This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk. Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim
Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, educated educators talking education.
Yes it is, Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk, educated educators
talking education Monday, the week of July 4th, nations, independent celebration, fireworks,
all coming up this week, hot dogs on the grill, Johnny, you know, all those great things. I mean,
you know, some people like that, stay on the grill, man. I'm sure people are coming. I'm going to
be throwing a whole variety of things. All right. Well, you know, it's cook out time. It's
basically all week long. We'll starting Wednesday. I'll start kicking into it and then, you know,
Thursday and Friday, we're going to be grilled. It's like, man, you cooking out every day this week,
man, I'm coming over, holy crap. Okay, but you're going to wait till Wednesday to at least start.
Oh, you start. Yeah, we got some things. I got, well, I should throw in there. I got some,
I got some good veggie burgers. I got a couple of my, my own children who have, you know, gone
the vegetarian, one's gone vegetarian, one's gone vegan. So yeah, that makes sometimes planning
a family dinner, a bit of, you know, what? We've got a little bit of this over here. We've got a
little bit of that over there. And, and for all of those, you know, hey, but it's, yeah, happy,
you know, happy fourth week, Johnny, one of the things to remind people, where do you get busted
pencils? Well, go to civic media to the website. More importantly, though, to Johnny, the civic media
app, I feel like we haven't reminded people enough about how important it is to download the civic
media app, whether you're on an iPhone, whether you're on an Android type of phone, you can get it
download the civic media app. And with that, you can always have busted pencils and all of the
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You can listen all the time. And we said, just like our friends in Finland, they listen on the
civic media app to busted pencils. So that's the reality of how awesome the civic media app is.
Johnny, I know you have what, at least two or three different civic media apps across all those
phones. Oh, yeah, man, I asked my smart speaker all the time to, you know, send civic media stuff over
the Bluetooth. Let's go. Let's listen to all these shows. Keep me up on like what's happening in
politics of our country, but also, you know, what's happening over Wisconsin, where so many of our
listeners are, hey, listeners, if you can, subscribe to the civic media weekly digest to keep up with your
local Wisconsin news and all of our fantastic shows on the civic media radio network. So go to civicmedia.us,
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website, check out their merch store by going to civic media.us and clicking store in the top right
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hat or one of the six designs supporting refreshing hometown radio. And in fact, Tim, you can go and
check out busted pencils. Merch, right? What we're going to do for you listener, we're going to drop
that link in the description of the podcast that drops right after the show, the Tim, it's Monday,
you know, picking right up where we left off last week, Friday, you know, but before we jump into,
you know, still real and on the heels of the debate, talking about what's happening in this
country, how it's related to education, but also some things that are kind of growing out of
education, you know, this, you brought it up Friday, and it's carrying heavily through the weekend,
this push from Christian nationalists, right, to really make state legislation. And now,
you know, I'm always saying, Tim, don't worry about this now. I mean, I know a lot, but when it comes
to education, remember, education is a state right. Well, we'd be remiss if we didn't come back
around to what we were talking about on Friday today and get back into what's happening in Oklahoma,
what's happening in Louisiana? What's happening in Texas? Because even though, you know, I'm going to
say, hey, education is a state right, and there are lots of states who are pushing back against
that fundamentalist takeover. But, you know what, if it's happening in a nearby state, it's likely
to trickle. And I've said before on past shows, you know, we have a long legacy of testing the boundaries
in some of these states, and then pushing out from there. And I, you know, I share some of your
concerns, Tim, that you brought up at the end of last week with this sort of Christian nationalism,
that's being imposed on our public schools. And that's not Tim and Johnny, be an anti-Christian
entity or anti-relative. But we're going to get into it tonight. But before we get into it, Tim,
you know, just how are you doing? That's the beginning of the week. What's going on? I mean,
I am, I am actually doing incredibly well today. The heat dome over my area in Ohio has lifted
and went out hiking this morning, 60 degrees in the morning for a hike. Beautiful out there.
