This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.
Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, educated educators talking
education.
Yeah, there it is, Thursday night Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk, educated
educators talking education, Johnny Lupinacci, how are you, my friend?
Do well, Tim.
Do well.
You know, back on campus, it's not often in the off season I call it, that I'm actually
on campus because, you know, like most of our colleges around the country, they kind
of, the students go away and the professors, we kind of tie off loose ends, but, you know,
we have an MIT program that goes for one year, that's a master in teaching, kind of like
an alternate pathway to teaching, but they, you know, they've spent the last year interning
in classrooms, you know, shadowing teachers, taking courses, they finish today on campus.
So we have a big event where they share their teacher inquiry projects, the kind of teaching
that they hope to be doing in the fall when they're in their own classroom.
So it's a celebratory day here on campus and it's a great Thursday because I'm on the
air with you, Tim, and we got a sweet guess we're going to get to you, but before we get
to it.
Well, I was just thinking until you're talking about the students, boy, too bad they didn't
have a Monacoa Brewing Tap Room in the area because you know what, Busted Pencil is
disponsored by the Monacoa Brewing Company who sued the state of Wisconsin to end its
parasitic voucher system that hurts public schools.
Monacoa Brewing Company is making Wisconsin great again, one beer at a time.
Check out Monacoa Brewing Company dot com to see where you can buy their progressive
beer.
Yeah, Johnny, this is them, you know, MIT students, you know, get that.
I don't know if they're going to make that trip, but you know, got to love Monacoa Brewing
Tap Room in Madison, bringing it to us.
You had great guests.
Johnny, I want to start though before we introduce our guest though because he, you know, let's
tease it.
We found question, we talk about this a lot on the show.
What does learning look like, boy, we got some great things, but he was a principal at
all K 12 levels, including a prison school district coach, he was a distance learning
team lead and English teacher, national award winning former school teacher.
He is the creator of the B.E. podcast network, the best educational podcast network out
there.
He's also the author of how to be a transformative principal and school ex, how principles can
design a transformative school experience for the people right in front of them.
He also advises school leaders across the country, welcome to busted pencils, Jethro
Jones.
How are you, Jethro?
Oh, man.
I am honored to be here and so stoked to nerd out with you guys.
Nerd out.
Wait a minute.
Hold on.
I didn't know I fell into that camp nowadays.
I think if you do a daily podcast about education, I know I agree with you, Jethro.
I don't know about that denial you're in, Tim.
It's a river in Egypt, you know, one of these things, as they say, no, Jethro, I mean,
great stuff.
A lot of work that you've been doing, I mean, lots of experiences, you know, before we
get even into the question of what does learning look like, though, you know, give
a chance, the B E pod education podcast network, give us just a little taste, what's that
all about?
Yeah.
You know, we think that education is vital to our success as a nation and as a world.
And so about a year and a half ago, I got together with Ross Romano, who's been a friend
for a long time.
And we said, how can we make podcasts that are that there's a podcast for everybody anywhere
there at an education?
And so we've got about 40 shows on that network.
Some of them are really focused on things like my podcast transformative principles, really
focused on school principles.
The authority podcast is really focused on interviewing book authors.
And we've got a whole bunch of other ones.
One that you might be interested in is morning motivation for educators, short five minute
episodes to get you inspired and find something positive in your day, all geared towards educators
and and anybody can contribute to that.
So anybody who wants to can like share a message with educators.
If they want to morning motivation edu.com people can go check that out.
That one, I think, is is great because we all need more inspiration and support.
Absolutely.
Motivation, inspiration, it's always there.
And in fact, if you're inspired, give us a call 8557524842 for our guests, yes, through
a Jones.
It is.
And if you have an answer already, what does learning look like?
Jethro has really done, Johnny, the graphic that he put together here.
So anybody who, you know, had the ability to see some of the promos I was putting out all
day to day on social media can look at it.
And I'll do my best as a description because Jethro, you kind of sent it to me when we
were doing a pre interview.
And so, you know, image number one, what people in what schools think learning looks like
is a, you know, a semi-straight line that continually goes forward and continually grows.
So in other words, guess what?
What happens to learning every day you're in school, you learn a little bit more and you
learn a little bit more and you learn a little bit more, always accumulating, always getting
better.
