Transcript
You Wouldn’t Want an “Emergency License” Airline Pilot (Hour 1)
John & Gordy · Fri Jan 9, 2026
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Producer Aaron Zommers in the air chair, the hot box.
did.
That's fine.
Yeah, there
we
go.
That's a way to start a program.
The entire John and Gordy jingle that I wanted to interrupt right away.
You didn't like the new jingle?
Well, I think we
did.
I'm trying
out different jingles.
We can sit through it just so many times, and then it starts grating on you.
That's kind of the
idea.
Oh,
yeah.
That's
right.
people right from
That's right.
Yeah.
It's memorable that way.
It will?
Yeah.
OK.
Well, here we are.
It's the end of the week.
John Peterson, Gordy Young, Aaron Zommers, and...
It's sunny here at our headquarters.
It is.
Beautiful Madison, Wisconsin, a block from the state capitol.
It's 41 degrees here over in Milwaukee, mostly sunny, 43.
40 up in the Dells.
It's mid-30s up in La Crosse and
Wausau.
It's pretty
nice.
That wind is a little chilly though.
Yes, pretty breezy.
We've got a
Christmas party going
on
here at the
station.
Yeah, holiday party.
Yeah.
A bunch of people from the station are getting all liquored up and getting ready for the weekend.
No, they're not.
Well, we have some wine here.
We have some beer.
Yeah, and whatever else the caterer is brought.
I'm not sure.
Well,
lots of goodies.
Haven't had it yet.
So if you can drive in from Appleton or maybe Milwaukee or Port Washington.
Get a free beer from one of
our affiliates.
sure.
Yeah, come on over.
Sure, come
on
in.
Yeah.
Come on in.
Richland Center.
Yeah.
Why not?
You know, whether, you know, for the big Packers Bears game tomorrow is at Soldier Field, it's gonna be cold and windy there.
But the snow, we're supposed to get snow across much of the state tonight, tomorrow, and off and on over the weekend.
But yeah, down in Chicago, cold for the Bears Packers and windy in that toilet bowl of a stadium they have there, Soldier Field.
Catherine Lake has entered the studio.
She's got her phone on and broadcasting.
She's listening to us.
Now she's going to yell that.
You don't want to do that.
You don't
want to do that.
Engineer.
Hi, Catherine.
I just wanted to bring you the party to you guys.
OK.
All right.
Yeah.
You
can bring
the food.
Oh, wow.
That hurt.
What do you have in there?
A little sparkling water.
I brought beer.
Oh, you did?
Yeah.
It's either in the fridge or in the coolers.
OK.
Well, we'll look for that.
OK.
You having fun?
We're very
busy out there.
I think we have THC beverages here, too, though.
We
do not have THC beverages.
Do not start
rumors like that.
Well, they're legal.
What?
Yeah, they're
legal.
What are you talking about?
Legalism.
There's wine here, and there's beer.
No,
I read an article about the whole thing.
You know, they have this big celebration statewide, I believe, for non-alcoholic and THC driven beverages notes.
The current industry.
It's getting killed by the new beverages.
It
really should
be.
Is that right?
No, it shouldn't be.
I think it should be killed.
I think alcohol
is
a problem.
I mean, it is a problem.
Is it?
It's not good for us.
It's just not good for us, especially
in excess.
All right.
Yes, mommy.
She's leaving way to go she's pissed off
She's
slapping on the back of the back
of your oh don't slam that okay After a great start don't you think?
I mean, you know, for a state that really prides itself on the best beer in the country, and all the great breweries that we have in this state, you know, not having alcohol is not one of the great things that drive me, you know, age maybe, a thing that is stopping me from drinking like I used to, but other than that, you know, I love the beverages.
In fact, they're making a lot of the regular beers lower alcohol.
Okay.
At this
point.
Yeah.
Yeah, you used to be into beer
quite a lot.
I used to brew it myself.
Right.
Yeah.
But, you know, people should, I guess, you know, drink only to enjoy the beverage, do not drink in excess.
Right.
And because you're partying, and there
seems to be doing it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And get a designated driver.
