This is Busted Pencils.
Fully Letted Education Talk.
Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,
educated educators talking education.
Ah, yeah, there it is, Busted Pencils.
Fully Letted Education Talk,
educated educators talking education.
Once they classes in session, Johnny Lupinacci called off,
hey, he's a dad, Jess, and you know, sometimes dad called to take care of their kids.
So we know everything's fine.
His daughter had a little bump.
It sounds like in cheer practice, but he had to go, but it's okay,
because you and I have held this position many times.
Oh, yeah, world pros.
We have a great show.
We return guests actually from the live show.
Been looking forward to having this conversation with her.
In fact, I'm just going to jump right into a she is a professor of education
and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati,
where she explores issues of political agency, democracy,
and equity in schools.
She is the co-editor of democracy and education and has served as the president
of both the Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society
and the John Dewey Society.
Her work has earned her numerous accolades,
including the University of Cincinnati's Jack Twyman Award for Service Learning
and the Distinguished Teaching Award.
Welcome back to Busted Pencils,
Dr. Sarah Stitzline.
Sarah, how are you?
I'm doing great.
Happy to be here tonight.
We love you coming back here because we just got to really engage a little bit
the last time when you were on the live show.
We're really talking about teaching honesty in a populist era,
emphasizing truth and the education of citizens.
I'm just going to, you know, kind of before we get into the book, though,
we're in the political season, Sarah.
Right now, there are, you know, there's a lot of news occurring around what's happening.
Maybe there might even be some kind of like some kind of voting thing in November
that's occurring.
Yeah, something something big seems to be going out.
At least all the TV commercials I'm seeing to just something's up.
How is it when you come on, you know, and you're watching just as a citizen
and you're seeing the ads and you're watching the debates
and you're hearing God forbid the commercials because I know you're in Ohio like me
and I'm in Ohio OMG.
If I get one more marino.
Oh, my goodness.
Right.
Our Senator Sherrod Brown, you know, it's like, they are tight.
Yes.
Yeah.
But from your standpoint, though, too, honesty and truth.
How does that work when this is such a value of yours
and you're watching during election season?
Tell me how a scholar like you kind of interprets the
citizen, the citizen Sarah.
It's hard, but I'll start with the example you were running with.
So we've got this big election in Ohio.
We've got marino and brown.
And so Sherrod Brown has started to kind of make a joke
about some of the things that the marino ads are saying about him.
So he has this commercial now where it's all him pretending to do the things
that were made up about him.
So like, he's kind of like making fun of lies
or misinformation about him.
And so we've reached this point now where we're actually making fun
of the extent of incorrect, inaccurate information.
We say about people in political commercials.
Would you say, is it this honesty inaccurate?
I mean, are we, when we try to, you know, hover or, you know, tiptoe around,
well, it's an exaggeration, it's an extension.
I mean, for example, okay, so yeah, there's the Senate race in Ohio.
But, you know, the big race that's happening for the president,
you've got the one time that F and G, that guy, you know, running against Kamala Harris.
And I'm sure you watched the debate and the, you know,
the fact checking that's gone across there.
I mean, you know, one of the candidates, that fucking guy,
let's be honest and say who we're talking about.
I mean, talk about this honesty and no truth.
I mean, lying.
Yeah.
How do you deal with that as a scholar in this realm?
So here's the thing, right?
We're often quick to like, wag our finger at Trump or others like him and say,
like, stop lying.
You know, like, we kind of like give them like,
we get upset with them because they're being bad.
They're, they're being immoral when they lie like that.
But that doesn't really give any motivation to actually change the behavior.
So what I am trying to do in my work is to help show why lying is a problem.
Let's put the focus instead on the civic outcomes.
What's it risk for our democracy and our ability to solve social problems together
because of lies that get told?
So like, go back to the debate, right?
Trump stands up there.
He starts talking about atrocities occurring in Springfield.
And supposedly these pets are being consumed.
And by golly, you know, we need to come down hard on these immigrant communities
who are at fault.
There was real civic consequences as a result of what we said.
We had bomb threats.
We had 33 different bomb threats called in schools that were closed down.
The university, a small liberal arts college in the town was closed down.
We had neo-Nazi white supremacist groups who were marching through the streets last weekend.
That sort of stuff is a result of amplifying lies that were already floating out there in the media
before, pardon me, in I should say social media, before Trump picked it up and elevated it at the
the debate, that's where I want to draw attention.
Like, what's on the line when we say those lies?
It's just pointing fingers at Trump and saying knock it off or you're a bad person.
It doesn't change the behavior.
It doesn't change the behavior.
You're in your right.
It's not going to.
We know this is just what it's going to.
And it doesn't change voters' minds at this point too, right?
But I think of this going back to our roles as educators.
And particularly, you know, being an old social studies teacher commitment to, you know,
the civic mission of schools and really pointing in this, you know, and in democracy and a place
for this whole idea of honesty and truth.
And I got to think my job is challenging as a teacher to really instill this value of honesty
when our kids are watching what you and I just talked about nonstop.
