It's Complicated- let's talk about it and teach the complexities

This is Busted Pencils.

Fully Letted Education Talk.

Here are your hosts.

Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci

educated educators talking education.

Oh, it is Busted Pencils fully Letted Education Talk.

Educated educators talking education Tuesday night.

Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, Dr. Tim Slecker,

Jess in the house.

And yeah, we have a guest.

We're going to get him on there.

Johnny, those looking back at last night's show,

it just wanted to go.

Did Matt Damon's mom Nancy Carlson

Paige landed truly a, a, a mic drop moment.

And in fact, couldn't have dropped that mic a moment too soon.

She cut it right out at the very end.

I'm putting out there like check it back.

You know, go back see the show.

And then Dr. Mike Moore, you know,

the whole idea of course materials.

Who knows if that was an equity issue.

That's just the way, you know, we found it.

So check out that episode.

Love it.

Hope everybody had a good show like that.

Here we go, Johnny Lupinacci, though, you know,

the Democrats are still talking about what they're

going to do with President Biden.

Who knows if the breaking, if I just

can say if there's ever breaking news on this,

we will definitely say something about that.

And maybe it would be nice if they had a, you know,

breaking news down at the Monaco,

we're brewing company, Johnny, because wouldn't that be

a great place to break?

Well, if there's going to be a story breaking that big,

it's going to break everywhere.

But, you know what, you might as well be

at the Monaco Brewing Company.

Busted pencils, sponsored by Monaco Brewing Company,

who are big time advocates for public education.

They're always working hard to build community

and make great beer.

Most sued brewery in America, because, man,

they're sticking up for democracy,

defending public schools.

The Monaco Brewing Company is making

Wisconsin great again, one beer at a time.

Head on down to Monaco Brewing Company,

or check them out at Monaco BrewingCompany.com

to see where you can buy their progressive beer, Tim.

And we're going to sit back and see what unfolds

as this week unfolds.

Listener, you know, get the Civic Media app.

Listen to Civic Media programming all day long

for coverage, and especially going

into next week live coverage of, you know,

a little convention that's happened in nearby

to a lot of our listeners, but all the breaking news

and politics, you know, tune into Civic Media

for great coverage of all that.

Tim, aside from that, you know, it's hot in America.

Oh, literally and figuratively.

Right now it's summertime, but there's so much going on,

you know, and so I'm looking forward to our conversation

with our guests tonight, but Tim, you know what, man,

it's also good to just catch up with you.

Oh, it is, but you know, I want to say, you know,

back to the, you know, tonight, yeah, great guest,

rethinking schools we had, Dr. Sierra College Jones

on to introduce that partnership.

Yeah, bringing back the partnership,

rethinking schools, busted pencils,

rethinking schools, founded right there in Milwaukee,

Wisconsin, been putting out truly materials

that, you know, you said every one of us

who've been, who've been a teacher

and experienced rethinking schools' materials

have always went like, wow, thank goodness there there.

And I said, my biggest intro, again, you know,

rethinking Christopher Columbus, the reframing

just changed my world and changed my fifth graders' world

at that time.

It was just an amazing time.

So we had Dr. Dr. Jones on, Kyler Jones on,

man, she has brought forward though to a whole list

and a whole group of people.

It's going to be every second Tuesday.

Yeah, monthly spot.

And we have rethinking schools, our pal that rethinking schools

are, you know, our educators and arms,

part of a movement, you know, to teach

and tie it to last night's show, Dr. Nancy Carlson Page,

friend of and big fan and educator in arms with Howard Zinn,

she brought up Howard Zinn and talked about the importance

that we all have open minds and critical thinking skills

and that we learn about history, not just one single story,

but the diverse historical facts of what's

a third, you know, in our histories, right?

And so we talked about indigenous people's histories.

You brought up rethinking Columbus tonight, you know,

so just linking it together to all that,

but rethinking schools on a monthly spot.

We got one of our guys here, Jesse Hugopian,

one of the authors in the most recent special issue,

right, themed for Gaza here.

We're talking with Jesse Hugopian.

Jesse, how you doing tonight, my man?

Hey, I'm good.

Thank you all so much for having me back on the show.

Jesse, it's so good to see you.

Yeah, I say, you know, had you on the show multiple times,

you know, when it was just a podcast, definitely had you on,

you know, you, we've enjoyed all the conversations

we've had with you.