Okay.
Okay.
Right?
You think how many people go, oh, yeah.
Yeah, that sounds right.
That sounds reasonable.
Again, what learning really looks like, which is you start down here, you start moving up
a little bit and all of a sudden you start squiggling and you move to the left, you move
to the right, you move backwards, you move forward, you come around, you kind of put together
what looks like a lot of chaos.
You might possibly towards the end, move in that other direction.
However, during all that time, there's always the possibility that something else might
happen and you might learn something totally different.
I don't know, Jethro, what do you think?
Is that a pretty good verbal description?
Yeah.
Yeah, that was good.
And sometimes when you're just doing audio and you can't see it, then that's what happens.
If you go to my Twitter account, that one is up towards the top and I'll leave links
and other things in there as well.
But this idea that learning is a straight line and that everything just scaffolds on top
of each other and everything is in this nice, neat, curriculum, scope and sequence.
It's a bunch of baloney.
We as educators, we miss the boat when we think that that's what it's like because it's
not really like that.
Everybody learns individually and according to their own experiences, that's the key takeaway.
So let me put this question to two and because in Johnny, you answer this too.
This is for all of us.
So Jethro, you are going to also make this proclamation, this declaration that learning
is a messy, non-linear.
How many years have you been in this business teaching and learning, educating, leading?
Yeah, officially, I got my first teaching job in 2006.
Okay.
My daughter was born.
So she's 18 now, graduating and so I've been teaching for 18 years or educating.
But before that, I've spent time on a mission in Russia teaching.
I've done a lot of different things to help people learn.
And I've been doing my podcast for over a decade and I call that learning in dog ears.
So I got a lot of thoughts about how this stuff works.
Okay.
So let's experience Johnny Lupinacci.
How long have you been at this gig?
Oh, this current one?
I don't know.
No, no, man.
This whole idea of teaching and learning.
No, man.
Yeah.
I mean, I was an educated educator.
Yeah, I think my first year in the classroom was early 2000s, 2001, 2002.
I mean, I started as, you know, high school math teacher.
As green as they could be, man, both interested in the environment and, you know, social activism
and teaching math and Detroit and did that.
And I've been working with teacher education since, I don't even know, maybe 2008 or so.
So just a couple of decades of it, you know, and being in and out of different contexts,
alternative schools, you know, traditional schools.
We talk sometimes here about Detroit schools and, you know, the charterization and the
privatization versus the public schools, all that stuff.
You know, so it's been, it's been a blast.
And I get, I get to work with so many future teachers, so many school leaders out there,
you know, most recently, the last 10 years I've been here in Washington, actually kind
of close to Jethro.
We just found that out live for listeners out there, Jethro and I, you know, we don't
live too far from each other.
So this is one of those cool moments where, you know, we could be anywhere on the, on
the podcaster or radio show together, but we actually can meet face to face too and, and
hang out and, you know, we're gonna, so we've been out of for a minute now, Tim.
Oh, yeah.
You've been at it.
And so, man, I'm kind of a little bit concerned about when I, you know, when I was my first
classroom, 1990, 1990, I was a second grade teacher in 1990, I know, you're like, wait a minute,
what were you two?
Yeah, I know, I'm, I'm, no, I don't, not, yeah, 1990.
I've been at this, you know, thing, you know, second grade for a few years, fifth grade
for a few years, seventh and eighth grade, you know, in rural Pennsylvania, downtown Baltimore,
Maryland, you know, then teacher education, like you said, Johnny, it's state University
of New York, worked at Penn State for 10 years all the way up in Wisconsin, Madison.
So what I wanted to do out there is, is in case anybody was going like, well, who are
these dudes to be talking about learning and what learning looks like, let's just put
out there a little bit of the educated educators talking education credentials out there, 8557524842,
that's what it is.
You know, yeah, I think we might have a little bit to say, however, you know, that doesn't
stop you from having what you want to say, call us, come on in, talk about it, what does
learning look like?
Okay, so Jethro, before we get deep into this, where we're really going to go, when, when
did it come clear to you, because I got to assume that at some point, you know, learning
to be a teacher though, the kind of continuous always learning, always growing kind of model,
and did you start to question that?