So
when are you going to get that message?
What are you talking about?
I have not had a drink for a while.
I'm not doing it purposely, but I've never drank that much.
Okay.
Usually, you know, once in a while, a little social drink here or there.
Okay,
it's not you know Just because you're on the radio doesn't mean that everybody's gonna believe what you're saying No one believes that stuff.
All right, we've got we've got a couple of things to get to today and that is we're gonna talk more about Minneapolis as this whole thing starts unwinding and and people are getting to say what they want to say and the administration is going further and further out on a limb I want to present all that stuff to you today
And I have a great commentary from an individual.
Put this thing together.
It's a tribute to Renee Good.
And I think you'll find it heartwarming if any.
And also I want to present the fact that the administration is so outwardly racist.
that I have all these examples of them being outwardly racist.
You know it used to be something that they denied and they didn't really mean it and it doesn't sound like that really but you know we have seen this over and over again
and they are
very very open about it.
You know all we have to do is just kind of coalesce.
I brought a whole bunch of clips in so that you can hear for yourself whether
This administration is racist or not.
You be the judge.
Well, is this all about the Minneapolis incident?
No, this has nothing to do with it.
This is
a
completely different situation.
All right.
Yeah.
Phone lines are open.
Let's go to Appleton right now.
Cindy is on the line here.
Cindy, good afternoon.
Hello, well, I wasn't going to watch the video, but I got something from rocket Robert Reich and I did open it and it did show the video from Minneapolis and what disturbed me even more than the shooting was the fact that this murderous thug Got into a vehicle and started driving away which is leaving the scene of an accident or a crime which is a felony and number two Nobody none of these ice agents
went to her aid.
All they were doing was trying to keep other people away from her.
Yeah.
They, I mean, protect and serve.
What the hell?
They should have been over there trying to render aid to her and none of them did anything.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, the car crashed and everybody kind of just walked very slowly toward the vehicle, which was very strange.
You know, I'd be running over there just to make sure, you know, maybe we can do something to save the person's life or something, but the guy who did the shooting didn't run, he just walked.
No, he walked away.
But the woman that was actually videotaping from this, boy, I give her credit, that woman had a lot of balls because she was right.
in their faces.
She was calling them every name in the book, telling them they just murdered somebody.
I'm surprised they didn't shoot her too, actually, because she was, I mean, I, he said, I was going, you go girl.
But I mean, I just couldn't believe this scene.
Well, and there was a physician that was right there and said, Hey, I'm a physician.
Can I go give her, you know, can I help out?
And they said, no,
we've got
medics.
We don't care.
And he said, we
don't
care.
Wow.
Yeah, just disturbing.
Yes.
All of
it was very disturbing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cindy, thank you for your call.
Phone lines are open 855-752-4842.
Well,
why don't we get into one of the cuts?
You know, we have an individual calls us from Sussex.
I believe the name is Gary.
Gary, right?
Yeah.
And he watched it and he was just as unsettled as all of us are.
Mm-hmm about what he saw and this is one of the neighbors in Minneapolis that saw the same thing and this is his response.
It's cut 143.
Let's listen to cut 143
around 8 30 this morning I was just getting up and I heard a bunch of commotion and whistling outside And then I heard bang bang bang three shots.
I'm Pretty right leaning but seeing this is not what you need to do.
It's not how to do it
It's not how we're supposed to do things around here in America.
That's right Wow I mean we all saw it in the administration is trying to interpret it in a completely different way Which is also very transparent it kind of tells you a lot about what this nation is doing or at least the plans this country has for all of us And it's very unsettling.
We've got three more years of this.
I truly believe they're gonna roll out troops throughout the entire country.
They're gonna cover all of the
liberal cities, so
liberal
states, and that's where they're gonna go with it, and we'll be seeing more of this, and they are unbothered by all of
this.
There was another shooting yesterday in Portland, two people got shot, now thankfully they're gonna be okay, but yeah, it's gonna ramp up, and they've got more money in their budget.
They wanted
to crank up more
money in the military budget.
