Wake up, it's Monday, the sun's on the rise.
Home room's the place where we sharpen our minds.
Grab your coffee or notebook, your pen.
Home room, home room.
Let's do it again.
Oh, yes, let's do it again.
Busted pencils, fully leaded, education talk, educated.
Educators talking, education, it's homeroom.
Man, who could not be excited for the day to begin this week like that?
Jacob, chairman of the board, thank you for that music.
Dr. Johnny Lupinacci in the house, me, Dr. Tim Slecker, and man, you know, weekends go by so quickly.
Johnny, Jacob, Jacob, if you could make the weekend.
last longer.
Would you?
Or would you not?
Tim, I think I'm kind of the wrong person to ask this question to because every Monday I get to come in and work with my two favorite people doing the greatest job in the world for civic media that I'm so grateful for.
And I don't want to sound like I don't want to come in on during the week.
So for me, no, I wouldn't change anything.
But where are you heading with this, Tim?
I mean, actually you were kind of, uh, you know, going down the right path.
Um, Johnny, what about you?
You need more weekend in your weekend?
Oh, right now, man.
Uh, always, I'll always take more weekend.
If you're, uh, if you're awarded it, no, it's first, uh, first week back in class here for us.
So, you know, things are buzzing on campus.
Uh, and, and we're going full steam, a little bit of a later start into the new year than usual.
So.
Yeah, I'll take any more weekend I can get.
Well, not the homeroom topic I wanted to bring up, but I was just thinking about that.
I had a meeting with a colleague who looked at me and kind of gave me that, you're like always working, aren't you?
And I thought about that and went,
Yeah, I guess so And I kind of take that as going I just really like the work that I do I mean whether it's it's busted pencils whether it's innovation and education, you know staying connected to the news.
It's like yeah when when I need a disconnect Some people I
My work is actually my disconnect because all the other crap going around whether it's the current events or family and all those other things.
It's like, man, let me get back to work so I can just get my head back in the game.
But Johnny thinking of work, look, you and I, we have committed and really put forward the idea that we want to see the best.
teachers end up in our classrooms.
I got a twist for you and I want to see how you're going to react to this.
What if a corporation or a big company said, you know what, Johnny, Tim, we're actually interested in your best teachers.
Is that an opportunity for our students?
Is that something you block at?
Or is that something you wake up and go, haha, new opportunities?
Because, you know, I just want to pepper you a little bit, Johnny, and see what you're thinking, because I actually have a real world example of this.
And so before I reveal, I just want to position that with you, you know, Johnny Lupinacci, I heard you prepare the best teachers in the country.
We want them.
Well, Tim, um, hypothetically, let's pretend that that has never happened.
And this is the first time that anyone has ever come to me from industry saying what we really need are great teachers in our business or in our corporation or in our, you know, um, company, uh, myth buster that teachers can only teach and that only they only work in K12 schools.
And I, I'll say this is actually a fairly common request and recruitment from industry.
Teachers are really good at some highly sought after skills out there in, in I'm saying general industry, but especially in like sales and project management and in, you know, leading teams and communicating ideas down the, down the chain and go figure and teaching
even adults, yes adults, to do things differently on the job, which is a really, really hard task.
Anyone out there in industry knows when things change and you have to provide your workforce with necessary skills to change, it's always good to have a few teachers, some people who are good at how people learn.
Right.
And, and, and this has been something that's come up from time to time.
And, and I'm always conflicted Tim cause on the, on one hand I'm like, don't you dare steal our teachers.
But on the other hand, I'm like, you know, this is a great opportunity, especially for a lot of my peers.
And I'll just be honest, even myself at times.
It's not only hard work to be a teacher.
It's sometimes not financially responsible or feasible.
Like you might have increased cost of livings that the teaching salary doesn't, you know, cover.
There are all kinds of different factors that go into that teachers buy in large, not all of them, but a large group of them are.
grossly underpaid and even more grossly undervalued in community.
That takes its toll.
So I've kind of over the years to develop this balance of where I'm like, I'm not so much conflicted as I'm like being really transparent that, you know, teaching is wonderful.
It's a calling.
It's a vocation and it's also, you know, a profession.
Um, you don't do it for free.
although we're bad examples of that everywhere.
We've gone in our career, hasn't been exactly for free, but lots of it is, but, but you have options and when you have options and you're really good at what you do and you love what you do, you're even better at it.
So I like to make sure, especially my, my future teachers now, if you're not enjoying teaching or you're not feeling your best, you know, there are other options for you.
reach out to me and I kind of have that pool that I push forward to those recruiters.
But otherwise I don't want, you know, because every kid deserves a great teacher and to be a great teacher, you also have to love what you're doing.
And that's, you know, you've talked about Tim, the teacher exodus is deeply rooted in teacher morale.
This is a tough one, man, but you know, you've definitely caught me off guard on this home room.
Okay, now I knew that's where you were gonna go because yes teachers are teachers are Very sought after and like you Johnny.
I have many at times with certain Students said, you know, they're like, man, I you know, I was in schools.
I'm not sure that's for me I'm like, hey, you know, I'm thinking of changing my major.
