WEBVTT 00:00:01.750 --> 00:00:07.915 I'm here with Dean Shrive. Today is November 14th 2019. We are in 00:00:07.948 --> 00:00:12.956 Fairfield, California. This is Dana Lee Bell. This interview is a part of 00:00:12.989 --> 00:00:19.256 the C two C Oral History project with Arizona State University. 00:00:19.289 --> 00:00:24.407 This is being recorded. Do you give permission for this recording? I do. 00:00:24.440 --> 00:00:32.440 Could you please spell your name? Uh Dean DEA N Shreve S Hr Eve. Thank 00:00:32.978 --> 00:00:37.606 you. Um Could you tell me a little bit about your journey to becoming an 00:00:37.639 --> 00:00:40.277 educator? 00:00:40.310 --> 00:00:47.457 Huh? It was a long, long road. Um 00:00:47.490 --> 00:00:50.515 Let's see, 00:00:50.548 --> 00:00:58.548 I was born in Snow. Call me Washington. No. Um I, at one point in the 00:00:59.209 --> 00:01:03.765 sixth grade decided I wanted to teach English because my English teacher 00:01:03.798 --> 00:01:09.587 was terrible and I did a better job. 00:01:09.620 --> 00:01:13.316 And so it was in the back of my mind. But then as I went into high school 00:01:13.349 --> 00:01:18.876 that changed, I lost track and didn't have any plans. I didn't even think 00:01:18.909 --> 00:01:21.546 college was possible. 00:01:21.579 --> 00:01:25.486 Um, because my dad told me there was no money for college and I'd have to 00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:30.536 pay for it by myself and I knew that wasn't possible because everybody 00:01:30.569 --> 00:01:35.117 told me college is $30,000 a year. 00:01:35.150 --> 00:01:41.156 Uh, so I lost focus and, um, made a lot of bad decisions. A lot of bad 00:01:41.189 --> 00:01:44.897 friends and, um, 00:01:44.930 --> 00:01:47.576 barely graduated 00:01:47.609 --> 00:01:53.076 probably. I should actually, technically I shouldn't have graduated. Um, 00:01:53.109 --> 00:01:58.147 but I got a diploma and so I went into construction and I moved up to 00:01:58.180 --> 00:02:04.617 Washington, went into construction, sold cars, did a ton of different jobs. 00:02:04.650 --> 00:02:08.154 Um, 00:02:08.187 --> 00:02:13.045 and then when I was like, ok, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to college, I'm 00:02:13.078 --> 00:02:15.785 gonna try to figure out a way to go to college. So I kept trying to get 00:02:15.818 --> 00:02:19.785 jobs where I could go to college at the same time. And it just never 00:02:19.818 --> 00:02:23.555 happened. I never had the money to do more than pay the rent and go 00:02:23.588 --> 00:02:31.588 drinking. Um, so I, so, well, actually I was working, um, I had moved back 00:02:33.949 --> 00:02:37.577 to California after I went to Alaska did the fishing boat thing because 00:02:37.610 --> 00:02:41.416 you can make all kinds of money in Alaska and come back with a big wad of 00:02:41.449 --> 00:02:46.916 cash. Uh, which is true. But then I came back and I blew the wad of cash. 00:02:46.949 --> 00:02:53.927 And so I had no money and so I moved back down to California. 00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:59.745 A friend of mine told me wait tables, go to college. You can do that. So I 00:02:59.778 --> 00:03:03.136 got a job at the Red Lobster and I was waiting tables and I'm making a lot 00:03:03.169 --> 00:03:09.096 of really good money. I just smooth old people and, um, make really good 00:03:09.129 --> 00:03:13.525 tips. During lunch or, you know, in the evening and I went back to school 00:03:13.558 --> 00:03:20.186 , um, and I started, I did really badly because I still didn't know how to 00:03:20.219 --> 00:03:24.475 go to school, take classes or care 00:03:24.508 --> 00:03:29.177 and then everything went bad, went south, um, restaurant, went out of 00:03:29.210 --> 00:03:35.805 business and I, um, flopped around a couple more jobs until my truck broke 00:03:35.838 --> 00:03:39.517 down in front of a recruiter's office. 00:03:39.550 --> 00:03:45.536 I went in and signed up for the military and, uh, I signed up on Monday 00:03:45.569 --> 00:03:49.297 and I shipped off on Wednesday. 