Yeah, here we are busted pencils fully Letted education talk educated educators Talking education so excited about today's show.
We haven't had her in a while, but
Great guest is returning, Johnny.
And Jacob, you guys got to finally meet there before the show started.
But yeah, our friend from AFT, Randy Weingarten, the president is here.
We've got an amazing show ahead of us.
Johnny and Randy started talking before the show, and I was like, hold on!
Save that because that's the stuff we want to have on the show.
But yeah, Dr. Tim Slacker, Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, Jacob, chairman of the boards.
Here we are busting pencils and man, Randy, you got a new book out.
I
do.
Why?
No,
you got.
Why fascist?
Yeah.
Why fascist fear teachers and.
Man, we're going to get into it though.
Love the book.
There it is for the YouTubers.
You can see it.
We'll have a link to make sure everybody can get their copies.
But Johnny, I think you need to lead in with your sense of this book and you begin the show, my friend.
Well, absolutely Tim and then for our listeners who are tuning in for the first times maybe and they're not as familiar with Randy will give a good proper introduction, but
I'm
so excited Because we got this opportunity we get to talk with you Randy You know from time to time on all of the issues that are hidden in education, especially around teacher labor And really two really important mainstays of democracy right education and healthcare now the AFT
Being so active with organizing nurses.
Yeah, two really important air Foundations to the health of our democracy figuratively and literally But this past week we had the opportunity to pre-read your book I know Tim mentioned that came out and I was telling Tim before the show and for listeners when this book drops and you get yourself a copy you're gonna be more than happy that you did because every
Reading through it, it just spoke to the moment that we're not just in right now, but we've been in for almost a decade or more.
It kind of feels like 20 years building, right?
At least for me as a teacher.
And it was really helpful.
I felt like I had a conversation with other teachers about what it is we do as teachers.
And it was grounding, it was centering, it was validating.
But it also taught, which us, teachers, this is what we do.
We teach.
So it was teaching the world about what we do, Randy.
And I can't thank you enough for that right now because we are so spun around with what's happening in our classrooms and communities, attacks on education, you know, danger like school shooting, all the things that teachers are navigating to care for young people in this world, especially in our democracy.
that we get spun around to even describe what it is we do, you know, we teach.
So I'm just plugging this excited to have a conversation with you today, but listeners, excited for you all to get to hear from Randy and then for you to read this book with us and have conversations because it teaches what teachers do.
I think it's such a concise and accessible way.
Like we can just have a conversation.
It reminded me, yeah.
This is what we do.
This is why we teach.
These are the things we care about and how we talk about them.
So that's me crushing on the book.
We'll get into it.
But thank you, Randy, for writing it and for sharing it with us in the world.
Oh, my God, Johnny, you got you new without, I mean, for your listeners, we didn't talk about this beforehand.
You
know,
exactly what I was going for, for the audience of teachers.
for the audience of parents, what I was going for is, oh, that's why they're smearing teachers.
Like it's not test scores, it's because teachers are trying, despite everything that's happening in society, they're trying to create a safe and welcoming environment where they build opportunity for all and where they push our kids to critically think.
and they need a little bit of power in order to do this instead of them getting crushed and then to also basically layer on like what's going on in this last decade that's so different than beforehand because what's happened in the last decade is we have an erasure
Look, it started with Donald Trump going after Barack Obama saying he's not a citizen of the United States and people still believing it or the people that we saw with our own eyes what happened on January 6th and then saying, oh no, that was just visitors to the Capitol.
So this notion of why is this happening?
this disinformation, this misinformation, this fear of the other, this fascistic behaviors.
And so I wanted to do both the, you know, identifying fascistic behaviors.
Look, I am a AP Gov teacher.
I am not an academic,
but I wanted
to identify those behaviors.
Spoiler alert.
I do not call anybody, I do not label anybody a fascist because
I
didn't want the book to be about is he or isn't he.
I wanted
it to be about the fascistic behaviors and why there's such a fear of teachers and it's a fear of what we do.
