Wow, there it is. Man, it's busted pencils and you know it is class in session. That's right.
Dr. Johnny Lupinati, Dr. Johnny Lupinati, Jacob chairman of the board, me, Dr.
Thinslecker. We are here. We are ready to bring it on. Teaching, you know, it's class in session,
got a little something to teach Johnny. You brought a piece of information to us, you know,
pre-show we were looking at. I brought a piece of information and believe it or not, we're going to
make these two pieces of information fit together in a neat and tidy lesson for you, the listener.
Hey, you love that. Like that thing, you know, and Jacob has given us that look of going,
I don't know if they can pull it off, man. Jacob, I can see you, buddy.
Tim, I'm excited. Usually, you know, neat and tidy would be great. We're usually more in the long
and meandering side of things, but if you're thinking neat and tidy, I'm pretty excited to see what
you guys have ready to cook here. Johnny's like, ah, long and meandering. Wait.
Well, you know, occasionally we can get right at it, but Johnny, I mean, okay, so let's,
you know, is you point out near and dear to my heart? Yeah. Teachers, teachers, how they're
feeling, but education week, published a new survey, not just of American teachers, but
worldwide teachers and what they're thinking, how they're feeling about their job, and
what's going on are American teachers worse off than our global counterparts. You know, and
right there, I'm going to call, well, what part of the globe are you talking about, right?
Because it kind of gives us some general statistics, but I'm concerned with
over generalizing outside of the United States has a single other entity that can quote give
us a sense of how globally teachers are feeling. Johnny, that's my first concern right there.
Yeah. Well, I think in general, you know, headlines can be the opposite of long and meandering,
and this and, you know, and also words illuminate some things and hide other things. I think when
they put, when they put globally in the heading, I think, you know, they weren't really clear
about that they were referring to the OECD, the convention on the organization for economic
cooperation and development, which is 38 countries that I think, like Tim Goodpoint, don't really
represent the globe, right? Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, West Germany, Greece,
Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Turkey, the UK, and our very own near and dear to us, United States. So 38, you know, so again,
as geography teachers as social studies guys, you know, one of those misuses of global,
but you know, in comparison with those countries, I was, I was, I was peaked interest in me.
We've talked so much about like teacher demoralization in this country, teacher labor.
We also talked about the joys of teaching and get to talk with so many wonderful educators
that stay in the profession, but do very much talk about how it's harder and harder to do
and they see more and more people leaving the profession. And this article spoke to both,
right? I had some shocking things in here, but also, you know, came right out of the gate saying
that young teachers in the United States are among the most likely to leave the profession,
which we've always kind of known, right? Like one to three years is that zone where we lose a lot
of people who, who chose to become teachers, like they switch professions.
I switch, yeah, I saw that and went, well, Jesus, if they had looked at my 2019 teacher
exodus self-published study across all of my busted pencils, school teacher exodus blogs,
they wouldn't, they wouldn't have known that back then, Johnny. But yes, that's why I sent it to
this. I'm so near and dear to Tim's, you know, more qualitative investigation into how do teachers
feel? Why are so many teachers pushed out of the profession? But, you know, even that pushed out
seems, actually, that might be a new way to look at it today, because I have a feeling that,
that hold what you say pushed out in 2019, up until, you know, maybe even recently is
2012, a post pandemic. I would say most teachers that I talked to and spent a lot of time with and
was like 450 of them nationally that that sent me data about that, that it wasn't that there was
an entity that was pushing them out. It was just a sense that the system actually was stacked in a
way that it didn't value the work, the professionalization, the wisdom of teachers. And I said,
if I could sum it up very quickly, about 90% of those 400 plus teachers across the country said,
just let me teach, just let me teach. And I'm now thinking about that in wondering,
Johnny, you know, so it hasn't changed because we know that, but you had a new complexity there
about being pushed out because I feel like that's actually a newer phenomenon and that it's
probably exacerbating teacher demoralization. Well, sure. And I mean to like more like you're
referring to it systemically, right? Like just the day in and day, I used to call it school
seats in. It's sort of like getting sick. You breathe it in so much that you start doing it even
when you know better, right? Those old habits of mine and just the routine of schooling. We talk
about that a lot here on busted pencils, the difference between education or being engaged as a
learner, you know, versus the the routine of schooling, right? That whole sort of like factory
model of education, well, of course, the bell rings and we get in our seats and the teacher talks
for 50 minutes. And then we turn something in and hopefully we did it right, not saying that that's
what happens in every classroom, but you know, that's my gross approximation of what's constantly
this black hole force of schooling pulling us towards teaching that way, even when we know better.
