I got the thumbs up from the man, uh, you know, well, first it's busted pencils fully
education talk educated educators talking education man thumbs up yes from producer Jacob
on today's producer's choice but first dr johnny lupinachi Jacob how are you guys doing
johnny lead us off go ahead and do a great you know it's uh you know it's uh what they call dead week
here uh at campus uh you know and I learned early in my career adjustment from the midwest to the
west uh that this dead week thing isn't grateful dead week I'm like I'm gonna say Jerry Garcia or what
showed up for a class my first dead week and and my tied eye and my my grateful dead gear and
and uh and they said what are you doing I said it was tired it's dead week and they said no
it's dead week because it's the week before finals and I said oh what does that mean they said
well it's the it means the week that there's nothing going on and I was like is that correct and a
bunch of other students said uh no it's the week that kills you that's why it's called dead week
uh so I think now one student did also didn't get the memo and I like his version of dead week
almost better than I'd like my original version of it's the week we celebrate the grateful dead uh
but no it's dead week so you know just buried and and in work but I love it you know it's time to
you know make sure all the missing assignments are turned in make sure you know meetings with
students to get the right courses for next semester are all finalized and that everything is all
well as those students head off into their break after their finals next week so it's an exciting
week but it's a busy one how about you Jacob how are you doing Johnny I'm just I'm just excited
because I get the opportunity to interview two of my favorite people on their own show and that
you know that's just the biggest honor I think anybody could have especially now that we're in
December and I'm feeling the holiday cheer now that we're getting into December and uh frankly
I didn't want to I don't want to tell you guys before the show started but this is the first night
of the 12 busted pencils episodes of Christmas oh my goodness can you believe
jingle bells let's go because today gentlemen is the producer's choice show for December 5th
now it's not 12 days until Christmas but we do four shows a week boom boom boom and up till
Christmas Eve that'll be 12 shows so we're gonna kick it off with our first show of the season
for choo choo producer and Jacob's choice chairman of the board
you and I will have two choices chairman of the board Jacob
oh Jake chairman of the board I've got the board is spelled B-O-R-E-D
we choose to go to the moon life tough choices in
so here we are December 5th it's December folks and that means one thing and one thing only
yes you got that right people are finally getting their Spotify yearly wrapped report
oh boy now what what is the Spotify wrapped you may ask well I'll tell you it's a it's a cynical
viral marketing scheme crafted by the Spotify mega corporation that encourages their users
to share an annual report of their music listening habits over the course of the previous year
now while this obviously has the effect of spreading their brand free of charge it also
is a lot of fun and a good excuse for people to talk about music again so folks my first question
is very simple do you guys use this service that we will not continue to name due to not wanting
to give anymore free advertising but do you use this service and did you get your annual yearly
listening reports let's start with you Tim you know no I don't I don't listen to Spotify
I got to tell you this has been a year of not a whole lot of music listening in this like
our household lots of other things going on you know my without giving promotions to other
things but my my listening now is when I drive to my office and I've got my father-in-law's
van that was you know given to us with inheritance and I got a lifetime serious XM subscription
and so you know I between channel 33 and channel 34 back and forth that's my listening
the past year and that would be you know channel 33 Johnny Johnny you know what you know it
new wave hits of the 80s and channel 34 lithium all 90s all the time now is that named after
you know the lithium from the 90s and I got to think it's coming from the lithium yeah that would
be a nirvana it's really good to you know put that up but yeah that that's been my listening so
I'm I'm listening to throwbacks to the 80s and not big hair 80s but new wave the the cure
and then all the 90s grunge so no Spotify 10 I appreciate that you're keeping it old school you're
you're dusting off your record collection and you you've still kept track of who you're listening to
this year so that's still good Dr. Johnny how about you are you taking out the eight tracks or do you
have some sort of digital service what are you doing man I have all of it Jacob it's so distracting
I actually didn't know I figured Spotify rap had come out because just this week maybe it was
yesterday I was on my my apple we're giving all kinds of free advertising today it's just it's
the giving season here I'm lost to pencils but I was on my my apple account and it gave me a similar
version of that I it was like the year wrote the yearly report or something in my in my I don't
think it's even called iTunes anymore but in my apple Apple music Apple music yeah yeah that
listen to a couple old guys talk about newer not even new technology newer technology that's how
dated we are but Spotify wrapped I I enjoy that so I use streaming services in different contexts
so Apple is my like my phone one and my main go to like when I connect in the car right when I'm
not using the civic media app which actually I'm like no no intended plug here works really well
in my car play like the app like has a little logo right on my little screen and boom I can tap