I was like, this is the way it is. What a day to start a Monday. But I just see, see Sherry,
man, she's just dropping in a whole bunch of text messages. Sherry, we love you. Sherry from
Huracan out there. Oh, yeah, we're going to talk about that, that king and Johnny, we need a civics
lesson. You know what I was thinking, though, one of the best places you can get your awesome,
like kind of civics lesson with friends. If you're in Madison, you go to the Madison,
Monacoa Brewery, Madison Taproom, you can go there. Or, Johnny, you always keep pointing out.
Now, too, if you happen to be all the way up in the North country, go to the Monacoa Brewery,
right there on site. You know why? Because busted pencils is sponsored by the Monacoa Brewery
Company. Yeah, you know what? They are an awesome company. Monacoa Brewery Company is making
Wisconsin great again, one beer at a time. Check out Monacoa Brewery Company dot com to see where you
can buy their progressive beer. And Johnny, am I just looking at that right away? L.A. Tom has
jumped on the line before we've even really started. We haven't even started. Let's bring him on,
yeah. Let's set the tone, L.A. Tom, set the tone. What's happening, my man? Well, first off,
guys, you know, you're right. You can listen to the Civic Media app everywhere in the world.
I'm from Wisconsin, small town, 2,000 people. And, you know, I mean, L.A., I've lived here for
years, and I listen to the Civic Media every single day. And I love the actual factualness of
the radio station and everything that it brings in terms of conversation to people and actually
shows a lot of sunlight, which is the best disinfectant for what's going on in this country.
I really wish that we could start calling these people anti-Christian nationalists because they
have nothing to do with the word Christian nationalist. And I think that, you know, I feel like
they're taking the Lord by God's name and vain. Number three, they're on the old commandments.
Because they're using Jesus' name in a way that he never really professed to be. If you
read Matthew 15 and you read some of the different things where Christ actually talked,
yeah, it doesn't, these guys are anti-Christian nationalists is what they are. They're anti-Christ.
That being said, that being said, you know, there should be a separation between church and state.
It's the bottom line. It's secular. That was the whole point of our country. And today's
Supreme Court goes and makes our president's king. And I want to ask, can Jill Biden actually now
go and I guess make an executive action to put on some sort of 13 circuit courts around the United
States, put 13 Supreme Court justices on the court right now?
Well, is it his official act? I mean, boy, LA Tom, thank you for the call right away and
hitting everything we plan on talking about tonight. Yeah, the Supreme Court ruling Christian
nationalism or anti-Christian. I know, Tom, it's all there. The question though, you know, so what
does this then imply for the current president, Johnny Lupinacci, president Biden? Does this give
the current president the ability to think creatively about what his duties are in office and how
he can execute them and how he might say, hey, look, it was part of my job, man. That's what I had to
do. I know I've been seeing a lot of speculation out there saying, what do these rulings actually
mean? Johnny, we are looking forward to actually really getting hard into that spot, you know,
particularly about that. Christian nationalism though, Tom, thank you. I think on that one, we really
need to talk about, you say separation of church and state, Johnny, kind of let us in on this one
to be talking about this, where are we going to come down on this because education, public education
is very specifically left to the states to decide in their state constitutions. And so what we're
seeing coming out of Texas, what we're seeing coming out of Louisiana, coming out of Oklahoma,
these are state actions. And Johnny, we're kind of putting this forward here to kind of tease
about them. So if a state takes the action on a public education issue, is that constitutional,
maybe is the first kind of generic question that we're putting out to everybody tonight,
listeners, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two. So yeah, you know,
just putting out there too. And yeah, just in case anybody missed it, busted pencils is sponsored
by Monacoa Brewing Company, who sued the state of Wisconsin to end that crazy voucher system.