I'm like
You know, you don't have to, you got lots of options.
That's not what I'm talking about, actually.
Yeah, Jacob, look at that, okay?
I don't know if this would qualify as a Timbomb or not, but yeah, teacher shortage, okay, guess what?
We're not really good at, quote, attracting teachers.
for the quote, teacher shortage, we're pretty horrible at it.
But I heard a conversation today that kind of started with, how would you like to increase enrollment in your math and science teacher education programs?
And I went, wait, what?
Other than special education, the increase in math and science teachers or the, quote, dearth of them out there and the shortage.
Holy crap.
Wait a minute.
Wait.
Are you saying you think you have a way to attract people in to intentionally become math and science teachers and you want them to do that?
Yeah, I think we can incentivize them.
I was like, okay, shoot.
Yeah, shoot.
Well, a major worldwide company has found out that, Johnny, like you pointed out, actually, teachers make really great employees.
And in fact, they've now found that their
own internal education programs for their engineers, for their scientists to work in this company.
They provide their own education.
And actually, teachers are their best quote, trainers.
And
Boy, this industry is high tech and man.
They want math and science teachers, not math majors, not science majors.
They want math science teachers and they want them directly coming out of teacher education institutions in to their company.
And Johnny, starting salary about 40% higher.
Then a classroom teacher.
Can you give me an application, Tim?
I'm like, you're a man.
You're like math teacher.
Okay.
Jacob, what do you think?
I'll take it.
Yeah.
I'll learn to teach and I'll
teach these
guys.
Sounds
good to me.
No, that's a me.
That's pretty, that's pretty smart on their end, Tim, because they're not wrong.
Like you have to kind of know the industry.
And so math science teachers are already kind of familiar with.
probably what they're teaching, but you also need to know how to teach.
Right.
And that's not being taught in other degree programs, like how you teach people concepts, you know, on the job, because we're being vague because we don't really know anything about the specific industry.
But Tim, it makes a lot of sense.
Okay.
What a cool career opportunity for especially a future math teacher who's not quite sure.
Like you said, they're all, they're all in, they get going in it and they're not quite sure that being in a K12 classroom, right?
Is their best, you know, selves.
Yeah.
Jacob, no.
This is so non AI related.
I'm shocked to hear that.
I put it in the chat here.
I said, if Tim is leading us up to, we're taking away teachers to have them teach our AI programs, things I'm going to flip out.
That's, that's where
I was at.
But
okay, I'm actually surprised to hear that is not an AI based story.
This is getting a little bit more deep and interesting than I thought.
Okay.
But this is the other thing though.
They're like, we can, in fact,
We can increase enrollment in your secondary math, science, teacher education programs if you partner with us.
Johnny, what do you
do?
I think you partner with them and you got to stay creative and you got to really think about that.
This is something that we've all known and some have talked about, but it's been a bit taboo to say.
that colleges of education prepare people for a lot more than just being teachers.
Um, that, you know, there, there are many, like they prepare great coaches.
They prepare all kinds of great folks to go out and do different careers than teaching.
And so to kind of formalize some of that diversity in some way, I think is a creative pivot that we've talked about so much, Tim, that higher ed is long overdue for.
So I'm a big fan of.
sitting down at the table and saying how we've done things for however many years, which has been a long time kind of the same way.
You know, doesn't need, doesn't mean that today's world is exactly what needs exactly what we've done for the last 50 years or more, right?
So I love these kinds of, um, you know, these opportunities to sit down and be creative, think outside of the box, but also that, especially the ones that resonate with, you know, this makes a lot of sense because we've sort of seen this
and been, you know, buzzing around this for a while and no one's actually talked about it and formalized it.
So I love hearing, you know, that it might be happening places.
All right.
Let me, let me problematize it though a little bit.
Yeah.
But if a teacher at institution gets into this, what about the math science teacher shortage in classrooms?
Wouldn't this actually create even worse situations for math science teacher shortages?
I mean, here's a teacher education institution that is now gaining enrollment in math science teachers with the sole purpose, though, that, okay, I know they're going to be qualified and they can go and teach in any secondary classroom if they want.
But that the biggest reason, though, you're increasing this enrollment is to work for a prestigious corporation at a paycheck that allows you to live life decently comfortable.
Isn't that just contributing to the teacher shortage then?
No, Tim.
I say no because one like.
This is happening already.
You're just making it more transparent and you're being like, like, like future teachers don't necessarily know these things.
They get poached out of classrooms already.
They get removed in January from, you know, a high school teaching job that's less than ideal.
And, uh, or for financial reasons, industry says, like, are you tired of making below, you know, living wage, like come work for us.
We need teachers, people with teaching who have experience like you do as a teacher.
we can employ you in our company.
And so I think the fact that like talk, people are talking about formalizing it makes it more transparent, makes it more, uh, you know, up above ground.
So then it's, to me, it sounds more ethical and then, uh, and, you know, increasing.
who you're training.
We don't have limited space in training teachers.
No, we're not going to argue with me about that.
Yes, we do.
You know, there's only so many seats, but you know, we're not in that crisis right now.