And they're seeing models that say truth honesty.
No, that doesn't matter.
So maybe let's start there.
How does your, you know, put that in there.
Help an educator understand the connection to why they don't give up on honesty and the truth.
Yeah.
So I guess part of it is my faith in the local, the small.
And what I'm thinking here is the ability to model in a classroom for and with students
to show them democracy and honesty and action, right?
So when they're making decisions in their classroom, when they're picking up local issues that are of
issue or a matter to them, those are the moments when those students can have a firm for them
that honesty matters, that it has real civic implications, that it shapes the decisions that they
can make together as they try to take up and solve social problems.
So while on the national stage or the state Senate race,
those things are our weighty and certainly meaningful.
But I keep wanting to pull us back to those local small communities of inquiry in our schools
and in our communities so that we can see it in action.
We can see where honesty is working.
Well, and so maybe this is where, you know, part of what you're saying, you use this term truth
seekers and helping students become truth seekers.
Oh, okay, I'm, you know, I'm going to be a practical.
My next door neighbor is going, Sarah, okay, how do I do that?
How do I help students become truth seekers?
Yeah, so I mean, part of it is a commitment to inquiry that we're going to try to figure
this out together and how do we do that?
Right? So part of it is empirical inquiry.
We've got to get out there and find information, facts, data, whatever it might be to help us
sort through the problems or discrepancies, the inaccuracies in the world.
Part of it's gathering perspectives, talking to other people.
Does this match up with your life or your experiences?
Does this affirm your outlook and collaborating, putting all of that together,
triangulating all that information so that we can start to sift out what's wrong, what's false,
what's inaccurate, and what we have left becomes a kernel of truth.
I'm not saying it is always perfect truth or that we have something that's kind of a subjective kind
of truth, but collectively we can seek something that is better, that's clear, more accurate,
in a more fair representation of our world.
I like that idea too. It's just a little bit more accurate and kind of coming to this because
that whole idea, that discussion of objective truth and we're going to get right back to that.
Just think about it. Hey, listener, you're downloading this podcast, you're jumping in,
you're like, man, Sarah, she's talking to some, hey, guess what? We have a mail bag with the
podcast 608-557-8577. Any of you out there right now listening, hey, and you're thinking,
I got a great question. I would love to ask Sarah. I would love to ask Tim.
Let us know because we're going to be opening that mail bag on a regular occasion and trying to
answer all of the questions and also reading the suggestions. And you know what, too, even if you
have some criticism, let's make it suggestions on how we can make this show better. We would love
to hear from you, 608-557-8577. All right, so I'm still, I'm going to push on, not pushing,
because there's nothing I disagree with with you here. But as we, the times, the times that we
live in, I was wondering, too, the description you said, just engaging in that practice, I can hear
some of my, you know, I remember teaching social studies methods to potentially future teachers.
And, you know, again, all of this, what's happening in the present matters, their lived experiences.
And I could hear a couple of my, you know, students from the rural, outback areas where that they
came from. They're going to be go out and go back to a lot of them. We're going to teach in those
public schools where they came from. And even the discussion of truth-seeking, objective truth,
discussions about what is truth, I wonder if some of those students feel that in this current moment,
that's controversial and how we engage our students into even saying like, wait, discussions
about what is true. How do we say that is what you do? And no, yes, it may be controversial. God
forbid. But that's the work you're supposed to do. Yeah, that's the work we have to do to prepare
citizens for our democracy today. We can't keep preparing them for some idealized version of
democracy that's functioning smoothly where everyone tells the truth at all times where we can trust
and rely on everyone. I would love it if that were the way things are, but it's not. So we have to
engage our students in the real messiness of democracy going on outside of our school walls right
now. And to think otherwise is really to deprive those children of opportunity to not prepare them
to be good citizens if we hold back and exposing them to controversies. So yeah, bring it on,
you know, let's take up those challenges and help students learn how to navigate them.
I just, yeah, because it's frightening as the word, I don't know. It's just, sometimes it's kind
of depressing when I hear the reality that my students are living in and their experience in saying,
yeah, but, you know, I mean, we're not, we got to be careful when we're teaching slavery. We got
a, you know, I've even heard, sadly, I know they didn't mean it, but, you know, I got to kind of
teach a balance when it comes to slavery. And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Wait,
what balance? Where, you know, and they're not really saying there's an alternative to slavery
that they need to teach what they're hearing is the media attacks on whether it's critical race,
theory, revision, quote, revisionist history. And they're just kind of engaging in a conversation
themselves and saying, hey, but I heard I have to present both sides of slavery if I'm going to do
it. You're like, whoa, we have gone really out of bounds because that's not at all what we've
said in this. And even these quote, legislation, legislation that has put forward the attack on,
quote, let's just say the attack on history. Sorry, teachers and students engaging in truth
isn't against the law. Right. So that was more of a tim pontificating there. Sorry about that,
because we're here for Tim. That's right. You don't need me. What does listen to this?
