I got the thumbs up, Johnny Lupinacci. You know from who, Jacob, chairman of the board's
Busted Pencils fully-led education talk, educated educators, talking education. And yeah, you
know, mixed up the intro there a little bit, putting Jacob first and foremost because, hey,
this is probably one of our favorite days of the week. We get to record. Johnny, we get to be
guests on our own show for Jacob, chairman of the board, producer's choice episode.
I don't know. I got to admit though, coming into this one. I ain't nervous.
Really?
Well, hey, that's good. I was just, you know, talking to some friends who listen and they said,
you know, maybe one of these Fridays, Tim will realize, Jacob's really not out to get you.
You kind of make you guys all seem a little bit more, you know, like, like real, a little bit more,
like, like everybody else. And I said, I know man, but Tim has things I didn't, you know,
as I, as an always rational. And so I am so glad to hear that.
I, I am just excited. And Jacob, man, I tell you, you know, last night, no, no producers choice,
Jacob nightmares. I didn't have you, you know, chasing me down with, Tim, you've got to answer
this question. Well, good news, Tim. Today is all got you questions. We're doing just, I've got
10 things here written down. I think they're really going to snag you. And without further ado,
let's do the thing for two to producer Jacob's choice chairman of the board.
You and I will have two choices. Chairman of the board, Jacob.
Oh, Jacob chairman of the board. I, I've got the board. It's spelled B-O-R-E-D.
We choose to go to the mold. Life's a tough choice in here.
Who chose one?
Fellas, Tim, Johnny, we all remember going to school. It was a great time. Wasn't it math,
science, literature? We learned a lot from our experiences in the American education system.
But there's one thing that our teachers and our principals never intended to teach us,
but which I believe helped shape American culture just as much as any syllabus ever could.
And that, folks, is the spirit of rebellion. Hugh the Clip.
Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention
for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay
telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us in the simplest terms
of the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain,
and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?
Sincerely yours. Breakfast club.
Today I've got a brain and a princess here. I'll let you guys decide who's who.
I want to talk about those little acts of rebellion that young folks have been quietly,
or sometimes not so quietly, engaging in for as long as we've had schools in this country.
To help me with that, I've asked two experts and disobedience to join us here on the program today.
Dr. Johnny Lupinacci and Tim Slecker, fellas. Thank you for being here.
Nice. Thank you, Jacob. I might now be getting a little bit. You might be asking me to reveal
some things. No, no, no way. Well, that's maybe the third question. Anyway, in short folks,
we're here to talk about people and when they say, I won't do what you're telling me.
Okay. I think it's going to be a lot of fun, Johnny, because I know you guys like to rage against
the machine, just like I do. So I'm going to start this off with a really simple question.
And I'll start with you, Tim, because you lost some of that fear. And I'm going to try to put
it back into it. All right. Can you tell us about a time back when you were a student that you
were belted against the man? Ah, the man, Jacob. I'm, you know what? I'm going to think about that
for a second and give this a pass to Johnny. I need you to jump in, Johnny.
It's bad at math. He doesn't understand stash of the limitation. And he has the math,
bobe a math beard. So he'll kick it my way. Jacob, I've got some great examples of this that
keep it light as as rebellion should because you're talking about, you know, when where we kind of,
especially I'll take the teacher perspective. Of course, as a student, you always have a little bit
more knowledge of kind of where and what's happening and why it's happening. But as a teacher and
you know, working with principles and things, there are certain little acts of rebellion that,
yeah, we say, hey, you can't do that. And we have to be, you know, in, in a disciplinary role.
But they don't we're like, this is good kids are being kids. And one of my favorite examples of
that, Jacob, but I think it's a cultural trend around most of the country are senior pranks.
These are fantastic like creative senior pranks, not the like malicious ones, right? That sort of
goes a little bit too far and like we raise our eyebrows. We're like, what's wrong with these kids?
Is there sort of a boundaries and they always gets pushed. And I think one of my favorites ever
was a group of students who took apart a car, brought it in this school and put the car together.