00:03:49.330 --> 00:03:56.686 Um, so I did four years of active duty. Um, and I went in the military and 00:03:56.719 --> 00:04:01.346 I was really good at my job. I was really good. I went to infantry so it 00:04:01.379 --> 00:04:06.436 was all about guns and blowing things up and I was really good at it, but 00:04:06.469 --> 00:04:10.536 I was also really good at training soldiers 00:04:10.569 --> 00:04:14.737 and whenever somebody would get a terrible soldier or some guy that 00:04:14.770 --> 00:04:19.745 couldn't do anything right. Um, or had too much attitude or blah, blah, 00:04:19.778 --> 00:04:23.645 blah, they'd always put him on my team 00:04:23.678 --> 00:04:28.286 and I would train them and then I'd always get him, I'd get them trained 00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:32.916 up and then they take him and put him on a different team and give me a 00:04:32.949 --> 00:04:39.555 new bad guy. So, basically he had like, one terrible soldier. Um, but I 00:04:39.588 --> 00:04:44.676 loved it. I loved it. Um, 00:04:44.709 --> 00:04:52.627 and then, uh, I went to Kosovo and, um, there were some really bad 00:04:52.660 --> 00:04:58.536 decisions made by another team later and my squad leader and platoon 00:04:58.569 --> 00:05:03.455 sergeant. And I realized that as long as, 00:05:03.488 --> 00:05:09.187 as long as somebody, 00:05:09.220 --> 00:05:13.055 there's always gonna be somebody above me who makes bad decisions. And 00:05:13.088 --> 00:05:18.757 because of those bad decisions, people especially Children are gonna die. 00:05:18.790 --> 00:05:22.336 And so I decided I couldn't be a part of that because I can't just watch 00:05:22.369 --> 00:05:26.286 it and not be able to do something. 00:05:26.319 --> 00:05:32.955 So I got out, it was painful. I loved the military. Everybody, like, 00:05:32.988 --> 00:05:36.676 everybody was insanely surprised when I decided to get out. Everybody 00:05:36.709 --> 00:05:42.325 thought I was a, I was a lifer, what we call a lifer. But I got out, I 00:05:42.358 --> 00:05:47.546 went back to junior college. I signed up for junior college majoring in 00:05:47.579 --> 00:05:49.637 English. 00:05:49.670 --> 00:05:53.106 And, um, 00:05:53.139 --> 00:05:58.717 well, that was 2001, August 11th, 2001. 00:05:58.750 --> 00:06:03.166 So I had 30 days where I was in the National Guard and I was going to 00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:07.906 college and, you know, everything was good. And then, uh, September 11 00:06:07.939 --> 00:06:11.906 happened and I got called active duty. So I went back on active duty. But 00:06:11.939 --> 00:06:16.656 this time I was, uh, uh, military police. 00:06:16.689 --> 00:06:20.286 Oh, and while I was going to college I actually signed up with the co, 00:06:20.319 --> 00:06:27.026 with the Cocoa County Sheriff's Department. Um, and I was scheduled to go 00:06:27.059 --> 00:06:31.967 to police academy because after infantry was like, oh, go be a cop. That 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:35.166 made sense. 00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:39.926 And then, uh, I got called to active duty as military police and I went, 00:06:39.959 --> 00:06:45.086 and I served on Fort Lewis as a cop drove around a squad car, pulled 00:06:45.119 --> 00:06:51.656 people over gave him tickets, uh, you know, investigated crimes and stuff 00:06:51.689 --> 00:06:53.887 and 00:06:53.920 --> 00:06:59.495 I realized that one, I hate shift work. There is just no such good thing 00:06:59.528 --> 00:07:06.825 as a good shift. The time sucks. And you cannot have a real life. 00:07:06.858 --> 00:07:13.877 And, uh, I also realized that I was becoming very jaded. I couldn't look 00:07:13.910 --> 00:07:19.055 around at me without seeing the crackheads and knowing that nothing good 00:07:19.088 --> 00:07:23.075 comes from it, I would arrest people and then I'd get called to their same 00:07:23.108 --> 00:07:29.757 house two weeks later and the same person is abusing the same child, you 00:07:29.790 --> 00:07:36.026 know. And so I was like, OK, this, I don't, you know, then I went to Iraq 00:07:36.059 --> 00:07:42.967 and stuff. I came home and uh I told the Sheriff's Department I was like, 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:47.937 I don't wanna, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm out. So I went back to school and I 00:07:47.970 --> 00:07:55.970 focused fully on school. Um But I got married and uh 00:07:57.069 --> 00:08:02.895 they got married and had kids and uh went to, 00:08:02.928 --> 00:08:06.887 went into real estate. So I was doing junior college and real estate uh 00:08:06.920 --> 00:08:14.920 apartment management. Um Finally, uh I finished, finished my undergraduate 00:08:16.720 --> 00:08:22.717 and I went into teaching. So I went and taught overseas in Spain. 