So it always say schooling seeps in, right? Like you breathe it in. It permeates the buildings,
the structures. And Tim, I think it has gotten a lot harder for teachers like, you know, with
the, like you've said it before, increased standardized testing, increased standardized curriculums,
the sort of enforcing of you must follow these things. And I like how you sum it up. So many great
educators out there who said, you know, I just got tired of not being able to teach. So no one said,
well, guess what? You're out next year because these are good teachers who are making that
difficult choice. But they're really, you know, I kind of use that phrase, like they're pushed,
pushed out of the profession because they really feel like what they were called to do,
they're not able to do. And they enjoy that. There's a calling to being an educator to be present
at the like experience of new ideas, new connections, right? And if they can't do those things,
it's like, well, what, well, why am I doing this? And you know,
that was not addressed in this survey was that thing. You know, so again, back to the survey,
guess what? Yeah, American teachers feel more stressed. What are those things?
Well, it is, guess what? On top of the things that Johnny and I just said that aren't mentioned in
there, incredible amounts of procedural types of paperwork, documentation, constantly just
piling up. I mean, you know, the amount of time you get to actually, I talked to the teachers
of the amount of time I spend in front of my students seems to have diminished over the 20 years,
largely in place of or being replaced by busy work, paperwork, assessment, accounting,
recounting, all of those things. And guess what? This study points that out that, you know,
there's just too much work to do. And I would say there's probably too much work to do that,
that's non teaching related. My biggest though surprised Johnny in this survey before we blended
into the other story is that globally teachers are satisfied with their pay. Yeah, across the OECD,
I was pretty shocked by this too, because we talk with a lot of teachers and ourselves experience
being educators, you know, and just, you know, it's all public information. Anyway,
it's still disclosed, you know, like, especially in a state where like I'm pretty far along in my
teaching career, and as an educator of teachers, often, no, not often, I do make considerably less
than a teacher with my experience in schools. So it's just, it's pretty shocking to me to hear
that one over and over again. And I happen to know this for so many people across our country,
because I'm in the state of Washington, generally pays its teachers quite high, maybe even the highest
in the country overall. But across our country, we know that teachers are especially early childhood
educators. Right. Some of the lowest paid professions out there, right? And so I have met many
of great teachers who have had to made the financial decision to do other work. Yep. Because they
have responsibilities to family or even their own livelihoods that require a higher pay than
teachers. So I was, I was like kind of dumbfounded by this survey across. Again, remember those 38
countries, not really the globe. No, not really the globe. But, but again, like you said, I, okay,
maybe it is anecdotally, but I have more, more teachers that, you know, hey, after school,
after all the paperwork, you know, I'm going to bartend, I'm going to wait tables, I'm going,
I mean, that was just, and you'd say, why they're like, well, because my salary doesn't pay the
bills. Yeah. So, hey, Ed week, can you check your numbers on that one? I wasn't Ed week. It was
the survey, as you said, the OECD. But, but, but that one, you know, again, satisfied. I think
you're right, though, Johnny, maybe potentially if you're talking to people who've maybe been in
the profession 20 in the 30 year range, if they've lasted that long, they're probably, you know,
as you point out, they're making more money than you, my friend. Well, yeah, and the other thing
that was interesting to me was the average age of the teaching profession is between 43 and 45.
Yeah, I thought that like, that's very interesting. Like a majority of teachers, you know, kind of fall
in that range of in the in the Ford in their 40s. So, I mean, not nothing wrong with being in
your 40s. That's someone, you know, wrapping that decade up pretty soon here. But, you know, I just
just thought, wow, that's really surprising to me as well. So, interesting, you know, information
coming out of that survey. Do you do you think that that age is like, so the the survey and the
article frames it as, you know, that our our teachers are younger. Well, younger than globally,
again, but it's, you know, like 45 for America and 47. So, I don't know. I think that's a wash.
But is 45, if you think about it, if you started teaching at 22 and the average teachers 45
years old, that doesn't sound like like the teaching forces too young to me. No, I mean, Jay,
wait, you know what producer Jacob, what do you think? Tim, as somebody who is in his 20s, I would say
that teaching force average age in the mid 40s is not exactly that young. And I was also a little
bit surprised reading that article because as you said, they framed it as the European average is 47.
The United States is 45. Whoa, what's that all about? Why are they so young in the United States?
And 45 did not sound that young to me. And a two year difference in your big survey of all teachers
did not seem like a huge difference. I don't know if it if that really made sense to me.
Yeah, I'm from their data set. Well, and interestingly enough to, Tim, this might be part of it.
