We let it education talk, educated educators talking education, special producers choice
Jacob. Right there. Just though, you know, Dr. Tim Slecker, Dr. Johnny Lupinati and Jacob
chairman of the boards, just in case when you are listening to this on Friday, we are
recording this on Wednesday evening. So details may emerge, but Jacob breaking news today,
right? That is right, Tim. Usually on the producers' choice show, we try to do something
a bit more light to end our weekends, have a little bit of fun. Unfortunately, as your
producer, my job is also to get you guys to talk about important things that happen relating
to education. I think anybody who follows education is looking at this today, right wing
activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University in Utah today. Huge
news, of course, we're going to cover it. Things happen on a college campus, violence on
a campus, especially it's right in our wheelhouse worth talking about. And I'll just let
you guys talk about it. But Tim, do you want to share your thoughts? Well, you know,
it's a school shooting. Yeah. Right? I mean, it doesn't it, Johnny, I mean, I mean,
I mean, there's never any justification. No, but I had to cut you off, Tim. I mean,
there's never going to be a time, Tim, you or I or Jacob, you know, are going to on
the air off the air, can don't any kind of violent act like the shooting of Charlie Kirk.
And I hate saying this, but and there is a but when you compare it to school shootings, I
mean, the moral outrage and the coverage of this. And I think it's different, but it's
related enough. But I mean, like we've desensitized ourselves to children being dead and shot
in schools almost on a weekly, if not every other day kind of basis around the world, right?
Certainly monthly, you can probably pull up the facts. I know this is a little impromptu,
but on a regular occurrence, children are being killed in schools, teachers are being
shot at. So this is not me saying that I'm like glad or I'm anyway condoning this action.
I'm also saying like, wow, imagine what would happen if last week when children were killed
in, you know, Minnesota or the next school shooting. And I hate that. I even have to say that.
The next school shooting happens, right? I think Jacob, I don't know if they're calling it an
assassination in the news yet. If that's hit the discourse, but I think you hit the nail on the
head. This is different. But it is related. It's violence in a educational setting. If I could
hop in on that, Johnny, just real quick. I didn't even think about that angle you're talking about
that this is getting a lot of attention. Despite shootings at schools becoming so mundane. And to your
point, just today, there was a shooting at Evergreen High School in Colorado. And that's really
exciting. Yeah, thank you, Jacob. And that's not by any means to be saying that's why I bought it into
because I was like, well, initially, I was like, this is terrible. And I don't by any means agree
with turning point or with Charlie Kirk. Although I do, we can get into, we've talked about it on
shows before. We've talked about like the gray area between freedom of speech and hate speech,
especially in educational communities. But, you know, not that that should ever be met with
extreme violence. Right. And so, but at the same time, I'm like, wow, everybody is up in arms
today. And most certainly it is news. But why are he's going to sound insensitive? Why are we shocked?
It's a tragedy. I'm calling it that it's awful. But I'm also just having a sobering moment of
being like, and we've gone down children on the regular in this country. That's wrong. It's so
too wrong. Don't make a right. So I'm not saying like this is, but obviously we have a serious problem
in this country about how we handle our differences. I think you're getting at a frustration, right?
Yeah. I mean, just like that feeling like, hey, we should care about all these things. Why are we,
why does it take something so different to draw our concern? I mean, we should have this level
of concern that people have about this all the time. So a frustration with facts. I'll go there.
It's a frustration with facts. Like you even said, there's a school shooting today in Evergreen,
Colorado. Yeah. You know, it's becoming weekly, you know, on the regular we're dealing with this.
And that's to say, like, I do agree to a group of them together in the context of this happened
on a college campus. That is an educational setting. We've just been on the air for the last week
talking about what teachers do. And one of those things is provide a safe and welcoming environment
for all perspectives and all learners. And so this is certainly a slap in the face of that
being a reality for any student in this country, right? So that's a sad moment for education.