You know, and this is why I say like to them, they snuck in and put a car together. And I might be
revealing too many of like the secrets on the other end of it. But as teachers, administrators,
and especially as like custodial staff, like we all talk and this was not that long ago. So we
were group texting and sharing footage of the security cameras, kind of watching these kids pull
off this operation as though it was special ops, right? But the whole thing is seen and we're like,
okay, they haven't really done anything really wrong. And in fact, one of the,
one of the administrators was in on it. And so we're some of the custodial staff. So they didn't even
like break in, right? But they wanted to be like, hey, this is a big prank. And it's against the
rules and it's that night. If you're out there listening, you probably had senior pranks at your
school. Maybe it was a mad bowler, someone who rolls a falling ball down a hallway like while you're
in class. And you ever remember the noise? Do you have a mad bowler at your school, Tim?
No, we didn't have the bowler, but it makes a huge. I bet like a ball. Yeah, and then it gets to
the end of the hallway. And you know, it's the end of most old school hallways.
Stabs. Yeah. Yeah. So you'd be listening to the mad bowler occasionally. Just those kinds of fun
loving pranks, Jacob that push at boundaries and kids are being kids. And I think he said, like,
if there's one thing we all did learn a little bit about in school, although it's not directly in
the lesson plan, except maybe in some history classes, you know, that that teenage angst and rebellion.
No, I love that one. I now, okay. So me, myself, Jacob, the man, I'll,
West Mifflin North was the neighbor high school to steal Valley.
Steel Valley, we were the iron men in West Mifflin North were the Vikings. And in the front courtyard
facing the the road as you looked up to West Mifflin North high school, they their shop classes
had assembled a a Viking out of miscellaneous pieces of metal. It's about 10 feet tall Viking.
And every year the the night before that game, that Viking would in the morning have some new
apparel attached to it. As Johnny points out, and going on the the the take out the Viking missions.
Yeah, you know, dark clothing hats, makeup, crawling along the front lawn of West Mifflin North high
school with toilet paper, you know, a really stupid hat. And, you know, you know, and then the next
stage taking your family members for a ride past and go, look at the Viking. We got him. We got
the Viking. I don't know. I was that bad to do that? Was that was that a was that going against the man
or was that actually an activity? Like you said, an extracurricular that to me, that's an essential
curricular term. I was going to say, right? You know, um, but, but, but, you know, character building.
Now, I can hear somebody going, so you're advocating the destruction of property, Dr. Tim Sleger.
Yeah. Yeah. I guess I was too with the mad bowler. I mean, bowling balls can cause.
Well, let me just tell you that our iron man also was very well dressed the next day after that
game, too, because, you know, tit for tat on that, uh, the West Mifflin North kids also, you know,
kind of made a mockery of our big iron man standing out front of our high school.
Is that the thing company that sells paper from the office?
My big question here, Tim, is thunder. Did you guys have, did you play like Black Sabbath iron man
at your home games or did you incorporate that at all? Because it seems like a very obvious choice.
As a matter of fact, that was the theme of our wrestling team. As we came in, we would darken
the gymnasium and the wrestlers, my team, we would come running out to
yeah, I love it. Tim, that's the secret sauce. That's rebellion right there of a sort. I think
having that metal attitude to come out with Black Sabbath, uh, something you guys both
kind of touched on here talking about youthful rebellion is, uh, kind of an important aspect,
I think, to it, which is one, after doing something rebellious, you make sure to drive by with
the family so they can see it. As part of it, as you do want people to know, you kind of want to
get caught. And then another aspect of it is just like you said, both schools are doing it. Everyone
is aware we could put a watch out. Couldn't we, but now we'll let it happen. Johnny, they catch
him on the camera. We'll let you in to put the car in here. What do you guys think about the
aspect of young people? Rebellion? Rebellion? And kind of, uh, people knowing and letting it happen
because there's a certain amount of healthy rebellion. Yeah, I think this is the top question,
Jacob, because it works in that gray area. Yeah, that every, every teacher out there, and I'd like
to say probably every parent or coach to kind of knows there's certain things that, you know,
it's nuanced. It's situational because there's signs we could say, like something problematic,
like, oh, those are boys being boys, but actually they're sexually harassing people, right? And
where we don't, I don't want to make those kind of comments that are like, hey, these are just
teenagers being teenagers. But there is some, like you said, some validity to that, some natural
important developmental step of like, hey, it's sort of like, you know, babies, you know, learned
to crawl at a certain age, you know, teenagers. Rebell, I mean, and I know there's some stigma around
that word, but every parent listening knows even the best, you know, 14, 15, 13, however,
year you are in the teens, if you got one at home or in your family, you know, there's some days where
they're just like, like, them against everyone. And it's just something they're going through,
and most, most of us grow out of it because we're not punished excessively for being in it.