And again, the rekindling, the partnership

with rethinking schools, all the incredible work

that you guys are doing there.

And here you are, the first guest of rethinking schools

to kind of come in, chop it up with Johnny and Tim,

land it out there.

And so, you know, special issue, the Gaza issue.

And, you know, Jesse, tell us a little bit about,

you know, the preparation that went into preparing

and getting ready for this special issue,

because it's packed.

And, you know, we know people are sitting there like,

like, how did they even come together?

What was the, the, you know, the impetus?

What pulled all of the authors?

Give us a little sense of what it takes

to put together a special issue of rethinking schools.

Sure.

I mean, we have an incredible team.

It's small, but mighty,

that puts together this, this magazine on a quarterly basis.

And rethinking schools has really become the voice

of social justice educators, you know,

all around the country who are writing for the magazine,

who are reading the magazine,

who are using the lessons in their classroom.

And we don't pull together a special issue

about this horrific attacks on Gaza

without years and years of dedication

to the struggle for Palestine.

It took years of developing a political analysis

to understand what's happening there.

It took years of writing lessons for the classroom

and adapting them and developing them

to feel confident in this moment of crisis

to have something to say about it.

So, I think that's important, you know, myself.

I went on the first African Heritage delegation

of Interfaith Peace Builders group to Palestine

and spent time with host families in the West Bank.

We met with Israelis and Palestinians

to hear different perspectives on the conflict.

And I traveled with a group of veterans

of the Civil Rights Movement.

And one of those with a teacher,

a black woman named Gloria,

who was one of the first teachers to integrate a school

in her home county in Mississippi.

And hearing her share stories about going to her school,

the first day it was supposed to be integrated

and seeing it surrounded by the Ku Klux Klan.

And the Klan not allowed her to come in and teach.

Hearing her share of that story

with Palestinian activists in the West Bank

who had studied the Civil Rights Movement

and were moving to implement those lessons was so powerful.

Yeah, Johnny Lupinaji.

Well, yeah, love it.

Love the work, love the issue.

Jesse, and you modeled this kind of,

like you brought up social justice teaching.

For our listener who's, and like,

hey, I like the sound of that.

Like here are three guys who are really committed to that.

We really love that.

It rings true.

But for our listener, can you give them a good definition

of social justice education?

Like teaching for social justice.

Give them the 101 on that.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, the first thing that's required

with for social justice education

is allowing kids to think critically.

So we have to provide a space

where students are allowed to debate the issues in society.

And what we're seeing in America right now is the opposite.

We're seeing the fact that almost half of all students

in the public schools today are going to a school

where there's a law that says the teacher

has to lie to them about structural racism or sexism

or homophobia.

And that they can't discuss those issues, right?

What we want to say is we have to discuss those issues.

We can't build a society based on justice

without young people learning all kinds of things

about our society and the oppression that

has existed from the beginning

and the incredible struggles for justice.

And social justice teaching allows kids

to have the discussions and the debate

that they're powerful and the wealthy wish they would never have.

There's more to it, but I think the core of it

is allowing kids to discuss the issues.

So for example, like when I teach about the student

nonviolent coordinating committee,

I will have all of my students be different members of SNCC.

And SNCC had a lot of debate.

They didn't all agree on how to build the civil rights movement.

So we have some of them that are arguing

that we should allow white people to be in our organization

and we should join arms.

And some of them are saying, no,

this should be an all black organization.

Some of them say we should work with Martin Luther King.

He's a great leader and the other ones are saying,

he flies into town, gives a speech

and then leaves, we need to build a different kind

of organization and the kids get to learn

the real debates that existed throughout victory, right?

And they get to debate those things themselves

and then they get to decide for themselves

what they think should have happened

and compare that to what actually happened.

And that's a method for social justice teaching

that allows kids to learn the real debates that happened.

But Jesse, you put that forward like that too.

It's so kind of strong.

And in one way, I could say,

so you're letting students critically think for themselves,

giving them space, really creating

and protecting that space and saying,

you know what?

And there are going to be different perspectives here.

But we're going to learn from history,

we're going to model from history,

we're going to let you engage those things.

And it is, it's frightening in 2024

to know, as you pointed out,

that that type of teaching is potentially illegal

in a lot of states in this country right now,

truly illegal to teach kids to grapple with facts.