The victims called the police to come out and help them.
You'd think somebody else might have...
done that for them, but I guess
not.
Let's go back to the phones in Middleton.
Matt is on the line.
Good afternoon, Matt.
Do we have Matt?
Hello, Matt, going once, going twice.
All right, Matt, try to call back if
you
can.
Yeah,
yeah.
All right.
I've got another cut here.
This is a reporter, Michelle Norse, and what she saw.
when she came out and this is really, this is just outrageous.
I want you to listen to cut 144 here, let's listen.
And the atrocity, the bundle of atrocities is that she lost her life, is that a doctor tried to get to her and they wouldn't allow him, that when the ambulances came, they couldn't even get to the body, they had to park a block away and they carried her away by her limbs because they weren't allowed to get close to her because the ice trucks would not move.
that this happened on January 7th.
Because January 6th is a date that we all remember, J6.
We will now remember January 7th as well as something that is a very important date in determining what kind of America the people in Minnesota and beyond are willing to accept.
Wow.
Yeah, so now we'll remember January 7th, right?
Yeah.
January 6th, January 7th.
Wow.
Just outrageous and we've also got you know, Tim Walls who made a comment as well about all of this Let's go to cut 145.
All right
people in positions of power have already passed judgment from the president to the vice president To Kristi Noem have stood and told you things that are verifiably false Verifiably inaccurate they have determined the character
of a 37-year-old mom that they didn't even know, don't know.
The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.
It was their final, most important directive.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's from George Orwell.
And yeah, you know, one of the big things here that, you know, I just know for sure is that they were able to reinterpret January 6th for the people that followed them.
And this is another attempt to do the exact same thing.
Yep.
Just getting started on this Friday afternoon.
It's John and Gordy taking more of your calls, 855-752-4842.
Phone lines are lighting up.
We're coming right back.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Oh, that voice.
Oh, my God.
Oh, yeah.
John Peterson.
And Gordy Young.
And Aaron Zammer has the controls.
Jimmy Page is 82 years young today.
82.
Wow, man.
Time flies.
All right, we got a bunch of phone calls lined up here, so let's get to it.
Matt is back on the line here from Middleton.
Good afternoon, Matt.
Hey, can you hear me this time?
Yeah.
I think I scanned my phone.
Could be.
We're thinking that.
Wouldn't doubt it.
We're killing the neighborhood.
Yeah.
All right.
Going door to door now, I guess, is next for these
Nazis, right?
But I just wanted to say, though, you know, this is the end result of what is it now?
Over 20 years of Republicans telling their gullible voters that liberals are out to murder them, turn their children gay, poison their water, all this craziness.
That's what we have now.
We have 70 million Americans that are just nuts.
I don't know how we pull it back.
Here we are.
We're the victims of all of this.
The immigrants are the victims of all of this, and yet they're blaming Antifa.
They're making us out to be Antifa.
A terrorist organization that they say is a terrorist organization, which it is not.
It defies logic.
Of course, we're living in a mad magazine world at this point.
Yeah.
It's crazy time.
Yeah.
They
don't understand the power of projection.
They don't see what Trump is doing because they're that just ignorant, I guess.
It's really strange.
It is.
Becoming more
like
a cult.
Have a
good day.
Have a good weekend.
All right, Matt.
YouTube, Matt.
Let's go to Walker Shop.
Bob is checking in.
Bob, go
ahead.
How's it going?
Good.
Good.
How are you doing?
Well,
To say I'm upset would be not an exaggeration.
It's worse than that.
You know, our forefathers, when they formed our government, Congress and the Senate were the safeguards for the executive branch.
But we've lost that.
Congress and the legislature just go right along with Trump because we're dominated by Republicans.
And this, this is far from normal.
What Trump is doing and this investigation that the FBI is going to do, that's just a cover up.
That's why they won't let Minnesota investigate and won't send them any information.
And I don't know why people can't see, plain as day, this was murder.
Yeah.
The two ice agents come to her door and try to open it if when a cop comes to your door and he stops you Does he grab the door handle and try to open the door beef?
