Public Good vs. Public Goods in Higher Ed, with Jonathan Gyurko

This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledged education talk.

Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,

educated educators talking education.

Yes, it's Busted Pencils, fully-ledged education talk,

educated educators talking education Saturday.

Oh my goodness, Saturday already.

Mike, how do we do this?

Oh, Johnny, Jess, I sometimes you get to a Saturday and you're like,

how did we get here?

All I know is that to see you guys here makes it me understand.

It's a good Saturday.

I'm happy we made it here.

Jess, Johnny, Johnny, how you doing, man?

Doing great.

I'm doing all right.

Jess, you jumping.

I'm doing great.

You know how we got here, Tim?

One day at a time.

One day at a time.

I'm just happy to be here with you all.

Johnny, how you doing?

Doing great.

I mean, it's Saturday.

So we're happy to be here.

Listener, we're happy that you're out there tuned in.

And you know, Busted Pencils with us today.

Tim, it's feeling like spring.

I know it's early in some places, but it's feeling like spring,

especially in terms of education, you know,

all the conversations around, okay,

what is really happening?

You know, brace ourselves.

It's been an onslaught of, you know, meetings and discussions

on what the upcoming school year is going to look like.

But I'm happy to have this conversation today

because, you know, even though there is a lot of change

on the horizon, it isn't always bad.

I know our initial gut reaction to a lot of the, you know,

imposed change can feel bad.

And certainly there are some suggestions

to do some things that go against what we all would agree

as, you know, best practices for all students.

But in the midst of it, I do see some exciting things happening.

And man, I'm excited for today's conversation

and listeners glad that you're here

because we're going to talk about what's that change?

And what are some of the things that we can be doing,

you know, to continue some really great work

that's happening out there.

And there's always room for improvement.

So one of our favorite guys who talks about

where we can do that improvement

and embraces change like none other,

Tim, give him an introduction.

Man, we are so happy to have him back.

Yes, from the Association of College and University

Educators, AQ.

Oh yeah, that partnership with Busted Pensals

to reminding everybody.

Jonathan Gerkho, he is back.

Jonathan, what's happening in your world, our friend?

Hey, great to be back.

Tim, Johnny Jess, it's so awesome to be with you

for your YouTube watchers.

I'm wearing my belong campus wide t-shirt

because we can't exclude anybody from this enterprise.

And we got to make sure everybody feels

as if they belong and we're serving them.

So I am proudly wearing my belong campus wide t-shirt,

which is part of a great program and partnership

we have with Marjorie Haas at the Council

of Independent Colleges, as well as Public Institution.

And Tim, Johnny Jess, I found my Thai condoroga too.

Wouldn't pencil I'm gonna bust it?

Cause it's time to bust my pencil.

All right.

That love that.

Oh my goodness.

That was totally.

We did not set Jonathan up for that.

That was great.

Is that a Thai condoroga?

Is that unprecedented?

Is that a show first?

I think so.

That could be one.

I think so.

A lot like that.

Wow.

So YouTubers, you YouTubers out there, you can see it.

In fact, maybe Jonathan is starting a trend here.

Guests right now if you're watching.

Yeah, bring your own pencil.

Maybe we'll have to find out if there's a budget for us

to send pencils out to our guests.

I don't know.

Jess is kind of.

What do you think, Jess?

Just scratching your chin there.

I can send an email.

You know, but oh, Jonathan, Jonathan, great piece out in medium.

Lots of different places.

We're going to definitely get to that.

But before we do, though, Jonathan, got to get your read on, yeah, the kind of where

we are at this moment.

You know, this is we're coming off the week where the Department of Education was literally

cut in half and Linda McMahon pull out admitted in one of the interviews I saw that, yes,

this is the beginning of the end and the end of the Department of Education.

I just wonder what you're thinking.

What does this mean?

You know, is AQ hearing this, colleagues, give us a sense of the world from your point

of view?

Well, what's happening will hurt families and children and students full stop, full

stop.