and either listen to a live you know radio stream or I can go over and head to podcasts and grab those
but I do use Spotify quite a bit this stream in my classroom and it's a it's a service that I
utilize for you know shared playlists that students contribute to and sort of the background music
as you enter the classroom and I have it often playing you know throughout the house or in you know
my office when I'm working so Spotify gets a lot of play it doesn't necessarily best represent
my favorites as much although I'm so curious that I tried to get it pulled up for this show when
you started talking about it and it I needed to read download an update I needed to do updates
because I guess it's only available on the app I started to do an update my connection severely
severed as the downloads started I said better abandon that during the live show here and we can
do Spotify wrapped later but I'm always curious what are my top listen to things and disappointingly
I'll make a prediction disappointingly every year in my Spotify um the stuff that gets the most
like it's the top is all like this spa low five mix kind of stuff that I play to help me focus
at work or when I'm writing or when I'm just you know doing like the grunt work of replying to
emails you know drafting different documents uh for you know curriculums that are changing or
you know reviewing syllabi all the kind of professorial work that the background music helps me do
so and then I have to scroll I have to go way down and say what did I actually listen to
and what did my students impose on me and what are my favorites uh but yeah Jacob so I have
my apple one going I know my year and review and apple which I think is pretty accurate
to the things I really dug this year um and I believe I'm gonna butcher the name of the album
because you put me on the spot now I'm like Tim I have all this anxiety about being in we're all
friends here Johnny where the list it's just you me and in our millions of listeners yeah yeah
it's just everybody but the top um the top album of the year for me was Bonnevere Sable Fable the new
the newest one with local Wisconsin's you know that's uh that's a Wisconsin favorite band uh you
know I'm saying that I just assume you love the hometown guy even though his latest record comes
from his experiences I say once you're a great-laker you're always part of the great-lake so he's
still probably carries that in but it's stint in LA now uh but yeah that whole album was top listen to
album for me and I believe also the favorite song uh the most listened to song on my on my
wrapped uh was things behind things behind things by Bonnevere um interesting Tim too you'll like this
throwback the next most listen to album for me it kind of caught me off guard but I'm like yeah
actually do put that album on it's on was greatest hit smashing pumpkins this year was like a
return to smashing pumpkins year for me a little nostalgia you know I'm still great music and they
have re-released some of their albums recently but you know I don't know why that the greatest hits
album this year um I found it on my apple and it's just like constantly been going both my apple
and Spotify uh another big one Noah Cajon uh in Gracie Abrams those are big artists that have been
popping up in my rap or my apple version of rap and then I'm anticipating after you know these
30 songs have been played nearly a million times because this guy always has spa music going on
in the back room so I could get like scroll through all those and then I'll probably get to
similarly those artists um I generally play a lot of Mac Miller in my classroom uh and
Billy Alice Pittsburgh Pittsburgh yeah that's right Matt I don't know Jake
up if that does that answer your that tackles the first question on today's producer's choice
adequately sir it answered and then it answered and it it answered and I thought it was a great
answer Johnny I mean it kept going we thought it was the whole show was Johnny talking about Spotify
and Apple music you read every track on every album you listen to this year and I enjoyed that I
I think it's a good time to listen to those uh to that greatest hits you know we you could
listen to it tonight tonight tonight tonight tonight tonight great time for that uh I had a
similar thing that happened to me because my number one artist was Blink 182 as it is every year
top five percent or listener I'm gonna put that on my motorcycle jacket I'm a point five percent
or but uh the rest of my top five or whatever was all of the random playlist stuff I have play
when I wake up in the morning so I don't actually like any of this I I chose I used to have a
problem where I would pick songs I like to be my alarm and then I hated them because I would
associate them with having to wake up in the morning so I said oh give me some random stuff I don't
even listen to yay that'll work all right uh we're almost out of time for today so uh I'll ask the
first real education based question when I ask you guys this and we'll start with you Johnny because
you're you're pretty hot right now I feel uh what's your policy on students having their headphones
in during a class some kids say that listening to music helps them focus on their work other people
say it's a big distraction how do you feel about that hmm I'm going to say that I think Johnny
feels uh very stoically about that right now um that you know I mean sometimes that's the way
Johnny gets Jacob yeah he he has to think very very you know deeply but I'm I'm thinking Johnny's
deep thinking's over right now I mean it's always going it's always a constant battle whether I can
like get out what I'm actually thinking or if the thinking's in conflict with what I'm saying it's
a hot mess in there hey uh Jacob this is a great question I actually students asked me about this