He asked you to roll down your window.
Yeah,
and then that other jerk that killed that woman he comes around from the other side of the car and He is standing right by maybe 10 feet from her left
front fender.
And when he sees that she's going to go forward, he pumps one shot into the windshield, which was low, but then two shots into the side window and kills her.
And that is against their protocol.
The Justice Department's protocol is you don't shoot in a moving car.
And he wasn't in any danger.
Yeah, that should put him at risk.
He's committed basically a felony there, and they should be calling that out, or at least looking into the fact that it might be a felony.
Bob, thank you.
All right, Bob, thank you, and let's move on to Mark.
Mark, what do you got for us today?
Yeah, guys, I double-checked.
I like to be factual here that
Those guys actually take an oath to uphold the Constitution, just like every other law enforcement officer, when you're a member of ICE, you take an oath to uphold the Constitution.
And these guys clearly just ignore that oath.
They've probably been given a free pass by Kristi Noelman and Heg Seth and whoever the hell else is in there.
And Donald Trump, once again, I turned to Federal 67, and Donald Trump has shown himself, you know, crowned with a tiara, that's what they call the, you know, the Pope, you know, because he posts himself.
picture of himself wearing the pope's roads and wearing the pope's tower on top of his head.
He's wearing the Sean Croy's, shown himself crowned as a king.
I mean, and what else does he do when he rolls out the red carpet to a foreign potentate?
You know, as federal 67 says, rolling out, you know, having, giving audience to foreign, you know, potentates and all that.
And started by minions and mistresses, which all his cabinet is.
None of them opposed him.
None of them say, no, you shouldn't be doing this, sir.
And what the hell else I've said, hate to be like a broken record.
What the hell else now has ice become other than murderous Janus series?
Yeah.
I mean, it is just, um, you know, and if CJ's listening, he can KMA.
I mean, I'm just tired of hearing him making excuses
for how I'm tired.
Hey, we're going to be playing a whole bunch of excuses in just a few moments.
Let's go to Joe right now.
Thank you, Mark.
What do you got for us, Joe?
Oh, hey, this really such a sad, sad, awful, awful time.
I appreciate the specificity that some of the collars have had about the shooting, and I just wanted to talk about a general comment that one of the listeners had made yesterday, and they were talking about, and I've heard this and other people make this comment, if the woman had just stayed home and shut up, this never would have happened.
And I think...
This is a really interesting point to look at when you look at our country, because our founding fathers were not the sort that stayed home and shut up.
That's why we have this country, because they chose not to stay home and shut up.
They said what was going on with England, the rule of England, was wrong, and that's why they got up and said something about it.
And enshrining our constitution is that First Amendment, which says,
freedom of speech and petition the government for the redress of grievances.
Where would we be as a country if people did not stand up and say things are wrong, such as the abolitionists talking about slavery?
We still have slavery.
Where would we be about women getting the right to vote if women didn't stand up and say, this is wrong?
I'm not going to talk about the specificity of this particular event, but the idea that you avoid problems by just staying home and shutting up, that's not America.
That's not what we're about.
We talk when things are wrong.
That's right.
Yes.
Thank you, Joe.
Great
point.
I've got a great cut coming up in regards to that.
So when we come back,
we're also going to check in with Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils.
It's all coming up after the Midwest Food and Farm Report.
John and Gordy in the afternoon.
It's John and Gordy
time.
And we're still talking about Minneapolis.
We have so many cuts to get to.
So many different opinions and viewpoints on it.
We certainly want to play them for you.
We could certainly give you...
our viewpoints.
We have indeed done that.
I want
to hear all these
other people, all the input.
There's a lot of good things that are set out there on social media and I want to present some of them for you today.
But right now we have our special guest from Busted Pencils.
It's Tim Slecker and welcome to the program, our afternoon show.
Yeah, man.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
Thank you.
You had good holidays, we trust.
Yeah.
Hey, you know, yeah, yeah, my daughter graduated from college, WVU.
Really?
Yeah, so both kids now, my son and my daughter now, I have two college graduates.