No, no, no, no, we need you Sarah. Yeah, we need you Sarah. So
so the hard part of this is it's it's they're hearing this in media, but they're also hearing
it from parents and teachers are increasingly afraid of that pushback from parents. It's worse
in purple communities than it is in communities that are all red or all blue. Of course, no
communities usually all red or all blue, but strongly one way or the other. And those the teachers
in those purple communities that are facing the most pushback when they take up these more political
or controversial issues in their classrooms. So part of what we can do is support them in that
endeavor, reminding folks in those communities, why that kind of work matters, why it's important
for children to be exposed to competing perspectives and to have to sift through them and
figure out the truth of the situation. And come back to what I see as the fundamental civic
question. What should we do? What should we do? Right. That's the question we ask whenever we're
facing some kind of shared public problem. It's the question that we ask whenever we have to just
figure out how to live together and get along in society. What should we do to answer that sort of
question? We have to sort through some of the controversies that have us divided. We can't ignore
them. We can't sweep them under the rug. We have to come up with workable solutions that people can
get on board with or we're just going to keep going at each other, combating each other.
Jess, I see you dropped a little question there in the comments. I do have a question.
Jump on. Well, Sarah, you're in Ohio. I'm in Wisconsin. This will be, you know,
sent all around Wisconsin and all around the world, but especially in these really deeply
purple areas like Ohio, like Wisconsin. Do you see any trend lines, any shifting of a pendulum
when it comes to teaching truth, teaching honesty with regards to politics? Do you see this becoming
sort of a hot button issue during these presidential election years? Or is this something that's just
always at a constant need that we need to be addressing this and there's always this level,
you know? Yeah, I mean, it certainly ratchets up during big elections, right? Because we see
people on the stage and we're fact checking them. But I think what we have to come back to is that
folks on both ends of the political spectrum are advocates for honesty and truth, right? They may
not agree about what the other side sees as truth and honesty, but both hold that those are
important values. So that's where we have to come back to. Okay, these matter to both of us.
So if we disagree on what the facts are, then let's sort out what are the facts? Let's figure it out
together. And if we have that commitment to truth seeking to trying to find and discover that truth
together, then we'll go where that discussion follows or where that discussion leads, whether it's
controversial, whether it's political, we have to go there to find those answers to those questions.
So yeah, it's worse during elections, but it's there all the time. And we have to use that
commitment that honesty matters and people care about it. Wonder with that one. Yeah,
Dress, thank you. That was a great question. But what you just said, it may be in elections. Yeah,
it's really ramped up. But the reality is is that outside of that is how we really emphasize
those values of truth and honesty. And in fact, let's not wait for elections. And this is something
that we're we're supposed to be doing every day all the time anyway. I would think right, Sarah.
Definitely. With with the book to teaching honesty in a populist era, emphasizing truth
in the education of citizens, this one or two, you know, it's you've you've had it out.
It's been published any feedback that you've received or you went, whoa, I didn't I didn't I didn't
realize I wrote something that made you think that. Yeah. So interestingly, it was about to come
out, came out in August. This would have been around early July, maybe June. I started to second
guess the way I positioned the book. And I sent out the first 10 pages, only the first 10 pages,
to various friends and colleagues across the political spectrum. And I said, how do you
feel about what you see here? Would you continue reading? Does this peak your interest?
And I got some really strong pushback from some of my Republican and libertarian friends and
colleagues who were saying, nope, you led with January 6th. And we are just not on the same page
about whether it was lies and dishonesty that caused January 6th or not. And so for me,
that was a real check moment because it did feel like there was a lot of certainty to me about
January 6th. And I had to remove that as the opening story to set the tone for the book because
I didn't want to lose any members of my audience. So I had to I had to approach it as realizing that
some things that appeared to be settled were not settled. And so that we had to get into that
space within the book and you know, embrace the controversy as part of through seeking.
I mean, that sounds like in one way too that that really opens the door for more people to engage
then. Yeah. And that that was my goal in sharing it. I wanted it to be more open. And I work hard
to position myself as someone who's working across the party lines. Sarah, such an awesome conversation.
We love you being on the shows. I guess I want to get the book where do I go? Where do I find it?
You can go to Oxford University Press website. That's the main publisher. But of course,
you also find it at bookstores, Amazon, hopefully your local book seller carries it also.
And again, you are at the University of Cincinnati too. If people want to check you out,
you know, we'll also in the show notes. We'll have a link to Sarah that you can send her.
Oh, you send us an email again too. We would love to hear from you. Give us a call and let us know.
Drop something in the mail bag. 608557 8577 questions that we have for Sarah.
Questions that you have for Tim. Questions that you have for Jess. And yeah,
even if you want to check in on Johnny's daughter, that would be great.
It is busted pencils. It's fully-ledged education talk in our guest, Sarah Stitsline.
Sarah, thank you for busting pencils. Happy to be here. Take care.
And now it's time for your moment of Zen.
But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is to tell the truth.
Thanks everybody for busting pencils. Make sure you tune in Friday for another first
downs Friday nights. We've got a great guest from the WIAA. Hey, where do those referees come from?
We're going to find out. Thanks for busting pencils.