Right?

You, let's entertain, which isn't, it doesn't deserve entertain, but let's entertain

for the moment that the Department of Education was overstaffed.

We know it wasn't because it had been running on, on skeleton crews and what have you.

No way was there bureaucratic bloke to 50 percent.

That's just nonsense.

And what that means, K-12, when a Title I coordinator needs some help to solve a little

problem or a little glitch, there's going to be nobody to call.

And Title I going back to Lyndon Johnson, we know that history is one of the most important

and successful anti-poverty in education programs in this country's history.

And one of my favorite champions for social justice through economic justice, Reverend

William Barber.

He leads the poor people's movement.

He's now at Yale Divinity, after doing extraordinary work nationwide and in North Carolina.

He has to make sure there are 40 million Americans officially in poverty.

But when you add the number of people, $500 away, right?

You need to change your tires, the surprise bill, $500 away from poverty.

And number balloons to 140 million Americans of every race and creed.

And in fact, there are many, many more white poor Americans than there are poor Americans

of any other race or ethnicity.

So it's going to hurt families.

Similarly, I got a chance to listen to Scott Jasek last week, former co-founder and writer

editor of Inside Higher Red.

I call him Jasek Unleashed now because he's retired and he can finally speak his mind.

And he said, a $900 billion cut to Medicaid, that is a different country.

That's not hurt or just a little bit of or belt tightening.

That is a less healthy company.

So what's happening right now is going to hurt families, it's going to hurt students.

You look at higher red, the cuts to funding right now, it's focused on research.

It hasn't yet touched Pell or Stafford.

But what do you call when there's a little glitch in the Pell status or the loan or blah blah blah.

And similarly with research for a century, America led the world in the most cutting

ed research that has made the planet more healthy and flourishing.

And yes, we have our problems, economic inequality and environmental degradation.

And do we think we can solve those without research and innovation?

I doubt it.

And we will not lead the world.

I don't know who will lead the world because we also need democracy.

We need an open society.

We need a place where new ideas can flourish for new research to develop, to make the

world a more flourishing place.

And are there other democracies with the resources to lead that kind of cutting ed, life saving,

humanity saving research?

No, the answer is there is not.

So this is not a good time.

Oh, Johnny, what do you have to do?

All right, I mean, that's what we're going to do is we're going to figure out what it

is that we do to make our way through this mass because it is a mass and I like the Jonathan

you know, laid it out really simply.

This is the news that we're hearing, the changes at the federal level, the impact that that

has on our state levels and then that does trickle down to our local schools.

This stuff does hurt children, families and community.

It is not supporting a stronger democracy.

It's making it harder for everybody, especially those who need it the most.

I love the reference to title one, hey, just for our listener who's tuned in, when we

talk about this education stuff, if you're not familiar, title one, right, is a program

that Jonathan talked about it, introduced by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, but title one is

essentially, you know, you know, the allocation of federal funding to be used for educational

programming and services for those who need it, those who need it the most.

So really helping our children experiencing poverty, families experiencing poverty, part

of a war on poverty, not a war on the poor.

And you know, the ship that we're seeing right now, we talked about it in the show where

here this week, Tim, it seems like all this stuff, when we boil it down, it's not so

much that it's against DEI because we can prove till we're blue in the face that all

of these efforts have actually included more students, right, which is the goal here.

How do we benefit all people in democracy?

But you know, it's more of attacking and making it harder on the working families of this

country.

And that's where this stuff's going to hit the artist.

So it's a sad day in terms of that.

And then there's never a silver lining in these kind of rollbacks, but you know, we're

in a response and a reframe mode in education where we start to embrace, okay, if those are

the changes, then what do we need to do?

And part of that is advocating that those were really important essential programs and

fundings and staff positions.

So hopefully that we can advocate loudly, certainly we've captured that, you know, there

are lawsuits filed by unions.

