So, fully-ledded education talk, here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny
Luponacci, educated educators talking education.
Yes, it is!
Who's the night busted pencils?
Fully-ledded education talk, educated educators talking, education 8557524842, the number
right away, Johnny Luponacci, Johnny, speaking of, how are you, my friend?
I'm good.
I'm excited.
I mean, this week is already off to, you know, banner set of shows.
We had great guests yesterday, we had an awesome show and got one I've been excited for
for months.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll get there.
We'll get there quick, Tim, because I'm like, we'll get there quick, but, you know,
the here's the thing.
Tomorrow and I, too, got to put it out there.
Oh, yeah.
Madison, check it out, go get it to the Monacoa Brewing Tap Room.
First of all, you know why, Johnny?
Because busted pencils is sponsored by a 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 MonacoaBrewingCompany.com to see where you can buy their progressive beer.
If you get down there tomorrow night, six o'clock, it'll be alive.
You know, remote cast, Tim and Johnny remote from Washington in Ohio, and then coming out
of the tap room, Kirk is going to be down there to the owner, hosting the show, guest
Heather, and you just got a great line up of people and everybody participating in the
episode.
There it is.
I mean, everybody participating at Monacoa Brewing gets to join in.
Big thing though, big focus, registering people to vote, registering people to vote to
get them out there.
But yeah, Monacoa Brewing Company tomorrow night, six o'clock, get down to the tap room
in Madison right across from East High School.
Yeah, you go down there and hang out, have a beer.
If you're like me, you have a nice one of their sodas.
Yeah, you buy some t-shirts, you just enjoy yourself and meet with a lot of great people
talking about truly the things that matter most.
And in this point too, getting people as many people as we can register to vote because
this election coming up, Johnny Lupinachi, man, we've got a lot to say.
All right, Johnny Lupinachi, you're excited about this episode tonight, special guest.
I got to say, yes, yes, this is a re-igniting of a relationship that was big.
Built back in the day when Busted Pencils was solely just a podcast, re-thinking schools
which has its origins in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
We teamed up back in the 2015, 2016, created a partnership where on the Busted Pencils
podcast, I would feature re-thinking schools authors and guess what, re-thinking schools
would feature the Busted Pencils logo in their print materials too.
And it was a beautiful relationship, some of the most incredible episodes.
And in fact, at newbustedpensals.com, it's about to be available.
We can re-issue those great episodes where we have everything about there.
But tonight, Johnny, we're announcing, we're back.
The relationship is re-kindled, Busted Pencils, yes, Busted Pencils and re-thinking schools
together again, and our guest is a social justice educator, accomplished writer and researcher.
She's an experienced consultant and speaker, also a movement and meditation instructor.
But most importantly, she is the first, the new, the only so far executive director
of re-thinking schools.
Welcome to Busted Pencils, Dr. Sierra Kayla Jones.
How are you, Sierra?
I'm doing well.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so thrilled about this partnership.
And I can't wait to just continue highlighting the stories of social justice educators.
It is.
It is great.
And I said the stop out there.
I mean, first of all, right off the bat, everybody go to re-thinking schools, check it
out, see what they're doing, lots of amazing stuff.
But Sierra, so you're the first executive director.
Tell us in the listener, what does the executive director of re-thinking schools do?
Oh, yes.
Well, pretty much anything that you can think of, I am involved in it.
I help to oversee the business and the operation side of the organization, the nonprofit aspects
of the organization, as well as the content and the editorial.
So you'll oftentimes find me with my fundraising hat on.
That's a huge part of my job.
But I also get to write for the magazine.
And I'm excited to talk a little bit today about the spring issue of the magazine, as well
as one of my newest pieces in their teaching dance for transformation, because I come to
education work as a dance teacher.
Think about this, the question.
So re-thinking schools promoting a social justice view of education, particularly teaching.
What does that?
I mean, tell us like re-thinking schools, the connection, the commitment, the mission
to social justice and education, talk more about that.
Absolutely.
So first, I just want to honor re-thinking schools, almost 40-year-rich history.