00:08:22.750 --> 00:08:26.596 Uh over there, then I went to, and I went to university over there and I 00:08:26.629 --> 00:08:32.816 got a master's. So I got my bachelor's in English criticism at UC Davis. 00:08:32.849 --> 00:08:36.775 Went over to Spain taught English over there and then got a master's in 00:08:36.808 --> 00:08:39.476 Eesl 00:08:39.509 --> 00:08:46.566 and then I came uh came home from there. I would have stayed abroad. And 00:08:46.599 --> 00:08:49.976 just that was actually kind of one of my dreams in life was to just teach 00:08:50.009 --> 00:08:53.135 English abroad all over the place, going from country to country, you know 00:08:53.168 --> 00:08:56.775 , basically staying in a country long enough to learn the language and 00:08:56.808 --> 00:09:03.005 then move on my wife. However, was like, I'm, I wanna go back to Davis. So 00:09:03.038 --> 00:09:08.015 we move back. 00:09:08.048 --> 00:09:13.885 So we moved back to, so we moved back to Davis and uh and I got my 00:09:13.918 --> 00:09:18.505 teaching credential and then I taught in Florin and Woodland, some regular 00:09:18.538 --> 00:09:24.076 schools and then to um 00:09:24.109 --> 00:09:29.537 and then here to Sam Mio. 00:09:29.570 --> 00:09:32.866 So can you tell me a little bit about who inspired you to become an 00:09:32.899 --> 00:09:36.255 educator? 00:09:36.288 --> 00:09:42.826 Unfortunately, I would say there wasn't really an inspiration. 00:09:42.859 --> 00:09:45.456 Um 00:09:45.489 --> 00:09:51.356 So like there were like little parts and pieces. It was like, I actually 00:09:51.389 --> 00:09:57.635 had a lot of good teachers, but I'd say, well, I had good teachers. I 00:09:57.668 --> 00:10:02.307 never had teachers that were good enough or at least the system was never 00:10:02.340 --> 00:10:05.157 good enough. 00:10:05.190 --> 00:10:09.826 I always had problems in school. Like first grade, I failed the first 00:10:09.859 --> 00:10:17.186 grade the first time because I was ditching class. Yeah, I would um I 00:10:17.219 --> 00:10:20.885 would go to class and then at the first recess, I'd jump the fence, go in 00:10:20.918 --> 00:10:28.726 the park and hide where I'd catch frogs. Turtles. Go fishing and take naps 00:10:28.759 --> 00:10:32.657 and hang out until the end of the day at the last recess. And I would come 00:10:32.690 --> 00:10:36.177 back over the vents and play tether ball and pretend like I had been there 00:10:36.210 --> 00:10:41.967 all day. There were two first grade classrooms. Um, and each teacher 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:45.606 thought I was in the other one 00:10:45.639 --> 00:10:50.086 and it worked great until the end of the year when the parent teacher 00:10:50.119 --> 00:10:55.217 final conferences and I had, you know, failed both classes. You know, I 00:10:55.250 --> 00:10:59.496 had other issues too. You know, I, 00:10:59.529 --> 00:11:03.765 I climbed up on the roof during lunch when the principal teacher demanded 00:11:03.798 --> 00:11:07.196 , I come down, I refused, the principal demanded they called the police 00:11:07.229 --> 00:11:10.496 and the fire department and I ran around on the roof running away from 00:11:10.529 --> 00:11:14.765 them. It was ridiculous. 00:11:14.798 --> 00:11:20.346 So I was never a good student. I was never the right student. You know, I 00:11:20.379 --> 00:11:26.826 um I had the abilities, my reading was good. 00:11:26.859 --> 00:11:31.265 Uh, like I had said earlier, my, in the sixth grade and this teacher, she 00:11:31.298 --> 00:11:36.375 was, I remember her as being pretty sweet, but I don't know, sitting in 00:11:36.408 --> 00:11:41.236 that classroom was torture and I would just do anything I could to get out 00:11:41.269 --> 00:11:46.346 of the classroom. I would cut my arms 00:11:46.379 --> 00:11:50.186 so that I could ask to go to the office and get abandoned. I'd literally 00:11:50.219 --> 00:11:57.047 cut myself open with things to get out of the classroom. Um or I would 00:11:57.080 --> 00:12:00.927 just not come back from lunch. I would go hide I'd go walk down the street 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:06.907 to the pizza now is in Colorado and walking, that street was a 15 mile 00:12:06.940 --> 00:12:13.547 walk with nothing in between. Like, it's just open country. Right. 