Check it out though, you always like to give Monaco a little bit of heads up, a little bit of extra
room there. They absolutely are making Wisconsin great again, one beer at a time. Check out
Monacoa Brewing Company.com to see where you can buy their progressive beer. Johnny, but that is
the question. I think we frame here coming into this. You know, we talked about it last week,
Christian nationalism, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, because these are state driven. I don't know,
you say policies or, you know, you must do commandments. I don't know if they're commandments,
but because the state has originated these policies, do they have a constitutional leg to stand on
in our public schools? I don't know, Johnny, I know we're coming up on the break here, but you
know, give you a last little bit here and to take us into the break. What are you, are you pushing
forward the idea? And I say pushing, are you putting forward the idea that maybe this is a state issue?
I mean, I believe wholeheartedly that education is a state right. That's how it currently exists.
That's how I want to remain. I think it will continue to be state to state. However, Tim, I think
some of these, you know, states belong to a country. And so some of these may have cases that
kick all the way up to the state Supreme Court. Maybe even hit the national Supreme Court.
We certainly can expect to see that in instances where we have like a mandate to include the
10 commandments in a classroom or that the Bible is a history book. I mean, these are things that I
don't think will make it past the state Supreme Court, but should they? They'll go to the Supreme
Court at a national level. I believe in that system. I think it's a good system. You know what,
though, Tim, let's get into the details because someone might be tuning in that didn't hear us
last week. So we'll give you a refresh and we'll get into this when we come back. Busted pencils.
Busted pencils, fully-led education talk, educated educators talking education. Yeah, talking
Civil War, Gettysburg, Civic Media, trivia question, though what happened July 3rd,
1863, the Battle of Gettysburg, something specific kind of held it off, didn't give any answers
during the break. So anybody who has had the luxury of watching us on video through the Facebook,
through the xTwitter, through the YouTube, I did not give out the answer. So it's still out there
we're holding it because Johnny said he didn't want to know the answer yet. Now I'm worried about
the potential that this might be a lot of buildup with, huh, really? That's it. We will see the,
for me, it's greater when we went out there. This was a huge part of the field trip that we did,
that this is very specific about. That's what I was thinking. I would love for one of your former
students to call in. Yeah, that would be great. This is something that you learned on horseback
on this. I mean, I'm just trying to imagine Gettysburg horseback cam. And this isn't,
this is awesome, man. So I will tell you that for this part, you can actually get off of your
horse so that the students get to really experience potentially what happened that day. And it wasn't
on horseback. I'm not even more curious. I want to see photos of this too. You have photos laying
around of these trips. Let's get it. Hey, but we got a collar. Oh, right. A collar calling in.
So let's give it, let's give it a go. If that's okay, can we give it a go? Sure, man.
Calling in. Hey, Sherry, what's going on? I think, I think I got it right this time.
I think it's President Lincoln's inaugural adress because he was the president during that.
You are right. He was, he was the president. It was not his inaugural adress though.
Oh, no, no, the inaugural adress happened in 1865 going into there. The Civil War had ended.
He was about to begin his second term and gave the inaugural adress that was not what happened
on July 3rd, 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg. I can't give any more hints.
They were fighting on July 3rd. So I mean, I'm just so I'm trying. I'm excited. I'm ready to learn.
Pretty soon. We got to give it. I think we extend this. We let collars. I've got any collar
wants to get in. Like, Johnny doesn't have it. Sherry didn't get it, but we're close. We're narrowing
in. Right. So Tim, let's see if any of their collars want to call in and give it a shot.
Because maybe no, but I have a feeling this is insider stuff. And this is why it's so cool.
When teachers do those kinds of things like they go with their students on location to important
places, you know, that are some I local, especially to those students because that's unique to where
they're learning where they're growing up, where they're developing, you know, their core memories,
but also they're like their knowledge base that they're going to take off to them around the
world and where they live and like how you bumped into your student and she brought this up. I
love that you're sharing this. I also want to throw out there. Hey, if you're a teacher out there
listening, you've got an example of this kind of thing like Tim is talking about when they went
to Gettysburg as a class and camped and rolled around on horses through the battlefield. I mean,
how cool was your class, Tim? Johnny, Johnny, do you got a memorable field trip that you did?
