This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.
Here are your hosts.
Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,
educated educators talking education.
We are both the pencils fully-ledded education talk.
Educated educators talking education.
Wednesday educators amplified teacher Joanna, teacher Halle,
are both in the house.
Welcome back.
Both of you together.
So excited to see you guys.
However, I want to jump right in though to some housekeeping right away.
Johnny really important directly after Busted Pencils tonight.
President Biden will deliver an Oval Office address to the nation tonight
at 7 p.m. Central.
Stay tuned on civic media because they are bringing you,
well, that's us too.
We, the speech live immediately following Busted Pencils.
So immediately.
Just follow.
Yeah.
You know, you already are listening.
So just extra listen tonight.
We're like, we're like the opener to the Oval Office address.
Thank you teacher Joanna.
I was just going to say I was like, it was so nice to hear from the Biden team
asking them if they could follow us tonight.
I was like, you know what?
Let's go for it, you guys.
I think you following Busted Pencils makes perfect sense.
So yeah, Biden.
Hey, the other thing is if you're not, you know, listening on the radio going, what am I going
to do?
You got the civic media app.
Johnny.
Teacher Halley teacher Joanna.
They do not have to be without Busted Pencils.
And I guess if you want to listen to the president Biden afterwards.
So you can do that on.
The app.
The other thing too is just like check this out.
If you're listening in the car, keep doing that.
We love it.
We appreciate it.
You can be also watching us right now on the Busted Pencils YouTube.
You could be on the Facebook of Busted Pencils.
You're on the Twitter of X or wait, Twitter and X are the same darn thing.
Yeah.
You're going to the civic media.
You can check us out.
You can see, you know, if you want to see us, but I think we're worth looking at.
Are there any comments about this?
Right now, Tim.
There's a little bit of.
I say that's literally not.
We're not streaming.
So so listeners, your extra special you get in this and, of course.
Later on it'll catch up in folks.
We'll get to watch.
But if you'd like to see our beautiful faces.
See a wonderful smiles.
Well, the wonderful smiles are for sure here every Wednesday.
Next to your Joanna and teacher.
Halley, but otherwise you know tune in and check us out however you can to.
You know what else.
Every listener can do.
I bet I know.
Oh man.
I can crack a beer over at the Monaco Brewing Company.
Monaco Brewing Company sponsors, Bust and Pins, Bust and pencils.
And those folks at the NBC are big time advocates for public education.
And for public schools in Wisconsin.
And they're right there with us, Tim.
Connecting strong public education to strong democracy.
Monaco Brewing Company is making Wisconsin great again.
One beer at a time.
I like that plan.
One beer at a time.
Let's go.
Check out Monaco Brewing Company dot com to see where you can buy their progressive beer.
And boy, is there a progressive buzz going around?
There's quite the vibe right happening right now.
At least in progressive politics.
I couldn't have predicted how refreshing it would be.
And we've been talking about, wow, even the things that I'm kind of like.
Well, let's see how this plays out in a little bit of.
You know, my.
I'm really going to skip this.
Get some creeps in.
Because it's just a bad habit I have.
But I will say overall the energy that I'm feeling from not only young people,
but my peers, my colleagues are callers.
Listener you out there.
I mean, I gotta say, I like this waiver riding.
I do.
I like.
So I kept track in with teacher Joana and teacher Aly, tonight.
And Tim continued to chop it up with you, my guy.
I appreciated to teach your how he teach your Joanna.
How are both of you two doing?
I'm doing well.
I'm doing really well.
And like you guys, I am excited.
It feels good to be hopeful.
Yeah.
Teach your how to know hope for you.
Um, no, I feel hopeful as well.
I will just, you know, I, I, how do I say this?
Like I never believe that one person is going to do it all.
So I feel hopeful.
But I also know that the hope needs to go with action as well,
meeting like our listeners, ourselves, other people.
Like we've got to let people know like how to vote, where to vote, when to vote.
You know, like, so yes, this is hopeful.
I have an idea, a very good idea of who I'm voting for.
But I need lots and lots of other people to as well.
And so that's just where my head goes to of like, all right.
It's action time.
Um, so that my hope can stay elevated as I talk with people.
Well, you know, in caller Joanne last night, kind of pointed this out in a little bit of a different way.
Teach your how he's saying it's, you know, when we're the excitement about right now candidate,
um, potentially Kamala, Kamala Harris,
is that actually too is imagining it isn't one person when we vote for her.