It's a fear of us pushing kids to learn and to enjoy learning and to think and it's a fear
of pluralism and having public education as you know basically this public good of all these kids who are different and families who are different coming together remember the whole idea about a salad bowl or
a
milk pot and so to hear you Johnny say that's what spoke to you it is a love story of my so many years in education
to the members I represent who have done so much to help kids thrive.
And so I wanted that I'm so grateful that that's what you took out of it.
Johnny and
for you.
Yeah.
And for for the listener, you're gonna get to get get a copy of this.
You're gonna grab it.
You're gonna want it.
But the the best one of the best things Randy is your teacher to I mean, you talk about the things you are a lawyer or all the
Things president of the AFP, but you're a teacher and that shines through Wow being a lesson that is like an end Yeah, it's engaging so appreciate that it's like I learned
The end of it I do sorry I have to wear my glasses these days when I when I read but you know, there is this poster
that a teacher gave me that I've trucked with me to every office I have that says I inspire I encourage I empower I nurture I activate I motivate I change the world I am a teacher that is how teachers feel even with everything that Donald Trump and others are throwing at us even with this new decision about ice that came out of this work today
right
it is we try
and help.
kids.
That's not only our job.
That's our occupation.
That is our application.
Nobody goes into teaching other than wanting to make a difference in the lives of kids and teachers should be revered, not reviled.
Teachers should be given.
I mean, look at what's happening this year in terms of supplies and the fact that with everything that's going on with affordability, teachers are taking more money out of their pockets.
Parents are taking more money out of their pockets.
Where is the money?
Why give that money to billionaires?
Why are we not giving that money to kids in school?
See and man so much comes up here and Johnny great lead in and coming back with this I got it.
I got a first go though Randy.
I agree with you 100% fear that fascist fascistic.
I love that too.
It got a new word for my book vocabulary.
I didn't make a fascistic behavior
It's a fear of teachers, but isn't it also a realization that when teachers get to be that force really about why they became a teacher anyway, it's really the realization of if we allow teachers to be teachers,
to do the work that they thought they were originally going to do, inspire, create connections, bring togetherness, understand differences.
That is what we fear is allowing teachers to do the work that they originally wanted to
do.
Exactly right.
And you know, Tim, you and Johnny know, like I know, that if kids are in your classroom,
I mean, if they're in your class and you're trying to figure out how to bring the best out of them, how to force them to think, and sometimes it is forcing
them to
think.
We have to think about what's heard, what's felt, how to open them up so that they're really thinking that they're problem-solving, they're taking a fact, applying something and getting to a conclusion.
you know sometimes we have to push them and
they
have to be uncomfortable and and how dare somebody say that that is not within the ambit of teaching the struggle of slavery yes it makes some people uncomfortable we have to teach about that anti-semitism racism we have to teach about that but it's also the success of the united states of america right being
the country that these rebels who became founders of this country wanted to prevent us from ever having a tyrant or a king.
That is the success of this country.
We should be reveling in it and in it, not pretending that
that it didn't take struggle to get there and that's what's so crazy about what like a prager you or the right thing is doing.
My goodness.
No, I love it.
We are talking to the president of AFT, Randy Weigarten, her new book.
Oh my God.
It's so much.
Why fascist fear teachers?
Yeah.
And anybody looking at the YouTube, you can see it and we will definitely have links so that people can get it.
But, you know, Randy here, and obviously our first segment's almost over already.
What in the world?
But, you know, it just reminds me too of like,
you know, when I originally made my first connection with Diane Ravage in 2010 with her first book where she was kind of made that connection, you know, the great American schoolhouse and she really proclaimed and said, you know, for the longest time, this education reform, which is now resulted in where we are today, but even the very beginnings, education reform, it was
in this language of fixing schools, and I remember Diane and I very much going, this has nothing to do with this.
This whole reform movement is about taking away teacher autonomy and putting them into this, you will do, you will do that.
So the test and punish movement, the reform movement, you know, no child left behind.
Oh, every child succeeds, race to the top.
So much of it there leads us to a brand new book by Randy Weingarten.
And we're going to talk a lot more about it when we get back.