That you took kids on? I mean, yes, yes, I took it. I was going to say dear, dear Joanna,
I wasn't allowed on very many field trips. As a student. Yeah, not as a teacher. Yeah, we did
some amazing, amazing visits to Washington, DC. My favorite was to Atlanta. We would go every,
every year to protest. The protest, the school, the Americas. And so that would be outside of
Atlanta. And then we would go to Atlanta and we'd go to the MLK center in Atlanta. We just have
a really great trip to Atlanta all the time. We'd go to DC. Those were always very memorable as a
as a teacher. But but unique little tidbit that a lot of folks didn't know is for a while. I
also worked in a travel school program where we traveled around and did credit recovery kind of
stuff like doing and backpacking and rafting and stuff. And so that that always was memorable.
Like teaching democracy when there are about 14 of you and you're living for several days in
the back country. Doesn't matter because you can be like, well, we're going to run this
democratic. Here's what that's like. So those are really memorable like school years for me.
Teacher Joanne, how about you? Oh, well, I am one to do field trips, which you are right,
though, that it's something that's really dwindled and but I think, you know, I've done the
horseback riding, but not at Gettysburg. I've taken kids horseback riding. You used to be able to
take them like canoe kayaking. You can't do that anymore. You can't do anything with water.
We've done zip lining. And then we've done a ton of things really within the city because
in the past couple of years, we're really limited transportation wise. Like you couldn't get buses.
So now you really can only do a field trip between 930 and 130. You cannot be picked up
earlier than 930 and you cannot get picked up in 130. So that leaves you to exploring places
within the city. Thankfully, I live in the city Milwaukee and there are a lot of really cool things
to do here. But those long, you know, going away and all of that, we've really been limited by
availability and cost. The cost and then teacher Joanne, I was wondering though, too, like we could
loop this into the topic. We were actually trying to cover today, you know, when you say used to,
but can't anymore. And we know there are reasons. The decision making to make these ideas, these
plans to quote go on field trips to expand the classroom as you would say, you know, to really give
students an opportunity to dig deep to practice democracy. Like Joanne was saying, you know,
when you had that vision and thought, I want to do this. I was thinking about this from a decision
making. You know what it was? It was I kind of walked down to the principal's office and said, hey,
I don't even think I asked. I think I said, hey, we're going to get Eastburg. What do I need to do
so that I follow all the rules? But man, that is not the way it happens today when it comes for
for all those things. So that decision making, the kind of idea to expand the classroom, you know,
we're teaching fifth grade. We're living right there in Eastern Pennsylvania, right outside of
the Gettysburg, the town and making that decision seemed like at the time, well, something's
like a great decision. Who would be against it? Okay, we got Don from Mount Horab with a potential
answer. Oh, okay, let's get him in before the break. Don, what do you think's happening? Come on, Don.
Well, tickets charge happened on July 3rd, but I don't know if that's exactly what you're looking for.
Don, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, you got it, man. Picket's charge happened on July 3rd. Johnny
Lupinaji's got the look of going, what the heck was picket's charge? Right.
And Sister Joanna, the same thing. All right, busted pencils, fully let it education to talk. Don,
let's get your address. I want to mail you a t-shirt. And when we get back the significance of a
picket's charge and Lucas of control, who makes these decisions and why busted pencils fully
let it back after the break.
Oh, man. How many walls, how many guns?
Busted pencils fully let it education talk, educated educators talking education.
Yeah, the quick break there. Sorry about that, everybody got a little bit, you know, mixed up
in the timing there, but always well. Tim and Johnny are back. Jess has got the command center
there working very, very, very perfectly. Well, Tim, you know, I'm like a bull in a china shop.
