You know what? Yeah, that's the music, buster pencils fully. Let it education talk,
educated educators, talking education, Dr. Johnny Lupinati, Jacob chairman of the boards,
me, Dr. Tim Slecker, it is a class is in session. Man, we got a class because
our guest, where was she when those teachers, Johnny, those bad math teachers like you?
No, don't group me in there, Tim. Well, you know, the cause such paranoia and sadness in my life
that even today at the ripe old age of 38, give her a day. Always, always these excuses for
you for 20 years, for your difficult journey through my education. But, but you know, to this day,
I still call myself, you know, one of those bad math students and more and more, I'm starting to
realize that maybe, maybe part of it might not have been all my fault. So, yeah, classes in session
today's guest is someone. Yeah, she reminds us that teaching isn't just about the standards and outcomes.
It's about magic curiosity and the small moments that matter. She is Susie Scudder,
longtime classroom teacher and math interventionist. Hey, she noticed something curious.
Kids were skipping the number 13 when counting backwards instead of blaming all the places
you typically would blame. Johnny, she did something. She wrote a book. She wrote a story.
It's called Count Upon Your Friends. It's a beautifully illustrated book. She's got a lot to
talk about. Welcome to Busted Pencils. Susie Scudder, how are you Susie? I'm great. Thank you.
Wow. So, okay, before we get into the book, the classroom teacher, how long were you a classroom
teacher? So I taught fourth grade, well, I taught one year of second grade and then fourth grade
for 17 years. Oh, nice. Fourth grade. Yeah. Fourth grade is a good age. Nice. I was going to,
no, I didn't do fourth grade. I did fifth grade and I was going to say fifth grade was a great age,
but I also remember the fourth grade. Something special about that age group, you know, with their
17 and then the math interventionist, is that a license you own earned or is that new or more
kind of going like, wait a minute, I'm here to intervene. Yeah, no, no, no. It's an actual job,
but it's not a license. Like reading interventionist or reading specialist is a separate license.
Math interventionist, and this is possible, this changed in the last five years, but when I was
doing it, it wasn't a license, but we had a lot of extra training in math. And so I was trained in
something called the AVMR, which is just a dumb acronym, so I'm not going to bother with it. But
we, what we would do is we would do individual tests like interview tests with kids. So the kids
would have no pencil and paper. They'd just be talking to us and we'd ask them to do something
and then they'd do it. And mainly what we were watching for was what could they do and how did
they do it? Because that would tell us a lot about like what they needed next. And that was that
was where I literally did thousands of interviews with kids. And I was noticing a lot of them were
going 15, 14, 12, 11, 10. That's so great, Susie. I love this. So let's dive right into it,
count upon your friends. You know, Tim said you wrote this book. Tell us a little bit. Why did you
write count about your friends? Yeah, yep. So while I was teaching, we had this thing called
the Scholastic Book Fair every year and every school does. And the teachers get some free books.
And so I go to the library going, oh, good, what are my free books going to be? Well, I was
kind of limited because they had to be math stuff. And most of the math stuff was were books that
counted to 10. Maybe they went backwards. Maybe they didn't. And I was like, okay, all the kids can
already do this. And so for years, I was just waiting for someone to write a book that went like
to 13 forward and backward. And nobody did. And you know, there are books out there that do
go beyond 10. But I really wanted it to go up to 13 and then back. And so that's why I wrote
the book. And I said it on a staircase because stairs typically are 13.
You know what? And that I didn't, you know, I don't know how many times I've counted steps,
but I didn't know that there was a magic number in the 13 for that. So I think it has to do
with like rides and run. And you know, what the laws are about, about how steep the steps can be.
And so it's not, you know, it's not a hard and fast rule, but it's typical standard, maybe.
Johnnie, comment on that. You're our tradesperson and math teacher. Well, no, it exactly is related to
to regulations and slope and how steep a staircase can be, right? And 13 stairs at the standard
amount, you know, safely. Don't put us at too steep of a climb or or too steep of a descent as well.
Now, well, what a time for that to happen.
Yeah, you know, it's a question. Yeah, there he is. Wait, he's back. Good, Dr. Lupinachi.
Yeah, I was going to ask what, like, why is it so important to count beyond 10?
Yeah, because well, so when kids first start adding and subtracting the way they do it,
they start out actually counting from one. And then eventually they do something called counting on.