The founding editors saw a curriculum that was whitewashed and dominated by corporate
textbooks, and now are the nation's leading grassroots publisher for racial and social
justice and education.
And right now, we're navigating a difficult time.
There are anti-history bills, there's book bans, anti-LGBDQ plus legislation, there's
a tax on educators, and really just the promotion of distrust in public schools is rampant.
And so my vision and our collective vision at re-thinking schools is really to encourage
and to fuel grassroots efforts in schools to build a broad democratic movement for social
and environmental justice.
And we do this by providing resources like our books and our magazines.
We have community spaces like our webinars, writing retreats and study groups.
And these all to help sustain educators and remind them that they're not alone in the
fight for social justice, whether that be in their communities or in their classrooms.
And my vision for re-thinking schools is that it will be every educator's go-to resource
for inspiration, strategy, and community.
And that one, Johnny Lupinacci, I'm going to let you get in here because I know this
is important and important, but just to help you, my first remembering of re-thinking schools
was the re-thinking Columbus.
And so just to frame that for the listener, the teacher out there saying, yeah, re-thinking
Columbus.
At this point, now people are like, oh, yeah, everybody knows all these alternative sides
to Columbus, but it was re-thinking schools that really took, you know, combined with
Howard Zins, you know, history of people's history of the youth, but putting together
that content that allowed us to look at this Christopher Columbus figure and rethink
what it means to teach students about this whole concept of discovery and what discovery
might mean if you are the ones being discovered who went, we knew we were here all along, right?
Nobody discovered anybody.
And so that reframing, so that's again re-thinking schools, Johnny, that was, I said, that was
my introduction, Johnny, to re-thinking schools with re-thinking Columbus.
No, I can't, I mean, excellent, I had, I went through the re-thinking Columbus stuff
as a kid, like as a student, so that's, I mean, not to out you Tim on, but that is truly
if I was thinking about my first encounter, like my first real moment with re-thinking
schools, I didn't even, I wouldn't even have recollected that because, you know, I actually
later realized, oh, this is the stuff that we learned in Detroit, summer that we were
learning from social justice educators in Detroit, who were active with re-thinking schools.
And I would say like since my day one in classroom, re-thinking schools has been, you know,
a key part of being a math teacher, of being a social justice educator, there were so
many years where like to be a teacher and Detroit, it by just, if you were responsible
and you responded to the needs of students in our community or you were from that community,
and I was, oh, right, the reality was, it didn't matter what subject you were teaching,
you were a social justice educator, I mean, there was just really no, you either had
to be on the side of continuing oppression or, you know, fighting it by any means necessary
and that meant, you know, being an educator, and asking the questions like, where can
we get support on this, because it wasn't in teacher education, you know, it wasn't,
there were little snapshots of it, but for all, I can say, 25 some years that re-thinking
schools has been my go-to, not only in the curriculum that it offers, it's like, my
own learning about its topics.
So listen out there, if you're not familiar with re-thinking schools, like as a teacher,
if there's a topic, I'm like, I'm not sure I know enough about this to teach it, re-thinking
schools as we got you, because teachers, teaching teachers, and we are learners leading learners.
So all of the professional development, too, it's like forever, I'm going to, I'm hard
crushing, I'm going, I mean, I'm a big fan, but this is the thing, every PDI was involved
with as a participant in re-thinking schools changed how I taught, because it was teachers
that would demo, get this out there, teachers, PD, where they actually demoed for us the
lesson we would teach our kids that we went through it, and we learned so much about
the topic, and how to teach it together.
I was like, oh, y'all need to certify teachers, that's what's up, this is the stuff.
So I'm crushing hard, see our thanks for bringing this back together with Busted Pencils,
but folks for listeners, like, this is stuff that's been around, so I'm brand new.
It's got long-cut, long connection with veteran teachers, with new teachers, with activists,
with social justice educators, you know, people across diverse communities who are coming
together to really make this work, make it doable.