So I got going, you know, and I was rambling and rambling and rambling and then, you know,
what happens? I rambled right into, you know, I rambled right into the break. So sorry about
that. Listen there. We'll smooth it out for you. We owe you, we owe you, we owe you, but we'll get
it back from it. Tim, where we were going, man, was we were, yeah, we were going into this thing.
You were talking more about what's happening in these states where there's a rise in Christian
nationalism, you know, as a concerted effort to push that there ought to be one belief system
in schools. And, and, you know, we're both adamantly against this. I'm, I'm probably a little
bit more gray area and saying like, yeah, there's a lot of belief systems. I would love it
if kids learned world religions or came together. We heard on the Friday show I went on a,
on a long rant that was about human rights, right? And children's rights and the right to
belief systems and diverse belief systems in school. I think that's a beautiful thing.
I'm not even against teachers or schools saying, hey, there's these things that Christians
have 10 commandments. They, they follow them. It's part of their belief system. There are other
rules and laws and life lessons that help guide community of people around the world. Here's,
you know, here's a few different ones. Let's learn. Let's have our own classroom, you know,
constitutions and principles that we live by. So I really like those things as part of a diverse
education. But boy, do I get really, really concerned when we start talking about forcibly
having one way and positioning that as the one best way or the correct way or the right way
for all children. I think that's a huge problem. And that's what's happening in some states
in this country, Tim. So get us back to that, man.
Boy, did I, I threw you a curveball, man, I stunned you. I threw you a stunner. I don't know. So
Tim is frozen. This is this is a listener. We owe you because Tim, I threw him a stunner
and it froze him up. And I think I'm still here with Jess live. But Tim, what we were talking about
is we were going hard on, you know, these states. And they're concerted effort to push one
best way. So Tim, I'm gonna throw it back to you and hope you don't throw it back. You didn't stun
me. I stunned myself on that one. Man, it's, I guess tonight's just a little bit of a, you know,
glitchy net. I hit my mute number one stunner. I hit my mute button. Number one stunner.
But hey, so, you know, very specifically, those state, the state mandate here on this Christian
nationalism is what really is pushing me to go, whoa, wait a minute. Because in, if we remember,
we remember in Oklahoma, you got the Department of Public Instruction Superintendent saying
Bibles everywhere in Louisiana, 10 Commandments in Texas. Texas is literally paying school district
$60 a kid if they adopt the Christian oriented curriculum in place there. So you've got
three different states. And they're using Johnny, the state right of having education.
B, you know, the state's constitution. But see, to me, it's what they're doing exactly what
you're saying, though, it's a religion, it's a specific religion, Christian nationalism.
And if you start looking at it, too, this isn't about teaching a diversity of religious beliefs of
which you and I have constantly said we are absolutely in favor of. In fact, religion is probably
one of the most interesting topics that you can get into in schools and more and more students
and more and more families would benefit from having lots of religious pluralistic understandings
and ways to make sense of this. But here we have the state using the state power to absolutely
prioritize a religion, a Christian religion, a form of a Christian religion that really is starting
to sound sound more and more not even sounded. It looks like Christian nationalism in Johnny,
that is a creep that is when I say creep creeping towards us that is now no longer creeping.
It's actually making its way pretty fast and forward to us and saying, hey, Christian nationalism,
it's what we want, it's what we went in public schools. And in fact, just to put a little bit more,
the story today went a little bit further in Louisiana, the governor that pushed this said, hey,
I did this so that they would sue me because he wants to be sued by those people that are saying
this is an infringement of the establishment clause that says you cannot have a state
indoctrinating or mandating a religion. He says, hey, bring it on. Bring it on. I don't know,
man. I don't think we should be. You sent me a text today, though. You sent me a text today that
was an article and I want our listeners to know. We're referencing a lot here. We're bringing in
trending topics and education. Our producer Jess is hot on it. Those links, all the things Tim and
I are mentioning, they're going to be in the podcast notes. So you know, you loop back around later,
give a relic in and grab those or just grab the links and you can get that. But Tim sent me a text
today and you know what? Oh, there it is, Johnny. We got to wait on that text. So because, man,
when you hear that bell, you know what that is. It's our time, democracy and action, trending
news. We can hit it, Johnny. I saw today probably one of the most awesome examples of democracy
and action. Guess what? There are Republicans in some states that have decided to go against the
voucher push. Tennessee and Texas world Republicans have thwarted the, the push to in, you know,
mandate vouchers be a part of their state and they've said, wait a minute, we can't do that.