We know our facts, we know these are facts.

They're absolutely facts.

But yet, the whole idea, so man,

what a great positioning on teaching social justice.

A lot, though, too, coming into this,

the issue here talking about too.

And in your part, the article that you wrote,

I know we're going to want to get really big into that

as we come back from our first break.

Our guest is Jesse Higopian,

one of the leaders at rethinking schools.

Yeah, it's rethinking schools Tuesday.

Once a month now, every month,

we're going to have rethinking schools.

Busted pencils fully, let it education talk.

Man, make sure you get in here.

Give us a call.

You guys, you know the number, put it on the app.

Make sure you drop us a text, make all that eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.

Busted pencils, Jesse Higopian,

rethinking schools when we get back.

Busted pencils fully, let it education talk.

Educators talk, educators talk, education, not just any education tonight but

talking social justice education, right? Always teaching, always learning.

Learners, leading learners, got to eye with us tonight, Jesse Higopian, big

guest, representing, rethinking schools. We talked about it, one of the OG

resources for a lot of us social justice educators, going strong and

and lucky to have them putting that resource out quarterly, right, for

teachers to be learning as they're leading their learners, which is really

important, especially on a lot of these issues. It was the number one thing,

all school year, I worked with a lot of teachers, Tim and I talk teachers,

we got teachers out there that are listeners. And one of the things is like,

we always talk about how do you teach global conflicts? How do you teach at,

you know, age appropriate level, you know, things that are scary for kids,

things that are happening in the world, because all of us social justice

educators know like Jesse shared, you teach multiple perspectives, you take

on the sometimes controversial, difficult stuff, because children are

witnessing our reactions and how we handle things that are complicated,

things that are, that are dangerous, things that aren't, aren't our best

representation of human rights and our capacity to care for one another,

right? And we learn from struggles like the civil rights movement, we learn

from unity and solidarity around the world. So Jesse, you dive into it,

Jesse's article in the rethinking school's most recent issue,

Israel's war on Gaza is also war on history, education and children. Jesse,

taller listeners, a little bit about this article. And we're talking

before the show, a little bit about how you're connecting some important dots,

building some solidarity, right? And some of the conversations you got to have

with, with inspiring people today. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that.

You know, in the article I write, I want educators to think about

what it would be like to be a teacher in Palestine,

to be a teacher in Gaza. We, none of us got to choose where we were born,

and but for the fact that I happen to be here instead of in Gaza,

my life is dramatically different. And in Gaza, every single university has been bombed,

right? Hundreds of schools have been bombed,

using bombs made by Boeing that is in my hometown of Seattle, right?

Our taxpayer money is going to fund the occupation of Palestine and

US corporations are profiting off of blowing up schools there. And I want educators to think

about what it would be like to be teaching in Gaza, where you have a genocidal war being waged.

And another word that's important to understand, scholasticide,

the destruction, the, you know, direct targeting and destruction of schools that's going on there.

And, you know, many educators believe that students should be able to discuss the most important

topics that adults are talking about in society. And so many social justice educators

are organizing lessons to have students discuss what they think of schools being bombed in Gaza.

And, and for doing that, there can be harsh repercussions, right? I have a friend who was teaching

about Palestine and they brought a mobile billboard to a school with his face on it and a website

taken out under his legal name to smear him as anti-Semitic because he was against bombing schools.

And he thought students should be able to talk about that. And, you know, in fact,

the social justice movement that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza

believes that every life is precious and that we have to fight all forms of oppression,

whether that racism, Islamophobia, or anti-Semitism, all of those forms of oppression have to

be, be fought, but we can't, we can't fight oppression and support genocide at the same time.

And so we believe young people are intellectuals and are able to confront difficult ideas

and come up with their own opinions. They might not agree with what my opinion is, but they have a

right to hear from people in our society who think that it's wrong to bomb schools. And they have a

right to consider whether that's right or not. And they have a right to speak out about it and learn

about the history that led up to this moment so that we don't pretend that the current war came

out of nowhere, that this is the first conflict of its kind, so that they can understand the history

that led up to where we are now. So much history involved, too, Jesse, as you were talking about that.

