups. They may have words from leadership on campus, but they just don't bring in a superstar to kind of best, you know.
And again, I mean, we're talking about the robot, but we haven't brought up the kicker from Kansas City.
Oh, right.
I mean, you know what I'm saying? So we want to like the bar is pretty low right now for commencement speakers. We're kind of, we're not, we're not batting a thousand with these because there's like, there's, there's, I don't know whose idea was to say, like, hey, let's get a clicker from a professional football team.
First of all, so why are we, why would we want to hear from a kicker from a professional football team? Look, I love that your job is to kick the ball through the uprights.
Okay, I'm not hating on you, but also when I think of positive enforcement and encouragement for a large group of young people about to go out into the world, almost none of them are going to kick stuff through the uprights.
Almost none of them, but the big thing that that, you know, did come up was he utilized that platform to take us back into a past century, which a whole lot of people out there actually probably found cool.
And that's even bigger problem.
So I mean, I don't know, we got a little bit, we digress, but it is that season where commencement and graduations are happening.
And you know, I'm going to take a future out on this one that we will have no commencement speeches before we have, you know, robots given them all.
Did you see, did you see that little kind of cut across there that text from Aaron McKelkey our guest last night?
Yeah, pull picture of it, man.
And ask our like driver, he had like cool colors around them as he put out there.
There it is.
What prompted all the AI debate tonight?
What prompted?
That might have been you, Aaron McKelkey, you may have prompted all of the AI debate.
Johnny, you see what he's making fun of there, the kind of twisting prompting because AI doesn't do, AI doesn't do anything unless you prompted.
And so guess what?
Yeah.
Well, and come back to Aaron last night, man, one of my favorite things and we've seen this.
I love this for the teacher who's like, I don't think they should be using it. They shouldn't be like, it's our job to be paying attention that they're going to use it.
So, so if we avoid, this is like rule one, like top rule of teaching teenagers, right?
And I would just say it children, if it's going on and you oppose it, you can bet even if you ban it, it's happening.
So yeah.
And two types of teachers, teachers that like to be president, the birth of ideas and teachers like that like to control people.
And right, we have a bunch of both.
Fortunately, we have a bunch of other kind, but do we have a bunch of people?
You see producer Anya and Jess getting involved there with the serious, incredible going like, yeah, yeah, Jess, what do you, what do you, what do you guys agree into?
What do you guys agree into right there?
We've both taught teenagers and so we were just reminiscing a little bit and I'm just having a little moment.
We were saying that, you know, the fastest way that we were saying, maybe we could actually get these kids to learn the material that we wanted.
We'll just ban it.
We'll just ban it.
And then they will learn that they will spend so much time dedicated to it.
And that is right there.
And how they might learn it is the, like with AI, I like this, it's got limitations and Aaron even talked about some of those.
There's some ways you could use it totally irresponsibly, right?
So what better thing for a teacher to do than to say like, hey, let's figure out how this can be useful to our learning together.
What that's cheating.
No, it's actually learning.
Half the stuff we call cheating is just cooperation and collaboration in the real world.
Let's be really honest about that.
Like, hey, guess what?
The answers are in the back of the book, but don't go look at them because that's cheating.
Wait, there's answers to the stuff you're asking me and I'm not allowed to go to them.
Right.
What world is that like the real world or don't, don't work with the people next to you.
It's like, okay, so what are we teaching actually?
Don't work in a team environment where all of you participating is the, you know, you say the combined effort of everybody, right?
It's only, it's only in school where you go, don't look to your left.
Don't look to your right eyes down on your own paper.
I see those eyes moving anywhere.
You're cheating.
Well, my God, what if learning is a cooperative activity where truly the engagement of others is where we do our best learning.
Well, actually, that's been proven.
There's a whole.
One of my favorite, one of my favorite things of the past month, Tim.
Sometimes I totally forgot about this moment, but you will get kicked out of a heck.
It's Friday.
Let's let it rip.
Okay.
Like I was talking about this importance of social learning collaborative stuff.
And even yes, was talking about AI.
Like, what if together we asked some prompts and then compare them and then look at our original kind of thing that we were deconstructing and we had a big discussion on what AI missed?
What did it get?