There are responses to this that are appropriate to say, hey, these are actually really important

aspects of supporting a strong public education system.

And that is essential to democracy.

So you know, where do we turn it now towards what do we do in the trenches, you know, in

these coming days, but especially as we're planning for next year, what do we do as teachers

to be our best educators?

And that's at all levels.

Absolutely, man, it's busted pencils fully let it education talk.

Our guest, Jonathan Garco from the Association of College and University educators.

Yeah, before we get to his piece, he's got a great piece in medium.

We're going to get there higher education, though, too.

We started talking about this, Jonathan, before we get into the piece when we come back,

let's talk a little bit about how the Department of Ed and higher education, what are the going

to be the ramifications?

More busted pencils when we get back here.

That's all we do here, we teach you how to fly, busted pencils, only let it, education,

educated educators, talking education, put it out there, yeah, still the best bumper

music of any show out there.

Thank you, producer Jess, just makes me, you know, even when we're talking about the things

we're talking about, you come back in with a song like that, you're like, okay, maybe

we got this, maybe we got this, we do, we have our great friend, Jonathan Garco coming

back to visit to say, hello, talk about things, how they're going, also it's got a piece

in medium, we're going to get to that.

We were talking, though, oh man, 50% of the Department of Education gone, what are the

implications, a little bit about title one, communities, children, all of that, Jonathan,

I think so too, particularly in your role in with AQ, higher education, maybe in our

circles, we know there's an impact in the Department of Education and what's happening

there.

But for my neighbor who might hear this and say, well, this is K12, I don't know what

colleges are concerned about, what are you hearing from higher education in the standpoint

of what are our colleagues in higher education making of this moment?

Yeah, yeah, look, the fear of the anxiety is real, by the way, sidebar, Jess, love the

music.

I have more often been introduced and outroed with the theme song from the Dick Van Dyke

show.

So I much prefer, I much prefer your musical.

So I had the real honor to speak out the closing plenary last week of the National Association

of System Head.

So these are the systems that educate 75% of all the students in baccalaureate public programs

and a very large percentage of the community colleges.

So in one room, you've got just a huge segment of the sector.

But of course, a lot of anxiety about the lawsuits, the defunding research and otherwise.

But my message, and you know, there is a positive point here, but we have to step back and

look at the conditions that created these politics and our responsibility in creating those

conditions.

And what are they?

Well, there are 37 million Americans with some college, but no degree.

They tried it.

And for whatever reason, they said, you know, it's not worth it.

We lose on average when you take the weighted average of community college high and baccalaureate

enrollment, half of our students, we have a 50% dropout rate.

Not only 2.6% of them ever enroll according to National Student Clearing House.

So those are people saying, you know, I'm not sure it was worth it.

You add on top of that two thirds of Americans who are saying, I only see little or no value

in higher red.

Those are not winning constituencies.

And my apologies when you talk to a political scientist, every problem looks like a political

problem, but that is not a winning constituency.

So my question is, how do we rebuild the constituency in support of education and higher education?

So the thesis I posed to the group is that lived value.

Our value is not in another report about our economic impact, but lived value is in class.

Distribute value is at the point of delivery when a student has an amazing class and goes

home, tells their parents or a Thanksgiving, tells Drunk Uncle, it's awesome.

College is awesome, it's worth it.

And that is in our control to ensure that the quality of teaching and learning, the core

of what we do, is of the highest quality it possibly can be and guess what, it's universal.

But teaching isn't for this group of students or that group of students, sure, some students

benefit more.

If I didn't have a great high school education, I'm going to benefit more from somebody

who's already an A student is sort of hitting the ceiling, but every student benefits,

and this is corridor work in our control, I think it's also safe politics.

What I am encouraging is higher ed, don't be distracted by the noise.