And that's not us co-signing on the viewpoints. But I am going to say, regardless of somebody's
viewpoints, this kind of extreme violence is intolerable in a democracy. Yeah, I was when I was saying
just simple school shooting. It really was in. I wasn't going to take the media angle. It was just
to say, yeah, kind of almost like, well, you know, here we are, you know, supposed safe space,
again. And yeah, I wanted to point out going, you know, at the same time a school shooting occurred
in Colorado, there is no media coverage. I mean, that's a story in and of itself right there.
The the quote media coverage of of this as if, you know, one is necessarily more important than
the other, potentially, you know, they're not comparable. Other than this, the fact of saying
that Johnny, I think you said these supposed safe spaces where we're to gather, to talk about
differences to welcome others together to bring about conversations that might be uncomfortable
and disagreeable that the purpose of education and teachers and spaces such as university campuses,
high school classrooms, middle school auditoriums, these are those spaces that educators
use to say you're welcome here to have these conversations. And it is not true that these are safe
spaces when particularly you point out, you know, and I just looking at another report today,
criticism of the maha, you know, make America healthy report again, you know, fails to acknowledge
the number one cause of death for children in this country is gun violence. Yeah, you know, that's
that's another fact in itself, right? Right. You know, and so here we are with with this kind of,
you know, again, is it sobering? You know, I read Diane Ravitz's blog just a little bit ago,
you know, she talked about this with Charlie Kirk and she's like, you know, I didn't agree with
him on anything. However, this should never happen. And then she kind of put one in the direction
of saying, but nothing will change because you've got a Supreme Court and a political party that
has been absolutely overtaken with some belief that any conversation about guns in any way,
shape or form that talks about some type of, quote, control is for Bolton. You can't do it. And
and and and so here we were. And, you know, the biggest thing that struck me today,
following when the story happened was, you know, the thoughts and prayers people were working
at hard. And yeah, but how shallow is a thought in a prayer when it could have been, but
did we do anything to quote prevent this, which doesn't have anything to do with saying it should
never happen in political violence should not be tolerated. But, you know, we haven't done anything
to prevent this from happening. And preliminary results or findings right now is long range shot,
high-powered rifle. Again, right? Well, and more details are going to come out by the time folks
are listening to this Friday, we'll have more information on this. But Tim, I think what you're
getting at doing and I'm picking up what you're laying down. And we've had this conversation on
busted pencils, you know, pretty frequently right on academic freedom, well, academic freedom
and freedom of speech. I have been to Charlie Kirk on my campus. He came to my college campus and,
you know, had one of his debating events. And, you know, I was actually, you know, in disagreement
with pretty much everything in perspective he was taking. And I thought, you know, there was a
critical conversation happening that borderline like what I would call, you know, rhetoric of
violence on all parties. Like the language was so turned up. And we've talked about the connection
between political, like, linguistic violence, like the political language of violence leads to
actual violence. And that's not me saying Charlie Kirk asked for this. So I don't want you to
connect any thoughts. I'm talking about all parties involved in these heated discussions. The
language and the vitriolness of vitriality. That's the word. Help me out. Jacob's nod. I think I'm
close enough to the word. I'll count that as a word. Yeah. Very good. I mean, the political
discourse of violence cannot be disconnected from actual violence. And this comes back around
Tim to an education issue that we have not only on our college campuses, but around this country.
And especially even in conversations like you would like to say all the time with our neighbors.
Right. When the violence of language kind of boxes you in to escalation and to heated conflict.
Right. There will be violence. And I'm not saying that in a way to rationalize it, but just to explain
this is why we say it's not a matter of, you know, denying someone freedom of speech.
When language gets to be the level of hate or violent language, it's just a small step.
And I don't have the details yet. Again, and remember, we're recording this Wednesday evening.
Right. We're getting this unfortunate news as it unfolds. But we'll have more information.
But what I'm saying is that I observed hundreds and hundreds of students attending
event on my campus, a similar kind of event as unfortunately Utah Valley University community
experienced today and and watching the videos the world now too. Right. But I what I observed was
something I thought, wow, this is really difficult for everyone in attendance to be regulated.