It's almost like you can hear the the boots coming down the street and the march with that music Jacob.
It's Bustin pencils fully leaded education talk educated educators talking education our guest Randy Weingarten president of AFT brand new book why fascist fear teachers and we said there's so many reasons
probably the biggest reason is fear of teachers being teachers is the fear but Randy you led though in the book and just you know do a little sharing here with the story of Nazi occupied Norway and the teachers wearing paperclips you know in defiance a great historical story do you see any potential new american
paperclip wearing moments now or anybody doing anything like that or suggestions for how we rebrand the paperclip movement?
Well, you know, what I loved about and I have for those who are on YouTube, what I loved about the paperclip story is that the Norwegian teachers after Nazi occupation
thought about how, without being able to show buttons or any other symbols, they wore paper clips because it was a way of being united and bound together.
And it symbolized something that, after a short while, 12,000 of the 14,000 teachers in
In Norway wore these paper clips and then kids wore these paper clips and the Nazis tried all sorts of things to stop them to the point that they closed schools and parents were you know and the teachers still kept teaching and parents supported them.
It was a way of showing a resistance to autocracy, to fascism.
to totalitarianism.
And in fact, some teachers went to labor camps and to concentration camps because they felt so connected.
Now, look, I hope to God we never get to that place in the United States.
We now have a sliding back of democracy.
We are now sliding towards autocracy.
We have not slid towards totalitarianism.
But at the end of the day, I use that story as to show what teachers do as part of community and what teachers do in terms of education.
And yeah, I would love to see if we had a paper clip moment
in
terms of this country.
But you're already seeing the fact that teachers understand their assignment and they understand that our job
is to create a safe and welcoming environment where kids, to the extent that we have any latitude whatsoever, we create an engaging and relevant curriculum.
And Tim, you were talking before about all the different levels of kind of top-down, there's Johnny, top-down reform, but what the focus of that was, was not just
taking power away from local schools.
I mean, in some ways, the irony of Trump saying, oh no, we want local schools to have the power back.
And this was taking it away.
But this is what it was.
It was divorcing schools.
Think
about we used to have shop class.
Think about we used to have civics.
Think about we used to have citizenship.
It was pushing schools to simply be.
about English and math.
That's
what
the child left behind was.
That's what the testing is.
And now you got the woe is me crowd.
That's like, how can we don't teach civics?
We'll double up on English and math classes all the time.
And all you do is say to school systems, your accountability is about English and math.
What the heck else do you think they're going to teach?
there's not a reflection of these powers that be that maybe they got some of this wrong.
Instead, what we have is even more of a path
of
going to fragmentation with vouchers and with this and homeschooling as opposed to what creates community.
And what do we need to do to help kids thrive?
Yeah, there's so much just there the way you bring this together.
And I think that from Johnny's standpoint too, this is why listener right there wherever you are out there listening either podcast to the broadcast right now.
When you get this book and you start to read, your immersion, your own conscious immersion will start to pull you in to a story that you start to go, yeah, what in the world happened?
And so teachers, you're thinking out there, but you know, Randy, and here we are almost done with, you know, our second segment here.
But I like too, because Johnny and I have said busted pencils.
Yes, it's for teachers.
Yes, it's for public school teachers.
But it's also for our neighbor who might go, oh, I didn't know that, or that's the way.
And that to me is that's who I want to give this book to is my
neighbor.
So Tim, that is exactly why.
I mean, look, you and Johnny, like I, we have seen what teachers do.
We know what teachers do.
We have taught.
But what the stories, like the stories about Abby Clemens, about Raphael Boneholm, about Ryan Richmond, Barbara Johns, these are names people don't know.
But these are who teachers are.
And I wanted to make that accessible.
Man.
And that's what it is.
If you're wondering, really?
Yeah, get the book.
We're enjoying Randy Weingarten, president of AFT, brand new book.
Got a lot more.
Well, one more segment.
And Johnny, so glad to see you back.
Johnny's going to lead us off when we get back.