So if they, they realize that if they've got six of something and they need five more, they can go seven,
eight, nine, 10, 11. Okay. But if you're counting backwards and you're subtracting and you're skipping
one number every time you subtract, you're always going to be off by one number. So I sometimes had
fourth graders who didn't, like, didn't hit the 13 when they counted backward and they, you know,
they're 10 years old. Now, I'm not talking in my classroom. I'm talking when I did intervention.
And so I actually had, I made a little sock puppet and I wrote the number 13 on it and they would
start counting. This is not during the testing, but during just our practice times, they would start
counting and they'd go 15, 14 and they'd go, don't forget me. And they'd look at me as they'd go 13.
And then eventually I could get where I just, like, put my hand up a little bit and they'd go 13,
you know, and then eventually they just got it. You know, so it's just, it's just, I think 11, 12, and 13,
they call them the tricky teens because once you get to four, 14, 15, 16, 70, they all sound like
what they are. And in Asian languages, it's a whole lot easier because they just go 10,
10, 1, 10, 2, 10, 3, 10, 4, and then 20 is 2, 10. You know, so like if we had that, it would be
so much easier than trying to see. This is fascinating. Maybe, maybe why so many people I know
when I was growing up had tricks of dexophobia, right, fear of the number 13. Maybe that was
embedded somewhere in there. But I think this generation of young people love the number 13 because
of particular musical artists who also loves the number 13. And so yeah, I love this book going up
and back down from 13 and all the ways you connected it to the ways 13 is in our life. So helping
people overcome their tricks of dexophobia, Tim loves when I use those big words. But also with
some mathematical intention here. I love that. I mean, Tim, can we dive into it? Can we ask?
Well, I was going to say, okay, like, excuse me, yeah, we got the math there. But I mean,
jump into like the story, you know, the staircase, the boy, the animals, get into it.
Yeah, I'll tell you, the story is a little boy has named Harry. And he's, you know, he's like four
years old, Ish. And he's trying to get ready to go to bed, but he's down in the basement. And
he's a little bit afraid to walk up the steps. They're kind of steep. And so he tells his mom, you
know, I can't climb up all those stairs. They're too steep and I'm too scared. And so she says,
well, we'll just, we'll find a friend for every step. And each step you go up, we'll put a friend
there and they'll help you get up. So he goes around the room and he picks up all his stuffed animals
and each one helps him up a step. And then he gets to the top and he says, well, now I'm too tired
to like do anything with them. And he's like, how about you, mom, can you go get them all and
bring them up? And she's like, no, I'm exhausted. So they go to bed. And then of course the animals have,
there has to be magic, right? So the animals come alive. And the sloth is the one on the highest
step. He's up on 13. And he, he, the animals, first off, the animals kind of sit in the dark for
a little while. And for, for two full sets of, you know, two pages. And then the sloth says,
because Harry had said, they're not going to want to sleep there. And the sloth says, yeah,
Harry's right, these chairs, fairs are creepy. And I'm getting tired and very sleepy.
And then he says, I can't think exactly how he says it, but it's basically says, we'll use my
hammock as a sled. And so they slide down. He's got a hammock from where he was sitting before
this all started. And so then they slide down and they count backwards as they go down. And that,
excuse me, then, and then next morning, Harry and his mom come down to put them away. And they're all
like back on the shelf where they slept over at the night. And they just kind of have these
looks on their faces like, oh my goodness, you know, what happened here. And so then the end of
the book is followed by there's a song that it's really just the alphabet song, but it's with
numbers instead. And that counts forward and backward to 21. And then there's a page of activities
that parents can do with their kids to try and help them, you know, get ready for math.
What's awesome though, too, here, it makes sense. It's probably, but, you know,
being an elementary school teacher originally, too, I mean, the whole idea of children's literature,
it's just something, you know, we were immersed in. And, you know, yeah, in counting books,
we're kind of like, you know, I don't know, freshmen, maybe sophomore year elementary education
children's literature, you start going over the counting books and looking at that. And I agree,
they always went to 10. But, you know, I mean, but the whole idea of children's literature is that
they're, you know, again, there's something with the words they touch their base. You're teaching
something, but it's visual. And for this, you know, and you were able to find an illustrator,
tell us a little bit about the illustrator and how that worked. There you go. Let me just hold
it up. And then I'm going to show you a couple of my favorites.
This is one of my favorite pictures. I don't know if you can get that. Oh, yeah.
But so her name is Ann Bamberg. And she lives in Madison. And she uses watercolor and colored
pencil to do the pictures. So they're like, they're kind of soft, but they have like a ton of
detail. If you can, when you see the book in person, if you look at like the pages with the monkeys,
you can see like every little hair that she put on the monkeys. And so we met in kind of a funny way.