She's bringing in an entire cabinet of all these people.
She's got a vice president.
And so when you're talking about right, it's like we're,
even though we're voting for Kamala Harris, if that's what your choice is for voting,
you're voting for an administration, a team, and who those team members are.
And we were a little bit before the show teacher Joanne and I were saying,
you know, if you read Peter Greens, uh, blog from education, you know,
one of these vice presidential candidates, and I don't want to go too far away on this direction yet.
But, you know, there's some concern and there should be,
and this is the actually the exciting part about this is is that we can have really powerful discussions about how these things might go.
But you know, teacher, teacher Helen and teacher Joanne,
and one of the things Johnny remind us though, is that we really, really, really,
and L.A. Tom, I know he's on the line.
We're going to get right on to him.
Those since he decided to give us a call again,
is this that we have to contrast and make sure that we recognize and point out that the other party that's running in this.
We were saying the, you know, the old comparison,
trust in fifth grade, tell us what to like, tell us what's different.
Well, you know what, when it comes to this one, there's not a lot of like.
There's a lot of contrast, and in fact, we're going to be pointing out that contrast big time.
However, L.A. Tom, let's go right to you, my friend. How are you?
Well, good guys. First off, I do want to say that I like for everyone to check out,
select a candidate quiz.com.
Select a candidate quiz.com. Know that we have a binary choice here,
but that will actually have you voting for policies rather than person.
That's number one. Number two, I just want to say and get on board ahead of time,
that I think Kamala Harris, as my state senator at one time,
is dynamic, is energetic, and is intelligent.
You bet she's the DEI candidate, because she's dynamic,
she's energetic, and she is intelligent.
And I'm just really looking forward to Joe Biden's speech tonight at five o'clock,
or seven o'clock to guess for you guys.
And I'm pumped. I'm pumped because of the fact that, you know,
there's people out there now that are going to be walking the streets,
like we have all done, or I've done in the past anyway,
for Barack Obama and Nevada, and places like that, and Wisconsin.
I won't hear now. Oh, he's too old. I won't hear that anymore.
Absolutely. Teacher Joanna, you got a big smile on your face.
Well, of course, I always love to hear from L.A. Tom.
And yeah, I, this is part of it. I like hearing people's energy.
I think I tend to kind of like sit back and absorb.
And so I am really, you know, taking in other people's energy.
And yet, I am like pretty strong about where people stand with public education.
And so I think it is hard for why it's hard for me to get excited.
Because I've always said, like, we have no friends.
Again, like, we're, we have no friends.
And so, you know, again, I get the collective, the good, the excitement.
I'm with it. And yet, that is what always, like,
I've busted my butt for people. You know, I, I do, you know, I've worked as an organizer.
I've done doors. I do calls. I have the house parties. I talk to people.
I'm staying. I have really been disappointed in public education backers.
Yeah. And so, yeah. I mean, like I said, I'm with it.
But I do always feel like we're like isolated on this little island.
Teach your house. Sure. Well, I was just going to say, like, obviously, you know,
I care loads and loads about lots of things.
But my biggest priority is always public education.
Because really, it's a, it's a whole demographic of people, children,
who really don't have many rights or say in anything.
And how that's where I'll get kind of like, yeah, I'm excited.
But I'm also like, we're going to be hearing about women's health.
We're going to be hearing about climate.
We're going to be hearing about those type of things, which again, are important.
But I'm like, public education is burning to the ground.
You want to be a priority. Right.
You guys, you know, and I get people talk about Project 2025.
And I mean, there's devastating things in there.
But I also like, in a lot of towns, this is already happening.
You know, like more public schools.
And so that's just where I'm always coming from.
Of course, I'm going to get on board with the big stuff.
I'm like, I wish public education was the big stuff too.
Well, that's what we're trying to do.
And I know Johnny Lupin, as you can see, but every night Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
sunday, I, I think we have to be honest.
Okay, yeah, I think you can get till Monday and me.
And then we want to practice again, yeah.
So I know, you're working on something with the public.
I mean, why not sell the public?
You're focusing on things for樿more.
Yes, first, that's how John Lupin is still, doesn't he?
That's-
year no no no, we only�� a little learner.
One thing is that it's really more like a tremendous self consisting in the public education
in our communities, the public schools.
So this isn't this little kind of special interest group.
To me, it is a foundation and a core of what it means to be a participation,
to be a participant in this experiment we call democracy.