We all go through it, even if you're listening, you're like, well, I did. And then you're in
anomaly, you're caught on an outlier, and there's nothing wrong with that. Lucky you, because it was a
hormonal hot mess for most of us. So I think like, you know, adolescent psychologists and people kind
of help us as teachers and principals and those kinds of disciplinary roles kind of sit in the
gray area with, okay, what's too much? What are the boundaries? And in fact, it's actually really
reassuring. Like, when we know that they're having those feelings, having those ideas, talking to
others about it in a community kind of space, I'm going to sound like an old guy for a minute. I
worry about online these days, because, you know, someone really far away from the school, not
connected to the community might, you know, say, well, that's a prank. You could actually do even
more if you do X, Y, and you know, it escalates and kind of festers, as Tim has pointed out before,
in these, you know, capitalistic rabbit holes of clicking and upping the ante. But, you know, I
think, I think every educator grapples with what's too much, when is too much, too much, and how do
you still, like I said before, it's like, when your kid says something really funny, but it shouldn't
be funny in that moment, and you have to like hold back the laughter. It's a similar thing as a
teacher or a school leader when these pranks are these rebellions happen. We're like, of course,
it's kind of cool that they're happening, but we also have to be like, hey, now, you did this,
there's a consequence, right? And it's not excessive. And I think it's a healthy part of development.
You know, I will give you an example of one that happens almost in every school, at least it
used to a lot. And I won't name the district because there's some confidentiality stuff around
this. But there is a district that I know of, there's a big giant high school. In fact, there's
three high schools. Some people listening could probably figure this out because it's pretty rare.
There's three massive high schools all sharing the same campus. And these kids for decades
have organized a massive food fight and walk out. Ooh, that no principal has ever been able to
squash. Now, that last part since 2013 was the last time I was really connected and close to
this community. So if you're a sleuth, you can figure this out because you can look at, you know,
my resumes and all stuff and figure out where was I up till 2013. But nonetheless,
these kids, man, they would organize in this like team of administrators. You can imagine three of
the biggest schools in the country all sharing the same school campus. So tons of kids. I mean,
you're already outnumbered young people to adults in schools. They don't get violent about it.
There isn't like, you know, like people beating each other up or, you know, there is some, I would say
some destruction of property in the sense of like food is actually pretty important and it's
wasteful to throw food and make a mess like that. Someone has to clean it up and it ends up being
some of the kids because I mean, everybody starts with this big food fight and then there's this
massive walkout. And for like decades, kids knew. And no, this is the tricky part, Jacob, that I'm
in the gray area on. It's kind of like a scary reminder. Nobody could figure out how to stop it.
Like this campus has cameras. And yes, people get in trouble, but no one really does anything
overwhelmingly bad. Like no one's liking anything on fire. No one's breaking windows. No one's hurting
anybody, but it's a little bit chaotic. And yes, it's a little scary when all of the students
say, guess what we're not doing today? And they leave school. And so I've always been a big sort of,
I can't say fan of it, but admirer. admirer is a good word. And sympathizer for my administrator
friends who would say, Johnny, you have no idea what like a problem this is for us. It's massive.
Like, yeah, we have whole teams trying to figure this out. We have like people infiltrated in
the in the school just to try and stop this thing. And we haven't been able to. We've embedded
ourselves within the student bodies. Oh, it's hilarious, man. It shouldn't be hilarious.
It's one of those things where like you say to your administrator friend, like, oh, man,
I bet that's hard. That sucks. And then you go home and you're like, you know, crack a cold one
and you're like, it's actually kind of funny. But that is funny. But Jacob, though, you know,
adding it at a point like what Johnny was saying, the gray, right? And this is kind of that,
okay, you know, for me to remember the way I remembered it, right? It almost, it sounds fun.
It sounds like a nice reflection. But you know, what happens here? And I see this from the
administrator's point of view, too, is that somebody eventually anties up in in these types of
things, you know, and so, you know, one year, that Viking got a bunch of oil paint all over it.