Like it's very like it's very ramped up. It's very intense. And I saw a lot of students
handling it well because they were equipped and experienced with being able to be confronted with
someone who believes things very different than they do and stand side by side with peers who
believe things different than they do. And I remember thinking, well, this is really
impressive how well students are handling this. Now they had explained to me, oh, we've been
watching this on TikTok for years. Like we kind of understand the gig and the points. And we're
familiar with this group turning point. And that was me talking with students who identify with
those beliefs and who oppose those beliefs. But I remember being impressed by the young people.
But as an experienced person, you know, as we are adults in our community, I was thinking,
this would be really hard for somebody to navigate. And I'm not saying it's okay what happened.
I think it's awful. But I can understand how quickly somebody may really turn this up to actual
violence. And it's sad that it's happened. But it reminds me of this like political rhetoric,
discourses of violence lead to actions of violence. Right. And so for me, that's part of that
sobering moment. I don't want to lose this in the mix of the tragedy. It's like, hey, we shouldn't
be all that shocked at how we got here. It's awful that we're here today talking about this.
But this is exactly why we're saying, hold on, we need to figure this out. And we need to be better
at our critical thinking and about communing together amongst our differences.
I, Johnny, if you look at Charlie Kirk's legacy of communication, I think he was definitely
part of, well, I will give it to him that it does take a certain level of talent and a certain
level of personal bravery to do his type of communication. I mean, I, I've done stand-up comedy.
We do what we do here. You guys get up in front of students. It does take a certain level of
talent to do what he did. And Tim should unmute himself so that he can talk with us next time,
so I don't have to hop. But he's part of what I would call the liberal gets destroyed
genre of communication, which I think is part of how we get to the spot we're in right now,
where people are violent, where rhetoric is turned up to 10, and it's not a spot we want to be in, Tim.
It's not a spot. No, and what are, yeah, thanks for. I was like, why is anybody, why aren't they
paying attention to me? Like, you guys are like, yeah, thank God he's muted. We didn't want, um,
yeah, you know, first of all, you know, who's going to step out from behind thoughts and prayers
and and take a little bit of accountability for the situation and where it is and how we got here?
I guarantee you nobody. No, you know, it will be, it's going to be Charlie Kirk practicing free
speech was taken out by a lunatic somebody who's against free speech and it'll be simplified in
and all of that. And that's your prediction. That's your prediction. Yeah, but we don't know that.
No, I don't know, but, but I can see hints of it already in the, the rhetoric of politicians
right now who and, and how they're framing this and, you know, getting on social media and
watching the, the feeds of the, of, you know, people out there expressing their opinions that, um,
um, but, you know, you know, it's a terrible moment. It's a terrible moment. And what was,
what was happening? It's a serious moment. And, and what was happening, though, too,
let's get the framing right. None of it as an excuse, but to, you know, this wasn't critical
dialogue. And I think this is kind of what Jacob was pointing at that that Charlie Kirk
went to engage in when he did these. It was, it was not critical dialogue where it was this sense
of going, let me hear what you're thinking. Let me get this. It, it, it, it was more in the lines
of going. And at some point, I'm going to figure out how to prove you wrong. Um, there,
there, there's no sense of give and take in, in that, in that type of conversation that,
from, from that standpoint, I mean, the, what was the purpose and, and, and to think about this,
and, and this is for ideologues on the left and right. When they are left to quote pontificate,
there's no room for critical dialogue thinking conversation. And, and I, I want to see us start
to have more of a conversation about what we quote, call free speech and how we somehow
intermixed that with critical dialogue and how those are blown out. And it's like, yes,
everybody has a right to free speech and to hold deeply held core beliefs and to express them
and to potentially even say, I'm right, you're wrong. I'm walking away. But I think everything's
getting mixed up between what it means to engage in critical, maybe even emotionally heated
discussion as opposed to pontificating about how incredibly right you are if you're an ideologue on
any side, because, and, and, and that's where I hear the political rhetoric more and more,
that I think spurs that kind of, of a, of a violence approach, because there's no give,
there's no take, there's no conversation in our political discussions anymore. There is no
conversation. I'm just be fair for this for a minute. Yeah. It's fair to it, because I think this is
one of those important kind of moments in terms of it is the blend of free speech, but, but also
the importance of a safe space of an academic community. And I don't mean for academics, but I
mean a learning community. It's a school setting. Okay. And so that's an interesting blend. We've
talked about that on shows in the past, giving legal and kind of street level definitions for
academic freedom, for freedom of speech, and for school communities responsibilities towards
for the safety of all. This is what this is a convergence of all that that makes it unique. Right.