You can't do it without public education.
So I, you know, again, I know, I know Johnny Lupinachi sitting there going,
Nat Tim, but right now there's still some people.
I'm just saying, Johnny, we got to bring them on board, man.
Absolutely, and that's all that's what we're trying to do here.
We have a great conversation with teacher Joanna, teacher Halley.
From educators amplified, this is Boston pencils, fully-led education talk.
Educators talk in education tonight with our favorite teachers.
Teacher Joanna, teacher Halley.
Listener, give us a call, right?
Or text 855-752-4842, right?
Stay with us.
We got lots more to talk about.
Stay tuned.
I won't sweat.
I'm a drop for you.
But if you're this guy, load on your blue.
We're free.
Don't wanna know what I do.
We're travel.
We're travel.
We're travel.
Follow me.
Yeah.
Oh!
Boston pencils, fully-led education talk.
Educated educators talking education.
Wednesday night educators amplified teacher Joanna, teacher Halley in the house.
Yeah, talking, fully-led education talk.
That's what we do here.
Public education, the heart of democracy.
Public education.
You know, just on the side, I said, you know, I don't actually try to make this a habit,
because it can be very bad for your mental health to get into a, you know,
Twitter or an ex or a Facebook argument with somebody.
But the school choices were out in force today.
And I just decided to hit a reply all to the, on the X to a bunch of school choices that,
like, yo, you guys already got choice.
You have the choice to send your kids to a private school at your own expense.
Or you have the choice to send your kids to a public school.
End of story.
What's the problem?
And I have now been getting smacked now on the X all night.
Everybody is sitting me.
You're one of those government schools, people who wants to indoctrinate our kids about
two men laying in the same bed and stuff like that.
I actually just sold that from Teacher Halley.
We were talking about that in the back.
But anyway, putting it away, I'm not going to let it ruin my night,
because tonight is educators amplified in the house.
Teacher Halley, teacher Joanna, little excitement.
You know what Teacher Halley and Teacher Joanna, what you were talking about last, last segment too,
when we get into this, you know, we are going to do some public education dissection
of, truly, the candidates and say, like, wait a minute, we've got some concerns.
And I'm highlighting one of the concerns already, not with, you know, Kamala Harris herself.
But right now, some of the, what are you going to say?
There's no noise about who should be her vice presidential pick.
And there is one person who keeps rising to the top.
Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, my own home state.
And I'm sorry, there are lots of red flags.
If you're a public school person, and I've been watching that all over Facebook and Twitter,
the social media today, there are a lot of pro public school people putting out there.
There's a Wisconsin public education network.
There's the public education network.
There's Diane ravages block.
There is a whole bunch of people out there saying, hey, you know what?
Kamala, we love you.
But when it comes to picking a vice president, sorry.
Us public education people do not want you looking at Josh Shapiro.
We'll talk a lot.
We'll be talking about that because that is part of what we do here.
So anybody listening going, oh, you guys are just cheering for the Democrats.
It's like, hey, well, here's the deal.
We're cheering for the Democratic ticket right now because as Johnny points out,
the contrast to the Trump ticket and public education is, is that, you know,
public education is, is truly going to be in some way, shape, or form targeted with some type of destruction from that party.
We know at least with the Democratic party, we have the possibility that they don't want to start off by eliminating the Department of Education.
Can you believe I have any writing?
Like that sound, boy.
Yeah.
Hey, Tim, I love this.
And I just want to remind our listeners out there of thanks for listening.
But also make sure you stay tuned tonight because we're all going to be listening.
Even past busted pencils.
President Biden will deliver an oval office address to the nation tonight at 7 p.m. Central.
So stay tuned.
Civic Media is bringing you the speech live immediately filing busted pencils.
We're here in the house with teacher Joanna teacher Ali from educators amplified.
And I don't know if you know this, but every episode of busted pencils has bonus content.
If you want to catch the behind the scenes discussion, the jokes and our sweet faces.
Well, that's for sure guarantee on Wednesdays at least.
By watching the stream on busted pencils, you can catch it like Tim shared to begin in the show on Facebook.
Civic Media or busted pencils YouTube.
Civic Media or busted pencils or on the X.
Civic Media.
You probably already might have gone to X to see Tim getting smacked around by the choice.
We'll come back to that Tim because I tell you sometimes there's a beehive in a post.
