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Busted pencils, fully-led education talk, educated educators, talking education.
Me, Dr. Tim Syker, Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, Jacob Chairman of the Board, home room man.
We're here.
Back to school was officially now back.
Everybody's out there.
But, you know, home room, I was just thinking about this.
I'm going to set this scenario for you guys, Johnny and Jacob.
It's home room.
Both of you are new teachers.
Jacob, you're from New York, Johnny.
You're from California.
Oh, boy.
Of course you put me in college.
Well, you know, I mean, and you're brand new.
Let's be fight words, Tim.
Let's be fighting words.
You're brand new teachers.
You know, you put your names out into one of these teacher placement services.
You find out you're going to the state of Oklahoma.
And you get your schedule from your, you know, from your principal.
You head into your home room classroom and, you know, I'm going to call it the way I remember it.
It's very first thing in the morning.
You guys have to go to home room.
You have to greet your students.
You get to home room and you find.
Before you can even walk into your home room to start today.
You need to pass a citizenship test.
Particularly because.
Well, you're from New York and California.
And before you get into talk to our Oklahoma kids.
We want to make sure you guys actually know real American history.
Not any of that woke crap.
Welcome to home room.
You too.
What do you think?
Well, Tim, you crushed my excitement about going to Oklahoma.
I'm excited about going to OKC because I'm a big, you know, OKC backs basketball fan.
And I'll be pretty stoked as a new teacher to be head out to, you know, to teach and be in a classroom.
Like I would anywhere in this amazing country and democracy we're in.
But I don't know Tim.
If I'm too excited to take your mega loyalty test.
You know, as, uh, AFT president Randy Wydengarden referred to this.
But you know, I'm letting our listener know a little early time.
I think you're making jokes today or setting up this scenario to introduce an actual news story.
Not an onion article.
But an actual news story.
Yes, again, out of Oklahoma, even though we know there's some great teachers.
We have some pencil buster listeners.
Not an OKC who listen and we interact with fortunately giving us hope that there's amazing things.
Yes, even happening in Oklahoma.
But you know, I don't know about that test.
That test Tim.
Why don't I have to prove that I'm not a radical leftist on this weird Prager you sponsored test.
Just because I'm from New York.
Doesn't make any sense.
I think look, Tommy foreign you like Johnny, maybe, but New York.
I mean, we're, come on.
What are we talking about here?
Tim, it seems ridiculous to me because these people they like to talk about.
Oh, we don't want, you know, any one ideology and education.
All these people are brainwashed.
Oh, but you have to take a loyalty test before you walk into the classroom.
Of course, I mean, that's just that's the America I remember as a kid.
I love that you guys are calling it a loyalty test.
Well, yeah, we're talking about our favorite superintendent, Ryan Walters.
That sarcasm for any of you like me.
Can't quite detect it.
I'm learning too.
He is back at it again.
And yeah, he has put forward.
The ultimate mega pick me right now.
Yeah, right there.
But yeah, a 50 question.
America first or quote anti woke ideology tests.
If you're coming from those states as a teacher before you can be certified to teach in Oklahoma,
you have to pass that 50 question test.
And Jacob, as you point out, developed by one of those top intellectual bastions
of incredibly magnificent scholarship, Prager, you.
Well, Tim, if there's anything that we can all agree on, wherever you're from,
whatever your ideology is, we can all agree that, you know,
right down the middle of the country, that's Prager you in the Heritage Foundation
and the Westbrook Baptist Church, they are basically the dead center of the country.
That center.
Oh, my God.
I just, I, you know, again, when you, when you, when you see this story,
like Johnny said, is it, is it an onion story?
No, it's not.
You know, maybe even five years ago, if this would have happened,
this guy would have been laughed out what I had to resign and stop.
But, you know, it is an indicator of where we are that, you know,
he continues to roll this stuff out nonstop to the point where actually dig
in a little deeper Oklahoma ain't got no problem with teachers from California
and New York trying to get into Oklahoma.
Actually, and as evidence is that they say ain't got no.
Oh, that's part of the problem.
Well, maybe it is, but actually Oklahoma is having a real tough time keeping teachers
that are already there.
So, again, not even a real issue where Oklahoma is having to battle off the
hordes of radical leftist teachers from New York and California,
they, they're not trying to get to Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma teachers that are there or actually themselves might be interesting
to find out how many of them are trying to get to California in New York
to escape living in Oklahoma, working with Ryan Walters.
But here it is.
I mean, why did he do this?
It's, it's not a problem.
Okay, even if we disagree with him trying to say,
I'm battling, you know, an ideology and an influx of this ideology,
there is no influx of this ideology from New York and California happening.
There's not a real thing.
He's doing this again to just keep himself in the news.
And this is kind of like the, the, the, the, the Trump kind of way of saying,
I need to stay relevant.
And the way you stay relevant isn't by making profoundly cool statements, powerful movement.
You just keep putting out, in this case, nonsense,
because it keeps you in the new cycle.
And sadly, you know, I'm not sure, you know, us doing this show and goofing on it
and making fun of it.
Most people out there who actually like what Ryan Walters is doing, probably look at us
and go, ain't going to stop our boy.
Well, John, yeah, here's the thing, Tim.
I mean, about this that's like, I think Jacob was alluding to this.
It's, there couldn't be anything more antithetical to our United States Constitution
to what we stand for in public education and democracy.
Then a, you know, a test to pledge your allegiance to one particular party's beliefs.
Right.
And not even that full party.
If I'm to say like the Republican party, I'm going to be really explicit about this.
That's a mega loyalty test here.
And, you know, that, that is anti-democratic.