Tim, let's back up. It's not called a civil dialogue about differences. It's not even called
pontification from people on the right and people on the left. It's being called by and large in
this current moment and leading up to this moment as a culture war. Yeah. So let's just take
this. The prominent, I meant, remember, words emanate certain things and they hide other things.
And I'm telling you a war language is just a slight step from acts of war. So this is very much
of like Jacob saying it feels like it's again, it's Wednesday evening, folks. You're listening
to this on Friday is going to be a whole unfolding of things for us to learn from and to take action
in response to. But at the moment, it feels a lot like, you know, being in a war. If you speak
on a particular political view, which you have, which you have freedom of speech to do, right.
And you are killed for that. That is political. That is a political assassination. Now,
we're going to get into the next couple of days is that true is that applicable to this scenario.
Is this, you know, we're going to find out all kinds of details. But what I'm saying is like when
I attended these, this event at my campus, students knew in advance, university talked about what kind
of what kind of event it was going to be. Students were familiar on both sides of the beliefs to
the middle of like, I'm just not sure what it is. I'm going to check it out, right. But they understood
that it wasn't billed as a listening session. It was like Charlie Kirk's coming to our campus and
he's a great listener. Right. No, it was like, he engages in almost a theater of debate.
Yes. And of crushing his opponents, which I'm going to be honest about is appealing to both
sides. Yes, it is of political ideal, ideologues. It doesn't model the kind of like deliberation and
you know, conversation that we would maybe romanticize about. But I'm saying that I don't think
that it's necessarily an awful thing to have some viewpoint. That's different than the viewpoint
you may have or share or believe in. But when it's all framed in, the larger discourse of a culture
war. Yeah, that's the point. That term war. And the vitality of like winning at all costs or
in like Jacob said frustration with like deep, deep, you know, anger and maybe even a
tension. I don't know the facts yet. But I expect that for someone to do this kind of thing,
there is some level of, you know, possible mental health or instability or at least
dysregulation going on because no disagreement should end in, you know, being shot.
That's absolutely intolerable in any, you know, in any context. So, you know, it's a sad moment.
But it's the convergence of these things to him that I'm like really wanting us to be mindful of
when you have freedom of speech, which is an important thing. But you also have safety of all of
those in a learning space. This is a convergence of really interesting things that I will save
for the better part of the last decade. Campuses have been grappling with and have been really trying
to say, hey, this is dangerous, whether it's particular, you know, speaking out against acts of
genocide, whether it's, you know, politics of any kind of like reproductive rights. There's been a
lot of issues on campuses where campuses have had to deal with how do we ensure safety?
All members for all participants, this being a learning space, you know, so my heart, you know,
I am going to give thoughts and prayers to him. My heart goes out to the Utah Valley community.
It goes out to every college student in the world right now, but especially in North America,
right? Who the message is pretty clear. If you have a political view, you better keep it to yourself.
Give it. Or harm could be done to you. It's no, you know, and so that's a very sad moment because
that is Tim. Yes. When these acts of violence do lead to taking away freedoms of speech on all
sides. And I worry about that. So I don't want to blame the students of Utah. I don't want to blame
people who disagree with Charlie Kirk. I don't want to blame Charlie Kirk. I think we have collective
responsibility to say, how can we do better, especially in these overlapping contexts of where
freedom of speech come into collision with the important importance of providing a safe and
welcoming learning environment for all students, for all teachers, for all people as part of that.
Our universities, our schools should not be sites of death for sharing views or sites of
death for attending. So I'll group in school shootings with this as you brought up earlier.