So now you're really, you're dealing with destruction of property that had to do that. And in fact,
I mean, one, you know, it gets to the point where, you know, a couple kids, 1979, 1981,
sitting around, you know, smoking cigarettes and other things and going, you know what,
my dad has a, you know, one of his welding torches downstairs. I bet we can take that Viking down
and bring him with us. And so even that could sound potentially funny. It's why it goes too far to him.
But yeah, and you go too far. And, you know, most of the time, like, you know, did you guys do it?
I'm like, oh, well, you know, his dad came down. It's all taken out the settling tank, you know,
but yeah, so how do you celebrate those acts of rebellion that I would say are
developmentally necessary, but yet then potentially also know how or when to say, you guys,
you've gone too far. You know, what, what is that moment there? And as Johnny said, I think it's,
I think it's gray. I know there is a listener out there somewhere who's going, you know,
there's no greatness here. Well, for some teachers, there is, I mean, there's a reason why some
teachers are teachers and they're really good at it. And I'm not dissing them. They're often
excellent at classroom management and, you know, giving results in the form of like kids sitting
in the asks being compliant. I had lots of them as a student. And I think I told Jacob and you,
in a previous show, like one thing we all experienced at school is we learned how to watch a clock,
especially in those tensions I was in. So there's not, I'm not hating on those folks who are,
who struggle in the nuance, but I will throw a special shout out to every teacher, every parent,
every grown folk person out there who navigates that gray area because it really is important to
grow and to have like we're kids for a reason to make some mistakes. When we're left not,
not learning from those mistakes, it can grow into a big problem. When we're repressed to where
we can't even make a mistake, it's called a loss of childhood. And this has been extremely tough.
I don't get my soapbox here, but it's been extremely tough to be a kid in this country,
especially right now. Like I mean, we've talked about it for decades. There's a loss of childhood,
but there is really some expectation that maybe kids won't misbehave. And I'm not saying like
here saying, well, kids should be out doing malicious behaviors and bullying each other and hurtful
and harmful things. But also they're going to push boundaries. And if they're repressed in that,
again, I'm not saying this is like go ahead and let them do whatever. They need us to be in a
position. How many times has any grown up out there learned, you know, sometimes active behavior,
like a misbehavior is a form of communication to just kind of test to see who cares.
Right? Because there's a difference between a teacher who doesn't say or do anything. And a teacher
a school leader who says, okay, that's the line. You crossed it. I'll give you a great example too.
I was at a local football game. I love football because first downs on Friday night lights.
And it's that time of year, but it's a local high school football game. You know, tons of kids,
it's homecoming, whatever. Like I love that stuff. Like the convertible cars that drive the home
coming court around and everything. But there were tons of kids. And you know, the administrators,
they're all kind of like stationed out around. You remember the drill Tim as a teacher. If you're a
chaperone or you're a volunteer there, you may be in the booster club or, you know, part of the
coaching staff extended. And you just kind of are an adult monitoring to make sure, yeah,
kids are going to get a little out of control, but you got your eyes on it. And they look at you,
not like what's he doing here? They look a lot of them and they're like, okay, cool. I'm safe.
A grown up is here. In case things get kind of crazy. And there was a kid. And you know, he was
just like feeling himself. Man, he was being goofy. You know, he's being a kid. Maybe be a little
rowdy at times his friends are kind of like, just do chill out. Like, you know, he's getting into it.
It's a football game. It's homecoming. And he's drinking a soda. And he takes the soda bottle.
And he turns like towards the trash can, which of course is like 20 yards away. And he just does a
flip like of an empty soda bottle that makes it about a quarter of the way. You know, it's in the air.
And immediately he looks right to that grown that grown person who happens to be the assistant
principal. He looks over it. And the principal is just like, you know, gives the look, you know,
the stare. I can't show you because we're not on video, but you know the look. Everybody out there.
And just kind of points and points to it and mouths pick, pick it up and points to the trash can.
The kid kind of goes over and his friends are laughing and like pushing them over there.
But he goes and picks it up, puts it in the trash can. That could have escalated to a huge problem.
Right. But the, but the person in charge knew how to handle the gray hair.
Just needs a kid to settle down a little bit. He was a little impulsive, a little too excited.