It is sort of like saying, if we want, you know, doctors take a Hippocratic oath,
right, to do no harm.
Well, in my state, if I was to say, hey, I want doctors before they come to this state
to actually take a test.
You know what?
I'm actually going to do some harm.
Like, order that state.
I mean, this is ridiculous.
So I'm with you, Tim.
We're making jokes about it, but it's real.
And it serves very little purpose other than like what you're saying to be like the ultimate pick me.
If you don't know that term, I'm sure listeners out there have heard the youth saying it.
You know, just being like me, me.
Oh, pay attention to me.
Please.
So, you know, Ryan Walters out there basically being like, hey, remember me.
Hey, Donald Trump, please, like pay attention.
I'm one of your loyal, you know, bootlickers and the fascist, you know,
unrolling of mega ideology to the point where I want teachers to let go of.
And I'm not even going to say that it's very radical or leftist to believe in things like all children deserve a good education.
That all children matter.
That kids regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds or, you know, what homes they're coming from
should have a safe place to learn to read, you know, to be part of a community to have their health needs met.
You know, these are basic fundamental human rights that are part of our US Constitution, regardless of who you are.
That's one of the great things about living in a democracy.
So Tim, I'm with you, man.
I think it's not just audacious.
It's ridiculous.
Yeah.
And I saw that article and I thought, you got to be kidding me.
Of course, I'm not shocked.
But yet again, here, what is the purpose of this?
You know, it's to gain the attention, you know, to sort of say, look what we're doing here.
And again, I want to be really, really explicit about this.
You know, it's a way to, you know, just to kind of, I don't, I'm at a loss for words, the right words on this.
To take a, to take a dump on all the good people in Oklahoma, all the good teachers, all the great things about living in that place, the beautiful landscape, the awesome stuff happening there.
Right.
I don't want to, I don't want to flip on to the side of saying like, there's another problem with Oklahoma.
It's, it's, it's the few.
Yeah.
I truly believe talking to teachers in Oklahoma and good people who are from Oklahoma or were living in Oklahoma, you know, that, that this doesn't represent them.
And again, just like, you know, the, the mass out there, you know, maggot doesn't represent you.
Even if you're drawn towards that, are you identifying it?
It's just another example of if you truly believe in democracy and the US Constitution in public education.
The right and sort of responsibility we have to young people learning to be citizens in a community.
Right. This doesn't represent you.
And in fact, it sets you up to kind of get picked on by the rest of the country.
So I hate it.
I hate everything about it, man.
I do, you know, and so I just want to say like there's good, there's great things about Oklahoma.
I'm sad that every time we talk about Oklahoma, you know, it happens to be this dude's, this dude's pick me stories.
I think there's a lot of, oh, sorry, Jim.
Go, Jacob, go ahead.
I think there's a lot of great people in Oklahoma.
And I think it's a totally legitimate and normal thing for people wherever you're from, whatever your personal beliefs are.
To say, hey, I am concerned about what my kids learn in school or hey, I don't want teachers to overtly politicize things for my kids.
They should teach them stuff we can all kind of vibe with and not their specific stuff.
I think that's something a lot of people think, but if you look at MAGA and what they had to say the day before Donald Trump was president, what they said was, well, we need all sorts of viewpoints in the classroom.
Okay, we need diversity.
And then day one in power, they said, we're going to have a test so that if you're liberal progressive or leftist, you can't set foot in a school.
So that seems like a big heel turn from what they presented this argument as to what they're doing now that they're in power.
And this thing with Prager, Tim, it is so silly that they're having Prager make a test for teachers.
Can I play something for you that has been going around the internet from Prager because you and I were talking about PBS on a show a week or two ago.
And about how it's being defunded.
This is what is being floated as the replacement for PBS and it's it's from Prager you here.
Slavery is as old as time and it's taken place in every corner of the world, even amongst the people I just left.
Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no?
Before you judge, you must ask yourself, what did the culture and society of the time treat as no big deal?
So that that's Christopher Columbus from Prager University saying, well, slavery, but at least I didn't kill him, am I right?
Other than millions of Tino Indians, he did kill.
Let's forget about that and shove that into the carpet.
That's their standard for what a nice objective, normal, non biased education would be.
I think that says all I have to say about the standards they're using.
You got to do that. My God. So yeah, Ryan Walters and Johnny, the pick me.
I don't know if you guys saw the other news story.
It's not working. Linda McMahon was in Oklahoma this week.
Yeah, you know, a one herself.
Yeah.
And she was there with the cameras and she did not have time to have a one on one with Ryan Walters.
And he was not able to be photographed with her.
He's gunning for her job. She doesn't want to talk to him.
I'm thinking that it's like Ryan. Look, man.
Like even people that should potentially like you don't like you.
And you know what? And with that, I have something here, Tim actually.
I have from Ryan here. This is what he had.
They had him on tape when Linda would not meet with him.
Linda, who the hell do you think you are?
I've been waiting a month for you guys to talk about Linda McMahon again, by the way.
And with that now, it's time for your moment of zin.
Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law.
It requires a population whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion to be taught
that all is right just as it is.
Hey, thanks for listening to Busted Pencils Home Room podcast today.
And remember, you can grab other great podcasts filled with all kinds of Busted Pencils content on Apple Podcasts Spotify.
And of course, at the civic media website or catch us on our website, BustedPensils.com.
And don't you even dare think about missing class in session on Wednesday.
You can always find our special drop of producer Jacob's choice on Fridays.
And of course, of course, you can catch the Busted Pencils broadcasts on Saturdays at 3 p.m. Central time.
Across all the civic media network stations for one hour of your favorite blue-collar scholarship, Tim and Johnny, and keep Busted Pencils.
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