Oh, ironically, it was when I was in fourth grade, and, and I was on my fourth different
elementary school, and I started to see that school was not designed for me as a student.
It was designed for the adults in the school, and not for me.
And once I saw that, I started seeing all the cracks in the armor and how school was
really not benefiting me, and the teachers were essentially just waiting for this punk
kid to move on, because he was obviously a high-transancy student, and he wasn't going
to be around for a long time.
And I wasn't, but it just reaffirmed, this isn't for me, this is for them.
Johnny, we've been on to you, you got some sense of there, what, what Jethro said?
Uh, yeah, man, so, some, some familiar, although I wasn't a transient student, I was just
when they were like, what do we do with this kid, man?
And I didn't actually know I wanted to be a teacher till a lot later, and it kind of
dawned on me, that I had met some really great ones, and I had a whole slew of not-so-great
ones.
And it kind of dawned on me, wow, you know, I was working with youth, and I was actually
volunteer, and then a parapro, and I thought, you know what, I, makes a huge difference
when there's a teacher that kind of cares and gets it, like, like, Jethro is going to
unpack a little bit, like, when you start to vibe with the fact that learning isn't about
control and compliance, you know, it's about relationship, it's about connection, it's
about recognize the diverse ways, we all make sense of the world, and we learn things together,
and when that can be exciting and valued by both teachers and students, magic happens,
and it's not even that magic, it's just what we do with humans, so it was really awesome,
so similar as to Jethro, you know, like, kind of, trial by fire, landed in this, you
know, calling a career.
Busted pencils, fully, let it, education talk, educated educators talking, education,
yeah, it's Thursday night, our guest, Jethro Jones, educator, leader, podcaster,
have been doing this stuff for over 20 years, the numbers 8557524842, we'll definitely have
that graphic, what does learning look like? Okay, Jethro though, one of these things, if we admit
that learning doesn't look like a gradual, continuous growth line that goes up forever,
always going on, and it's confusing, masks, it's all over these things, man,
Johnny and I have had this conversation, there are so many people out there right now,
really, really worried about learning loss, like, particularly we're hearing it, that during
the pandemic, kids lost learning. Johnny and I have challenged that, I think you want to challenge
that, tell us what's up with learning loss, is it real, what do we do with it, how do we make sense of it?
Yeah, it's a lie, and it's a way for curriculum companies to sell more intervention materials
and things like that, that's all it is. It's a way for legislators to put in more restrictions,
or to legislate schools from their purchase where they don't really know what's going on.
The thing is, is that there's no such thing as learning loss, and there's no such thing as a
student being behind. Those are all constructs that we create as the adults to give words to
how we think kids should or should not be doing, and the reality is, is that no kid can be behind,
because they are just where they're at, and we may think they should be somewhere else,
but why do we think that? Well, we think that because some people did it this way, and that's what
we expect, we think that because we have this idea that because we are teachers, we know what's
right, and we really don't, we're just doing the best we can with what we got every single day,
and this is where I want to bring in something that, oh, I knew I'd forget her name, Nancy Carlson
Page, is that? Yeah, there you go, Matt Damon's mom.
Matt Damon's mom, I listened to that podcast this week, and she was talking about how we don't
actually know how the learning takes place in the mind, and we, like we can say the synapses
connect or whatever, but nobody really understands how to make that happen, and so all we're doing
is making our best guess about it. So think about it this way. You can have 10 kids in a teacher's
classroom. They're all paying the equal amount of attention and engaged in the same way, because of
their life experiences, they're going to take whatever the teacher says in a five minute lesson
in their own unique way. That's what all those squiggly lines are. So if I have a background
where I've helped my dad or my mom build something at home, and the teacher, it gives an example of
measuring tape, what does that look like? I have a different relationship to that than the kid
who got spanked by a ruler whenever they did something wrong the previous year. And so those
things matter and they mean something. Now that's not to say that we can't have any control over
how kids learn or what they learn. What we need to do is start with that recognition, and here's
the key. Every single kid's individual learning is the responsibility of themselves. Every adult
learning is a responsibility of themselves. Nobody but the learner cares what is going on, what
that kid learns, how they learn it, none of that. Only it only matters to that individual kid.