Looks like that is really nice.
Yeah, and
and and now I have a mountain of student debt
What was your daughter's degree in I'm just curious You don't
know
No, I was I was actually I was gonna give one of those kind of smart Alec left-wing type of Wild life resource management.
Oh, wow.
Well good for her.
Yeah She's she's a woman in STEM as she reminds me.
Okay.
All right.
It's fantastic,
you
know But
yeah, she's she's good.
I mean there's good holidays, but lots going on though.
I mean
you know, between, yeah, Minneapolis and then, you know, do it now, though, too.
If you really want to know about Greenland,
pay
attention next Monday.
Oh, really?
Wow.
Oh, yeah.
Well, what do you know?
What's going to happen on
Monday?
Everything anybody needed to know about Greenland, busted pencils, is dropping it Monday morning.
Oh, OK.
All right.
OK.
Good
to know.
All right, well.
I can see you've done your homework and you're very proud of
it and we'll have to check in and just gonna put this out there Our current leader may have actually Kind of lifted this idea to take and or invade and or buy He may have actually learned this from another real estate
mogul tycoon from the century nine hundred.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
By
the way, he likes, he likes the 19th century.
Not 19.
The, the, the.
Oh, the 1900s.
The eighth century.
the
eight.
Not 19.
Oh, you misheard it.
I misheard that.
Yeah.
That's way back.
Yes,
it is.
What does Eric the Red and Donald the Trump have in common?
Wow, you just gave it away right there.
Now I'm going to have to do some research on that.
Eric the Red
and Donald the Trump.
OK, are you just going to leave us with that?
Or are they going to have to?
They're going to have to in
Monday to bust their
pencils.
You gotta listen on Monday.
Okay.
All
right.
That's the tea.
All right.
Good enough.
Well, you've done your homework on Wisconsin because we have something going on here that you have also mentioned in busted pencils.
Could you explain what is happening here in Wisconsin that could impact teaching quality, I think?
Could impact
or has been impacted?
Yes.
Yeah.
You know, there's a teacher
shortage.
I'll even admit to it now, although the cause of the shortage is really the big issue.
But for now, we have a teacher shortage, which means that coming in again in August, there will be principles that will go, Oh, my God, I don't have enough teachers.
And that would mean that classrooms, students will go into those classrooms and there will be nobody there.
Right.
So
That's a problem
Now what what are you blaming the problem on you kind of glanced off of that a little bit But I always thought maybe here in Wisconsin at least it was because of act 10 It angered the entire populace here in this state against teachers and teachers then suddenly decided that they didn't need the grief anymore And they started not getting into that profession.
That's one of the reasons here
It is that is oh my god the causes of the teacher shortage, okay big issue.
However, yes, I'm going to Point out that the problem I defined which is a bunch of kids sitting in a classroom with no teacher That's a real problem that parents and people won't but I'm going to tell you the solution
That Wisconsin and lots of other states have come up with.
That's what we talk about.
It's not a
solution.
Oh, it isn't.
Hmm.
Okay.
No, no, no We have an emergency license Program that allows for principles to get people and you know with the tap of a sword on the shoulder grant them Teaching license ability.
Yes
And I've been, from the time I was in Madison until now, I've actually been a pretty big thorn in the side of DPI because I kept saying that this is actually not true because the last time I checked, I couldn't book a flight with an emergency licensed pilot.
So you
know that that would probably be a bad idea, right?
You know, I'm just thinking when I go to get into my plane and there's no pilot there, I do not want United Airlines to say
Tim, don't worry.
We created a program.
You now have an emergency license pilot.
You're free to take off.
It's bad stuff, bad stuff.
You know, one of the things they were looking for in a lot of these teachers in this program, I think, were people who have life experience that they could transfer to the classroom as well.
Is that also part of the plan?
Yeah.
Intentions, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
You know what they say.
The road to, you know, HE double toothpicks is paved with good intentions.
That's right.
Yeah.
And no, I mean, this is not a critique of the people that want to step in, the people that have great experiences to offer our students that are looking truly to make a difference.