I always got that question, like, you're a math teacher, what do you mean you teach about
social justice, and it was like, oh, here's how we do it, and check it out, I'm not making
this up, like, here's all these really cool lessons that re-thinking mathematics has,
so other math teachers kind of have the entry point too, and it's really been about building
a movement, so thank you, Sierra, for the work you do for being part of that movement,
and for being a leader in that movement, so excited to have you here.
Thank you, and yes, absolutely, I feel the same being a dance teacher, and infusing social
justice into my lessons has really come from re-thinking schools and learning from
other educators from across content areas.
There's so much that we can learn from each other and together, and I'm just so appreciative
of you mentioning how our professional development, our webinars are really interactive, because
we want you to be in dialogue with each other, right?
We're not engaging in the banking model of education.
We are really aimed at education for liberation, and how do we get liberated together?
I continue to learn so much from the lessons as I read them both pedagogically about things
that I can use in my work as a dance teacher, but also just the content area and the content
knowledge.
There are historical events that I've never learned before, and as an adult, now I'm
able to learn that from my colleagues and my comrades at re-thinking schools and all
of the contributors and educators that are a part of our network.
Our guest, Dr. Sarah, Kayla Jones, she is the executive director of re-thinking schools.
We are announcing, yes, the partnership reignited, not new, but just bringing it back together.
Busted pencils, re-thinking schools, and when we get back, Sarah, though, till you hit
on a term, the banking model of education, we might need to define that, yeah, banking
model education, defining that when we get back.
Ah, yeah, there it is.
Busted pencil fully, let it education talk, educated educators talking, education 8557524842,
Dr. Sarah, Kayla Jones, hey, you're the dance teacher, could you put together a dance for
a little rise against music like that, you hear in the background there, Sarah?
I love it.
I was just about to comment on it.
I love the musical aspect of the song.
Exactly.
It's a huge part of the show, and you're talking about it, it's like education, music,
dance, you know, and John, even talking about mathematics, who you're talking, you know,
we're here, the busted pencils, re-thinking schools, re-thinking schools, busted pencils,
partnership, fully engaged again, talking about those two, the remembering, we're all
kind of talking about this going like, man, it was re-thinking the schools that got
me hooked on this, it got me thinking about that, but then, you know, Sarah, you're
talking about, you know, we're not doing the banking model of schools, and that to me
just sounds like that's an opportunity right now to say it like, what do you mean we're
not doing the banking model of schools?
Yeah.
So the banking model concept comes from Pellow Ferry and the pedagogy of the oppressed,
so highly recommend that folks engage with that text, and with the pedagogy behind that.
And basically, the banking model is the idea that the teacher has all of the knowledge
and the information, and just makes deposits into students as if they are a bank, right?
And so we actually counter that narrative to center students' lived experiences, and
their expertise about their communities, what's going on in their lives, and really making
sure that that's central.
I actually write a bit about this in my piece, Teaching Dance for Transformation, where
I talk about my unlearning process as a dance teacher, whereas, you know, growing up being
a dancer, there was always this pedagogy of, listen to the instructor, 5, 6, 7, 8, do
it again, stand up straight, look at yourself in the mirror, it has to be perfect.
And then I ended up perpetuating that same narrative to my students, until I had a really
hard moment where the students, I was trying to encourage them to practice improving, and
I turn on the music, and they just stared at me.
And I realized that I had made the mistake of not actually ever creating opportunities
for creative expression, and for them to be free in their bodies, which is not who I
wanted to be as an educator, and not what I want my pedagogy to be at all.
And so my piece is really talking to educators about this process of unlearning, and moving
away from the banking model, and moving into liberation.
And so now as a dance teacher, I always say there are no mistakes, only solos.
And I ask critical questions, so students, I always say, you know, what do you notice?
What do you wonder?
What's coming up in your body as you do this movement?
What does this feel like to you?
What story are you trying to tell?
And so really framing education as an exchange of information, of an exchange of dialogue,
because I learned so much from my students, and that's what we continue to promote in
all of our articles at rethinking schools, and all of the resources and materials.