this year so we had like a real big class discussion around this because I noticed increasingly
it's more and more common for students to wear not whole headphones like that's kind of a little
bit distracting like I'm talking you have headsets on unless somehow I have some kind of mic to
what you're listening to I'm pretty sure you're drowning me out so it's a more of a like like a
communication of I'm not paying attention but I noticed um I noticed that students wear their
eye air pods or a similar kind of thing and generally I I asked about this I said you know like
I noticed you don't have two in like when you're in class like I can tell you're not listening to
music but it's in I mean it's something that a generation of students and I don't even want to
place around age I think it's a it's kind of a becoming more of a thing that it's constantly just
in your ear like you keep it in um so I do have students who have that and I don't seem to mind
that at all because I can see that they're paying attention or maybe they're pretend paying attention
and listening to you know something else uh but but I think they just keep it in uh I know some
students utilize the translation uh there's translation software in in air pods that I have a
couple of international students who said you know to me that they actually use them to translate what
I'm saying that's like no way come on it can do that and I turned into a real old geezer in the classroom
but it it actually works really well and so um they are doing that and then you know in general
though Jacob I I ask students hey when you're here be present as a listener and participating in
a conversation with your peers I try to make it not a power struggle like it's if you want to
ignore me you're welcome too I'm not I'm not here to control what you hear and don't hear but in
general like I think I'll keep it to a minimum not like on this show where I go on and on
I was like I I have classroom timer it's 12 minutes and my direct instruction has to fit
into the 10 minute to 12 minute mark um and I have a clock that goes so they know like it's
it's gonna end soon it's not endless uh but I ask them not to have them in class uh and I try
really hard to not make that a power struggle um and by for the most part students have them off
and then I have had students who say I can hear you but I keep these on because it's more comfortable
for me and I'm thinking okay on the inside I'm like really like you wear headphones as a comfort
item I'm not here to get into that's a choose your battles thing I'm like okay as long as you're
doing good and you can participate whatever you need for comfort go for it uh but in general I
ask them to try and not like hey take out the I call them Bluetooth just because I like to make
phone of myself for being old I say hey take out those Bluetooth when you're in class and they're
like nobody calls them Bluetooth what are you talking about so you have your headphones in what are
you listening to they're like nothing they just stay there I'm like okay you know on that
I try and make a joke of it my professor said I have blue teeth
remember when people would have like the when it was
yeah yeah yeah turn off your Bluetooth headsets we're trying to learn here
yeah grumpy old man I think that's a great policy Johnny but I want to run it up the chain first
to my other trusted advisor doctor Tim Slicker what's your feeling about ear buds in the classroom
Tim some people like I said I a little bit of a tune at a low level that helps me focus tune out
the extra stuff other people say it's a big distraction what do you think Tim I um well you know
if we're just talking about like an accoutrement I'm always with the toothpick yeah I like that you
know I mean right there you you want to keep that going what Johnny was saying some of them just
like to wear it like you know like like it made me think I'm like okay so like you know when I
keep my toothpick in my mouth I'm not picking my teeth it's just something that you know hangs out
in my mouth okay so now kids are you know I'm not listening to anything my ear bud just hanging out
my ear you know I don't know um you know what Jacob I I got to tell you that I don't buy
the uh I'm listening to music right it helps me pay attention um you know I I'm like no no no no no no
um yeah so from that standpoint if somebody said you know hey I you know when I'm listening to
uh yeah you know Billy Corgan um jamming out I mean that just helps me pay attention to you
doctor slacker like no check it out like take your ear bud out and um listen to me and then
afterwards we'll jam some smashing pumpkins together and hang out um but the other thing though
Johnny mentioned this I thought about this but um yeah now from the standpoint of yeah multiple
language translation I could definitely see that and um you know being a little bit more on the
potentially innovative side I was even thinking I might have my ear bud in with an AI agent
that is translating you know slacker's dense verbose lecture into um things that actually make
me understand what the heck he's talking about I don't know that that's actually out there
happening yet but that would be kind of interesting if the student would say hey look I like
doctor slacker when when you talk like I never understand what you're saying and so I got an
ear bud AI translator that takes slacker verboseness and turns it into things I can understand
I could see that happening in the future and if that's the case hmm interesting but no you're
listening to music during my my uh me spouting off about something doesn't work man
and Tim I actually use that all the time because you guys start talking about pedagogy and all
this nonsense words I'm like okay Claude break it down for me what's he talking about give it
to me in English pico jade you're here you go again listen listen mr. Harvard all right I can't