Over when we're on a walk and I say, Tim, don't go kick that beehive.
Tim, what do you always do?
I don't kick the beehive.
I love it about you, my guy.
But you always rattled bees.
Got him coming.
And I looked on X and they sure are buzzing.
So good work, my guy.
Hey, I love it.
I love it.
Okay.
So here's the deal though.
I just looked down at my calendar and teacher Halle and teacher Joanna holy crap.
It's the end of July.
What?
What?
And I was just thinking about that.
Yeah.
Teacher Halle.
What's that?
What's that?
What's that all about?
Don't remind me.
I'm not supposed to know what it is or what time it is.
I don't have to know.
Teacher Joanna, is this the time of year when you start going?
Oh, man, it's, it's summer's over.
It's time to start.
Yeah, a little bit.
Just, you know, I start to see the back to school commercials.
That's what always kicks it off.
And then I'm kind of like, oh.
Yeah.
And then I just kind of take stock.
I do literally like write down every single day that I have.
And what I'm, what I'm aiming to accomplish or what I have planned.
And yeah, so it's midway.
I mean, where I'm feeling great, you know, because I'm in the midst of it.
But then I'm aware that the time is limited.
And I don't know, you know, I don't live on social media at all.
But I'm aware, because friends share things with me that I think there are more like,
maybe informative TikToks and things out there about like what summer is really like for teachers.
But I describe it as more, it's just like in teaching, you're either on or you're off.
If you are, if when you are working, you are on.
And really, you don't have time for many other things.
But literally, like, I think I was talking last week.
Like in a regular school day, I don't have time to take a phone call from my mom's assisted living facility.
Right?
I can't.
Like, and that's, that's hard.
And then in the summer, you're completely off where you are like, what day, what time?
And so, Callie and I used to always talk about like some in between would be great.
And I actually think it's part of why the profession is unattractive to people right now.
Because of this extreme, you know, restriction 100.
Yeah, 0 to 100, because right, the day you go back, it's like, it's, I mean, I'd love to hear if other teachers want to call in and explain differently.
But just everyone I know, and my experience has been like, it's either on or off.
And so I'm still off, but I'm aware that I'm going to be going on pretty soon.
I think it's the internal, the mental load that, you know, like you're trying not to anticipate, but like, right, you just remember.
You know, or you're like anticipating the 0 to 100 mental load of it all.
I think about that.
Yeah, it's, it's a lot. And when you put that out there, like, you know, like that, you start to wonder.
And maybe I don't know if this should we join up from the attraction part, right?
The whole idea is like, well, it used to be, you know, the joke was, well, you get June, July and August off.
Those are three great reasons to be a teacher.
And you're kind of pointing out going, oh, well, you know what, though, with all of that time.
And then during the quote nine months that I don't have, I don't have any time to do anything.
Is there a better way of talking about that?
It's busted pencils fully let it education duck a five five seven five two four eight four two.
I'm going to kind of pose that as a question to teacher Halle and teacher Joanna to be thinking about during the break.
Would you then be amenable or entertain the idea of maybe like a three day work week, two days off, but all year round.
Would that potentially give you a more balanced?
So we're talking about busted pencils, educators amplified in the house, teacher Halle, teacher Joanna.
Stay tuned for more.
We flipped our finger to the king of England.
The doll I'm coming from in the end.
When y'all on my side, it comes out here.
Bust pencil fully let it education talk, educated educators talking, education.
Yeah, Wednesday night, educators amplified teacher Joanna teacher Halle in the house.
Conversation about, oh man, it's the end of July from the teacher's point of view.
How do you start viewing the days now?
Is it the countdown to oh my goodness?
I got to go back to school real soon.
Teacher Joanna, I was thinking about what you just said.
It's like when you see that first back to school commercial.
It's when you get that.
Oh my god.
Wait a minute.
Why do we have to talk about, you know, the best clothes or trapper keepers today?
We can wait any time.
I know I remember feeling like that all of it.
Well, and you know, actually now that I think about it though too, like I'm speaking from a place of like maybe privilege that I'm not working this summer.
Many of my colleagues are working.
They've probably even thinking, you know, how I'm like, oh, it'll be, it'll, you know, then I'll have to like set my alarm again.
But many, many people are working right now.
Okay.
Right.
Well, sorry, I was just going to say many people are working.
And even many people are like being forced to work, meaning like the district is being like curriculum needs to be adapted.