And and by golly, we were learning together about it.
And the person opposing it says, you know what?
Of course, you would say that you're a communist.
First of all, I couldn't be further from being strong, but they said that kind of group work is because, you know, is because of Karl Marx and communism.
And I thought, wow, what a week, but how indicative.
First of all, like not communists, communists would probably, I would probably ban the whole, like I'd have control of the whole thing and the dictatorship of the classroom would be about not sharing, you know, it'd be about producing knowledge for me.
Anyways, I couldn't be further from being communist, but I thought it was hilarious that the thought of, and I think we probably take that for granted because I think sometimes bridging the gap of understanding where people think like democracy.
And working together became a bad thing. And somehow, and I'm not picking on this one person because it's not the first time I heard it. I was just reminded of it.
Somehow working together in a community to embrace difference and to work collaboratively was positioned as communism.
And be further from the truth is like, is it anti-capitalist to really work together? Probably, but anti-capitalism and communism are not the same thing.
No, well, you just, you explain democracy. It's like, it's like, wait, wait, working together, you're against that. And in fact, you're calling that, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on.
Truly engaged democracy. You know what? Yeah, there's lots of disagreements, but boy, the idea that we have to work these things out together.
Man, that's the essence of democracy, some form of collaboration, cooperation, regurgitation, go back in, you know, have a little bit of a disagreement, come back together.
But then realizing, Johnny, you know, now you're making me think of those core democratic values, we always talk about though, man, we're doing this stuff for the good of the commons, everybody in realizing that.
And when I hear somebody throwing out the communist or socialist term, that to me is there, it's like, wait, so you're against the whole, actually having a benefit because it may impringe on your ability to get total enjoyment or something out of this.
You're like, going like, that's the opposite of democracy, man, that's sorry, that you can't have it, Johnny Nupinacci.
Well, but it's also the wildest dream for a laissez-faire economist who wants to say, I want you to believe you're in a democracy, but really I actually want a authoritarian free reign to do whatever I want so that I can make money or my company can make money or the utilization of government, right?
Not for the best interest of the people, but for the best interest of profit.
And that's me is like kind of what we need to be kind of aware of when people say, well, that's communist, no, it's actually anti-authoritarian.
Mm-hmm.
Busted pencils.
And I prompt, when we get back, Johnny, a little bit of opt-out news, a little bit of opt-out news for the listener.
Yeah, come on back.
Busted pencils fully-led education talk, educated educators talking education.
Johnny Nupinacci, I was thinking though before we get into the news, it's Friday and I'm wondering if people are at the Monacoa Brewery.
Oh, man, I bet you they are.
I'm hanging out, you know, because I mean, it's a Friday, right?
And when you're thinking about a Friday, the potential of saying, hey, you know what?
Let's go and talk about democracy.
And if we're going to talk about democracy, hey, where's one of the best places to do that?
That's it.
The Monacoa Brewing Company at the Madison, Madison at the Tap Room.
Johnny, do you remember why?
Well, yeah, man, Busted pencil is sponsored by Monacoa Brewing Company, who sued the state of Wisconsin to end its parasitic voucher system that hurts public schools.
Tim, Monacoa Brewing Company is making Wisconsin great again, one beer at a time.
Check out MonacoaBrewingCompany.com to see where you can buy their progressive beer.
Yeah, just thinking, you know, on a Friday, what a great place to go talk about public education, talk about democracy.
Monacoa Brewing Company, the Tap Room in Madison, go check it out.
John, I say the, you know, a little bit of news because we always try to get to some education news on Friday, trending education news.
And we, you know, great week, though, so we were having lots of, you know, reflection on the week.
But I was talking about opt out and people say opt out, opt out, Tim, you were part of that opt out movement.
That's like when you got kind of weird and you decided that your son and daughter shouldn't take standardized tests.
And so you opted them out.
Yeah, yeah, that's an opt out. That's one form of opt out.
How did you do that?
How did you get your kids to opt out? Well, at the time in Pennsylvania, the ability to opt out of a high-stake standardized test was through a religious opt out.
And yes, some of the families that we created the opt out movement, we then went in and we pointed out that we had a religious objection to high-stake standardized testing.
