Oh, man. Hey, Monday, home room. Yeah, and Labor Day, though, to Johnny Lupinachi, Jacob
chairman of the board, busted pencils, though. Yeah, that's what you're listening to fully
let it education talk, educated educators talking education. So yeah, first and foremost,
it is Monday, it is a holiday, Labor Day. Thank you, everybody out there who has, you
know, been given their labor, but, you know, big thumbs up to particularly to all of those
labor unions out there and those workers that make, well, that we're behind giving us this
holiday, so that, you know, even people like Tim Johnny and Jacob, you can get a day off
because, hey, guess what? Here's the secret. We're not actually recording this show on Monday
because it is a holiday. So it is Labor Day, celebrate and go out. However, if you are listening
to this show on Monday, you know, it's, we haven't, Johnny, as Johnny said, we were talking
me for the show, we haven't had to do a show like this in a long time. And it's, yeah,
for a while, you know, we have doing them all the time. I know. And then we said, we can't
do this all the time because it was getting to be like part of the problem. And yet, though,
you can't not do it. You can't. Yeah. So you can't not do it. So what are we talking about?
Well, at this point right now, Minnesota Catholic school, two children killed 17 people injured
in the shooting and Minneapolis Catholic school mass. So again, people gone, well, it wasn't
in the school. It wasn't a school shooting. It was through the, no, it was a school shooting.
It was targeted. The students going to that Catholic school, having a mass to begin their
back to school. And from what we can tell at this point, the shooter did have a connection
to the, who graduated, yeah, I just wanted to make sure my facts were there, graduated from
this school in 2017 came back now and did what said the unthinkable, the horrible thing,
which is, yeah, you know, killing innocent people in some form of a rage, you know,
it's another school shooting. Now, yeah, it's another school shooting. And here we go again.
And, you know, everybody's going to figure out this and that and, you know, there's a manifest,
there's a manifesto out. There's all these things going on. You know, and probably I would say
by next week's classes in session, it could be that we really need to do a deeper dive on this one,
Johnny, because we have it on the show. Yeah, where we talk about like, are we really going to get
down into the roots of this problem? And not, not, and I'm not, when I say this problem, I'm not
going to get into like, who did it or why they specifically did it in a single incident, but why
we have a real, you know, like crisis as a country around, you know, the fact that every kid
going to school has to fear getting shot, every teacher thinks about it. Tim, you and I got the
privilege of being teachers. Right. We didn't think about it. I mean, it had happened when I had
become a teacher. I had just recently, you know, we had Columbine and we were, as we learned now,
got a lot of misinformation about that as well. But, you know, they weren't, it wasn't something on
my mind as a teacher regularly. I don't think my parents over worried about that or had that as a
concern on a day-to-day basis. Now, certainly as a kid growing up and Detroit gun violence was a
worry that parents had. But, but I mean, like, this is, this is, this is territory that is worthwhile
of taking on in a class in session. And we've done shows on a perform. We always say, hopefully,
we won't be having this show anymore. Right. Not without significant changes from those in power.
Leaders who can say enough is enough because kids have said that. Certainly youth, the youth of
this country have spoken loudly about their concerns around school shootings. Teachers
speak loudly about it. We've had whole shows where teachers from different states with different
gun laws and all kinds of different rules have, you know, called in and shared their experiences
school leaders. But again, much like last week, you know, we had, if you listened on Saturday,
great show with representative crews talking about bipartisan's and needing our leaders to support
funding schools. I'm just going to say it bluntly, Tim, and we could get into it later this week.
When is it going to be enough for our leaders to really put their foot down bipartisan say we
care about kids, yes, funding them adequately, but also ensuring their safety in schools. And that
doesn't mean more security. It doesn't mean, you know, an armed guard at every door. It simply
means stricter regulation around there, I say guns. Right. Like I'm going to go there and I'm not
anti-gun and I'm not trying to challenge constitutional rights here because I surprise, I may
surprise people on where I land with those things, but you can have both and several other countries
and several other moments in our history. We've had those and they have that right now. And I
think it's something every kid, every parent, every teacher in this country deserves.
Yeah, I mean, you said it so much in there and here we are talking about it again. We said we
don't want to do these, but Johnny, you know, you made me think though for this home room to kind
of, you know, as we look at this, yeah, what you remember, you know, I had gotten out of teaching,
even before Columbine, I was, you know, fully on my way to becoming, you know, Professor Tim
Slecker when Columbine happened. And again, that was a tragic moment, but it wasn't, it didn't
create a sense of, of fear as much as that was a sense of shock that went across. But Johnny,
this sense of being frightened, I mean, this is really in the last, come on, let's be honest here,
you know, maybe five to seven years where one after another after another after another another,
maybe, you know, to me, kind of like where it really amped up was Parkland and, you know,
I had a friend and colleague whose son survived the Parkland school shooting who was, you know,
we interviewed her and another mother from Parkland about going through a school shooting like that.