We are defending the institution of public education and we are not voting in favor of vouchers
and they stop vouchers in Tennessee. They stop vouchers in Texas. And Johnny, this truly is
democracy and action because the consequences that these legislators are now facing,
all of them are being primaryed by strong right wing divorce billionaires that have said,
hey, you voted for democracy, you voted for the people, you voted for the public schools,
we're taking you out. Truly an example of democracy and action to me, Johnny Lupinachi.
Yeah, I love it, Tim. I love it. When anytime any elected official, remember, you're elected
in theory, you're elected by the majority to represent the interests of whatever that group
or location is, right? And so, you know, those people, whether whether it's party line or not,
right? Those, those folks who, who stood, who went against the grain of the party line right now,
and I think that that always Tim is democracy and action. When you're, when you're representing
decisions ought to be made by those directly impacted by the decision and those, so like those
people in the Republican party that said, no, and Tim, when I, when I was, you know, out sometime
around the twelfth hole today, I was reading that text, you sent me that. I said, you know, good,
this how to be how it is, right? Regardless of your party, when the decision comes across your
table, you say to yourself, how does this impact? Right? Who benefits and who suffers? Are the people,
you know, in my, under my jurisdiction or my, you know, region that I'm elected to represent?
Are they hurt by this? They are. I can't support it. So, you know, as much as I cringe,
because, you know, I'm not too happy with the Democrats, right? Now, but I'm rarely happy with,
rarely am I aligned with the Republican. And man, I was like, you know, this is good. And the
image in my head, Tim, I got to share it. You know, I'm always like the Republicans, the elephants,
and the donkeys, the Democrats. I love the animal imagery of this. But I pictured, you know,
an elephant going over, you know, I pictured, you know, the, the, the Louisiana guy saying, I do want
this. I want you to challenge me. And the elephant went over and, and with its trunk pulled up
all trunk full of water and just hosed that dude down, just hosed them down. It says, not today,
not in my, not in my, not in my legislative area. No way, sir. Sit back down and, and walk away
wet on this one. Well, and, and that's what he say. You know, it is democracy defenders of
democracy, Johnny Lupinacci. You put that out there defending the institution of public education.
And doing their job, which is to represent their people, not the party. So it's busted pencils.
It's fully-ledded education talk. The numbers 8557524842. You can give us a call.
L.A. Tom reminding us on the text too. It's anti-Christian nationalism. L.A. Tom reminding us there.
Yes. Absolutely. But Johnny, you know, what, what, so these Republicans in these rural districts,
then, have provided a role model for me for other Republicans in other rural districts.
And you know, just to give a little quick lesson of going like, why are the Republicans in rural
areas putting up resistance to vouchers? Well, it's very simple. There aren't choice options
in the rural districts. And people know that in the rural areas, the public schools are the
centers of their communities are the center of engagement. Everything rallies around that.
And so to vote in favor of vouchers would be actually sending money that goes to supporting
their local public schools out of their districts that actually harms their local public schools.