People were like, well, what is your religious objection? Actually technically at the time in Pennsylvania, we just had to say religious objection.
And the opt out was, you know, was, was given to us.
I, at the time, though, pointed out that, you know, as a potentially, you know, practicing unitarian universalist coming out of the Christian tradition at there that they'll show my judge and all kinds of other things.
So I'm religiously objecting to making my son and daughter take part in a system that is fully all about casting judgment.
So that's what we did then. Well, so the opt out. And then we've talked about opt out too.
We're remembering saying if we're teaching some things, do parents have the right to opt their children out of content or curriculum that they feel might be objectionable?
Well, that happened in Montgomery County, Maryland. And the fourth circuit denies Maryland parents suing over LGBTQ plus curriculum opt outs.
In other words, parents, Muslim Jewish and Christian parents sued Montgomery County School Board to say, this LGBTQ plus curriculum, the content is against our religion and we want to opt out.
Well, the court said, sorry, you can't opt out of this. There is no religious opt out to get out of LGBTQ plus Johnny.
So I was able to go to a private school. I mean, there is the opt out you get in this context is go to a private school.
So I'm cracking up Tim because I think it's hilarious that you utilize to you, you to get out of it.
Because I also look like good for you on the opt out, but also, you know, potentially problematic misuse of like religion to get out of the test.
You think why any means because the test is kind of bunk, but we're talking about state testing.
But in terms of presence, I couldn't be happier to hear that news. I don't know about it yet, Tim. I'm going to be reading about it.
But to hear, you know, the state of Maine or the courts in the state of Maryland, Maryland, Maryland.
Okay, saying over in Maryland, it's, you know what, my East Coast geography is much better than you think.
I just take M's and W's and start mixing them all up all over, but the idea that the court said too bad because ideally, I think I totally agree with this here, right?
If you want, if you want to utilize like everyone should have freedom to religion. I think I, I really think people's access to their beautiful faiths and all the ways, not causing harm to others is great.
So like, how can we, you know, have that kind of diversity? It's absolutely something to celebrate.
But in a public school, right, it can't be the reason why you opt out of the common good, right?
And, you know, what we know about LGBTQ plus community is they're part of our community. They're part of the common good.
How they grow the rights that they have, who they love, how they love, how they grow into understanding that whole part of who we are as people and one another, right?
You can't opt out of that kind of learning. It's part of becoming a healthy person in our community, right? So good for the good for Maryland courts, right?
Great for diversity everywhere to continue to set that presence.
Kind of bad for, whereas at Pennsylvania, Tim, you were talking about, you kind of threw them under the bus because they probably should have told you, Tim, you have an option, go to a different school.
I guess they could have, but I don't want to talk to different things here because I was going to say the way you, the way you presented that, I don't feel nearly as bad as somebody might potentially, because of realizing, Johnny, you point out saying, okay, this opt out here was trying to opt out of the common good.
The high state standardized test in position, there was nothing in the research that said this would result in goodness or something's beneficial for the common good.
In fact, high state standardized testing was at that time and even now still was used to divide and to break up, it was a, you know, a judgment system that was designed to break up the public schools, the common good.
It was meant to undermine so when we were opting out, we were opting out because we didn't want to participate in a system that was undermining the common good public education.
Yes, great, but here's the other thing that I'm going to set throw down, there's scientific consensus on these tests being harmful.
So frankly, aside with you, but for different reasons, because like you could have a opinion or you'd want to opt to get out on the opposition to scientific consensus, which is actually what the court case in Maryland is really about is saying, like, we have scientific consensus that people are different.
And they're different in these ways that we have scientific consensus on not not a challenge to scientific knowledge, a basis around like medical emotional all kinds of knowledge consensus.
It said, this is the best interest of what's healthy. So Tim, I, I land with you, but for different reason, you should be able to say, my kids aren't going to participate in this bunk system, right, that doesn't support scientific consensus on how children learn.
Man, you make it fun on my unitarian universalism. And I love the unitarian time. I love for, and I'd be loving people's religions. I'm just saying, you got out of testing on a kind of interesting angle.
Let's talk more about it, man. I love you all. Thanks, Jess and Anya. Thanks, listeners. See you on Monday.