I have a sister Debbie and my sister Debbie and my friend Kathy were taking a walk in middle 10
during a snow storm. And they were downtown on par mentor. And they saw this woman up on a
ladder painting a mural on a on a window in a snow storm. So of course they had to stop and talk
to her and say, what are you doing? And there's this thing in middle 10 called the story walk.
And so she was painting. I don't know if you guys know the one, the mitten,
Jan Brett book. It's where all the animals go inside the mitten. And then finally the mouse goes
inside and the whole mitten explodes. And all the animals come tumbling out. So she was painting
that on all these different store windows, like different scenes from it. So she was painting
animals, like just beautiful animals. And so Debbie got, she didn't get her number, but she got
where she worked. And then Debbie, you know, immediately went home and said, you got to call this
woman. And so I called her and she said, you know, we went met for coffee. And so she said,
you know, I've always wanted to do a children's book, but I've never done one. And so she had done a
lot of different art things. And she just had never done that. And so this is her first book, too.
That's, you know, first of all, for anybody listening outside Madison,
middle 10, we're talking about Wisconsin. And so the fact that she's outside,
painting a mural in a Wisconsin winter.
In the, in a, on a ladder, okay. And when I heard that, I was kind of like, okay, this is my kind of
person. This is a dedicated artist. So the fact that you were going and you, I'm probably sure you
said, and you don't have to do the illustrations outside. Right. She was like, oh, good,
something I can do from my kitchen, you know, my living room or whatever.
You know what? This wasn't part of the, you know, the questions you had kind of had as
to anticipate, but it makes me just think though, but, you know, for, for teachers out there,
especially, you know, we, we talk to teachers like, boy, I want to write a book or they have written
some things down. They've got, you know, ideas they want to get them down like that. How, you know,
explain a little bit about going like, how do they make that real? How does that happen?
How do they work with an illustrator in that sense? Because I know, you know, teachers have so
many stories. They have so many things that, you know, but, but you did it. And, you know,
that's one of those things. And we like to hear from teachers who have, you know, written books,
who we do the other thing. You know, they ran for office. And we said, you know, instead of,
oh, well, I could never do that. It's like, well, yes, you could. In fact, Suzy, tell us how you
did it. Yeah. So, um, so the process was really just I, I had to explain a lot to her because,
you know, I could, I could show her the writing. I could show her the dialogue of the book.
But I really had a vision in my head of what all these animals looked like because a lot of them
were real stuffed animals like either that I had grown up with or that like my nephews had had
when they were little kids. The two monkeys were Nick and Kellan, my nephews. They were their
monkeys. And, um, so, and some of those animals we still had, like Cooper Duck, we still had,
so I could show it to her. My dog had chewed his face. I just, like, beak off.
But she could imagine, you know, what that looked like. And then, um, a couple of my nephews
still had their animals. And so we could just show them to her. So then otherwise, I kind of
described them and I would, like, go online and find, you know, just do images and find something
that looked as close as I could get. And, um, and it's just unbelievable how close she came
to what I was picturing. And then there were some things that she, she kind of tweaked and changed
a bit and it made it better. You know, so it was really a collaboration. So, so then to the,
you know, this work, I mean, I got another, another teacher out there going, yeah, but publisher,
how do you, like, how do you do that stuff, Susie? That was tricky because I didn't want
to sit around and wait, you know, you can get an agent and then an agent can go
and find a publisher that wants to pay you for your book and blah, blah, blah. I didn't have
the patience for all that. So I just found a publisher. So it's, I don't honestly know if I'm
considered self-published or hybrid or what? I paid the publisher 500 bucks and they've,
they got the book, you know, made the book for me. So, you know, I paid them, you know, so I guess
I'm self-published. No, I would say, I would say Susie, it's a combination and it's more common
these days. Yeah, it's, you know, self-published would be like, if you just threw this together and
put it up on Amazon and you were, okay, you know, you and your, or your people were the only ones
who looked at it. Okay. You know, I believe this is with, is that, is that my, am I correct,
seven sisters press? Yeah, let's see, seven sisters press. I mean, yeah, that's very,
no, no, no, it's not because, no, I mean, yeah, like that's called my imprint.