People have listened to me have heard me say this all the time. And in fact, it decimates potentially
takes out Friday night football, the prom, the marching band, all of those events that people
have come and have gotten used to. And in fact, value in their community. That's because of their
public schools. And so in those rural areas, voting in favor of public schools is voting in favor
of your constituents. And man, that's just what you're supposed to do when you're elected to office
is represent the people who elected you, not represent the party in the money that's trying to
influence. And as you said, Johnny, do harm to your constituents. How is it possible? Well,
and it said though, it is coming with consequences because it looks like every one of these
Republican legislators are now going to be primaried with supporters that are actually then going
to then gather around all of that big dark money, the boss money coming in to put together
candidates. So, but at least for now. So think about that. It's an example defending that
institution of public education. That's what they're, but Johnny, question here though too.
In these districts where you are a public school value in a small world district,
we have seen in places like Wisconsin's a lot of the Wisconsin rural areas have voted in
favor of vouchers. How do the people respond in those small world districts who see the attack
on public education? Is it to simply just say, do your civic duty and call your legislator? I mean,
how do we, how do we help mobilize voters? Because to me, you're not a Republican, you're not a
Democrat, you're a voter, you're a citizen, you're a community member, and they're thinking right
now, hey, Friday night football in the fall, I'm looking forward to it. I don't want to lose it.
How do we inspire them? Well, Tim, I think it's it's it's simple and and as simple as it is, it's also
a large task. And what we're asking and we should be able to trust more media, but what we have to
be able to do is we have to be able to find good information. We have to go out there, individuals
have to go out and say, what are my interests? It's a local economy. It's like you say, Friday night
football, it's our public schools. It's our it might be something else that's a state institution
that's local economy. It might be, you know, you know, a government, it might be a military base
in a rural town. That's a big one. I know in, you know, in other states and these things that are
publicly funded, that it hurts the economy when they're defunded or they're privatized. Right,
it drives wages down. It really hurts the working people. So it's getting good information.
It's gathering that good information. And it's saying, what are my priorities? What are my institutions
that I'm going to be a patriot and be a defender of? And if you're a defender of public education,
whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, you got to find the facts. You know, Tim, I'm biased.
We have those facts here at busted pencils. You know, I'm lucky to be able to listen to civic media
to get good information about the facts that concern my local community so that I can make an
informed decision. And that's a really important one. Hey, Tim, we got one more segment. When we come
back, call, if you want to give us a call, it was a call 85575242, busted pencils. When we get back,
over and over and over and over and over again.
A bust of pencils fully let it education talk, educated educators talking, education,
educators amplified in the house, teacher Joanna, the numbers 8557524842 July 3rd day before
the fourth history lesson for everybody listening to the first parts of the show,
pickets charge happened on this day July 3rd 1863. And at that point, picket was repelled.
The union was saved. General Robert E Lee retreated back to the south.
Civil War ended in April 1865 with a victory. And we have a single country now.
But we got teacher Joanna here. Joanna, you were talking about, you know, this, this,
just the overwhelming amount of, I want to say, like minutia and garbage required to be done
before you can actually get to the reality of teaching is the way I heard you describing that.
Is this like, I want to start teaching and working with this. But, you know, you're talking
about the, the, the chaplain, like going, you know, got to pray to, to, to, to, to, to,
to scripts and all this. And we keep hearing about this. In fact, we've had conversations about
the big movement of high quality instructional materials, which typically when you look at them,
are scripts that, that, and in fact, you hear principles or instructional leaders as they try
to refer to themselves, saying, you need to follow this script with fidelity. And I'm thinking
that sounds absolutely nothing like a teacher exercising professional autonomy and decision
making the way you were talking. Well, yeah. And, well, you're right. And I, I like the language
you used. But it's something really serious when we think about, I don't know how, where your
audiences or not about the fact that, right, we don't have a lot of people desiring to go into
teaching any longer. And that's part of it. Like, I think if, if it was me now, I might
view it differently. And they definitely come in and they, they're disappointed. You know, like I
said, I, I used to, I work with groups of newer educators. And they're like, why did I have to
share like who I really am? And what I'm about, why do I have to tell them that I'm totally into
the Civil War? If once I show up in my classroom, I can't use any of that. Why, you know, and so that's
disappointing. Like you go into it, you know, you do go into it, right? My, my son's girlfriend is
looking for her first teaching job. And I'm hoping she gets it in enough time that she can spend the
summer dreaming, right? Like you picture yourself in this space, you think about what you're going to
bring in and how it's going to look and what you're going to do. And so that's part of it, right?