Focus on signal, what is real? Dan Greenstein, the phenomenal former chancellor of the Pashy

system, Tim, he said history, rules of thought are what is it? Let's just understand what it is

that's coming at us. Two, doesn't matter, right? I mean, and if we can't say yes to two,

then we don't go to three, which is what do we do about it? That can help us avoid a lot of the

noise from the signal. And while the fans are telling us to stop doing a lot of things,

what we can do is ensure excellence in every class.

Johnny, jump in there, man. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And as a teacher and as a college

professor too, so I get the double down teaching teachers, that's what we do, right? We take an oath to

do no harm, to do the least amount of harm in our classrooms and to do excellent teaching.

The best we know that that's possible. And so we're going to continue to do that.

But I think there's an important kind of pivot, a shift right now. And Jonathan, you help us

put language to that. How do we focus on those great things that are that all students are benefiting

from that are helping to make our classrooms great spaces to be a learner? And that, you know,

that that's not just happening by by circumstance, just like because of a policy chance,

it's happening because great teachers work hard to be even better. And they're going to keep doing that.

So I love how you're phrasing that. I love some of the things that you're pointing us towards as

educators. Like, hey, these are things that we know are working and that we're going to continue

to do. So how do we begin to, you know, take note of those, discuss them, have accountability for

them in a way that that helps ensure that they will continue to be best practices, not only just

in higher ed, but all through all of our schools. Yeah. Man. Well, John, let's go ahead, comment.

Well, another dimension of this, and we can get into the op-ed in insight higher ed, or maybe

after the break, you know, was provocatively titled higher ed is not a public good, but it could

be. Right. But a core idea there, and it's in my book publicization, which you've been great

champion. So is this notion of exclusion, right? The war against the EI was getting really,

really hot as I was writing as the book was coming out. And so the book, I'm not sure you'll find

the word include everyone inclusion in it. What you do find is we can't exclude, because as soon

as we exclude, we make something more private than public. And I think if we stay in this notion of

let's not exclude anyone, we're also in political safe harbor. Ah, well, we're going to talk a lot

more about that. Yeah, it's busted pencils fully, let it education talk, educated, educators talking

education, our guest, actually our friend, Jonathan Garco here from the Association of College

and University Educators, that's a queue. Yeah, they are two also great partners of the show of

busted pencils. When we get back to, yeah, let's talk about this, you know, exclusion if we're not

for it and what does inclusion in higher ed mean back in a minute.

We've got our friend, that's right, our friend and our guest Jonathan Garco here, author publicization,

also recent author, I mean, always putting stuff out there, we appreciate it, but recent author of

a op ed piece that we're going to dive into a little more closely. But love where we left off

before the break listener, if you're just tuning in to bring things up to speed, we've been discussing

kind of the state of education, you know, in this nation, especially when it comes to the importance

of including everybody and a democracy and that education by and large, we assume so often is a

public good, but higher education isn't necessarily, I mean, we could probably say it isn't a public good

in terms of how it's accessed by folks in this country. And when we begin to think about this,

when we talk about democracy, folks, right, we can boil down to every democracy has some

some signifying characteristics to it. It's that everyone has a voice and that voice is valued.

Everybody has a responsibility to participate in that all interests, all decisions are made in

the interest of the common good. So we left off in the last segment, kind of with a statement

that I agree with, Jonathan, that what we don't want to do as teachers or as leaders in education,

especially in higher ed, is get into the practice of being exclusionary. And right now we're in this

either or with the, you know, attack on DEI. So don't do inclusion. It's like, hold on. So don't do

democracy, because including everybody is a fundamental premise of being part of a democracy.

So I've said it before in here, it's a war of language words right now, but they're really

important. And what we don't want to do is get into the practice of being exclusionary.

That's anti-democratic. And we left off saying, you know, that's a, that's a harbor. We don't

necessarily want our boats in as good educators, right? We don't want to get into the practice of

being exclusionary. And so I want to, Jonathan, can you elaborate a bit on that? You know, how do we

avoid becoming more exclusionary or how do we work towards higher education as a public good?