And so we put all these systems and pressures and plans in place to accomplish something that we
can't possibly control or make sure that it happens the way we want it to. We can just try our best.
And if teachers took that approach, that would be an awesome experience for them. And they would feel
a lot better if they could take that approach and take all that stress off of their backs that
they are responsible for these kids learning. They're just not. Man, think about that. Johnny,
it's making me have all these intersections of all the shows we've been doing so often. But
the connection last night to educators amplified and realizing they come in to talk about this
teacher, Hallean, teacher, Joanna about the reality of going like, you know, look,
first of all, if school is only about academics, that in and of itself could be a problem because
you're not dealing with everything else. But boy, what you've talked about though too is just
recognizing where kids are is where they are. And assessing that, when I say assessing too,
I don't mean measuring it. I mean, kind of getting a guide and getting a sense of knowing where our
kids are. The whole idea that you just the way you put this out there, you can't lose learning.
It doesn't get lost. It's just there. Johnny, great. I mean, we did prompt Jethro to say this,
but we've been on the shows we had way back in the past as soon as that phrase came up,
learning loss, learning loss. I mean, we were like, come on. Here we go again with a new marketing
slogan, you know, a new ad campaign for selling curriculum for like being able to, you know, put
that that sense of failure into both students and to teachers in schools to say, well, you didn't,
you don't, you fell behind, you're not doing what you need to do. And here's the solution, right?
So, you know, we've been saying that so it's nice to have Jethro on saying that too. It's always
fun when we agree. We don't, we don't stack the deck that way is just let's or no. You know,
just kind of converges on this. And I love, I love that idea of, you know, educators amplify,
they are on last night, they're talking about, you know, there's some different ways to approach
how we teach. And too often we're either teaching two or four our learners. And we need to be able to
think about how do we think about teaching with being present with them as they are engaged as
learners. And Jethro kind of, you know, he's on a night listener saying a very similar thing.
You know, we want to engage too much of schools about compliance and, you know, measuring how
compliant have you been. And that's not learning, right? That's not, that's not the kind of learning
that we can trick ourselves into sometimes thinking it is. You know, kids look like they're learning.
And especially I don't know about you, Tim or Jethro, man, I wasn't good at pretending like I was
learning. But I had a lot of peers who were really good at it. I mean, they just weren't in trouble
as often because they appear to be paying attention. But that's not learning. We know learning
doesn't look the same way in every kid. Even when there's some patterns, you know, it's like, I
hate to say it's messy, but it is. It's a little bit messy. And it's okay for it to be messy. Yeah.
Because it is whether we want it to be clean or not, every individual's learning is messy for them.
And so the way that I like to talk about this image also is that when you look behind you,
you see that straight line of how you got there, but looking at it from any other direction,
there's just no way. It's not like that at all. Let me give a quick illustration of what you
were just talking about, Johnny, that I think is so powerful. So as I mentioned, I used to live in
Russia. I was a missionary for my church there. It was really awesome. Did a lot of cool things,
but one thing that I learned that was so amazing is how they talk about education.
They say that the way that education works is that a teacher does not teach a subject. In fact,
in the language, it's impossible to say that I teach math. They say I teach students
to math like they are physically taking the students to math like they would take them on a field trip.
Taking that different approach, that is powerful. When you think I take students to the content,
rather than I teach the content to the students, boom. Well, thinking about that, that is absolutely
the most. It really goes with the image. Our guest, Jethro Jones, teacher leader,
principal, podcaster, got it all. We're really looking at this first of all,
learning loss. Sorry, can't happen. When we get back to Jethro, we're going to get into some of
these. So if learning loss doesn't happen and learning is messy, then we need to figure out what are
we going to do? Busted pencils more when we get back. I can't wait.
You know, Jeth is on the music tonight. Busted pencils fully. Let it education talk, the Lincoln
Park, their number 855752. Well, and then, sorry, I got cut out there. Busted pencils,
yeah, we're here. Our guest, Jethro Jones, teacher, leader, principal, missionaries, been out there
just doing a podcaster, book author. You got it. I mean, we're out there talking about this whole
idea of learning. It isn't what you think it is. It's quite messy. Taking a look at learning loss
and going, yeah, sorry, just can't really have such thing as learning loss. Before we go any
deeper, though, got Joanne on the phone. One of our favorite collars. Joanne, what's happened
in our friend? Great show. I have a question that is pretty tricky about learning engagement.