One in five teachers in the United States, you know, became a teacher through what we would
consider an alternate pathway or an alternate program, right? Like a condensed, you know, accelerated
pathway to the career, which probably means like second career folks or different pathways.
We've talked a lot about that on the show, but one in five compared to veteran teachers, you know,
I guess they're a longer experience demographic taking the survey was one in 10.
So these alternate pathways are certainly more available and they be even more desirable to folks.
So all of this is, you know, interesting, interesting data points. But, you know, sweeping though,
again, is that guess what dissatisfaction is there with American teachers, they're globally.
And, you know, like any report that names all of the things that are wrong, how do we fix this?
How do we solve this problem? Well, Johnny, I think Iceland. And again, I think,
there's an interesting pivot. I would think, you know, and I think Iceland qualifies as global.
Hey, they're in the, they're in the OECD that convention on the organization for economic
cooperation and development. There you go. Eyes are they saying, you know what, we're taking this
seriously because it was just announced that they are the first country to get into partnership
with anthropic. And if anybody's going anthropic, that's Claude AI for you people. And as Johnny
will tell you, that's his favorite AI, Claude. I mean, I've, I've experimented with it a bit and
found it to be quite useful. And in fact, have it as like, you know, part of teaching teachers
right now, like how do we, you know, engage in teaching students to work with AI? But how are we
also examining and reading about tools for our profession and teaching and Claude being one of
those powerful tools to assist teachers in a lot of ways on that we're still learning how to use
and vet some great shows recently in the in the past about, you know, some of the ethics around
that, like making sure to maintain anonymity of your students and things. But some really great
ways teachers are looking to like adapt lesson plans or differentiate instruction or create
individualized, you know, lesson plans and pathways for students and interests. I mean,
it definitely I think is changing our labor. You know, it's not replacing us as teachers,
but it's changing the labor. And so, you know, this article that you sent him, I was kind of
interested and excited saying, was it Iceland is basically providing, you know, Claude, you know,
form of AI, I think a pretty responsible and like strong tool out there. But it's behind a paywall.
But, you know, providing accounts to utilize it for all their teachers in that country. So
all their teachers, all their students. And yeah, this is, you know, in collaboration, the minister
of education and children in Iceland. In fact, according to Gulmunder, Ingi, Christensen, artificial
intelligence is here to stay. It is developing at a tremendous pace. And it's important to harness
its power while at the same time preventing harm. And then he goes on to say here to be in Iceland,
we take the leap and embark on an ambitious project aimed at examining the use of artificial
intelligence in various areas of education with teachers, being the guiding principles
using this technology. Johnny, I got to say right there, just a slight meander.
Hey, guess what? That sounds to me like they appreciate their teachers in Iceland.
I mean, maybe, maybe, I mean, the other article told us that globally teachers in general feel less
valued by society. And one of the generalizing ways they feel less valued is that they
really collectively feel like they don't have a lot of voice in educational policy.
So maybe if that comes from teachers, like teachers are saying, hey, what would really help us
is access to a powerful tool, you know, that brings some, some labor changes to us that helps
free us up to do more of the things we love to do with students that then maybe in Iceland,
if that's what's going from. But, you know, it could just be another version of like, I know
teacher Joanna would always speak about this now. Dr. Joanna, which is a beautiful thing.
And she'd always say, we forget so often to listen to teachers. And even with the best of
intentions, not, and I don't know where this originated in Iceland, but, you know, maybe some
researchers and some policymakers said, well, you know what, we'll help the teachers. And they
could be right. Like, this is a powerful tool to help teachers. But if it's not something that
teachers are saying, hey, you know what would help us, it could be contributing that to that
collective sense of feeling less valued in society now more than ever. And linking that to
a lack of voice in policy and educational policy across all 38 of those countries that seem,
at least from the report in the survey, you know, shared to be a commonality or a theme.
And I think that one does ring congruent or in harmony. I don't know if you can use
quite congruent with sounds, but at least in a resonance or harmony.
Yeah, I was like, isn't that a math term? Yeah, yeah. And I was going to send you,
like, be grateful to him. I was going to send you an article about teaching mathematics with AI.