But that's just kind of where I'm at today. Yeah. Jacob, it's your show. Well, you interviewing us
but it's a special show. Give it. Give it. Give it. Given you the last words before we head into
the moment. So Tim, Johnny, as a producer, part of my job here at Civic Media is monitoring
interactions with our listenership, communicating to host what the people listening have to say,
whether it's the text line or we've got the calls coming in, you screen calls, comments on social
media, I get to see what the people are saying. And one thing that sort of disturbed me today
was that all of us on the content side, what the host, the producers, I felt like we were all
having the right thing to say in this moment, which is political violence is never acceptable,
and that we denounce this. But when I was looking at what the people in your quotes had to say,
if they were conservative, they were less sad that Charlie Kirk was killed,
then they were mad that this is what the left is doing. The left is trying to take people out.
They're out to get Donald Trump. They're out to get Charlie Kirk. And I saw from people who
I probably agree with on a lot of things, say things like, well, Charlie Kirk was a Nazi and I'm
not sad he's dead. And that really kind of scares me for where we're going. That political violence
is becoming just part of the game for a lot of people. Well, it was a guy on my side who did it,
was it a guy on my side who is the victim of it. Where do you guys think we can go to deescalate
the situation? What would you say to young people who are starting to view these issues in that
war side of culture war? Wow. Yeah, it is. I think there has to be a reality of acknowledging what
you just laid out there, Jacob. And that was a little bit of what I was referring to and
quote some of the other stuff I was looking at on top of the news was is that the comments coming in,
which, you know, again, do comments represent the views of the people? I don't know, but
they were, you know, there was no middle ground in those comments that it was, yes, you know,
my god, you know, this is what happens, you know, the left is are the true Nazis and they've
now proved it today. And, you know, then people on the left, particularly one that I was really
disturbed by, I don't know if anybody's seen the substack called God, where, you know, this
person or whoever who tries to be the voice of God and the voice of God today in the substack was
celebrating. You know, and yeah, you sit there and go, okay, how do you, how do you bring
those two groups of people together? I don't know. However, I will then kind of move that into
thinking that actually to be participating that way does also potentially not represent
my classroom when I go into a university setting, to a campus that there's a sense of going like,
I'm confused, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to make thoughts about this.
And I think we have to just kind of even do what we're just doing here right now, which is
have this type of conversation that acknowledges is the kind of realities of being like
those extremes. I'm, this is my point right now. And I said, maybe by Friday and maybe next week
when we dig into this a little bit more, which I'm sure we will, is I may have different thoughts,
but I mean, extremism on both sides. And then as Johnny really strongly powerfully points out,
within what now we all have decided is a war, a culture war. Boy, it's not surprising. And then
put in there the political reality that access to firearms in this country is obscene. And so to
believe that that nothing whatever happened, it's just insanity. So I don't have a great answer
for that right at this moment, Jacob. I guess if if I was to say the first thing Jacob, I would do
and you know, I'll be in class tomorrow doing this. This first thing I would do is I will apologize
to my students for the moment that they're in. I'm just going to hold some space for the for
wanted to terrifying moment. It's a scary one. It's people of my generation own apology
to those in classrooms now for the context that they in that they're inheriting.
This is a failure of previous generations to work together. It's escalated. It goes years and
years back. And so the first thing I do is I'm going to apologize. And then I'm going to turn to
my job as a teacher, which we got a great show tomorrow listeners. If you tune into the
broadcaster grab the podcast, you'll get with Randy Winegarten. And we talked a little bit about
it in class in session, you know, that drop this morning. But as a teacher, it's my job to teach
critical thinking. And I'm going to draw from Howard's in. In war, there are no winners.
So to celebrate this act is absolutely, you know, disgusting to me. I can understand it politically.
I can understand it in the context of a war, which I hate that we're in and I'm apologizing to
students for our generation's failure, you know, to not stop this before they inherited it.
But it's my job to teach critical thinking. So let's think about the moment we're in. And let's
let's really think about that peace is not passivity. And in war, there are no winners.
Peace is not being weak. Peace is not giving up. Peace is part of a process of
even within, within reasons, civil disobedience. It's about figuring out how we exist together.
Right. So that's part of the critical thinking. Invite them to that critical thinking,
apologizing for my generations, you know, responsibility for this, whether I
are part of it or not, like you have to really kind of have some humility. The other thing is
say, like we all as teachers have to have a deeper commitment and a louder voice towards a safe
and welcoming learning environment for everyone. That's not right wing. That's not left wing.