Try to help educators frame that pedagogy for their students, so that we can create spaces
that are joyful, and creative, and critical, and liberatory, and make learning fun.
You may want to call me dancing a solo, I'm telling you a different mistake if you see
me dancing.
It's like, no way.
I don't know about you.
I shared some videos, and there's a rumor out there, you're starting a TikTok, so I'm
going to be starting the trends I can tell, see what a beautiful story that also teaches
us here tonight.
So listen, they're like, what a gift, Dr. Sierra Keller Jones here.
You know, sharing that uh-huh moment we have as teachers where we're like, whoa, how
we were socialized to teach, isn't necessarily how we want to be as teachers, so we can, you
know, sometimes we can know better, but it's really hard to do better, and that's sharing
that uh-huh moment.
Telling that story, you know, I bet it resonates with listeners out there who are educators
who have those moments, and they know how hard it is to teach different than we often
experience, because we're socialized into sort of that programming.
I always call it school seeps in, you know, like how we learned to dance or how we learned
whether I'm coaching hockey or whatever, like how we were taught starts to seep in, and
those voices come through us, both the good and the bad, so part of our job as educators
right, especially as, you know, as you shared, is navigating that being a learner to be open
to the hearing stories, telling stories, and I think that's like a big piece if you can
speak to you before we go to break in a few minutes here, it's just telling our listener
about like the hour of stories, like why is rethinking school so narrative-based, you
know, like I bet there's some meaning behind that, so if you can kind of let our listener
know why, why would they want to check out the stories that are told to re-think in schools?
Absolutely, and I'm so glad that you asked this question, because my heart's work is storytelling
for social justice, it's what brought me to rethinking schools. The first time that
my name actually appeared in a rethinking schools magazine was in the back section where
we have the resources, and so a colleague had asked if I would write for the resource,
and I felt so empowered when I got the magazine, and I saw my name in print, and so we are
at a time where with this anti-history legislation, where they're actually trying to ban this critical
history, we've heard from educators that they no longer are able to use our materials in their
classroom, even though they love our materials, and so we help teachers and activists tell stories
about their exemplary work, and about strategies of resistance. Our work is really situated in
power building through narrative change by centering the stories and the expertise of teachers
and activists, especially because we know that corporate media doesn't cover our stories,
or they only tell half-truths about our stories, right? They're more focused on sharing the
stories of the mom's for liberty, but they're not sharing the stories of the resistance,
and so our magazine and our books, they really forge a space for social justice educators to tell
our stories in our own way without being beholden to the whims and politics of corporate media.
We published stories like how the Portland teachers led the longest K-12 strike in decades
about how elementary school students are using an engineering unit to design a model community,
where everyone gets what they need. Stories about how students are creating their own book clubs
to read literature that's been missing our band in school, about teachers who are discussing
climate injustice with students and helping them create art that reflects the world that they
want to build, and so we're really highlighting stories of love, solidarity, and defiance. We're not
just critique critique critique breakdown, but we're also talking about what could be possible,
and what is possible, what's actually happening, because we really also want to provide that hope
and that inspiration, especially at a time when teachers are being docks, they're being terminated,
they're being attacked. We hope that we can be a space of solace, of comfort, of community,
to remind teachers that we can do this. Man, I'm excited and empowered again, but you know,
I had to put, I love your quote, sharing stories of the resistance. What a great tagline too,
rethinking schools, sharing stories of the resistance, and it is, it's the story, right?
Yeah, take it. It was your quote, so you don't have to borrow your own words,
or your Sierra. Oh, it's Busted Pencils fully-led education talk, our guest, Dr. Sierra,
Kelly Jones, and rethinking schools executive director, the relationships, the partnership,
rethinking schools, Busted Pencils back together again. Yeah, and we're going to be doing a lot more
bringing the stories. In fact, when we get back, we're going to jump into the current story that
we're occupying right now and do a little bit of talking about the current issue. So again,
get ready, we're going to do a little bit, you know, what's going on,
rethinking schools right now, Busted Pencils fully-ledded more when we get back.