So when I was a kid, we had seven of us that were best friends and we called ourselves the seven
sisters, which is, I forget. Oh, you know, I'm confusing it. Yeah, I'm confusing it, Susie,
with seven stories press. I was like, I was like, this is like a huge publisher. Okay, no,
but I love that seven sisters press. Yeah. And with all, you know, all of the, I love how, you
know, you went around that long and lengthy process there, you know, to share this method that you,
you know, really worked with children over the years, you know, developing and then getting it
directly out to whether it's parents or teachers or schools, you know, at a cost that's totally
affordable to have in every classroom, right? So if you're a teacher out there thinking about this,
you know, it's, it's so often that pretty much the only books I can get from my classroom or what,
I earned through Scholastic. Well, this one, you know, isn't, isn't, you know, $70.
That's right. I looked into that but Scholastic, you can only do if you're like with their press.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a big, it's a, it's, well, you know, maybe someday they'll buy this
off you off your off set of sisters and it'll be your, it'll be your springboard into seven sisters
becoming a giant press. But, but Susie, further listener out there, whether you're a teacher or your
parent, you're listening and you're thinking, just still thinking about this counting forwards and
backwards thing. I love it. I think it's brilliant. Like, how do we know who this book is for? Like,
what's something we could do to kind of ask ourselves, you know, who is count upon your friends
intended for? Like, how do I know what the age level is? Well, I just grabbed my notes because I,
I kind of came up with what was happening was I'd be at a, like, a book event and I would be
talking to parents and they'd say, like, you know, oh, well, I have a four year old and I'm like,
that's perfect. And they'd be like, but they can already count. This one can count to 50.
And I was kind of like, okay, but have them start at seven and count forward. Because it's very
likely that if you say count, start at seven and count forward, they're just going to look at you
because nobody's ever asked them not to start at one. So kids would all the time tell me,
this is kind of, I can count for, I can count away to a hundred, which they could if they started
at one. But that's really not anything. That's just kind of a memorized thing. They don't have any
understanding of what they're talking about. So really it's for little kids, it's way more
important that between like one and 30, you know, not for real little kids, but by the time they're
five between like one and 30 that they can count from any number forward or backward. So I came
up with just a couple little things that if you were a parent and you were thinking like, well,
worth it to buy this book. If you said to your kid, start at six and count forward and let him count
to 14 and then say start at 21 and count it backward and you can stop them at 11. If in any of those
cases, they can't do it or they do it, but they're like really not fluent or they hesitate.
Like let's say they get to counting backward, they get what usually what would happen if they'd go
21, 20 and then they'll look up at the sky and then two seconds later, they'll go 19, 18, 17, you
know. So it's that decade number like the 10, 20, 30, those are really hard for them, especially
backward. And then same thing like 13 is always tricky too. Well, I love this. So that's what special
about this is like it can be maybe the actual words are below or you're above their reading level.
It's not so much looking at the lexicon here. It's the mathematical sort of fluency, the numerical
fluency that you're developing. And think about it, you know, whether you're in piano lessons and
you're practicing scales, right? Or whether you're an athlete and you do your warm up stretches and
you know, you're like you go for a run. These are skills that our kids may be able to do, but they
are sort of important for like the brain workout. Like as a matter of big on this, what are our warm
ups? How are we how are we getting getting down with numbers today? This is what Tim hates about me.
Yeah, man, I that numbers. Yeah, they get me down, man. Well, we used to do things like
totally like these are the foundations. Yeah. All of math is built upon. And so it's like if you
don't get them and then you're trying. So that was hard about my job with I was always working with
the kids that were really far behind and just trying to get them to catch up and then trying to get
them to, you know, kind of springboard off from there was really hard. But if I'd have been able
to work with them pre school or kindergarten, you know, the kids I could work with in kindergarten
or even first, you know, that's where you can, you know, you can do this. I've got a lot of people
because I'm kind of old. I have a lot of grandparent friends that have bought the book and they're
all sending me pictures of, you know, I've got one who sent me pictures of plates on the stairs with
the numbers on and then they're putting stuff to animals by every, I mean, they're basically acting
out the book. And then I have just other ones of their, you know, them reading to their kids,
them, them, you know, showing the kids. I had one who said, this is a woman I used to job share with
her four-year-old grandson was teaching her two-year-old grandson or granddaughter. The numbers,
as they went, he'd be doing like, this is two, this is three, you know, showing her with his
fingers what was going on in the story. And it's like, that's amazing, you know, and like fingers
using fingers is another thing that's another really important skill that kids need to do. And
sometimes parents will try and get them to stop doing that. And like, I'll work with them and
they'll be like hiding their fingers under the table. I'm like, no, no, I want to see your fingers.