Yeah. Well, thanks for setting up the question so well. You know, I think Americans, we Americans

have a funny relationship with things that are exclusive, right? We love to be in our special

clubs and maybe even our gated communities. And that feels fancy. It feels exclusive.

But how dare you exclude me from something? I'm an American, right? I have the same rights as

anybody else. Well, which one is it, my friend? And you know, those stats I rattled off in the

last segment, you know, I think it suggests this notion of, hey, it's not for me. I feel excluded

from this for whatever reasons. So I wrote this piece in inside higher ed, titled higher ed

is not a public good, but it could be for a couple reasons. First, the American Association of

College and in universities was about to have its annual conference. The theme was higher education

as a public good. So, you know, I like to be provocative and mix things up a little bit. So that

was intentionally timed. But I've also sensed a lot of virtue signaling sort of chest thumping

of we're a public good, we're a public good. Well, no, we're not if what we do is right with

exclusionary practices. So if I have to apply that long time on our tradition is an opportunity

to say no, it's an opportunity to exclude very different from what I think is a genius new

approach. Direct admit. Direct admit, hey, you've got the grades. And we've automatically admitted

you to half a dozen colleges in this state. What a welcoming non exclusionary practice. Here's

another one. We know transfer from community college to baccalaureate is riddled with problems,

credit reviews, the time, the delay blah, blah, blah, why not blanket auto accept auto accept the

credits. If we stand behind what we do in the in the community colleges, then then why wouldn't we

auto admit nudge it in the opposite direction and put the burden on the receiving institution to

perhaps knock some credits out, but not have to accept every credit in cost is an obvious

excluder. If it's free or nearly free or if the debt is retireable in this economy, right? So

I'm not saying freeze the only option if the debt is manageable and retireable. That's less

exclusionary. If the cost is prohibitive, it's not for me. So I think there are all sorts of things

that higher ed can do to be more public, more non exclusionary, and as the piece argues, to be more

good. And that's my parochial interest in let's let's make sure every moment of teaching and learning

is good, good teaching, good learning. And then is it a public good? Yeah, it's a public good

in the economic sense. It's also more public. It's also more good. I'm a fan of goodter. I love

things when they're good. You know, I know, come on, Mr. But Jonathan too, the, again, the language

to put it out there is is that, you know, the attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion,

you know, this kind of comes back to how we and maybe even in higher education,

how we do talk about things intentionally. And you say like, you know, as you point out,

Americans quote like to have exclusion, but at the same time are very abrasive towards being

excluded. And you know, if we talked in a way to say, so you want us to exclude your child,

your grandson, your niece, your next door neighbor, I mean, like, well, gosh, no, and say, okay,

then yeah, you know, this is what we're talking about. So when you hear the word inclusion,

yeah, I don't want to get all twisted up and caught into, you know, like, quote, language policing.

But you say our own self-inflicted wounds also typically come from our inability to reframe

sometimes the language that people use against to take good job and jump.

Yeah, I mean, what's the equivalent of our Walmart reader?

Right. Do who is our Walmart reader that says, come on in, let's get you learning.

Yeah, I mean, maybe some of the online competency based, you can start any time you want.

Come on in, let's get you in class. Let's get you some learning.

Right. And I say that with respect, I teach every term and I try to build a 15 week learning arc,

the time matters, the learning journey matters. Somebody couldn't bomb into week four.

And be on that same journey. So it's, I don't mean to oversimplify, but how do we remove those

exclusionary barriers? That said, I think we can reframe. I think we've got a lot of policies to do

to win back and rebuild back our coalition. But let's not confuse what is in our control

and what will never be in our control. We can look at the whole history of the United States,

the Hofstadter's famous book about anti-intellectualism in American life.

Intellectuals are always an easy target. Places of new ideas and dissenting ideas are always

a populist target over the centuries. That may be our cross to bear and let's bear it proudly

because that is what we do in a free and open and democratic society.