Yeah, we are back. Oh, Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk here,
with Dr. Sierra, Kelly Jones, director of rethinking schools, educator extraordinaire,
social justice educator, storyteller, my dance teacher, all kinds of things exciting,
listeners were glad that you're here with us. And in fact, before we get further into what's
happening at rethinking schools, especially the spring issue, kind of the way rethinking schools
plays a role in our social justice education world, get into that. But before we jump into that,
we got caller LA Tom on the line. So Tom, how are you, man?
Hey guys, I'm doing good. First off, I am an FDR Democrat and proud of it.
I have a couple questions for your guest. One is, why do you think it is? I know if it bleeds
but, you know, we had more protesters out against George War criminal Bush's illegal war
than they maybe have at a tea party that's got about five or ten people there. It's like your
movement versus these so-called people for liberty. Why is it that we can do as a movement
to really make it so the corporate media has to see at number one. And the number two
have a question in terms of are we also adopting some of the same things from places like
Finland, where they have the worst education system in the world, and now probably one of the
best education systems in the world, just curious on those two points. And I'll take my answer
up here. Thank you guys so much. All right. So to answer your first question, thank you LA Tom
for calling in. To answer your first question, I think one of the most important pieces of all of
this, this whole movement is political education. I think that there's a lot of misinformation and
disinformation that is spread, especially in this increasingly technological era. So it's really
critical that we continue to have conversations and dialogue, but actually engage with history,
because that's what we do at rethinking schools, try to make those historical connections between
movements of the past that are many of them still ongoing, but are just in different forms and
then what's happening today. So I think political education is really crucial. I think also
carving out spaces for us to create our own media. Like we are here on the podcast and like
rethinking schools is doing, right? When corporate media doesn't want to share our stories, we have
to continue to be very vocal. And to your second question, you know, I can't answer too in depth,
but I'll just say that education continues to morph and to continue to change. And so we have
to make sure that we are being really thoughtful and really critical about protecting and preserving
our public education system so that we can get to something close to a democracy.
Yeah, I said busted pencils too. Guess what? We are the antidote to corporate media right now,
because yeah, we're bringing the stories to people. We're not reacting. We're not defending.
We truly are bringing the stories. And so Tom, my answer to that is keep spreading the word,
because the more listeners we have to to programs like this, the more readers of rethinking schools,
the more is out there. It's like we are the movement. And so I love that Tom referred to us as
the movement. And guess what? You know, one of the secrets to the movement is just simply realizing
that we have to support each other in all of the ways that we do this work. So all right, Sierra,
knew the addition that's out right now. This is, you know, sensitive issue has brought up lots of
emotions, lots of knowledge people thought they had, lots of people going, I didn't know that type
of situations. I was wondering too if you could just even just say like, so what type of feedback are
you getting? And this is teaching and learning about the Israel and Palestinian conflict.
What's the reaction that you're getting for this issue?
Yeah. So I will say that there has been so much overwhelming support for a teach
Palestine issue. Educators are hungry for the resources and the conversations. We actually had
a very generous donor donate enough so that we could distribute 750 copies of the magazine for free
and they went within a day because people wanted to distribute them at rallies. They wanted to give
them to fellow union members. They wanted to give them to other educators and professors and
their teacher education program. I mean, it just, it flew out of the storage and the shipping
because people really, really, really were hungry for it. And we actually had a follow-up teach
Palestine webinar. We have thousands of people register and hundreds of people show up asking for
more and more and more resources. And so I'll just share with your listeners that in the
art, in the issue, we have articles such as Bill Bigelow's Lessons on the Roots of Violence in
Palestine. We have Jesse Hagopian's article on the connections between the attacks in the United
States on teaching about race and gender to the attacks on this, erasing the historical memory
in Palestine. But we also have poetry. We have poetry by Naomi Shehab-Nai. And we also have a
Palestinian high school student who talked about her experiences in the aftermath of October 7. So
we, at rethinking schools, are in solidarity with all of the folks, all of the brave educators
who are teaching the truth about Palestine and the students who are walking out of class
who are forming encampments to demand an immediate ceasefire.