And then when you get there and it's like, oh, I can't, I can't, that's really, that's really
deflating, right? And it's just like, oh, you just want me to like, and I think that's a part of
the story with the teaching Exodus that's not being told, right? That that has a lot to do with it.
And so then you have people maybe like myself or mid-career who, you know,
navigate through it, but it's kind of at your own risk or, you know, how you set you into your
principle and was like, hey, I want to go do this thing and you were, you were supportive, right?
Right. Now when people go do that, they're like, is there a way we can make sure that it fits?
Because I don't know if that's not really in line with the curriculum, you know,
that they may have some VR goggles on a cart. Can you just put them on the kids and
go to Gettysburg and do that same thing with the, with the VR goggles?
Yeah, and there's plenty of people who do actually like get denied.
You know, do you get denied with wanting to take students out,
and outings? And so yeah, I don't know if I'm always just sounding like Debbie Downer,
but Educator's Amplified is more about just telling the reality, you know, saying that, yes,
you know, when I used to share that with my students a lot, I'd be like, hey guys, because they
would be in high school, you don't actually, they don't go on many field trips. And so we would,
and I would talk with them though about how, you know, this school doesn't make it easy for us to
do this. So I would actually kind of say that to get more of their buy-in and their full cooperation.
You know what I mean? Being like, hey, yo, right, yeah, being like, yeah, yeah, yes,
saying like, this isn't an easy thing to do. So if we're going to put in the work, if we're
going to put in the time, the effort, find the money, we all got to really want to do this.
We all got to really be cool and good to each other about it. Because yeah, it's not as easy,
and yet as an educator, I know how meaningful, important, experiential learning is,
and that going out into your community and learning from the other experts and understanding your
history and all of that is so it's learning. It's how children learn, right? And so, yeah, you're
your professionals out here know that those experiences matter and are frustrated when they
can't build them in. Well, yeah, and I think about it too, you know, what Tim shared and we were
talking about it, you know, lightly, but that the importance of that autonomy or that creativity
is teaching us an art. It's a craft, right? It's knowing your learners, but also knowing what
what they can get excited about and how to connect that to content in meaningful ways.
And that and that teacher Joanna does it differently than, you know, teacher Tim,
then teacher Johnny and teacher Hallie, like, they can all do that at high quality and do it
differently. But that but but we worry and more than worry, we speak truth to power like
Joanna just shared right there telling the reality, sharing the stories that far too often,
teacher creativity is seen as a bad thing. That's absolutely stifling. I mean, for any creative
out there to be, you know, there are some boundaries, but within those boundaries that creativity.
Well, it's stifling to the professional and it's lame to the kids. They can see it. They can feel it.
There's a very different feeling. There's different energy coming off and different engagement from
my teacher, the re-enactor versus the teacher who's going through slides about, you know, the charge of
whatever. Pick it. Pick it, charge. Pick it, charge. And so it's such a vital
in part of learning is that bringing the realness. I mean, I am fully myself. It took me,
I think it took 10 years for me to become fully myself in my craft. And then things really just
took off. What a show tonight, Tim, Joanna. Thank you. Monaco Brewing Company. Thanks for
sponsored and busted pencils. You know, if you're out there in Madison or if you're anywhere,
you can go online, right? And you can support Monaco Brewing Company. You can get any Monaco
Brews that you desire at MonacoBrewingCompany.com. See where you can buy progressive beer. Thanks
for sponsoring the show. Teacher Joanna, Dr. Tim, it's great to be with you here on this Wednesday.
Both of you have a happy fourth listener. We'll be back with you tomorrow. Happy fourth everybody.