00:12:13.580 --> 00:12:17.746 So I'd do anything to get out of class and we were reading Julie of the 00:12:17.779 --> 00:12:20.066 Wolves 00:12:20.099 --> 00:12:24.856 and she was destroying it. She would ask us stupid questions that nobody 00:12:24.889 --> 00:12:29.157 would wanna answer. There was no discussion 00:12:29.190 --> 00:12:34.255 and she said, and I, I just kept interrupting as being a jerk. I was being 00:12:34.288 --> 00:12:39.186 a terrible person. And uh she said, Dean, if you interrupt me one more 00:12:39.219 --> 00:12:44.066 time, you're gonna teach a class tomorrow. And I said, 00:12:44.099 --> 00:12:48.946 and she said one more word from you. And I said, how about two? Wait, 00:12:48.979 --> 00:12:51.677 that's four. 00:12:51.710 --> 00:12:59.710 And she was like, you're teaching tomorrow. And I said, thank God. 00:13:00.700 --> 00:13:04.196 Uh So I spent the night preparing, I looked up all the discussion 00:13:04.229 --> 00:13:08.515 questions and I rewrote my own and I, you know, I had been, I'd read the 00:13:08.548 --> 00:13:13.547 book, I'd already read the book like two or three times and I went in the 00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:18.667 next day and I just asked questions and then I followed those questions. 00:13:18.700 --> 00:13:22.936 Those and, and we had this wonderful discussion about Julie of the Wolves 00:13:22.969 --> 00:13:27.706 and we got to like her final like she had, you know, I had the, we had the 00:13:27.739 --> 00:13:34.407 essay question. So I knew where to go. 00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:36.467 And 00:13:36.500 --> 00:13:39.657 now she had scheduled a parent teacher conference because of the 00:13:39.690 --> 00:13:44.407 altercation. And you know. And so that day after I taught the class, my 00:13:44.440 --> 00:13:47.706 parents came in and we had a conference and she told them dean should be a 00:13:47.739 --> 00:13:50.086 teacher. 00:13:50.119 --> 00:13:54.005 He led an excellent class. It was great. 00:13:54.038 --> 00:13:59.706 I'm thinking about, I should just let him teach the rest of the book. 00:13:59.739 --> 00:14:04.885 Um And I gave her a lot more respect after that, I left her alone. I still 00:14:04.918 --> 00:14:08.826 hated being in there and I still played a lot of tricks to get out, but I 00:14:08.859 --> 00:14:12.486 didn't mess with her anymore. 00:14:12.519 --> 00:14:19.385 Do you, do you have a mentor teacher? Not really when I was at Flor and 00:14:19.418 --> 00:14:27.418 there was a teacher, uh Mr Simmons Simon, he's uh Elk Grove like teacher 00:14:27.928 --> 00:14:34.395 of the year 12 times. I mean, he was fantastic. He's amazing. Um 00:14:34.428 --> 00:14:39.976 And I did my student internship under him and uh and another teacher 00:14:40.009 --> 00:14:44.356 watching him was, was fantastic. The relationship that he had with kids 00:14:44.389 --> 00:14:49.885 was amazing, you know, it was like, and he had that class that the 00:14:49.918 --> 00:14:54.537 counselors always put the worst kids into. So like they were like this kid. 00:14:54.570 --> 00:14:57.986 No, you know, we're gonna put kids in his class because this kid is gonna 00:14:58.019 --> 00:15:02.885 ruin any other teacher. Uh But that was just student internship, you know 00:15:02.918 --> 00:15:05.967 , and um 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:12.476 because of the way the program works, I wasn't the best intern, 00:15:12.509 --> 00:15:17.616 didn't have my lesson plans laid out. Right. And well, like they should 00:15:17.649 --> 00:15:21.765 have been, they don't match up like the university wants you to do one 00:15:21.798 --> 00:15:24.537 thing, the school wants you to do another, the teacher is doing their 00:15:24.570 --> 00:15:30.356 thing, you know, and I made mistakes. So 00:15:30.389 --> 00:15:34.217 in the end, he actually didn't even really like me. I ruined it for him 00:15:34.250 --> 00:15:39.566 and he said he would never do it again. It's kind of sad. I actually 00:15:39.599 --> 00:15:43.557 