This is pointing out that the situation is not remedied.
by creating a pathway to call someone something they're not by political decree.
What you have is you have an emergency child protection person standing in front of your kids.
It's not an emergency teacher because, well, it's not a teacher, it's not a pilot, it's not a surgeon, it's not a butcher.
Right, it's it's all of those are professions that have some form of certification and licensing Requirements because the job they do is a specific job and you want the right people doing those jobs and Creating an emergency pathway now people well these have to be college graduates You're right and that's good.
Thank you because the last data was in Ohio said hey as long as you graduated high school
Yeah
I've seen those programs, yeah.
Yeah, but you know the point is too is to say and you get this by you know saying well you'll you'll you'll agree to pursue a teaching license.
Well you know working really hard and pursuing a teacher's license at the same time is really really hard and particularly the bulk of these emergency licenses end up in special education with the children who
don't need an emergency licensed airline pilot.
They need the best qualified teachers.
So think about this.
Why did this happen?
This also happened for political reasons in reporting data to either the state and or federal government of, quote, how many qualified teachers do you have in your school district?
The emergency license
allows us then to report data that we have licensed teachers in the classroom when the reality is we don't
artificially inflates the number
Yeah, yeah, and so, you know again this comes, you know, where did that come that was from no child left behind in 2022 that required, you know and an expert
a fully qualified teacher for every kid in American public school classrooms.
Okay.
Hey, that's a heck of a standard.
We're
not meeting it.
Why are we?
To me, the question should be not how do we figure out how to create loopholes to get around this regulation?
Why don't we have enough qualified licensed teachers going?
Well, already out there and why are there not people going into it?
And then this is a darn data point that just drives policymakers crazy.
There is no teacher shortage.
In fact, there's a glut of qualified licensed teachers not teaching.
And that's because they're not offering enough money.
For teachers.
Yeah,
because
now you're going because we don't have a teaching problem.
We have a Conditions of work
problem.
Yeah You know and and that's where I was like so every time you try to create a pathway that allows you to solve the problem You actually don't solve the problem and in fact ask a lot of teachers to there's some animosity towards this quote other
group of people now that are becoming teachers that didn't have to go through the same qualification programs that they did.
Yeah, they resent that.
Yeah, and continue in education classes that they take and try to better themselves.
A lot of these teachers now this is kind of an and around and round.
Run against and against actually taking care of the problem and it's so typically Republican They don't want to they don't want to go back on the words that they've said before about disliking teachers teachers having an entire summer off remember that oh, yeah
Thank gosh that has disappeared into the ether.
But at least now they're still saying that they're not doing all the work that they need to do, that the class sizes are being reduced because there are fewer kids in the classrooms because of the population declining in Wisconsin.
So all of these things are coalescing around the idea now that they just want to get rid of school districts, combine a whole bunch of them and then work with the teachers that they have currently.
Yeah, and then when and then when those teachers leave don't you worry?
We got the emergency license
ready.
All
right.
Thank good boys
boy
Okay, well
So what should we do?
I mean, are we offering any suggestions to the politicians to try and take care of this problem in any way, shape, or form?
Yeah, well, actually we have.
And again, that is the issue because once you break through this and go, oh, my God, then what do we do?
Well, then we actually put together solutions or ideas to solutions that work because the special education second grader
that needs a quality teacher.
The solution is to make sure they get a quality special education certified teacher.
How
do we do that?
Okay, we'll talk about that in just a moment.
We're visiting with Dr. Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils, back with more of John and Gordy after a quick break.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Aaron Sommers helping us out here, finding the music,
playing the clips.
We're back with Dr. Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils.
Educated educators talking about education.
That's beautiful.
Yeah, thank you.
Practice a lot.
OK, how do we get these experienced teachers back into the classroom?
Yeah.
What's the solution here besides, you know, trying to hire anybody to do the job, just sit in front of the class and take care of the kids?
Well, you have to do what people, you know, politicians are just not willing to do, which is to at first admit, teaching is a profession.
And that they are highly qualified.
And that, you know, yeah.
