Teaching in the World We Live

It’s easy to see that there are some explosive and divisive events going on in not only the world, but the USA. How do I talk about these things? In this podcast I speak in the way I speak to students, and take a look at current day shenanigans. There were some issues with the transcription, so I will put the print version of the transcript below: “Hello everyone, this week in Schule, brought to you as usual by MVHS Room Education Forensics. Welcome everybody just doing one podcast here this weekend and gonna continue the conversation we've all been having, some of you actually in face-to-face in terms of who's on the email list and who I know personally. Turns out, a little bit of a side note, the parent liaison at the school, the new one, is a former student of mine. Was in English class, not in room 108, back then it was room 246. and that was 2010. So that made me feel old but satisfied because she's a competent young woman, has a three-year-old, and is tasked with dialing up and turning up the intensity on parents in terms of being involved. making them come in and have incentives to come in and realize the benefits, you know, and so they sure did pick somebody capable in that role. So, and I, of course, I'd like to grab all the credit because I mean honestly Who else than to take the credit for somebody's success in life other than ninth grade English teacher, right? That's the way I see it. But anyway, continuing what we've been talking about in terms of what's beneficial for young people in the world that they live in, this week in schule is here to tell you … I'm here to explain to you, kind of what I'm seeing and what's happening. We did a short story called “To Build a Fire”, which many of you remember, and the main character is done in by pride, mostly. The guy is strong, smart, knows how to handle rough living in the Yukon, but he doesn't listen to the Old Man that he had spoken to a couple of days before who said, “you really shouldn't travel in the Yukon if it's 50 below zero by yourself”. Actually, you shouldn't travel at all. But if you have to, you need to bring somebody. At first everything is going okay, and the guy is even laughing at the old man's words. Then a minor thing goes wrong, and of course, there's no room for error when it's 50 below zero let alone 75 below zero, and the guy winds up freezing to death. And as I tell a lot of young people that kind of idea, that kind of arrogance, that kind of pride will do you in, especially in today's world. Students sometimes ask “well what do you mean? Because back then we only had a TV in the classroom. We had a chalkboard. Now, I know how this sounds, right? Like this is the old man talking, hey, get off my lawn. I get it. But this wasn't that long ago. This was the 2011 school year. We had a chalkboard. I had a computer in the corner where every once in a while, I would ask everyone to be silent so we could turn your head and look at the CRT monitor computer and listen to a short video on that screen, no lie. If I wanted to do anything feature-length, I had to have the DVD VHS combo player sit on top of a bunch of schoolbooks. But my point is that sometimes, not as often as it should be, and this is where opportunity comes in; students will ask me, what do I mean by how different things are now and how the differences between years ago to now? That list of differences has grown exponentially. And I also use the word ‘clown world’ a lot. I use that here in this week in schule. I use it in my write-ups about finance and stocks. I use it in terms of earning potential and employment: everything, like, because we are kind of in clown world! And I bring up a couple of things that are not necessarily within our control. And by what, I mean is my control or students’ control, right? It's not like I have some kind of special dispensation and can control these things. And in the United States, I let students know two things, two or three things that really make it so that the awareness of these things can help you navigate. What I mean is: The direction of dollars from Your Federal Government. And we are in a country where it is seen as acceptable, and not only Acceptable, But Necessary to Spend Billions Upon Billions of Dollars In A Conflict On The Ukraine-Russian Border, Billions And Billions Of Dollars. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm sitting in the Bronx and the road in front of me about 10 feet away from me to the right, is a pretty good-sized hole in the street. Okay, that's not the federal government's problem, but all right. Is it possible that instead of the billion dollars that went to Ukraine last year or whatever, the number is, one-tenth of that could go to a large city for road repair? I mean, are these really weird ideas? Is this out of the realm of possibility? And forget the pothole in the road. We have a federal Department of Education. How about instead of well, I don't really know, what the Federal Department of Education does, but and it probably gets too much money, so maybe skip the Federal Department of Education and have federal monies flow into local schools and not give it to any person. See to it that those dollars go toward rigorous merit-based educational programs and make it impossible for them to be shut off. What I mean is, sometimes these programs attract only the families and the parents and the children who are academically inclined and want to work hard. And you know, the grievance industry doesn't like that. So, there's money to be made in the grievance industry. So, you got to somehow send the money in if again, I'm just thinking off the top of my head where the people who want to end a merit-based program, like the specialized high schools, like Talented and Gifted. Those people have no way to do that. You know, this is just thinking out loud. Or, and I tell students this as well, so, right, so money can go to the quote-unquote fight for Ukraine. Whatever. The other thing is now money goes to billions upon billions to a conflict in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. I mean how much money needs to go to that? How about redirect it towards the high-speed rail line that was supposed to connect Washington DC to Boston with all those cities in the middle? It doesn't exist. I don't know. I mean, this is just one of these things where this is the country that young people are in and as soon as they realize it, it makes navigating easier because too many students are raised in an environment where they think, okay, the government is going to fix it, or whatever issue comes up, the government's going to take care of it. And I talk, I mentioned things and the students who are currently juniors, when they were freshmen, man, that was a crazy year. But I've mentioned this group of guys before and it was weird because, you know, a lot of the intelligent, capable, question-asking, intellectually curious people in class are often the young women. But in this case, I had a bunch of dudes who were really like, they were pressing me hard on my beliefs. And so, I told them that it was kind of a dangerous world they're in because you had two events in the national, international arena that were troublesome. One was During the Donald Trump administration. He had said “no, we are not going to do Continued military exercises in various parts of the Middle East”, and he's the commander-in-chief and the Joint Chiefs ignored him! Now I want you to think about that because I know what you were taught. I know orange man bad racist all kinds of stuff, right? I know what the corporate press told you and I mean, I don't know, the TDS people, as I've mentioned before, are unreachable. So, if you've got it, if you have an affliction like that, then and you're getting triggered just bail. I don’t know. Neither I nor other like-minded people really have time for you, but… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit educationforensics.substack.com/subscribe