You know, it's an empty plastic soda bottle. Not going to hurt anybody. But if we start throwing
bottles, people can get hurt. Right. Also, like we don't just throw trash. And also there's some
semblance to the order here, even though things are a little crazy. So love seeing that kind of
thing. But we have to give space for young people to be young people. Otherwise, there's this thing
called like repressed angst. Right. And all kinds of built up things, things that are just
impulses that turn into anchors. And I don't know Tim. But I think we've had some less
happier shows about where that anger manifests that comes out into our communities.
Absolutely. I agree. Guys, Jake, rebellion is cool. But sometimes it needs to be constrained
for the good of everyone. We're running out of time. Unfortunately, so I'm going to do something
unprecedented. We're going to do a one hundred twenty second question and just use this last one.
And in demand. Okay. Demand out of you. Consisteness. You hear me? You two guests. I want
one hundred twenty seconds max. Let's go. Guys, would the ideal system of education be one where
students had no need to rebel? Or does the very active rebellion in and of itself contribute
something healthy to a person's development as a citizen in a democracy? Johnny, what do you think?
Well, really quickly, I think it's absolutely healthy for any human being to sort of push boundaries
a little bit. And especially for adolescent, you know, people like children in our community
to learn about boundaries and how to be in community by, you know, behaving outside of the norm
of how we as adults behave so that they learn how to become adults like we are. So I wouldn't necessarily
call it rebellion, but I think it's okay to kind of categorize it. Maybe say rebellious as an
adjective, because rebellion kind of sounds a little bit too like militarized to me. You know,
I think, you know, words illuminate certain things and hide other things. And that particular word,
it makes some people feel like, wow, they're going to overthrow the school or they're a coup d'état,
you know, and really most of the time, it's just the form of behavior communicating something.
And it's important to all of our growth and to helping kids learn to be in our community.
Now, on the flip side of that, it's equally as important to those kids rebelling that the grown-ups
patiently hold firm but empathetic boundaries like have be empathetic, understand where it's
coming from, but be firm. All actions have a consequence. Don't be over punishing, but definitely
assign some disciplinary measures. Oh, man. Jacob, do you time that? Yes, that was 117. Johnny,
do you want to do three more seconds or do you feel good with your answer? I'm good. Okay.
I'm going to, you know, take that in kind of move. You put this in the, you framed it at the end
with democracy. And I got to say that I actually, I think some good teaching actually kind of
situates students, sometimes in situations, to actually get them in a form where they can practice
what it means to dissent, to potentially, you know, so maybe that's a better word than rebel,
right? Is this, this idea of disagreement, dissension, to make one's case, to, to potentially,
you know, understand. And if we're teaching patriotic citizenship, nothing more patriotic than
dissent, peaceful dissent, and the ability to actually make that known to point out that you have
a grievance. And in fact, you know, encouraging that from the standpoint of even some types of
learning situations in even upper elementary school, where students have an opportunity to quote,
enact some form of a civil disobedience protest around an issue, potentially, that's really
important to them in their school. And so I, you know, I, man, heated climate, political climate
right now, but I think that's a valuable type of situation that schools actually can help so that we
don't get out of control. What does it mean to dissent peacefully, to be a patriotic citizen who
understands and respects humanity and property, but still has an ability to rebel?
Wow. Tim, good answer. Dr. Tim Slecker, Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, thank you so much for coming on
your own show. I really appreciate that. I always love having you here as guests on your own show.
I could rebel and change the way we end the show, but I'm not going to do that, Tim.
No, man, I thought you were going to kick it to me, Jacob.
Well, Jacob, you know what that means? It is time for your moment of sin.
History can untie our minds, our bodies, our disposition to move, to engage life rather than
contemplating it as an outsider. Let's go.
Sorry about the rebellion. I love it. Everybody rebel, but you know, what would be an act of rebellion
is if you tuned in and downloaded all the busted pencils podcasts, don't forget to catch us
on Mondays for Home Room. This was a rock and producers choice, but you got us all next week.
Also Wednesdays for class and session, and we'll be back again on next Friday for producer's choice.
It's always there. Thank Jacob, Chairman of the board for those exciting episodes, and don't forget
that every Saturday you could tune in at 3 p.m. Central time across all the civic media network
stations for one hour of your favorite. The Luke College Scholars, Tim and Johnny,
and Chief Buster Allen.