Say you have a young boy and the parents go come to you and say, my young boy learns better with
other boys and is more engaged with learning with other boys when that young boy is with
girls for whatever reason, maybe not as engaged. And what do you do with that type of a question?
I mean, it's very, very practical. I've heard about it during some of the techniques I've
attended lately. Do you put the young boy in a environment with other young boys or just say,
hey, maybe we got a little engagement learning loss. But the young boy will learn how to deal with
girls. Jathro, that's all you, man. Oh, I can't wait to dig into this. So, a couple different
things. Number one, thank you, first of all, for caring enough about your kid to recognize that
maybe things aren't going well when girls are around. That's wonderful. That's attention.
Thanks for being a great parent. That is exactly what I would say. I'm also glad that you brought
up the idea of engagement because Damon Hargraves and I, he was my assistant principal in
in Kodiak Alaska and is someone I really admire and look up to. He and I would talk about engagement
all the time that you can be quote unquote engaged, but you're not actually enrolled, which when I
had Seth Godin on my podcast, he called it being enrolled in school that you have to choose
and want to be there. And so the question is not about whether or not they are engaged in the
learning process. It's, are they enrolled in the learning process? Are they choosing to participate
and being engaged in it? And so if that is the case where a male student is struggling because
there are girl students around, what do we need to do to help him figure out for himself how to
regulate himself so that he can get done what he needs to get done? And it's the idea of he's in
charge of his learning. And if we start from that perspective, we involve him in the process
instead of saying, we're in charge of your learning. So we're going to put you in the right
spot for learning. We need to talk with him and help help him figure that out for himself,
rather than take that responsibility on our shoulders and think that it's our responsibility
to help him be regulated around all these cute girls that are very distracting.
John Lupinachi took your hat off to that one, man. What's getting hot? It's getting hot in here.
But I mean, I love it. Jatro love his response. I mean, you could tell season vet here. You know,
a guy from the trenches, trenches of, you know, good education in the midst of schooling.
It's like, it's like kind of one of those, you go to your toolbox and a carpenter has, you know,
a great, you know, a grasp of how to use a hammer, you know, and Jatro saying like, hey,
love the engagement. Love what you're noticing because really important that you have,
you know, this learner has someone backing them on this. I'll ever like, there's different ways
that we need to adjust and look. And so we got to be able to work with different people around us
because even though engagement and learning is individualized, no matter where we go, we're doing
it in society in some context. And so we're balancing and practicing all those skills.
And, you know, and also good teachers out there, like we have diverse ways we group our students
together, you know, to apply the social learning. Even when it's social learning, though, and I
like Jatro points us out, that's a kind of engagement that individual learners are like, hey,
I'm interested in this. I'm alert. I'm engaged and I'm enrolled oftentimes because they have a
high investment in what their peers are thinking and interacting with them. So sometimes I think
we do push it too much to try and like get the perfect configuration of who's sitting with who
and who's learning. And so teachers, I encourage you, you know, like, I think Jatro outlined this
for us. I encourage you to kind of get that get it made. Let it be messy. Let groups kind of form
and flow and, you know, facilitate them and, you know, move them around and take note of when
students work really well together and where they might need to work on how they work with others.
But, you know, that's a unique thing. And I love that color Joanne brought it up. Thanks,
Joanne, for listening, Thosley, and always contributing really, you know, really, really great
questions. Love it. Yeah. And I got a great story after you read the thing you need to read about
boys and girls working together and how they learned how to do it. So you take it away too.
That's Johnny, man. I could take it away and we could get right back to it because I think
it's nice. But we're going to sneak to San here because listener, you know what time it is.
It's civic media, Scotty summer statewide text-to-win context. Contest, it's on now through June 14.
Download the civic media app and listen throughout the day for a chance to hear codes to text in
for a chance to win. New keywords are announced in the odd numbered hours from 7 a.m to 7 p.m.