And, you know, just think about this. And, again, putting it back to into that reality of a classroom,

you know, a classroom of eighth graders sitting out there, you know, and maybe in Madison,

Wisconsin or in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and thinking about who's sitting out in front of me and, you know,

25 seventh eighth graders, they're going to have 25 multiple perspectives. And so bringing this

concept up, you know, I'm even thinking about that. I mean, how do you wrestle with the multiple

perspectives when students might vehemently disagree? Yeah. Yeah. And it can be difficult when

there are very strong opinions. And that difficulty just shows that it's so important to do. And so

when we're looking at the history of the United States, we can either teach this history as

it was a beacon of freedom from the beginning that built the freest society on Earth. Or we can

teach that some believe that and some people said that. And then there was also a genocide against

Native Americans and their land was taken. And we could teach that slavery occurred. And my ancestors

were put into bondage. And I can either decide to hide that history from my students or I can

allow them to grapple with those very difficult questions and some hard history, right? The same

is true with Israel and Palestine. We can teach that we can just teach that Israel is the only

democracy in the Middle East. And that there's no right for Palestinians to their land that some people

would would digest. Or we can teach that in 1948, Israel imposed itself as a country by

dispossessing Native people in Palestine from their land. And that actually the Nakhba occurred.

And we can have them grapple with what happens in 1948. How Israel was was established

out who lost their land. And they can hear perspectives on both sides. And then consider what they

what they believe. And Jesse Hagopian, rethinking schools, truly busting pencils with us tonight,

Jesse. Man, thank you so much for your time tonight. When we get back to him and Johnny,

breaking it down, Jesse Hagopian, rethinking schools, go out there, download a copy of that,

sign up rethinking schools, give them some love, busting pencils, more when we get back.

Oh, come on. We love fields. Why are they weeds? They're not weeds. They're life. Busting pencils fully.

Let it education talk, educated educators talking education 8557524842. Great guests first two segments

of the show Jesse Hagopian, editor, rethinking schools, Johnny special issue, the Gaza issue,

and then his chapter, you know, and then say Jesse had to run people like, don't you guys usually

have guests on the Jesse, you know, we were lucky to get him as long as we had him. And you know,

so much there, so much to dig in on. And Johnny, that idea of the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the here and now and the kids are going to ask these questions and kids are seeing kids as the

victims of war and how we talk about that is, you know, people like, well, is, is this an anti-war

movement? Is it an anti-occupy movement? Is it a, and I kind of heard Jesse saying, you know what,

in a classroom of kids, you might get all of those perspectives in the classroom. And if you're

a social justice educator, you better know how to deal with it. And there's that balancing act

is the way I, and balance, and I hate to word balance too, right? You know, it's not the right word.

But the artistry to be a social justice educator, to be able to take those young voices and help

them position their, their thoughts that, I guess that's what I'm talking about.

Yeah, Tim, I'll, I'll just simplify it for you too a little bit and offer my perspective. You

know, it, it requires some patience, some humility, and some commitment. It requires patience to

listen to you and model for young people, especially, but any age students or learners in our classroom

to model that we listen to one another that it's important to have views and have thoughts and to

share them and to talk through them, to have dialogue and conversation, but also to be really

committed to informed conversation. But you got to be patient in between there because you're

teaching young people to be informed, you're helping connect them to trustworthy information,

to making sense of that. I think, you know, Jesse brought it up. We talked about it. Nancy Carlson

paid yesterday, talked about critical thinking, right? They develop and they think and they share

their thoughts. And together as a group, they sort of, you know, hold space for multiple perspectives

to sometimes clash. It doesn't, it's not all about thinking the same way. That said, you know,

sometimes it takes, it takes some humility. And I like that Jesse said, like, I'll share my

perspective. I'll bring that trustworthy information. And I want people to listen, like hold space

for it. I just didn't think critically about it and develop how they think they feel they react

to it. And I add that humility piece to the commitment, Tim, because I think most people that

identify as social justice educators are just most young people I meet care about the world.

They care about their friends, they care about diverse people of the world. And that care,

that empathy that they have for anybody's suffering is at the core of sort of that commitment.

So how do we do better knowing that we want to ask difficult questions? Like how are governments

either representing our best interests or not when it comes to who's benefiting and who's suffering?

And so we stay committed to that. And it's, I'll put it on even more, even into a more simple level.