Johnny Lupinati, man, jumping there, my friend. And I love it because it is in the process
teachers. Unfortunately, I have to say, my entire teaching career, there's been violent conflict,
major violent conflict that as a social studies teacher, even when I'm teaching math,
right, current events is part of who we are as young people and how we develop in our political
voice and our identity. And we are the three of us and probably every listener out there
are talking right now and listening amidst the largest social uprising of all of our lifetimes.
That's built on the shoulders of tremendous work of the civil rights and going way back
even to advocates for many, many years. But this is the moment. Young people are saying the world
really needs to be different. But I know as a teacher, like teaching about conflict is never easy.
It's almost always controversial. And there's like we mentioned before, there's always all kinds of
misinformation and disinformation that we don't want to perpetuate. And so, you know, even when we
don't, something is as complex as the situation in Palestine, it's also simple. And it's happening
right amidst all of our organizing and all of our addressing social injustice and injustice
anywhere as a threat to justice everywhere. And so we know that. But then having enough facts
and having enough encouragement and support to bring it into our classrooms, I was grateful
to see the rethinking schools spring issue come out because of trusted people in our learning
community as educators for social justice, making those connections like Jesse's made,
you know, transferring transformative teaching to dance, you know, doing the kind of poetry reading
that sometimes we just needed to be a little bit lighter and more attuned to the aesthetic and our
emotional experience of what conflict means to us from afar. But it's also really near.
Right. And so this is complex, complicated stuff. So appreciate rethinking schools jumping in
and saying we're going to continue to support people, but we're going to take that brave step
and say it's never easy to teach about, you know, justice to everyone. It's never easy to do that work.
And connecting it to the Black Lives Matter movement, connecting it to what I get most hope from
young people, right? The stories that young people are telling about the world they want.
Yes. And being able to teach the politics, like you said, the politics of how did we get here?
What's going on? How do we get here? And how can we do differently? So really great issue.
Lots of energy around it. I know we're going to continue to have that discussion with authors because
you know, teachers have asked us, you know, we're in and out of so many schools and we have
teachers that are listeners. They ask us, how do we teach about this? And, and you know what?
I know for a lot of us, we've been teaching about violent conflict our entire teaching career.
And it just is getting harder and harder and harder. So, you know, I'm wondering, like,
stories of hope from it, right? Like I love the support, love it all. But, you know, those that
that there's no silver lining in the kind of conflict that's going on. But what kind of,
what kind of testimonies? What stories can you share that even just the authors and yourself
being part of this issue, how it felt energizing to sometimes like something we feel like,
how can we even help? Yeah, I'll just share that after the webinar, we got so much feedback from
folks who were just saying, thank you, educators that felt refueled. Not just the emotional
refueling that happens when you're in the community with other folks diving into topics and having
discussion, but the refueling of leaving as if, okay, now I feel like I can actually have this
conversation with students. And I think, you know, we are rethinking schools. We don't shy away
from teaching about difficult topics because we know that young people deserve an honest and critical
education. And I am not going to overshadow the fact that it's also been really difficult
in teaching this because so many of the educators that are part of our community are being
terminated for this are getting attacked by parents and community members and even within
the school building. And so that's also a reality that we have to hold. We have to hold those two
truths that we have to teach this. And it's so critical and important to be brave, but we also
have to also recognize the reality of what teachers are facing today. And it's all at a dismantling
of public education. But I'll share just a quick antidote that students are going to talk about
these topics, whether we teach them or not. And so are our classes going to be those
liberatory spaces? Are they going to be the brave spaces where students can feel comfortable to
share their opinions, to work through things that are hard, right? Because I think that that's
part of the role of education is to be able to work through the things that are hard. And I'll say
even as a dance teacher, I'm in the middle of teaching dance class, my third graders are in the
corner and I can hear them talking about the conflict, right? And so they're talking about these
in community spaces. They're going to be talking about them at school. So we have to continue to
lean into our our bravery to have these critical conversations, these discussions and the dialogue
and to present the history so that students can make those critical connections between the
history and what's happening today, because they're going to rise up. They're they're going to
do it anyway, right? That's what young folks do. They continuously lead the way and that's what's
giving me hope as well, just seeing the rallies, seeing the conversations, I'm seeing the encampments
of them calling to end the occupation, right? Because that's that's what they do. And so as educators,
we have to support them and as rethinking schools, we support the educators so that they feel equipped
and that they feel confident heading into those questions and have been able to talk to other
educators and to workshop things and to share some of their fears, but also to share some of
their hopes as well. Man, there it is, right there. Man, just just barely, too, just barely
getting into it. Our guest, Dr. Sierra, Kayla Jones, she's the executive director of rethinking
schools, the partnership, busted pencils, rethinking schools, we're here. In fact, we're talking
about just a break, we're not going to announce it. A lot of the authors in this episode really
deserve an extended long podcast. And Sierra, I'd say this right now for any of the authors,
for any issue, but this issue, let's let's schedule them and get them down so that we can really
talk deeply about this is, you know, again, a really hard subject and to allow people to have
these these conversations. Sierra, rethinking schools, though, I mean, where should everybody go?