That's a tool that's something you need to use. It's perfect for you to use.
My goodness, the fact that you're saying your fingers were perfect to use, I don't know, I remember,
you know, a couple of my elementary school teachers were like, I don't want to see any fingers out.
I know, things have really changed. Yeah, me, why? I have them down under my butt and I'd be
like, push and want you to count. Yeah, no, I know, you had to sit on it. No, because I had a
teacher that would be like, okay, all hands, you know, under your bottoms. Like that would stop us
from counting. And I was like, well, I can figure this out, you know, Suzy, love all this so much
going on. Where can people get the book, you know, tell us in ways that they can support you
for us, get people hooked up. Yeah, sure. So it's available online. So it's on Amazon and burns
it noble. And then just by happenstance, I noticed it was on Walmart as well. Which I never
even do that. Yeah. And it's at a few books towards it's at Leopold, the regal find in Middleton,
Booth 121 in McFarland and Kizmat books in Verona, those bookstores. And then if they email me,
if they live around here, I can get them a little better price. And it actually is a way better
deal for me. And the email address is just count upon your friends at Gmail. Well, that's going
to be all of the things to Jacob will make sure that they're in the show descriptions. All those
links so people can get those there. And Suzy, just before we go though, Johnny brought it up
the number 13, 13 being special. And I know you kind of have a, you know, wondering if, you know,
through the listenership of busted pencils, if anybody has any connections, who's that connection
you're looking for? Well, so I am not a Taylor Swift person, but I found out that Taylor Swift's
favorite number is 13. And then when I started looking, you know, into her a little bit like I think
her company is called something with 13 in it. And like, oh, wouldn't it be great if somebody,
and it could be me if I could figure out how could give her the book. And so I'm just trying to find
a person who could either hook me up with her or, you know, even if she just found out about the
book that there's this book out there that has 13 sort of as its central tenant, then maybe she'd
look into it herself. I didn't even know that you were kind of connecting dots on that. I just know
that this generation of young people, they don't, they, they like really love the number 13. And I
ask them one, they said, well, Taylor Swift's favorite number. And I'm thinking, okay, it was much
different than when I was a kid number 13. Like everyone was like, it's bad luck. Don't do, don't
get, don't, don't, don't, don't even say the number 13. Yeah. Well, I call them in elevators.
They won't put the number. They love floor 13. They'll skip it. And it's sort of like, okay,
but there's still a 13th floor, even if you don't call it that. Well, I love this. And, uh, and Suzie,
before we cut ways with you and for our listeners, you mean, you mentioned where they can get the book,
how they can connect with you via email, but you got anything coming up, especially for our
local listeners over there on Wisconsin, any events or anything, because that's always fun too,
just to connect with local authors and, you know, see the book and maybe do some read aloud.
What's happening? Yeah. So I have a couple of story times, one that kids met books in
Verona, uh, the 4th of October and a story time at Inc and Ivy on Regent Street. That's the 18th
of October. And then I'm going to the one a key farm market on, uh, this coming Wednesday.
And there's something called picnic on the patio. I did it once at, um, Blue Bake Shop in, uh,
on the east side. That's really fun. That's on October 7th. And then I applied to be in this
thing called the Madison Makers Black Friday market, but I don't know yet. That's the fun
black Friday. I don't know if I got internet. And just for everybody too, that's in the Madison
Wisconsin area where these events are. So everybody, you know, if they can get out there,
local listeners, yeah. And they could also check out my Facebook page, which is the same name,
count upon your friends. Um, I'm not very good at Facebook yet. So it's mostly just, if there's
some pictures and it's like a few lists of things like what I just said, you know, but it would
have be some information. Nice. Well, the book is count upon your friends, the author, Suzy Scutter.
Suzy, here's with Johnny and I always have to say and Jacob, thanks for busting pencils with us.
You're welcome. Thank you guys. And now it's time for your moment of zin.
History can untie our minds, our bodies, our disposition to move to engage life rather than
contemplating it as an outsider.
And now listeners, we're going to count backwards from the number. I'm just kidding. Thanks for listening
to busting pencils class in session today. And you can always grab great podcasts like this one.
Just head on over and search busting pencils on Apple podcasts, Spotify or of course,
you can always find us on the civic media website or on our website at bustingpensils.com.
And don't forget to find us throughout the week every Monday, Wednesday, Friday with home rooms,
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Kim and Johnny, and keep busting pencils.