Right? If any group or anyone's being oppressed, that's a term I want to really, again,

I'm not going to hyperboleize, right? Depression is real. And you know, that's, that's the,

like the domination, whether it's political domination or force used, it doesn't even have to be

physical force. It can be, you know, ideas, it can be laws, it can be policy, but any group that's

oppressed, or any person that's oppressed, right? Not to be. So there's a, we have the capacity

as groups of human beings to find a common good, to find a way where oppression doesn't prevail,

where coexistence, you know, comes out as the, as the outcome. And we work towards that. We work

towards that. So I love that Jesse, you know, highlighted social justice education. He debunked that myth,

that social justice educators are out there indoctrinating you. Right. Right.

You can do further from the truth. It's messy. It's complicated, but it's worthwhile. But he also

modeled for us patients, humility and commitment. So love those things. Love them, Tim. Love that.

We got Mark from the sack on the phone. Let's, let's bring Mark, Mark in. Are we, we holding him for

a little bit later? Yeah. That's hold, that's holding, though, for another minute or yet. Hold on,

Mark, we will get to you in a second there. Um, because Johnny, when you put that out there,

that, that idea of, of humility to, um, and then though it made me think that too, you know,

and teachers have knowledge and expertise that they bring to these conversations and the ability

to talk in a way that even to the standpoint where a kid goes, well, I just don't believe that.

Is there a space to jump in and say, I know you might not believe that, but here are the facts

in front of you. Let's take a look at them. How do you wrestle with the potential

new set of facts and maybe not even a new set of facts? How do you wrestle with a perspective?

There it is. That bell. Every day, I'm busted pencils, democracy and action.

Tim, you let us write into it perfect timing tonight because democracy and action, I couldn't

think of a better example than what you were just sharing. That commitment to the messiness,

to the disagreement, to holding space, right? And all democracy and action, right, is aligned with

core democratic values. So I brought it up in this segment, the importance of social justice

education, but really of any public education, to, you know, fostering the development of critical

thinking, because that's how we grapple with difference, a condition of all of our existence,

because liberty is a core democratic value. Liberty includes a freedom for us to believe in whatever

we want. Freedom to choose our friends, freedom to have our own ideas, opinions, to express those

ideas in public, especially in school, right? And the right for people to meet in groups like

have a classroom, have an education, and the right to have any lawful job or business or be part

of your community, right? However, that doesn't mean it comes at the expense of common good.

So we have to keep together. So democracy and action today is not only Jesse Higopian's

contribution to the conversation, but it's social justice educators out there everywhere,

who are committed to the difficult task of it of being patient, committed, and bringing humility

to the difficult task of holding space for young people to have multiple perspectives,

to get trustworthy information, and to learn to discern together the common good. That's today's

democracy and action. Tim, love it when that bell rings every day here on busted pencils.

Wow. On that note, though, woof. Wow. Tim, I think I'm now, now I'm thinking, though, too,

it's just like, man, you get me going all that the social justice educator. It's weird how in,

in less than 18 months, that whole idea of social justice educator, and I hear it sometimes and go,

oh, I want to be careful. I don't get labeled as that because it's going to come off.

And like, wait a minute, wait a minute, Johnny, social justice educator,

bringing critical, multiple perspectives to common good. I want to reclaim some how, you know,

Tim's diggining. So we're going to jump into him because I think I'm picking up what you're

laying down, you know, social justice educator, that commitment to having diverse conversations,

to holding space from multiple perspectives, for not erasing histories, to bring it back to

the article Jesse Higopian shares and rethinking schools and listener. We keep referencing it.

We'll have a link to it in the podcast descriptions. If you come back around to listen to the show,

or you just check it out on civic media website, or wherever you get your podcasts,

you'll be able to also have that link to rethinking schools issue and to grab Jesse's article,

to see what he's talking about, but he's connecting that importance of the kind of teaching we're

talking about, to a movement right now in our own country to limit history, to silence it,

and I'll go as far as to even say erase it, right? And he talks about a war on history being a very

dangerous thing. And you know, I couldn't agree more with that because we learn, you know,

y'all heard it, listener out there, you've heard multiple versions of this, but you've heard

we learn history so that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. Mark Twain purportedly said,

history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. And I like that statement because you know what,

history is how we learn not to make past mistakes. It's also tying it to tonight's democracy