I love that coming back like that busted pencils fully let it education talk educated educators talking education talking teachers and why fascist fear them with our good friend president of a of t randy wine garden yeah we're talking about her new book why fascist fear teachers had an incredible conversation
um going on you know and yes we said Johnny but you know Johnny's having a little technical difficulty here so just going forward with this you know Randy I was thinking about this from the standpoint of um apparent right because we kind of touched on on this but you know so let's just say somebody goes oh geez here we go again bringing politics I'm I'm not political I just want my kid to learn
How do you answer them then potentially at a book signing when they're like here we go another political rant by an educator I
You know look I would like politics to be out of classrooms as Most parents want politics out of classrooms and think about it this way Every teacher I know None of us when a class starts says okay the Democrats sit here
the Republicans sit here, the independents sit here.
What we end up doing, frankly, more than almost anywhere else in life, is we take a child, a young person, and say, our job is to connect with you, create a safe and welcoming environment, and really make create ways and pathways so that you're thinking, you're exploring.
You problem solve.
You do the things that make you thrive.
You learn resilience.
You learn relationships.
You do all of that.
That is our job.
Now, where politics comes in is actually when politicians stop us from doing our job.
It's
actually when we fight for funding that politicians don't want us to have.
It's actually when
you want to put a book in the library like Ruby Bridges or Anne Frank and somebody says we're uncomfortable with our learning about these things.
How can we be uncomfortable learning about different kids and their upbringing or their diversity and who they are and how we introduce them to each other?
So the charge about politics is actually
one that is and that attempts to stop us from doing our job or to, you know, and so, but, but we have to explain it.
You can't, part of the problem that we also have as school teachers is that the moment there's any conflict or controversy, instead of trying to work through it,
Immediately, there's a silence, there's
a
golden to little rooms, there's a new rule.
If we works through it, if we actually dealt with it, it would actually be a lot better.
And we don't get it right all the time, but it would be a lot better.
But instead, the secrecy, the lack of transparency, the putting it under the rug, and what I'm calling for,
is let's be real with each other.
Yes, age appropriate, and let's do it in a way that is humane and loving.
But I want kids to understand, if I'm a history teacher, I want them to understand the struggle around civil rights, the struggle of kids in Lyndon Johnson's classroom before he was president of the United States.
They didn't have shoes.
And he took money out of his pocket to actually help them.
And that's part of the reason that we have a federal role in education.
So a poor community like Mississippi that gets 20% of its funding from the federal government that we can level the playing field.
What is wrong with that?
Why would anybody want to cut those federal funds?
for kids with disabilities or kids who are poor, to what?
Give another tax cut to billionaires?
Why?
If that's political, give me a
break.
If that's political, count me in, exactly.
Johnny, you're in your car now, my friend.
You know, sometimes you got to move to the mobile office.
I don't know how it sounds, but hopefully much better.
Certainly not, certainly not the high quality.
I'm listening to both the UN, but, you know, I had to, had to switch gears, move to the mobile office, you know, pull up under a cell tower and make, make do.
But Randy, I, I, I really love what you're saying and emphasizing.
You share this in the book.
that skill of listening to one another, of learning, of having that dialogue, and having some of those real common sense kinds of conversations, it's a muscle that teachers are working out all the time.
And you share stories in the book about even your own teaching at all different levels, whether it was at high school or whether you were teaching a class at the university about how...
As teachers, we practice this.
It's something we do in classrooms, even for ourselves.
But we listen and we don't argue with our students and things.
We're crafting questions that help people think about this.
And the book does exactly that.
You were just sharing it like the common sense or the nonsense that's become so common of how we would deprive the most
in need in our communities of the opportunity to learn is just it's how do we get here well we have to work out that muscle of how we can engage in those conversations so I appreciate you teaching that in your book as well reminding us that's part of what we do.
There's one story I tell thank you Johnny very much for that and look I just want to say
you are practicing what we do all the time as teachers.
We MacDyver better than MacDyver.
That's
exactly what you've done.
The virtual doesn't work here.
I'm going to go to my mobile office.
How many of us did this during COVID all the time?