Yeah. So come to our website, rethinkingschools.org. You can subscribe for our magazine there. You can
also sign up to be on our newsletter, our email newsletter so that you can find out about upcoming
events, our magazine issues. We send out a lot of articles that are posted on our website. We
also send that out via email. And if folks are interested in submitting an article, check out our
website for submission details. We love hearing your stories and supporting you and crystallizing
them for publication. You can also start a study group. We have free downloadable discussion
guides for some of our books like Teaching for Black Lives, new teacher book, teacher unions
and social justice. And actually right now, applications for the Teaching for Black Lives study
groups are open through our as an education project. You get free copies of the book, rethinking
school's magazine subscription, access to study group only webinars and connection to a network
of other study groups across the United States. Oh, rethinking schools. There it is. Busting pencils
truly. Johnny and Tim, Dr. Sierra, Kelly Jones. Thank you so much for Johnny Tim. Break it down.
So we do talk about the generations. Yeah. Busted pencils fully led education talk,
educated educators talking, education, the numbers eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight,
four, two, the announcement, rethinking schools, busted pencils back together again. We never
actually never broke up. There's that darn pandemic, Johnny. You know, things dissipated in,
then it comes back together. And then honestly, you know, like it's an organic thing here. We're
having conversation listeners and we're working with teachers and different people in the community
about education, right? And particularly the political climate for public education. You know,
and you know, Sierra spoke about it here tonight and we often talk about it here on Busted pencils.
But you know, real attack on being able to teach, you know, what's going on in the world to
teach history, to teach, you know, sometimes oftentimes controversial stuff helps us to be
able to think critically about the world to expand our empathy, to, you know, to increase our
EQ. We talked about that the last couple of weeks are, you know, capacity to both have
reason and emotion. So really important stuff. And, and it's just fitting, right? So many of our
collars, so many of the teachers that we talked to who listened to the show have said, hey, where can we
get more information to teach about and fill in the blank? You know, Tim, we've talked, we've been
doing this with you. You've been doing it longer than I've been doing it with you. But, you know,
since I've been with you, it's been about COVID. It's been about Black Lives Matter. It's been about,
you know, guns and schools. It's been about, you know, LGBTQ plus community inclusion and
safety for all of our students. We've had all of these kinds of topics. And it just made sense,
you know, in our planning, we are like, you know what, rethinking schools is always there,
right? Listening, always there, providing stories and expert teaching from around the country,
right? On how these conversations are happening in classrooms in ways that are both aligned with
curriculum, but like our guests tonight, Sarah's talked about in ways that are about critically
engaging, asking questions, you know, thinking openly about what's possible in our world, you know?