in action, how we learn to discern together a common good where we coexist. We don't ignore

diversity, condition of difference upon which we all exist. We don't throw, you know, our hands

in the air and say, you know, this diversity thing is just too hard. This equality thing,

you know, really limits my liberties. No, it just makes it harder. It's just a little bit of a

challenge. Democracy is a challenge. How we come together to figure this stuff out and discern,

right? That's really an important skill. Tim, you're back. You're no longer good. I think it's

like, thank goodness I'm back. I know, go off into that ether world or whatever you want to say,

but Johnny, the word discern, you keep using that word and what a great word actually too. Vocabulary

lesson here tonight, I'm busted pencils, you know, people are like, no, I know what the word

discern means, but you hear the way you're using it. The idea of engaging in the act of discernment,

what a very critical skill to be thinking about as we're delivering that to our students,

the ability to discern. And so when somebody says you're indoctrinating, no, we're helping students

learn to discern. I think you're offended by the fact that we're teaching discernment and you've

twisted it into indoctrination. Sorry, discernment ain't no indoctrination. It's just not,

but man, the way it gets corrupted into turning people, it's like, no, so I want to proudly proclaim

social justice education and moving towards discernment because man, what a powerful, powerful way

to teach and to hold that space. And Johnny, as you said, that's what we do here every night

on busted pencils. That's right, Tim. And I'll add to it that patience and humility and commitment.

Those three things because discernment is, you know, the ability to make smart judgment.

And it's not an easy thing. You have to take in those multiple perspectives and you have to practice

it because what we don't want is a complicated decision to put us into dysregulation. We don't

need to be in panic. We don't need to be in fight or flight. We ought to be comfortable in discernment.

You know, you know, who's comfortable in discernment? Our guy L.A. Tom, L.A. Tom's on the phone.

Can we get L.A. Tom on? One of my favorite discernments from the West Coast. L.A. Tom, what's

happening to our friend? Hey, guys, first off, we, the people ultimately are the government and we

must never forget that. Democrats believe in a democracy. Obviously, the Republicans or the

Republicans from power believe in a autocracy. And I wanted to talk about history repeating itself

because, you know, it's no mistake that they came up with the name Project 2025.

Because in 1925 is when Hitler actually came on the scene and started taking over.

So I hope people do not relive history. I hope they do get out and vote in massive numbers

to actually keep our democracy because the Supreme Court has already made it. So they're

already going towards Project 2025. But now on top of that, if Donald Trump or Republicans get

into power, it's going to be a full line for authoritarianism breaking down every institution

that we spoke about a couple of weeks ago. That there is anything that has the department of

will be gone. It will obviously political appointees of dear leader rather than the other.

I also would ask that every time we say the name Donald Trump, which I like saying the name

myself, I think we really need to remind people every time line Donald Trump line Trump because

you know, a lot of times the media will say, well, Donald Trump said that what not line Donald

Trump said that. I love that L.A. Tom L.A. Tom calling us in busted pencils fully let it

education talk. Hey, you can join us to 857524842 is the number because yeah, Johnny, democracy

and action, Jesse, agopian, rethinking schools, social justice, teaching discernment, digging in

multiple perspectives, controversy, controversy, actually leaning into that controversy because

without that, how are students going to learn to actually coexist for the common good if we don't

learn how to have these great conversations, difficult conversations, discernment, busted pencils

fully let it education talk more when we get back.

When home becomes a strange place, I'll find out you'll find what you're up to till you

rest down it out.

What's the pencils fully let it education talk educated educators talking education,

rethinking schools Tuesday, our guest editor Jesse agopian teacher, social justice educator,

israel palestine conflict, how do we teach it, how do we put forward conversations, discernment,

common good, democracy and action, and L.A. Tom and now mark from prairie to sack marks on

the line. What's happened to mark? Yeah, thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it that you brought

up that what we need to be teaching our kids in school. I mean, I can you thoughts are

bubbling back on my head from stuff that I want to learn back in junior high school and that

how government is supposed to be, you know, something forced for good.