fall all this all your pedagogy uh but the point is guys this is really the big point of the show
is that we're running out of time for this episode that's sort of the overarching theme of the
episode so I'm going to give you Dr. Tim slacker and they give you two minutes to answer this very
big important question I say for the end uh hey guys what role does music education play and what
role do you think that music education should play Tim two minutes I'm sure that's plenty of time
that is as we always point out on the show the essential curriculum that um for sad other reasons
people call it an extra and we pointed out that um sorry music should be the essential part of a
curriculum um because you know it really does give that ability to sometimes you know music is
just that other way that some people get deeper understanding create meaning and you know
the other thing is just for pure enjoyment so um an education without music not very educational
uh Dr. Johnny Lupinacci tell us about music education and why you think it's important and tell
us about your Spotify raft after the show phones down yeah man class fall down the strap
well my download came through my updates complete now I have my Spotify wrapped um hey no Jacob uh
much like Tim said music education such a core part of being you know like pun fully
intended maybe it's not even pun appropriate metaphor in harmony as a learning group in classrooms
you know compliments whether we're learning math english re you know english language arts any of
the subject areas you know when we engage with the creative aspects of things as they relate to
those content areas it's huge so whether it's you know just music class like if you're an elementary
school and you get to have a music teacher and you get to do all those fun activities at least once
a week when you go to your specials but uh as it's woven into our daily lives right listening to music
having kinds of music that you like taught telling stories through music you're sharing all of that
such an important part of different cultures and sharing our human experience um that it's like
Tim said like and we we always like to say here bus defensiles these aren't extra curriculars
they're essential curriculars they're part of how we learn and communicate together so big fan of
music education uh and love that it exists not only in our schools but in all of our lives because
you think about it you carry you know your passion for what you listen to for like the sound
tracks of your life everywhere you go throughout life it isn't just something like that you did in fifth
grade or as a subject in seventh or eighth grade or maybe you were in band or not in band in high
school music still plays a role like there's a soundtrack to different moments in your life
and it's so important uh and it's like shared joys shared sorrows all of those things Jacob so
a big fan of it no surprise there um and always advocating it for beat him to be more
part of everyday learning in classrooms right like how can the music we listen to they're
I'm gonna drop the big word be part of the pedagogy whether it's like hip hop pedagogy's punk rock
pedagogy's and fun fact Jacob the reason Tim and I know each other in busted pencils capacity
is because we were doing a podcast together about punk rock and teaching so music brought us together
and we go sound track uh love the topics today Jacob 12 shows of Christmas let's go first of the
12 shows of Christmas and I think we got off to a great start with Tim and Johnny coming on their
own show for an interview unfortunately there's only time for one last question that I'll ask
let's go this is our 60 second question it's gonna be a pretty simple one fellas what's the best
album ever in your opinion for me the answer is uh when your heart stops beating by plus 44 good band
formed by uh two thirds of blink 182 really good stuff Tim I'm gonna let you go ahead now and I
have no idea what your answer might be hit us with and Elton john's greatest hits one got Daniel
song uh crocodile rock man talk about a soundtrack of of my my life so there you go I think you're
a little confused Daniel song was the protagonist of karate kid I believe uh Johnny best album ever
this literally short circuits my brain because there are so many that he's like I can't do it I can't
like give me more criteria I can't but if I have to go with one today in this moment Jacob this
is going to be a hot take Paul's boutique beastie boys Paul's boutique to stop more album I mean
it's one of my all-time favorites so to me I'm dropping it as a today right now on this special show
Paul's boutique beastie boys best album ever let's go very good that's that's a different album but
same band it's the only one I had cute uh yeah you got to understand uh but thank you
Dr. Johnny Lupinachi Dr. Tim Slecker you've been awesome and Tim and now it's time for your moment
of zin the future is an infinite succession of presents
I'm just gonna tell you man Christmas time I want an infinite succession of presents if you know
what I mean it's coming up all right sorry no absolutely on that no let's get everybody an infinite
succession of presents and thank you listeners for listening to this busted pencils producer choice
episode and remember you can grab great podcast packed with all kinds of busted pencils content
on apple podcast Spotify and of course on civic media website or at busterpensils.com hey and don't
be late for home room on monday and be sure that you grab next week's class and session on wednesday
and if you don't already know well guess what you're gonna love this you can catch buster pencils
broadcast at three p.m. central time every Saturday across all the civic media network stations
for one hour of your favorite blue collar scholars Tim and Johnny that keep busting pencils
you