Yeah, absolutely. Thinking about that. So pivot then, Jonathan, the only top of the inside

higher ed piece, you got another piece out here too, that teaching in this moment,

the one thing on which we can all agree, every student deserves a world class education.

Yeah, right? I mean, a nice quick read here, though, and I love that. We'll definitely have a

link to it in the podcast show description so the people can check it out. But we can control that.

And in fact, is this all the way back to the beginning of the show? And he said,

you know, and is this one of those things that helps create a narrative of what about higher education

is is good or? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I maybe I lack imagination because all I think about is

a Q and quality teaching. But my goodness, if there's one thing we can do is make sure every student

experiences great teaching has the opportunity for great learning. It is a universal. I don't know

how you attack it. Quality for all, a great education for all. Although I don't underestimate

enemies of higher ed to find clever ways. But I think it's it's one of these things like

a motherhood and American flag and apple pie.

Jonathan, what you're thinking about that, though, too, putting this, yeah, we can always

be better. As you said, yeah, I'm sure that there could be other ways that people who want to attack

could find an attack. But but the idea too, I want to go back to another kind of description or

scene you created that that that student that's son that nephew that grandson at the table at

Thanksgiving during Thanksgiving break, talking about a wonderful experience they had with Dr.

Solanso and wow, I never met like those are the things that actually, you know, there's a branding

there, right? That that faculty could own in ways and this comes back to to the work that AQ

and what you do with AQ is really setting up much better teaching. So, I don't know, John.

That's the goal. You know, there's a famous, I think it's one of the more durable statistics in K-12

research that I hate public education. I love my child school. And we may not be able to overcome

that in higher ed, either depending on the mood, the gestalt of the moment on higher ed,

indoctrination, encampments versus, oh, I love my, you know, go bears, go dragons down the street.

Right. That said, you know, politics are local. You've heard the expression retail politics,

street level politics. If I help my students as a teacher, professor, leader, have a great class,

you know, I share that with my friends. I share that with my parents. I share that with my family.

We are, we're building our loyalty. We're building our constituency.

Simple as that, such that when I vote, when I get called on a public opinion poll,

that's what's in my head. Oh, yeah, my nephew. My nephew's loving it.

Right. Can that overcome the mainstream media pounding away certain memes and themes?

I think so. I want to hope so. If nothing else, it's in our control to certify professors in AQ.

There are other ways to do it. We're pretty proud of our approach and it's proven

to partner with institutions and to see great teaching flourish. How, how's college? It's great.

It's great. It's for me. It's worth it. I love that. It's for me. That that sense of saying,

you know, you're down the corner. I'm visiting my parents here in Pittsburgh right now. And,

you know, kind of in one of the areas outside of Pittsburgh that, you know, is still here.

It is in 2025 suffering from the collapse of the steel mills. And with that, so many families and

children here, still that could benefit from an inclusion, an access to education, higher education,

particularly. Jonathan, man, we love having you on the show. I love being on the show. Thank you.

We love it. Hey, you know what? Hey, guess what? Tim and Johnny, we'll try to figure this out.

When we get back

Oh, yeah. You know it. It's supposed to pencils and we're back fully-led education talk,

educated educators talking education. Man, truly too. Our guest for the show was Jonathan

Gerkho, president and founder of the association of college and university educators, book publicizations,

all kinds of stuff in inside higher education and his new piece in medium.

Love having Jonathan on the show, Johnny, you know, again, we seem to talk about this moment. This

moment continues to need to be talked about and talked about because guess what? The moments are

changing. Really leaned into the very beginning of this, though, too, is that, you know, this is the

what according to Linda McMahon is the beginning of the end of the department of education with

50% of the staff now out of a job and getting Jonathan's kind of insight and then, you know, higher

education. So I love having Jonathan on, Johnny. It's always such a fun show.

Always, man, and I love anytime we get together with our listeners and we talk about what's

working in schools and remember that there's a lot of really great teachers out there.