That's not any particular set of ideology other than in learning spaces, we come together.
Right. Maybe we should also extend that to in our health care system and maybe in our religious
freedoms. Like you can go and convene with people who have similar faiths as you in this country.
Well, you could go to a safe learning space and we've got a lot of work to do on that.
The other thing is to be present at the opportunity. Like we as teachers, Randy Weingarton
wrote about it said, we make and create opportunities. So I'm going to take the responsibility that I
believe I've always taken, but with even more gusto as I go into teaching to create opportunities
to practice peace, right, to really talk through these differences to be. It's not about shutting
up. It's not also about being right. It's about learning to be in that critical space together.
And then I'm going to come in with others, educators around the country. I mean, really around
the world, but especially our country right now, whether it's college campuses or school classrooms,
that it's not safe. It doesn't feel safe. And that, you know, if this is so called like a war
that we're in, but how do you get out of a war? Right. You propose peace. Right. And so we need to
really begin peace dialogues, hold space for the grief, take responsibility, approach it with
humility, and have tough conversations with one another about how we work towards peace.
Because just like I said, a language of political violence leads to violence. A language and a
dialogue of political peace leads to peace. So Jacob, that's kind of where I'm at with your,
you know, pretty heavy 60 seconder. And we each took a few minutes on it. But I appreciate you,
Jacob, as a producer, as part of a, you know, local radio and a national podcast and everything,
to take responsibility to say, Hey, we have phone on Fridays, but not every Friday is fun.
And in fact, this week is a heavy one. And it's our responsibility, not only as members of the media,
but as members of a democracy, as concerned citizens, to have a dialogue about peace.
So I appreciate you calling an audible today, Jacob, and for all that you do to bring
this great program out to our listeners. Thank you.
Thank you, Johnny. Tim, do you have any closing thoughts before I give you that thing to do?
Just yeah, you know, what Johnny said keeps that there. And you know, everybody, peace. Yeah,
think about it. Breathe it, feel it. And man, practice. Let's do a little bit of practicing because
as Johnny says, if we're in a world of war, it's going to be really hard to kind of find some
places of salvation and shelter. Let's just, yeah, you know, whatever. I end up getting cheesy, Jacob.
Well, thank you, Dr. Tim Slecker. Oh, Johnny, did you have fun?
I'm just going to say, Tim, you could sum it up. We love music. And I think John Lennon said this
I was going to do. I was just going to say, I was going to use the chance. I mean,
okay, I was kind of a mock right now. What have you got to lose? Give me a chance.
You went there for me. I did it for you. I got you read my brainwaves. I was like,
John Lennon said, give a piece of chance. And then I went, don't say that. That sound. Anyway,
Jacob, Dr. Tim Slecker, Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, thank you very much for being guests on your
own show. I always love talking to you guys. And I think I speak for all three of us when I say
that we encourage people to remember that means are an end into themselves, into reject violence,
and reject violence when you see others do it. And we extend our condolences to the families,
not just the Charlie Kirk, but also, of course, to the children who were killed today in Colorado.
And with that, Tim, I think there's time for something. And now it's time for your moment of zin.
How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?
Well, hey, thanks for listening to this episode of Ed relevant news. It's hard to get all
amped up and do this WWE style when, you know, it is a heavy and somber moment and a difficult
way to end a week. But it's also a reminder and an invitation for all you educators out there for
all you pencil busters to keep doing what you're doing. And like we said at the end of the show,
let's give peace of chance. It's important to teach about it, talk about it, practice it. And if
you want more busted pencils content, well, you can always find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify,
and of course, follow everything on civic media website. They got great things to say,
or you can always connect with us at busted pencils.com. Hey, and we'll see you next week for
home room on Monday. And be sure to tune in for class and session on Wednesday. And if you don't
already know what you're going to love it this weekend's episode of the broadcast with Randy
Weingaard. It's going to be beautiful. Catch it. And you could catch that 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 on busted them pencils.