That's 7, 9, and 11 a.m. 1, 3, 5, and 7 p.m. So listener, tune in to nightlight after-busted pencils
with Pete Schwabba to hear the next code, which will be announced at the top of the 7 p.m. hour
and will be valid through 7.59 p.m. Daily prizes include Wisconsin Del's prize packs and a pair of
Milwaukee Brewers club-level tickets. Enter for your chance to win a grand prize. Scotty get away
in Door County, Lake Geneva, or Fort Atkinson. All right, now we got that done so our listeners can
win some contests with Jethro. Come back to that great story, my man. All right, so we were doing this
thing at my middle school in Fairbanks, Alaska that we called synergy. What synergy was time outside
of the classroom. So not in a content area where kids could work on something that would improve the
world that they lived in. And they could define what was solve a problem in the world. They could
define problem, they could define world, and they could figure out what that solution looked like.
So these young women got together and said, we want to teach soccer, cheer, and volleyball
to second and third grade girls at the elementary school next door. As they're doing this,
they're saying, you know what? We feel like boys need to learn these skills also. So we want to
involve the boys, but we're already maxed out. So they found a bunch of boys who they thought
would be good athletic boys to help the help them teach the other boys. They brought these boys
into their group. And then they realized that these boys were just messing everything up because
they weren't both seeing they were distracted, like just what Joanne was talking about. So they came
to me and they said, how do we fire these boys without making them feel like they are terrible
human beings? They have no value because they do, but it just isn't going to work for what we're
trying to do. Now, think about that for a moment. What seventh and eighth grade girl is going to be
that aware of what it means to fire someone if we're just teaching the curriculum. There's just no
way. But these girls understood that this was their responsibility. This was their project. And we
were just the guides and the mentors there for them. That's what they understood. And so they
asked the right question. Then they fired the boys. And most adults don't know how to fire people
effectively, but they fired them in a way where the boys walked away saying, okay, we get it. You
make sense. We'll go find a different project to join. I mean, talk about a powerful learning
experience driven by them, focus on what they needed in the moment. And now for the rest of their
life, they know how to fire people with compassion and care. Well, that's the part, though, too. Yeah,
the whole learning that took place there, Jeff Rose, you said, you know, not only this learning
isn't messy and it looks like this. And then sometimes though, what is it that we're learning,
you go, oh, wait, they learned that. Oh, my, who knew? Is there a state standard for how to fire
people effectively? I don't think so, but it sure is a good skill to have. Oh, the ability to,
yeah, just, just you said from an empathetic standpoint for this, for the whole reason,
you know, thinking of somebody going, oh, I get why, why I'm going to move on to something else.
Now it's, you know, I'm not a bad person. I didn't do anything, but I just realized this. So,
yeah, that would, it would a great way to illustrate that. So, so Jeff, or take that then,
though, too, and say, okay, so that moment, which was essentially unscripted, right?
The reality, though, is that more and more, in fact, more and more and more and more,
the heavy emphasis on dictated scripted lessons is just the reality teachers are facing.
How do they kind of take moments like that and really plan more of these, you know,
learning opportunities that are outside of the bounds of the dictates?
Yeah, that is, that is a real challenge for sure. And my heart breaks for anybody who has a
principle who's in your room checking to make sure you're following the script. That's a terrible
situation, being I was a principle that had that in our building, and I just never went into that
classroom where the scripted lessons were happening because I didn't want the teacher to have that
as her demo lesson, and I didn't want the to emphasize or enforce that anymore than it already
was being done. So, the key is finding those opportunities to teach kids to be good, flourishing,
human beings, wherever you can, and pulling those kinds of things in. I was just at a conference
this last week and asked a room full of principles and teachers, what's more important?
How the kids feel or the content that you actually learn. And one of the speakers gave a whole
talk about this thing, and they said, everybody raised their hands and we think it's more important
the kids know we love them, that we care about them, that they become good people.