But part of what I wanted to do is I really wanted students, parents,
of families, teachers, frankly, anybody who's concerned with democracy or with freedom in America.
Look, I am a patriot.
You see my flag up there?
I am
sick and tired of people saying that those of us who really want the country to be better for everyone.
Of course we're patriots.
I love our country and part of what I wanted to do was lift up the founders and their push.
They were the ones who pushed to have education because they understood if kids were engaged in the pursuit of critical thinking, we wouldn't ever have another tyrant or king.
And so that's, I'm like going back to first principles.
And that's who we are as Americans.
We should rejoice in the education of young people.
We should give this to everyone.
We should make sure public schools are sacrosanct.
Yes.
Do we need to do better?
Should we always be involved in an improvement?
Of course.
But why would we want to take them away?
Why would we want to defund or abandon them?
And that's frankly what fascist fascistic behavior is.
Us versus them demonizing, dehumanizing, defunding so that kids don't have the agency that they need to fly.
And that's kind of it when you said whether totalitarian autocracy, but you know,
if you're inclined to want that you then figure out what are the resistors to that and boy you know truly American public education if we take it down to what Johnny we've been saying here busted pencils you know yes numeracy literacy and all that stuff but it's the foundation of democracy of citizen
understanding of critical participation in this country driven by a deep understanding of the past whether that past be problematic or inspiring and or guess what most of the times both and and sometimes a lot of times uncomfortable that that's what we're
potentially losing in this and you'd say to somebody going is this what you really want and my guess is yeah maybe some autocratic type of billionaires are saying yes I absolutely want that because it's better for me but if you ask my neighbor my guess is they're gonna say oh heck no
I don't want that and so here we are coming up on this and Randy you know there's so many things going on in the world but then your book just as Johnny started out the show really gives us something to go whoa wait a minute this is what I would do this is what I want to be this is where I believe I should be rallying my public schools Randy though you know you know got three minutes we got time and
Got to go.
But where can we get the book right now?
So it is, you know, they look, this is new for me.
This is my first book.
It may be my only book.
It almost killed me to write it in between my day job.
And and by the way, half of the proceeds of the book go to our disaster relief fund and our education fund.
I really wanted to give back.
So but you can get it.
You know, in any independent bookstore, lots of them, the publisher just told me about 30,000 books were mailed out to bookstores and other places, so you can get it at your independent bookstore, you can get it on Bookshop, you can get it.
The biggest place that books get sold these days, no comment, is Amazon.
That is where The New York Times gets its list, that's whatever, and you can pre-order it on Amazon right now.
Just type in why fascist fear teachers.
You can get it at Barnes & Noble.
You can get it in lots of different places.
And I'm doing a lot of small independent bookstores.
I'm doing readings or book launches there because those are the places that I want to support in terms of what they do like libraries for America.
Yes, well, you know, that's where democracy, right?
Get it in that bookstore how start to have a conversation
and also supporting our small businesses at this moment.
And so, you know, it's it was the publishers Penguin Random House and I'm really just I'm just amazed that we were able to do all of this stuff.
But what Johnny said originally at the beginning of this podcast, it is about being seen
and the kind of celebration of what education is, what teachers do, and what we need to do as Americans.
Man, I almost wish I could say, well, I am going to say, Randy Weingarten, thank you so much for coming on, Busted Pencils.
We always appreciate it.
Please go wherever you go, but especially small bookstores when you see about one of these readings or book signings.
Randy Weingarten, her book.
Why?
Fascist, fear teachers love it.
And Randy, please come back and tell us how it's doing about Midway.
When we get back though, Tim and Johnny from the alternative office breaking it down when we get back.
Go so fast when you're busting pencils.
Well, that's what you're doing.
You're busting pencils with Dr. Tim Slecker, Dr. Johnny Lupinagi, Jacob, chairman of the board.
And yeah, that was Randy Weingarten, president of AFT, brand new book, book tour coming out, Why Fascist Fear Teachers.
And that discussion was like, okay.
I want to do more and more of those types of interviews.