So you need to do this many hours over the summer for 20 bucks an hour.
Like it's like even worse than even just like second third jobs.
It's like, yeah, you know, even the layers are messed up to me.
I'd rather cut rest in the summer than it's what you're saying is opposed to that, at least in that.
But, but teacher Joanna, okay, so what's, what do we do?
Well, we have to really start taking a look, you know, you and I have been connected over this for years.
Right.
We have to look at what is the real issue?
Why are people not attracted to this profession?
Or why do people come in and leave immediately?
And how do we really hear that and change things in a way that will keep people rather than just, you know, be like, oh, guess they didn't cut it or here.
I remember when I would be talking with leaders in my district where it'd be like, how can we mentor people?
Like, what do you mean, like, mentor them to like shift to like accepting these conditions?
Or are we going to show that we're working to change these conditions?
And so I'm talking about really looking at shifting how a teacher's day is designed.
And especially here in Wisconsin, after act 10, our days went, they got longer.
Like everybody added minutes, everybody added days, positions that used to be paid for a supervisory, volunteer things where the pay was taken away and you were forced to do them.
So again, it's like your technical contract day might start at 730, but you might be assigned a hall duty that starts at 645 that you have to show up and do.
And so then so so those kind of like we can look at just those specific things and I always say that all extra duty should be voluntary and paid.
But then we until we do have to look at it like, and I probably said this on this show before that you could look at that as like, you're saving money or I felt like, no, I was just a very expensive hall monitor, like, I'm here for my expertise.
You know what I'm I'm here to yeah to design lessons and work with kids, but you think that and so there this thing happened where it was just like everything was interchangeable.
Like you're on the street, you're in the hallway, and now you're teaching open now you're being a test proctor and now you're and all of that.
So we have to look at like what is our work, what is the nature of our work, and how do we though build in, I'm simply asking for downtime, like how do you build in breaths for yourself, I mean in terms of the schedule.
And how do we do we value downtime and there was something that shifted that was like, you are not working if you are not with children hold the whole time you're there.
Teacher Halley.
Well, I think the piece that is missing is that we need to start viewing teachers as professionals and actually looking at education as like a highly respected, like high quality profession, not just like nice ladies who are willing to do whatever everybody tells them to do.
Like that's just what I think also in what Joanna saying like to summarize it like we've really just taken out understanding what teaching and learning is and made this more into like a transactional job where I need to get like someone else needs to get X Y and Z done.
And so then they're forcing professionals essentially to do work that's inappropriate for the level of qualifications that teachers actually have.
And you know, I've been getting my study on for my PhD, yeah, yeah, I've been getting my study on and just something I was examining yesterday was about that like where learning actually falls in terms of what schools are really trying to accomplish.
And this was from professor, I think his name is Richard Elmore from Harvard.
And he said number one role of school right now in this system we've designed around it is custody.
And then two is once you have custody, you know, like where the kids going to be, then you think about control.
And then after that it's kind of about managing our socioeconomic economic system then comes learning.
So I'm talking about going down to that stuff.
So speaking of learning, I think I just heard a bell, I think I heard it in my headphones, can we hear that bell?
Oh, there it is, there it is.
Every day on bus depensals, we highlight democracy and action and today's democracy and action teacher Halle coming right out of the gate reminding us to have hope in people.
And one single savior, we have hope in people and collectively, I love how teachers join us back to this in this segment collectively.
We have hope in teachers understanding the labor conditions and what they need to do good teaching right couple of weeks ago we had.
AFT president Randy wide garden on she reminded us of the importance of organizing and supporting solidarity and labor.
And I can't help but bring back that connection that she brought up the AFT is the second largest union for nurses right and teachers nurses and teachers to feminized career.
Whether you're male identifying or female identifying, it's a feminized career and man, I can't help but get excited about women taking leadership right now.
This is exciting. It's connected to that. I don't just mean Kamala, but I mean collectively women. So today's democracy and action teacher Halle's hoping the people right connected to the core democratic value popular sovereignty.
Remember every democracy and action on bus dispensals is connected to a core democratic value in today's popular sovereignty.
The power of the government comes from its people not from individuals we elect those elections are important we're going to talk about them.
But in all of us the people and when we say that especially all of us the educators so love it teacher join a teacher Halle thank you for being here with us tonight teacher Halle thank you for next democracy and action.