And so, Tim, it's a special night. There's lots of special things to come. As we get going,
though, right? You know what else is going on? Right now, civic media, Scotty summer,
text to win giveaway is on. Download the civic media app and listen throughout the day for codes
announced at the top of odd numbered hours. That's 7, 9 and 11 a.m. and 1,35 and 7 p.m.
to text in for your chance to win. Stay tuned to hear the next code from our guide, Pete Schwabba,
at the top of the 7 p.m. hour prize includes Wisconsin Del's prize pack, each giveaway hour
and a pair of Milwaukee Brewers club level tickets each day. Entering just once will put you in
the running for the grand prize of a weekend staycation or a getaway in a beautiful Wisconsin
locale. When you text in, you will receive a bounce back text with a link to check your voter
registration and sign up for civic media news and podcasts. When you do that, you'll earn bonus
entries towards all available prizes. Man, that, you know, I said, it was on the Maggie Doncho
and yes, there are real winners because we got a text right during that time. It's like, I want,
I want it. Of course. You know, yeah, but so Joe, I mean, you know, we're thinking about this.
The reconnection of rethinking schools and busted pencils and again, they'll be on monthly now,
too. We're going to have that as a feature and we're going to, you know, because they put out
so much material, the ability to talk to those authors. When we say authors, though, too, John,
I think I have to remind people, the 90% of the authors are teachers. Oh, teachers. Yeah,
right. I'm higher. Probably not. I know. It's a requirement. Yeah, these are, these are,
these are our colleagues out there talking about saying, you know, telling the stories
of their teaching and trying to teach for, you know, liberation, trying to teach these
stories. You say in this context, too, of this moment, Johnny, you know, the attack on
teaching history, the attack on truth, the attack on so many marginalized groups that have
been so rampant these past two years. This is where you take a rethinking schools and go,
man, I don't know if I can do this, but yeah, if you pull out a rethinking schools episode,
you go to their website, there is a teacher who has taught that whatever that is and they've
done it in a way that is courageous, empowering, and you as a great teacher, a great educator knows
how to go in there and say, I can do that. I can adapt that. I can move that in this direction.
I know how to make that okay for my, but yeah, it's that support. And so it's like having
a teacher support group for you when you're trying to engage in critical pedagogy or in other
words, dangerous teaching. Yeah, and to be a learner, leading learners, right? You got, like, we all
know that sometimes we know what we don't know and we don't want to, you know, do any harm as a
teacher. So we know we can't not do anything. That's harmful. And we don't want to spread myths
or disinformation. So that's harmful. So where do you go as a learner, leading learners? You're an
educator and you are, you find yourself interested in these, you know, in this larger social,
uprising of all of our lifetime social justice, sustainability, all of the nuances and important
aspects of that, we're taking schools. Like Tim, we've said, it's been in our toolbox since our
day ones. You know, I actually had a memory on the show today. I was like, wait, we did that
weekend school stuff when I was a kid like in class. And I was lucky to have some, some great
teachers who were doing that kind of work on also big, big night tomorrow night, special one.
If you're in the Madison area, head to the Monaco Brewing Company tap house. Stop by, you know,
during the show, come on folks, you know, 7 p.m. be there and you are at 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
you can be there and you can join the conversation with Tim and I will have a live connection
tomorrow to all the folks at the tap house. And that's the Monaco Brewing Company because Monaco
Brewing Company is a sponsor of busted pencils, right? And so get out there and support. Be
part of our show tomorrow, you know, run through there, have a soda, have a brew, right? Monaco
Brewing Company is making Wisconsin great again, one beer at a time. If you're not there and you want
to grab a Monaco Brew, go to MonacoBrewingCompany.com and order their beer, they ship to everywhere,
except for a few places and one of them is here by me and Idaho. But I don't order my Monaco
Brews to Washington where I am. We could all, you know, crack a Monaco Brew together, you can hoist
them up and we can have conversation about public ed. We got great guests. Tim, what a night. I'm excited
about rethinking schools. I'm excited for tomorrow, man. Yeah, man, you can hear it too. Yeah, we are
truly busting pencils. I wanted to say to Sierra, I didn't get a chance, you know, thank you. We
always say thank you for busting pencils. Thank you for rethinking schools and busting pencils.
That goes for everybody listening out there. See y'all tomorrow night.