Everybody agrees with that, but we don't act that way. Just like learning is the learner's
responsibility, your profession, your career is your responsibility, and you need to stand up and say
this is not okay when things are not okay. You need to have the courage to do that, and it can be
scary, but it's worth it to take the effort to say the things that need to be said. Man, just think
about that. The whole idea of the two, if you're scripted, I know there are some teachers listening
right now who are facing the fact that actually tomorrow, they're going to have to follow the script,
and in fact, depending on where they are, and depending on the principal and the leadership
in the school district, some of that is going to be very top down, and some of the teachers are going
to be like, man, where can I get me a principal like Jethro Jones? Because I know tomorrow morning
that not only am I going to have to be on the script, I'm going to be on the clock,
I'm going to be on the script, and my kids better be making sure that their pencils are sharp in
the right way, because if they get me off script and off the timing, the principal is going to come
down on me, just the way I just described that, right Jethro? You just think it's going like,
really, do we do that to people? Yeah, we do. Unfortunately, and the other thing about that is that
in order to make that synergy time happen, I had to take it out of the classroom,
because we had tried it earlier where they were in the language arts of the math classroom,
and the teachers wouldn't let go of their content area. So I had to literally make a time in the
schedule, forced energy that was not focused on any kind of particular content area to be able
to have that flexibility. So the teachers could finally relax and not feel like, well, I have kids
in my math classroom, I have to teach math. No, that's not what this time is for, and I had to redesign
the schedule to make it so that that was possible. You know, I know the crazy thing. This is wild,
blow your mind. Our students did better on all of their assessments. There you go. After we
implemented this program, MAP scores, state test scores went up, individual three went up,
the kids who were total punks before are now like focused and dedicated and doing the right thing,
just incredible. Love it. Jethro Jones, man, you are busting pencils truly with it. Love it.
Well, I mean, I hate to let you go, but it sounds like, you know, you hooked us up with another
next guest, and it sounds like this is a return invitation. Jethro, people who want to find it.
Don't be shocked if you see me and Jethro sitting next to each other on one of these videos,
sued Tim. That's right. Where can people find you, Jethro? Yeah, I'm at Jethro Jones on all
the social networks. So at Jethro Jones on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok's a little different,
but I don't post that much. So, but at Jethro Jones, we'd love to connect with anybody. And I took
a bunch of notes and put links in my Twitter off of this episode right here. So if you go there
right now, they're up at the top. Awesome. Jethro Jones, thanks for busting pencils, man.
Tim and Johnny break it down when we get back.
Yeah, there it is. Busted pencils only let it education talk, educated educators. Talking education,
the number eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two great guests, Johnny
Lupinachi, Jethro Jones, leader, author, podcaster. The whole idea of the concept, learning is messy,
right? How long? I mean, we know this. Yeah, man, I love it. I love it. Man, great, great conversation.
And I awesome to meet another, you know, what I call a kind of just a writer, die educator,
right there in the trenches, grinding it out and recognizing and queued into how young people
learn, really diverse ways like this is in linear. It's also not neat and tidy and about putting them
in rows, you know, and we had a great comment come up from X from Damon Hargraves, who's going to
be a guest. I mean, we booked them while we were on this show. That's that's the first and an awesome
thing. But you know, Damon had the comment, threat of engagement versus actual engagement.
And this is like, this is, this is a big pet peeve monitor and he gives a perfect example,
you know, this, this practice, so I'll call it schooling. And I always say school seeps in.
And I said, happens to all of us. So it's not like some kind of like elitist, hey, I'm a really
great educator. And when I observe you, I'm going to find all these mistakes. We all sometimes slip
into those, those habits of schooling that we were socialized into. We probably experienced them
when we were students, but he gave the example, drunk popsicle sticks to call on students versus
providing a platform for learning that draws students in. And I think that's a really good,
really good illustration for listeners to kind of get at this kind of like engaged and enrolled
that Jatra was talking about and that Damon's coming down. We probably were all in classrooms
where there is a popsicle stick drawn. And this happens that a lot of classrooms are on
our country. So I'm not picking on you if you're a teacher and you do this, but it's the,
it's the difference. And it's a really good example that is about compliance. And most people
are more focused on the stick. And if they're going to get drawn, then I'm the learning. And so
it's more about like a high pressure performance than it is about being engaged as a learner.
And then the alternative, having a forum and a habit and a practice of participating that
isn't about getting permission or getting called on and a gotcha kind of system by a teacher.
But kind of like we talked about earlier, Tim, I said, I joke before the show, I said, we're kind
of like a jam band. We get in and we read from one another and we have a conversation that's
based around active listening and kind of eye contact. That's the kind of thing that great
teachers are out there working to do as often as they can. And I just want to point it out. Thank
you, Damon. He's he's commented to so true. But we've all been there, right? School seeps in.