And this whole Christian nationalismism thing kind of disturbs me quite a bit. You'll recognize

in the fact that some of those same folks that play well, you know, we're Christian nationalism

nationalists that get better funding and ignores the fact that I learned in history that we

actually rejected that because we rejected the the Puritan ideal of that they just had,

you know, Puritanism was the only way to go and that we shouldn't have those

those separations, you know, the religion shouldn't be running the political show. I mean,

it's it's a plurality that we think about when we hear this too. And I think mark's talking

about Johnny, you know, when it comes to religions, you know, and again America for me,

the plurality of religions and the celebration of multiple religions and the fact that you can

make that decision in this country to be, you know, if you want to be a devout conservative Christian,

you can. If you want to be, you know, a fundamentalist Hindu, you can. If you want to be a radical

agnostic, like some guy I know, you can be that person that beat him. I don't know. But you,

you know, in that the government isn't going to tell you you can't do that. And we start to see

now, and I think this is Mark's referring to this and even Tom with Project 25, the creep of

what we're saying is Christian nationalism where there is an imposition it feels like of

a Christianity and maybe even a Christianity, not maybe a Christianity that is largely built

into a heritage myth as opposed to a historical fact. You know, sorry, people say the Bible,

all these things. It just all these things, Johnny, the discernment, it comes back to this.

How do we have these conversations in a classroom of plurality and a public school where we have

multiple religions, we have to hold the reality of saying those multiple religions are all going

to be able to discern with each other and coexist. Use that word all the time, Johnny, coexist.

Well, yeah, and I talk about it in terms of bring it back to core democratic values. Like this

is school is a function of democracy, democracy, you know, set some parameters that gives some

very lack of better words, some rules to the game of how we make decisions together. And I'll

take two core democratic values and say all core democratic values have to be like respected and

valued as as playing the game of democracy. Like you got to play by the rules and two of those

that are pretty important, they all are really important. But if we just take two from what you

were saying about this this goal of coexisting is liberty. You have liberty. You have the freedom

in this country and in any democracy to your belief system, but doesn't come at the cost of

equality and common good that other people also have that freedom and nobody's freedoms can take

away the safety, the, you know, the the right and the and the importance of being able to have,

you know, a safe equal, you know, space to be in. And so if that whether that's women, whether

that's people who are non, you know, non identifying as cisgendered or as, you know, straight male,

like those are systems like patriarchy, you know, white supremacy, you know, heteronormativity,

all these things. Those are systems of belief that we have that people experience,

but you don't get to have them at the cost of other people being able to have their diverse

ways of identifying and being. So that coexistence parts is something we work towards. And it's often

a reminder, like, hey, we have rules for a reason, rules of democracy have core democratic values,

we follow those rules, you have a right, you have liberty, you're right to your freedoms,

but they don't come at the expense of the other core democratic values that happen to be like we

value diversity, we value equality, we value, you know, common good, you know, a safe, and that is

a government's responsibility. So that is when like L.A. Tom calls in and talks about, you know,

the democratic party is pro-democracy. I agree with them, right? I'm not happy with the democratic

party, right? Now I'm waiting to see what happens when I have in general, not just speaking to the

most current reasons, but that I will agree with. And I like that L.A. Tom also made a good distinction

that the Republicans in power in power, speaking power for a particular reason, like to enforce

something like Project 25, that is not pro-democracy. No. And I also will come back to L.A. Tom saying,

he said this before on the show, he said it's also kind of not really Christian. Yeah, right?

It's sort of like, so it you serps, it sort of jumps on the bandwagon of Christianity

in order to keep things in power and to really be anti-democratic. And that to me is a big problem.

It's absolutely that too. And you talk about this, and in the L.A. Tom texting us all throughout

you talking there, Johnny, anti-Christian. Maybe we should teach what real Christianity is and

other religions teach in a religious school, non-antichristian. Okay, yeah, it gets man, you know,

when you talk about this, multiple perspectives, how do we bring this together and realize,

though, Johnny, that the place of public schools is not to indoctrinate any Christianity, any Hinduism,

any agnosticism, it's not, it's to welcome all of those faiths, those beliefs, those non-beliefs

together or to foster, you know, fear of difference. Right? So it may be not directly teaching those

principles of belief systems, but it can also, it is not the role of any public school and democracy

to teach, you know, Islamophobia, to teach anti-blackness, to teach sexism, to reinforce those.

And that's where else is educators to loop background, social justice education is committed to

teaching in a way that supports everybody's right to democracy and our responsibility to maintaining

that and learning to be our best selves when we're considering one another and our own interests.