That reminder it's hoping the people folks popular sovereignty locked in I love it. Thanks for being here listener stick around because we want to make sure you know that president Biden is going to deliver an old office address to the nation tonight at 7 p.m. Central stay tuned is civic media is bringing you the speech live immediately following your favorite show.
That's right busted pencils and you're listening right now so stay tuned and listen to the president because where's opening act tonight.
On the media aren't we Tim nice while I told you know they asked us if we would do the opening for the president today and I said sure that's what busted pencils is for we will gladly open for president Biden especially since he was such a patriot and agreed that it was time to.
You know exercises humility and past the church torch on and looks like that torch is going to come a Harris back to teacher Halle teacher Joanna though to this this idea of a work day and all that I know I want to stretch a little bit here and just point back to the first.
Segment saying in this realm though to the other stuff that you do teacher Joanna as we're coming into the fall though with this presidential race teacher Halle.
Are we thinking about going oh my I got to teach this stuff to on top of the fact that all of the inappropriate deep let's say all how the school day is already structured so incorrectly as you pointed out Joanna.
And now the fact is is that we've got a major presidential election happening after an assassination attempt all of this coming together how does this situate you for coming back to school with that on your to do list.
Well I will be interested to hear from the kids you know I like to hear where they're at so that I am really looking forward to is learning from them and just kind of taking in how they're seeing things how they're thinking about things because again it's not like I show up and I bring it up they show up and they bring it in.
That's what I was thinking even during your conversation about like cutting the work day down to four days or whatever the school week.
That is the piece that I continue to hear when people talk about education who aren't educators and it goes with this of like this idea that like teachers tell students everything that they need to know.
I'm like so much of what we do is way more about students bringing things to us so I hear it even with like this presidential election.
I don't have to have like the world's best like lesson plan written up for us to talk about it the kids will bring it up because they've got cell phones at their fingertips it's in their world they're curious.
And so my role is more to help navigate how do we critically think about this or the things that you're seeing what's true what's not true what makes sense to you if you are 18 and you can vote how will you go vote you know so it's less about me telling them who to vote for but it's more about like how can they critically take in all this information.
And then I'll just add one more thing that's the other reason I know that people don't really know what we're talking or like really what teaching and learning is is because I'm like even with all this stuff about us being indoctrinators I don't go up to kids and say hey I have a friend who's gay and they lay in the same bed together.
Like get them up to us from four years old till to seniors in high school with questions or sharing their experience and their lives right and so it's our job as professionals and that's what I mean like we're not viewed as professionals.
We navigate those conversations either by nipping it in the bud because sometimes it's like this isn't the conversation that we're going to have right now you know like sometimes that happens other times it's a teachable moment.
Other times it's how can we critically think about this and connect it to the lesson like there's so many ways that we can flex and adapt but none of that is talked about.
No we're talking about education because learning is really about figuring it out for yourself and we guide that but it's guiding people to figure things out for themselves but I think I brought up last week that election years are always interesting.
You know they are like I said because you kind of get to really hear where they're at and what they're hearing and so I'm looking forward to that and I'm prepared to navigate that and then I do think about helping students register to vote.
And I think it's something that kids hear about and they understand is like important but kind of like anything it's like applying to a job like I work with adolescents for decades and they're always nervous.
They're like I want a job but I don't want to fill out the application I want a job but what do I do if they want to have an interview with me you know when you walk them through that it's kind of the same thing with voting for their like I want to vote but what do I really do I want to vote you know and so we've always worked with the women the league of women voters and they do some good.
A voter registration events and so again I don't me I'm not the expert I'm not walking in saying hey kids this is how you vote but right we bring the opportunities to them or we help navigate that with them and so yeah.
Nice busted pencils fully let it education tuck educated educators talking education especially on Wednesday's educators amplifier in the house teacher Joanna teacher Halley here talking everything school day how do you make the school day better now coming into the election question.
Have you ever been asked well who you vote for Mrs. Joanna who you vote for because and then what do we do in those situations pop we're going to answer that question stay tuned.
I want to understand so finish up your drink go home finish up your drink and go home.
Education talk educated educators talking education educators amplified in the house teacher Joanna teacher Halley here and truly educated education.
There's talking education tonight all over but back to the question so you're in the classroom you're sitting there it's the election year it's November and I get I remember my fifth graders always hit that Mr.
He's like or who you're voting for my mom and dad or they were to do the other thing my dad wants to know who you're voting for really all right teacher Halley teacher Joanna how do we address that question.