really deeply respect him. So when I say like, if I mention a mentor 00:15:43.590 --> 00:15:47.836 teacher, I mean him because ultimately I wanna be like him, you know what 00:15:47.869 --> 00:15:53.586 I mean? But I didn't get a lot of really good training under him. I just 00:15:53.619 --> 00:16:01.576 watched him. I saw the way he interacted and that was, that was about it. 00:16:01.609 --> 00:16:09.609 So when you became a teacher, what was the process like, 00:16:10.359 --> 00:16:16.467 I don't know what you mean exactly in what way. So as far as um did was 00:16:16.500 --> 00:16:20.645 the process similar to what it is today? So you have your Oh Yeah. Yeah. 00:16:20.678 --> 00:16:26.226 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Same. Um Yeah, go through the university, get a 00:16:26.259 --> 00:16:34.259 credential student teach, you know, um finish your masters your first year 00:16:34.739 --> 00:16:42.739 of teaching and yeah, same, same process as it is today. Um So 00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:47.566 um so how long have you been an educator now? Where was your first 00:16:47.599 --> 00:16:49.986 assignment? 00:16:50.019 --> 00:16:54.066 Um I 00:16:54.099 --> 00:17:00.936 uh let's see, my, so like uh I count my, my time overseas because that's 00:17:00.969 --> 00:17:06.467 when I really started learning teaching um and was responsible for my own 00:17:06.500 --> 00:17:13.064 classes. Um So 2000, 2013 00:17:13.097 --> 00:17:17.706 and then I came, uh from, 00:17:17.739 --> 00:17:21.766 I came from there to 00:17:21.799 --> 00:17:27.156 Davis and in the credential program is when I worked in Flor and, and 00:17:27.189 --> 00:17:32.347 Woodland and then I came to Se yo. So what do you teach here at San Diego 00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:40.380 ? I teach, um, right now just Eld and English 12. Uh I have taught a bunch 00:17:42.588 --> 00:17:46.446 of electives. I taught college career. That's my absolute favorite class 00:17:46.479 --> 00:17:54.206 to teach. It's the best one. Um, no bias there. 00:17:54.239 --> 00:18:01.006 It's the most applicable. But I digress um, journalism, mass media and uh 00:18:01.039 --> 00:18:04.137 creative writing. 00:18:04.170 --> 00:18:09.467 I think that's about it. I think that's what I've taught here. Uh Can you 00:18:09.500 --> 00:18:15.127 talk a little bit about what uh continue edu, continuing education looks 00:18:15.160 --> 00:18:18.805 like for you? Oh. 00:18:18.838 --> 00:18:23.176 So, yeah, I, I mean, I went from, 00:18:23.209 --> 00:18:26.887 I like Clayton Valley is at the regular high school and I was, I wasn't 00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:32.256 attending class. I was literally just not going to school. Um, or if I did 00:18:32.289 --> 00:18:35.585 go to school, it was really just to hang out with my friends and I might 00:18:35.618 --> 00:18:40.166 make it into a class here or there. Um 00:18:40.199 --> 00:18:42.717 uh 00:18:42.750 --> 00:18:47.436 And so I was one of those, I had to go to the continuation school, earn 00:18:47.469 --> 00:18:50.416 some credits there. I had to go to the adult school, earn some credits 00:18:50.449 --> 00:18:54.486 there and all that. And then it was a little bit different because you 00:18:54.519 --> 00:18:58.996 kind of had a dual enrollment thing. You were like still in the 00:18:59.029 --> 00:19:03.696 comprehensive, but you were at the adult school or not at the, you were at 00:19:03.729 --> 00:19:08.706 the continuation school too. So you kind of did half of 1.5 of the other. 00:19:08.739 --> 00:19:12.246 So it's like you're still trying to earn your credits over there and you 00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:16.246 had to do the continuation school, right? And you had to do adult school. 00:19:16.279 --> 00:19:22.035 So I did all those. Uh, but at the end of the year I was still 20 credits 00:19:22.068 --> 00:19:24.347 short. 00:19:24.380 --> 00:19:29.496 Um, and the principal made a deal and waived those credits so that I could 00:19:29.529 --> 00:19:32.906 leave. 