And, you know, in Jacob, I want to get your perspective, Jacob, because you, you know, you got to listen there and see this or like any thoughts, reflections, reactions.
Well, Tim, I had a great time meeting Randy for the first time here.
I thought that it was great hearing about our book.
I was especially happy to see that when I got you guys an advanced copy of the book, you did read it and were
excited
because I wasn't sure if that producer stuff I was doing was going to pay off or not.
But now I feel very fulfilled in my Hollywood abilities
as
your superstar agent to get you these advanced copies.
So I'm very plus about it.
Well, even that, thank you.
I mean, it was great.
And like John is saying, it's one of those things, you know, you start, you start reading and then the next thing you know, you're like, Oh my God, I can't stop.
I want to put it away.
Wait, wait.
Oh, somebody's calling.
They can wait.
You know, I'm reading right now.
Johnny, I'd see you, right?
Yeah, I mean, it's it's excellent fellas and the thing about it Tim and Jacob that's so special about this.
Yeah, we had Randy on She's a great guest, you know listeners if you're not familiar with their work, you know Googler you can find some really great talks.
She's given and she represents teachers so strongly in a moment where we say it all the time It's the toughest time to be a teacher and my whole lifetime of teaching.
It's the hardest
time to be a teacher.
It's also the most rewarding time.
So it's so special, too, because, you know, Tim, people ask all the time, what do you do?
Well, I teach.
I might say, I'm a professor.
I teach teachers.
And people are curious, like, what's it like to be a teacher?
I might even say, I'm a math teacher.
I'm a social studies teacher.
I'm a chemistry teacher.
But this book reminded me so much of the depth of what we do as teachers.
I'm not just a teacher.
I'm a person teaching critical thinking.
I'm fostering a safe and welcoming environment.
you know, creating opportunity.
You know, Randy has a whole section, teachers create opportunity.
I mean, yeah, I just don't teach math.
I create opportunities, right?
And then above all that, it culminates with what comes next, right?
I belong to a group of people who all do these things.
They teach critical thinking.
They foster safe and welcoming environments.
They create opportunities and we do it together, you know, as part of
freedom and responsibility being intimately intertwined.
So that whole notion, it's just a book where you read story after story about why we as teachers do what we do and how it's incredibly difficult to continue to do this amazing work in the context or an environment where not only are teachers disliked, but they're being undermined.
at every turn.
So I really appreciate the book.
It gave a lot of umph as you can tell with my excitement to being a teacher.
But there's lots for us to talk about in our class and sessions this week and probably even in the next week because there's so much stuff that Randy's given us here, Tim.
I can't wait to keep chopping it up with you and the listeners.
Nice.
I'd love it too.
And Johnny, what you're talking about there, you know, is the four core roles teacher plays.
teachers play that Randy identified.
They are truth tellers, they're bridge builders, they're opportunity makers.
And guess what?
Yeah.
They're part of the union and their union organizers.
You know, that's it.
And John, the reminder of going, wait, that is what I do, right?
It's like we lost that.
And I said, historically, it has been slowly eroded away that those are the things that we do as teachers.
You know, we've been sold a bill of goods for so long.
The idea that, you know, a current administration that wants to put.
You know, fascistic.
I don't know.
Exactly right, Tim.
Thank you, Jacob.
You know, I mean, guess what?
Teachers now, though, maybe this is the awakening that this book does is go, oh my God, now I remember, I knew I got into this for, man, so much.
But you know what, though, Johnny, now it's time for your moment of zen.
The future is an infinite succession of presence and to live now as we think human beings should live in defiance of all that is bad around us is itself a marvelous victory.
Everybody thank you so much for busting pencils with us on this Saturday the download if you want to get it make sure you can go to Spotify Apple Podcasts you name it check out civic media's website and of course busted pencils comm you can check out all kinds of things there maybe even you know find a busted pencils t-shirt if you want one but make sure to Monday
Homeroom Wednesday classes and session Friday.
Jacobs chairman of the board's choice special shows there and yes every Saturday you get Tim and Johnny for one hour of your favorite blue collar scholars and keep busting pencils.