Well you're right that does come up that's working with kids they and you know we work with adolescent so that's they ask about everything.
And so yeah that's always comes up and I usually just share with them I don't say who I'm voting for I'll just say here are things I think about you say oh I know my votes important to me and when I'm voting I think about the things that are important to me and my students really do know that public education.
It's very important to me and so yeah I don't directly answer the question I just share my thought process and then again sometimes I take them down memory lane about oh my gosh remember when I was your age.
This was the person who was president and this is how I went and registered you know so we I connect it but I really don't take time.
And like Halley said sometimes you're just like okay guys we're not getting into this right now we're doing whatever else but Halley what thoughts do you have on when you're asked who are you voting for.
I had very similar thoughts funny enough where usually I'll like ask a question back like do you know what things that I value so who would you think that I would vote for you know like.
Or it's still something that I'm you know like thinking about myself and then right like I'm way more interested in talking to them then about like registering to vote and helping them feel confident doing that and those are the things they actually really care about because I mean it's a fleeting question.
You can vote for whereas especially our 18 year olds or even 17 year olds are actually thinking for themselves like about voting.
So I can usually quickly like shift the conversation to like the act of voting and then it's actually something that they're interested in and then that's where I'm like all right let's talk about it like I really like to talk about like how do you vote we can practice like looking it up online.
What does your mallet look like like stuff like that.
Yeah I'm exactly I'm I'm in the same boat.
I loved that question because one it's it's a great opportunity to talk about voting and our civic responsibility as voters.
And similar met with the question of like well why you care about exactly who I vote care more about the process and I used to go into a lot of how.
How the election process works like how as a voter I get to decide in a booth I get to go into that booth or you know now in the state of Washington where I live and teach it's by male everyone votes by male so you get.
Male this thing we talk a little about about pros and cons of that because I'm a big strong supporter everyone having their.
Decision everybody has a right to make the decision their voices valued and that's an important right and it's an important responsibility we have so talk more about the process of voting and I would say again to you because it does mean something to children especially older kids that are even older that that are taking those issues I always remind them like hey I hope that your following issues that matter to you.
So the future you want to see the kind of administration you would like to see running this country and that decision knowing me as a person I would always say I bet you probably know i'm voting for I don't need to tell you because you know my politics on because we've had so many discussions on issues so really reiterating how important it is that they learn but also that we're models for them.
And again like both teacher join and teacher how he said and then and then shared in their response none of us out there are indoctrinating but we all have politics especially politics that represent the well being of children and i'm sorry in this election and in the past few elections the politics of advocating for all children are pretty clear.
Who you'd be voting for if you're supporting children and children know that you know they would ask similarly my students share all the time that how do you respond an election year to who you're voting for well you heard teacher join a teacher Halle and I share all we do it we don't tell them who we're voting for we talk about the voting process and we do lean on hey you probably you know if you know my politics you probably have a good idea who I'm voting for the other very similar question would come up a lot of do you support black left?
It doesn't matter and you know and my students always ask me that and I would say unapologetically yes and share with them the principles of that movement and why but they wanted to know the translation of that do you care do you really care about all of us our families and our communities right and that that is I hate to say it because we aren't in an electoral system where there are a lot of candidates who represent advocating for children.
It's pretty clear right how we as teachers ought to be aligning our politics with our votes so so so some ways students are checking to say hey do you care about us or not yeah well we know we know that that actually is a really significant aspect of teaching that students watch how you treat other people you know they that's right they very much pay attention to like how do you care for maybe like the people.
Who struggle the most and that sends a signal of like is this it is this safe is this comfortable do I belong does everybody belong.
And so yeah kids really pay attention to that kind of stuff but right us master educators you turn it back to them you're like the subject isn't me y'all the subject is you and your lives so we turn it back to that old.
What would I keep hearing those two on this is just John just quit to it depends like I said my fifth graders ask me you're saying when you're 16 and 17 year olds ask me and Johnny's probably more referring to undergrads of which I've also had that teaching undergrads and recognizing that there might be a different way to answer that question depending on what student is asking who is that student what age are they where are we at what are we involved in talking about you know when I was teaching social.
I was teaching social studies methods to beginning elementary school teachers I was potentially somebody would say what sounds like you're heavily indoctrinating well hey it's best the pencils and Johnny you know what's that's also great man we come up on a what a great show what's the pencils is sponsored by.
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