And after that, it just seemed to happen so often. And Johnny, you say like, I didn't have the fear.
No, I didn't have my parents never had the fear, but a weird thing and, you know, maybe we can get
into this too on Wednesday. My son will say he didn't really feel that too much, but my daughter
actually said that was something that she really thought about in a way that was really troubling.
And I actually was surprised because when they were in school as a parent, I didn't,
I didn't worry about it yet as a parent. So yeah, at what point does it cross over to going like,
yeah, it's a real concern, it's a real worry. And I think it was on the show when actually was it,
man, I forget when it happened, but the school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin,
and if I'm remembering that, I think that was just in May when we were talking about that one.
And it came very pointed that how many degrees of separation are all of us from having some
connection to a school shooting, you know, I know a parent whose child survived. And in fact,
was one of the opt-out organizers with us. And each time every one of these happens,
you start to find more and more people who say December 24th, yeah, thanks Jacob for putting
up there, the Madison shooting, you find more and more people who are like, well, my cousin,
my friend, my aunt, there's no longer this, well, that happened over there. It'll never happen
to us. The degrees of separation to a school shooting and every person in America now is kind of going
like, it's a reality and a real concern. And imagine, you know, again, the mental health issues here.
So, you know, I hate to talk about this on a holiday, labor day, but here we are again. And,
and Johnny, you know, I think you're saying, Jacob, we'll get this ready on Wednesday to kind of dig in.
And then, you know, because on Wednesday, we're going to know a lot more. We're going to see where
all the fingers start pointing, for sure. And I think we want to analyze where those fingers
are pointing and kind of say, okay, who's, who's got this issue. But, you know, I mean,
yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a horrible thing. You know, what could have stopped it?
You know, people are like, there's no time to be thinking and saying that about right now.
It's actually, they're, it's way past time. You know, this whole idea, it's too soon. No,
it's not too soon. It's not too soon to say, you know what? I'm done. We're, we're, we're going
to do this. We're going to fix it. You know, maybe on a lighter note, it reminds me, though,
of a comedian, you know, really raunchy, but Jeff Jeffries, or I think that's his name from
Australia. Jim Jeffries. Jim Jeffries. Thank you. But he did the, you know, I think this is
around 2017, one of his stand-up routines where he's like, you know, hey, in America,
school shootings, he's like, in Australia, we had one. And the answer was the guns.
And we got rid of all the guns. And it was kind of funny, but at the same time, he was just like,
for some reason, and what he was doing in his bit was pointing out the absurdity
of American gun laws and, and, and, you know, how we react to it. So, you know, maybe we can look
more and more gun laws representatives. There's a mental health issue here so much. There's,
you know, again, the fear that's going, it's going to create with parents, the trauma, the post
traumatic effect for the survivors so much going on there. But, you know, on, on this Monday on
Labor Day that we're having a holiday, hey, man, keep the guns. Let's put them away, put them,
make them safe, hide them. You know, I'm just, I just hide them like Easter eggs, put them all over
the yard. No, I did, it's just, that may be a bad idea. People know, lock them up, find those
safe ways to keep them because, you know, it, it is access. And we don't know, again, what's,
what's happened here yet. We'll know a lot more on Wednesday for sure when we're talking about this.
But, um, hey, busted pencils, happy Labor Day, be safe, enjoy the time off that you deserve.
And those essential workers who are still out there on Monday, man, thank you for actually
continuing to do the jobs that you do on, quote, holidays, Johnny. Yeah. And all you teachers get
whether you're already back in your classroom or you're headed back there this week, you know,
it's an, it's, it's labor, right? It's Labor Day. And part of this, especially here,
blue collar scholars, busted pencils, you know, hopefully you're enjoying your Labor Day,
and thank you for all the work you do in our community, you know, to invest in our future
citizens. Hmm. Nice. And now it's time for your moment of sin.
Education becomes most rich and alive when it confronts the reality of moral conflict in the world.
Thanks for listening to busted pencils, home rule podcast today. And remember to grab great
other podcasts with more busted pencils content on Apple podcasts, Spotify. And of course,
you can always find us on the civic media website or on our website, busta pencils.com.
And don't you dare miss class and session on Wednesday and look out for the special drop of
producers choice on Friday. And of course, you can catch busted pencils on Saturdays at 3 pm
central time across all the civic media network stations for one hour of your favorite blue collar
scholars, Tim and Johnny, and keep busted pencils.