And first of all, we're not talking about a lot of pay, you know, but elevate
the pay that makes sense for a similarly educated professional up there that actually gives them that but you know the most important most important thing that we could do and I know this because actually right before I left Madison I was I was conducted a research that asked that question
The question of teachers who are quitting and teachers who have quit, what would it take for you not to quit or for you to get back into teaching?
Best question ever.
Yeah.
And jeez, let me teach.
That that that I mean that was their answer
is their summer what what is it?
What is it that prevent is preventing them from teaching is it?
They have people that go into the classrooms and then judge the teachers as they're you know as they're teaching the class and being very critical and and and maybe even a little bit repressive
What is
it a little bit repressive?
I mean that that's really it.
I mean do a deep dive and I mean this starts in 1983 with the nation at risk being put out that kind of said oh my god our schools are failing and since then every administration and then you know here you go equal opportunity there hasn't been an administration since the 80s that hasn't done something to continue the attack on teaching as a profession
by creating their own solutions to what they believe was the problem.
And every one of those solutions actually required less and less teacher input, teacher value, and mostly taking the teacher out of the equation.
And I've pushed on that because here's the other kind of coming back to the emergency teaching license.
The more you mandate and make teaching from a script,
the less you actually need qualified educated teachers, and you can then start to make the argument of going, anybody can teach, because all they have to do is go in and follow directions.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong of this, but didn't Trump just make teaching a non-profession?
Yeah, well,
there
it is.
There it is, yeah.
There you go.
So, well, John and Gordy, there you go.
You've got, you know, a new job.
You guys could be morning kindergarten
teachers.
Well, not correct me if I'm wrong.
Okay, Tim, this is coming from left field here, but I want to ask you something.
Let's talk a little bit about the Minnesota incident here, the shooting of Renee Good.
You know, on something, a big national story like that.
When I was in high school and even junior high,
the teacher would set aside the studies for the day and you'd talk about something like this yeah to let the students you know say what you know ask questions and talk about it does that still happen or is that no you can't do that can't do that huh
no in fact we just recorded an episode I forget when it's gonna drop the address is just that and saying you know Gordy you said that I mean I started
I mean, I started every day with my fifth graders with a, hey, what's going on in the world?
Yeah, current events, right?
And to me, that's the hallmark of an educated citizenry.
It comes out of public education, and that's our mission is instilling democratic values.
Democratic values, not quote,
the Democrats, but being a citizen requires the ability to dig into issues.
And these are the issues that are happening.
And so to imagine that you have an ability, first of all, the ability to say, all right, as you're coming in here today, I want you to stop thinking about the things that you're thinking about, because we've got some phonics to go over.
You guys are not pronouncing the SH the right
way.
And whatever happened in Minneapolis does not matter.
Yeah, I would assume that a discussion like that is kind of a great bonding experience between the students and the teacher as well
It's a great bonding experience.
Let me I'm not gonna be honest.
It those are hard conversations, too And they are challenging and even when you know, you could I used to have to really encourage future teachers that it was their responsibility to do that because they were already kind of going in the I don't want to get in trouble, you know, yeah, well
that was before you actually could get in trouble.
Now you can get in trouble.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
You know, and
so I think you'll see more and more of that now where, you know, a teacher is just going like, look, the last thing I want to do is end up in the national media because, you know, some one of my students goes home and tells Uncle Charlie that
I said, you know, that I said something that I didn't say or that a conversation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's sad though, because it really is.
And, you know, I would have those all the time, fifth graders, you know, and guess what?
They will say, well, you know, my dad said, you know, great.
Yeah.
Right.
Not my job as a teacher to say, well, that's an interesting point that your father has.
Absolutely.
You know,
Again, it's talking about it in a way that doesn't take a position, but acknowledges that this news moment is something we need to figure out and digest.
That's right.
We got to leave it there.
Dr. Tim Slecker, Busted Pencils.
You can check it out at the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
Tim, always a pleasure to talk to you again.
Thanks, guys.
All right, next time.
Next Friday.
We're back after the news.
It's John and Gordy in the afternoon.
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