So I thought this is going to just going to short circuit him because he's going to despise the
math part, but love the AI part. But it was pretty cool stuff about a pre-calc teacher who is
teaching a machine learning class as part of his pre-calc. Really cool stuff. Maybe we'll get to
it in another episode. But yeah, Tim, I really think this bringing us back around full circle,
you know, I think it's a powerful tool. You think it's a powerful tool. Our teachers asking for
that, maybe, you know, will it help change their labor? I think, yes, I think ultimately they'll
be happy with it. Yeah, I think right there on the labor thing, I think, you know, you and I are
at the point now to say, look, it can definitely help out in the labor category. So if you haven't tried
that out. And I got to say, you know, I would hope and think and even project that Iceland is
taking the more of a teacher-centered view on this, just because we kind of know that then,
you know, the Nordic countries themselves just have a much more, you know, bigger sense of education
and the child and the professionalism, you know, thinking like, you know, our friends and listeners
in Finland, you know, we know you guys are out there. Actually, John, I was thinking, maybe if the
the Finnish friends would reach out to the Icelanders, maybe Johnny Jacob and Tim can go and check out
AIUs in the country of Iceland and report right from Iceland. So Finnish listeners, if you're out there
and you have connections. And actually, if you're one of those, you know, a couple people in Iceland
who we know listen, Johnny, Tim and Jacob would love to come out and see what anthropic and
teaching in Iceland would look like. Tim, I think you just proposed something here. We might have
to look into that. And I was actually just talking to our Finnish listener friends just the other day.
So I think we're overdue, long overdue for them to be on the show. So let's get it moving. Let's
bring, let's bring them on. Let's reach out and let's make me take a little field trip. Yeah.
experiential learning, you know, AI in Iceland. I think that Tim, you could spearhead that and
Jacob and I write us in will certainly make it going to be on the island now. AI is what this
incredible innovation. And you know, Tim, Johnny, when I think about who's brave, who's willing to
try new things, who's willing to venture out into the unknown? I think Vikings. Okay. And you know,
Eric, the red, he settled Iceland, it worked out. We'll see if it's like that or if it's more like
Leith Erickson going to Newfoundland, didn't work out so well, but they're trying new things. And
that's part of that spirit of Iceland. I appreciate. I have one question, though, Tim. Yes.
Did the article get into what they are using clawed for? Well, I let's be honest here.
Through reading, this was a press release coming from anthropic. Okay. So it is largely
TBB, it's TBB. And, you know, and why would anthropic put this out there? Hey, it's good press for
them. It's advertising. You know, we're going to have to look a little bit here. It just, let me see,
education's pioneering education pilot builds upon a growing number of governments
partnering with anthropic across Europe and beyond. So it's largely a pitch piece from anthropic.
They're excited about it. And I think there's some, you know, some merit to this excitement. We'll
see what develops, what grows. Tim, but you never know. And it reminds me, and I actually have come
a long way on my stance on AI, you know, that. And I think this is actually a pretty powerful tool
that teachers, you know, need to be engaged with learning how it's changing the way that our
students learn how it's changing the roles we're in as teachers, again, not replacing us, but a
new powerful tool, different than many of the other technologies. But similar to him, I'm reminded
of a story of being a young math teacher and to try a few decades ago now. But there was a press
release from a company Blackberry about all the teachers would have Blackberry devices in their
hands. And this would revolutionize the classroom because it would streamline and speed up attendance
and put information right in our hands. If we didn't know something, we could look it up
immediately. If we needed to, you know, contact the office, we could contact the office.
But we had these handheld devices, which were basically like prehistoric smartphones.
But, you know, I remember we would all joke about like, has it changed much for you? No, I'm
clip, I got this clipped on device, but, you know, you know, sometimes the technology has all the
best of intentions and just falls flat. I would say buy and large that one fell flat. But,
well, I think this is different. I think this is different. And, you know, hey, just, you know,
one more quote. And this is, and now this is from Anthropic. He is the head of public sector.
Thiago Ramaswamy says, for far too long, teachers have been weighed down by paperwork and administrative
tasks, hidden burdens, burdens that pull them away from what they do best teaching. Wow. So,
right there, acknowledging what they do best teaching, yeah, sounds to me like they, they read my
work back in 2019, Johnny, when all those teachers said, just let me teach and Iceland is saying,
you know what, we're going to do that. We're going to bring teaching back. We're going to bring
Claude andthropic together. Yeah, we got to do a show from Iceland, but now it's time for your
moment of sin. We all know individuals, most of them unsung, unrecognized, who have often in the
most modest ways spoken out or acted on their beliefs for a more egalitarian, more just
peace loving society.
Thank you, all you listeners out there in the peace loving society for listening to today,
to the class in session. And you could always grab great podcasts like this one, just search
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or on our website at bustedpensils.com. And don't forget to find us throughout the week,
every Monday, Wednesday, Friday with home rooms, classes in session, and always loads of fun to
wrap up that work week on Fridays with producer Jacob's choice and listen up pencil busters.
You're going to always catch the busted pencils broadcast at 3 p.m. central time across all
the civic media network stations for one full hour of your favorite blue collar scholars,
Tim and Johnny, and keep Busted Pensils.