And those practices that are around, I love the language, the threat of engagement, the threat
versus actually being engaged. That's really also what educators amplified was talking about
last night, right? They were like, instead of being the teacher that teaches two or does four
students, right? They're going through the window and teaching with. That is the same kind of thing.
Those two concepts are vibing. There's resonance. There's harmony in that style of teaching,
right? So I love it, man. I love when the themes and busted pencils just start to really make
music together. And that's what's happening this week with some great guest, Tim. So
it is the man you to hear Jethro too. He made that, you know, comment,
regulated. I was like, Oh, man, there we go. Teach your howling, teach your Joanne. I know
they're out there listening and going, wait, wait, wait, wait, you know,
guy. Yeah, check it out though. Hey, man, make sure you tune in though too. Later on tonight,
tonight, light with Peach Waba, you can hear that 7 p.m. code for your chance to win. Make
sure you're out there in Johnny, you know, right? Speaking of winning, Tim, I mean, busted pencils
is winning. Plus, the pencil is lucky to be sponsored by Monaco Brewing Company who sued the state
of Wisconsin. And it's parasitic voucher system that hurts public schools. Monaco Brewing Company
is making Wisconsin great again. One beer at a time. Check out Monaco Brewing Company.com to see
where you can buy their progressive beer. Progressive beer is, man, that sounds like it even just
tastes better. You know, I mean, it sounds like it belongs together with the Scotty Summer.
Yeah, the Scotty Summer. You get there. Hey, you know what, too? It makes that Scotty Summer even
easier to do. Download the Civic Media app because when you have that Civic Media app, you can do
all of that. Hey, like we said, though, too. And if you happen to be in Finland, you can always
listen to busted pencils when you got that Civic Media app like our friends in Finland do.
Right now, Johnny Lupinati, right? Yeah. And we got a great text in from Jamison, but I know we're
running out of time tonight, Tim, but I'll sneak it in because Jamison and Pennsylvania, I mean,
he comes, he comes in right on time. We're talking about making music, right? He's right in the
cut. He said, it comes down to this. It's how we were taught to do things as a restaurant manager,
my district leader sat down with me and asked, why do you do X? He hated the phrase, it's always
the way we do it. He broke, he broke me hard that day. But since then, I look at everything even
if it's ingrained to look at it a different way. Good night, pencils. Hey, good night,
Jamison. Jamison, thanks for sharing that. I mean, that's what we're all of us, our learners,
leading learners, especially for education. We are all learning. We have those moments where we're
learning and love it. Jamison, thanks for listening. Thanks for contributing. Yeah, Tim, good night.
That's good stuff. Jess, even Jess has got that look of going like some good stuff happening
here tonight, right? Jess, you guys are making my job of selecting the best of segments so difficult.
I mean, keep it up. Keep it up. But wow, it is so hard to pick the best of segments from this week.
Hey, you know what they say? It's always good to have a good problem, you know, right?
It's a good to have a good problem. Busted pencils, so fully-led at education talk. Yeah,
we had great guests tonight, Jethro Jones. Say, you know, check them out. All the social
media is at Jethro Jones. The whole idea of what does learning look like? We had that graphic
up there on, for those of you watching on the X on Facebook and YouTube, different places.
We'll have that graphic too available when the podcast is out there too, so that everybody can
get it. Just a great graphic. Again, what does learning look like? It doesn't look like a straight,
continuous, upward growing ever, ever wonderful line. It's messy. It's squiggly. It changes. It
goes upwards. It goes downwards. It goes sideways. It changes colors. Does all those things because
learning, learning is messy. The big thing too here, Johnny, what he said is, guess what? You know,
reaffirmed too, Dr. Nancy Carlson Page, Matt Damon's mom. Guess what? For all those people who
think we know what learning looks like inside our craniums, behind our skulls in those brains,
we don't. We have theories. We have things that are going there. So anybody who's telling you,
it's based on brain research. Bull. Busted pencils. Fully let it. Tomorrow night, man. TGI,
BPF. Thank God. It's Busted Pencils Friday. See you. Let's go.