Oh, man, you know, lots of great, you name it. It's out there. Lots of things. Lots of great learning,

lots of great work that's being done. Yeah. Oh, Johnny, you know, we'll get them back, though.

Yeah, Johnny, I was thinking about that when you say there's so much great, there are so many great

things going on. Yeah, man, you're back to finish your thought there, dude. I mean,

I have no idea what's going on today with the technology. I was here then. It was blank screen.

So I was just saying, just remember that all of great work that's happening out there in classrooms

and in schools and school leaders who are getting together. And I like how Jonathan said it today

to really think about what would it mean to have all of our education accessible and part of a

public good and that that's really important and that there's really great work out there.

And that education is part of a government responsibility. So I mean, I think voters have even

showed us that. Remember, like a bipartisan voting in really red counties and parts of our country

voted in favor of supporting public schools. So to see this administration really hurt that good

work that's happening or to even threaten the support for even more good work is dangerous.

It's sad to see, but I know that teachers are going to continue to be doing the great work

that they're doing and getting better at it all the time. So we just need to figure out how to

line things up and support it. I think, you know, and this is the conversation, too, that we have,

you know, truly with our neighbors to say, this is what we're trying to do here. You know,

every week on busted pencils, whether you're listening to the podcast on Monday, Wednesday,

Friday, if you're listening to this full hour of busted pencils on Saturdays downloading it,

however you're doing. But, you know, we're having these conversations that hopefully frame things

in ways that as you're out, you know, taking the dog for a walk at the kids' little league game.

And, you know, somebody steps up and says, wow, did you see how the Department of Education today

was reduced by 50 percent? And you can enter that conversation from the standpoint, what we don't

want to do is get uptight and defensive and, well, you know, and attack back in a way we want to,

not, you know, we want to be able to have a conversation with our neighbors, with our good friends,

with our brother-in-laws, with all of them to say, yeah, you know, and like, there are some things

concern me when we start hearing about, you know, massive cutting because, you know,

in my kids' school, this is really going to affect the special education students of which

really benefit from a thriving, which had, there's never been a thriving Department of Education.

And I'm concerned so we can talk about it in ways that are healthy that allow us to have

conversations so that, you know, everything isn't an attack and a defense, Johnny.

I think that's what I really, you know, like all of our guests, too, kind of come on and give us

ways to just say, you know what? Let's talk about this in a way that isn't a defense or an attack,

but let's have a conversation, you know, let's have a beer, let's have an iced tea,

let's have a veggie taco, whatever it is, right, just like, but we can engage, I don't know,

Johnny, you know, too much? No, man, it's never too much to stop and say, hey, let's have a taco.

I'm here for that. I mean, no, also, I really like where this whole conversation is going.

How do we keep pivoting and working together to strengthen democracy, regardless,

remember, don't obey it advance, work together, build solidarity, build trust, and keep doing

that great work that you're all doing out there. Yeah, make sure you do that because that's

what we do every week here at Busted Fensils, you know, makes me just kind of feel like we're

doing good work here and engaging. You say, Johnny, you always point out dancing in rough times.

Well, yeah, that's what we're going to do. We're going to sing and we're going to dance

because, hey, you know what? That's what Busted Fensils is for. And Jess is always going to be bringing

us that most incredible, awesome dance music. Let's call it that, or as Jonathan was trying to say,

you know, a little bit of head banging for the old people. And now for your moment of zin.

If we want to have an effect on the world, we need to emphasize those things which will make

students more active citizens and more moral people.

Thanks for listening to Busted Fensils today. And remember to grab great podcasts,

chock full of more fully-ledged education talk on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and of course on

the civic media website, or on BustedPensils.com. Hey, don't you be late for home room on Monday,

and make sure you catch next week's class and session on Wednesday. And you find us for

free throws and face-offs on Fridays. And of course, just like today, catch Busted Pensils

at 3 p.m. Central time across all the civic media network stations for an hour of your favorite

blue-collar scholars, Tim and Johnny, and keep Busted Pensils.