So, so it to me, it says brings people into, you know, teacher education spaces who are deeply committed to becoming great teachers for different reasons.
Great.
I mean, that's to me, awesome.
And two, it gives that pathway to the person.
who might not want to be around kids.
And I hate to say that that's, that's a lot of people who are going into teaching don't necessarily realize yet that they don't enjoy being in schools or around kids.
And I don't want those people around kids.
It doesn't mean they're bad teachers.
Like, right?
Like the skills they need to do, they just truly start to realize that's not what they want to do.
And I love, like I said, Tim, an open conversation where we're like, well, here are
the opportunities you have with your skillset and with this degree.
So should you decide, again, I'm a big fan of when we have freedom, we thrive at what we do.
So if I'm practicing to be a great teacher and I feel like, well, I guess if I don't like being a great teacher, I could do these six other things, right?
With my degree.
I think it only helps everyone, Tim.
So I get what you're saying.
But I just kind of pivot and shine light on it differently as it's not competition.
But
I'm, I'm taking my role though of what I've always, you know, been accused of students and going, I, I'm not sure I'm advocating how couldn't this though really actually be a solution to the math science teacher shortage because, Hey, school districts.
local governments, state governments, you now have evidence that there are lots of math and science candidates out there who want to become teachers, but you need to step up your game and start creating the conditions that attract these amazing people that are in this program.
Will this create that type of God forbid market condition?
that allows the profession to create a pivot moment and say, you know what?
Yeah, we're going to change it.
We're going to up our game.
Jacob's got the kind of a look of going, damn.
I have this look because I was going to say that.
And you hopped in with the same thought.
And I thought, well, if a doctor thought the same thing I did, my opinion must be pretty good.
Because Johnny was talking about it, this shortage is already a problem, quote unquote shortage.
It's the driving away of these great teachers who would love to do these jobs.
But because it's not out in the open, because these numbers are not tracked, it's not all official and above board.
You see where it's happening.
It's easier for the people who should be dealing with this problem to ignore.
If you formalize it, you put it out there, you can actually see
statistics on how many teachers are taking different jobs or choosing new paths, then it makes it a lot harder to sit there and say, oh, there's just not enough good teachers.
I think bringing it into the light, just like you guys have been saying, that could be the solution or at least part of it.
It can make it a lot harder to just ignore the actual problem of retention and having good competitive jobs.
Or is that just way too grandiose a thought to imagine that
politicians and leaders would do the right thing and create classroom teacher market conditions that would compete equally to get those math science candidates to come and become classroom teachers.
That was my initial thought.
I was thinking,
you know, doesn't matter because these problems are already known and it's already not competitive.
So I was thinking, you know, it's good to have an alternative path for teachers and people with these skills.
If these jobs aren't doing it, I can go do this one, use my skills and get a better job.
So it doesn't really matter.
But the thing that changed my mind here listening to you two guys is the public transparency of it.
And I do think that one thing that politicians do respond to is shame.
So I think that when you can shame them by saying, hey, we've had 120 people just here in Racine, Wisconsin who are qualified teachers and instead they took these jobs because you're not doing a good job of offering them good jobs.
I think that's more of a powerful tool that now exists.
So I don't know if it'll work.
I don't know if this will solve the whole problem, but I can see the positive angle on this.
Johnny, you were still with Jacob.
Yeah, man.
I'm all for this.
I'm a big fan.
And, and, and you can both have me feeling like the, like the convert, the convert to capitalism.
But I think this is one of those times too, where it's not so much the market forces at play, but it's just, uh, I'll pivot to it's just diversity.
When you have a diversity of applications or diversity of, you know, uh, potential outcomes that your program contributes to, you're stronger.
Right?
Just like if you're a farmer and you, and you raise more than one crop or more different, you know, variants of that crop, you're more, you're, you're stronger yield on return, right?
Or is it return on your yield?
I don't know.
I'm, I'm a mess now with this because I'm, because I'm like, wait, am I a capitalist?
Am I, am I, am I, am I all for the marketization rather than the publicization?
No.
But I think this fits into it in terms of just looking at what our needs, how do we best prepare and, you know, make our programs, you know, really applicable to what's making people happy, what's helping contribute to our communities, you know, and that's part of the democratic process.
Just because it's worked a particular way for a long time doesn't mean we have to dig in and keep it that way.
Well, you know what?
Great homeroom.
I'm going to leave it with a
pondering question, though, and we're not going to answer it.
What do you think, though, then, if this teacher education program in math and science was brought to you by the industry that actually wants these teachers?
In other words,
a market sponsor actually contributing resources to push.
Ah, there we go.
But you know what, homeroom, now it's time for your moment of zen.
We need to expose the motives of our political leaders, point out their connections to corporate power,
show how huge profits are being made out of death and
suffering.
Hey, and don't miss this week's class in session on Wednesday and find our special drop of Jacob's producer's choice on Friday.
And of course pencil busters.
You can catch the busted pencils broadcast on Saturdays at three PM central time across all the civic media network stations for one hour of your favorite blue collar scholars, Tim and Johnny and keep busting
pencils.