00:19:32.939 --> 00:19:39.476 So typically, what are the students you teach? Like, 00:19:39.509 --> 00:19:43.397 oh, they're real, 00:19:43.430 --> 00:19:46.857 you know, if there's like one word to describe them, it's real. They're, 00:19:46.890 --> 00:19:50.397 they're not fake. They don't, they don't play a lot of games and stuff. Um 00:19:50.430 --> 00:19:58.127 , but continuing education nowadays you've got the same traditional school 00:19:58.160 --> 00:20:02.887 process that has existed for 00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:09.347 a good 50 years. You know, I mean, I, I'd say it's, it's about 50 years 00:20:09.380 --> 00:20:14.045 where it's really looked like it does today. Um, 00:20:14.078 --> 00:20:19.936 um, maybe more but because of the legal requirements that build the system 00:20:19.969 --> 00:20:25.367 to make it look like it does, I'd say about 50 years. Um, but they, they 00:20:25.400 --> 00:20:32.857 go that setting doesn't work for them. You know, they typically have 00:20:32.890 --> 00:20:39.285 severe obstacles in their way that are not addressed by the schools, um, 00:20:39.318 --> 00:20:46.617 obstacles like their parents are getting divorced, uh, or which, which is 00:20:46.650 --> 00:20:50.906 a s seriously traumatic event in a child's life. Like, you know, we go, oh 00:20:50.939 --> 00:20:56.456 , it's normal. It's, it's not normal. Right. I, if you're talking, 00:20:56.489 --> 00:21:00.897 statistically normal it's normal. Right. Statistically speaking, but it's 00:21:00.930 --> 00:21:05.785 not normal on human relationship. Like that's not normal. You're not 00:21:05.818 --> 00:21:11.936 supposed to have to endure that kind of a thing. It's traumatic. Um, those 00:21:11.969 --> 00:21:15.097 are relationships that are supposed to be lifelong. You know, you're 00:21:15.130 --> 00:21:18.315 supposed to watch your parents die. You're not supposed to watch your kids 00:21:18.348 --> 00:21:22.526 die and you're not supposed to watch your parents leave. 00:21:22.559 --> 00:21:27.075 Um, so they go through these big traumatic events in our school system is 00:21:27.108 --> 00:21:32.026 completely incapable of dealing with them. We have no systems in place for 00:21:32.059 --> 00:21:37.996 dealing with it. And so we watch them fail and a lot of times we blame 00:21:38.029 --> 00:21:43.805 them for the failure. And once they hit a point where they cannot graduate 00:21:43.838 --> 00:21:48.815 , finally, some flags go off in a counselor's office and they go, oh, this 00:21:48.848 --> 00:21:54.545 kid can't. So we need an alternative and thus the continuation program has 00:21:54.578 --> 00:21:56.555 developed. 00:21:56.588 --> 00:22:00.706 So they send them over here and there's a fundamental idea that and it's 00:22:00.739 --> 00:22:05.857 true, smaller class sizes will improve the student's performance and it's 00:22:05.890 --> 00:22:11.825 absolutely true. It does. They go from 40 kids over there to 25 over here 00:22:11.858 --> 00:22:16.916 on average. And that one difference alone gives the teacher more time to 00:22:16.949 --> 00:22:21.756 interact with the student, get to know the student and help the actual 00:22:21.789 --> 00:22:27.785 individual student. Whereas at the regular traditional schools, it's 00:22:27.818 --> 00:22:33.706 really just a numbers game is your curriculum set up to address the needs 00:22:33.739 --> 00:22:38.055 of the majority of students. And if not, oh, well, for the ones that it 00:22:38.088 --> 00:22:41.357 doesn't help 00:22:41.390 --> 00:22:46.805 and so they fail and they come here when they're here, they still have all 00:22:46.838 --> 00:22:51.276 the same issues. They're lacking 00:22:51.309 --> 00:22:55.117 most of the skills that they should have learned since the time that they 00:22:55.150 --> 00:22:57.295 quit. 00:22:57.328 --> 00:23:05.328 So I have, um, I've learned as I've, I do a lot of interviews and tracking 00:23:06.239 --> 00:23:10.347 and research on the students and I found that it's come to the point where 00:23:10.380 --> 00:23:14.617 when I get a new student and they come in and they typically, like, I, 00:23:14.650 --> 00:23:19.585 like, I get those really bad ones. Right? Like the not bad, like bad 00:23:19.618 --> 00:23:25.176 students but bad. They're in a bad situation. Right? Like, they're too far 00:23:25.209 --> 00:23:29.217 to graduate and they're not earning credits now or something. I always, I 00:23:29.250 --> 00:23:35.496 just sit down and I open their um, online portal. You know, the one we use 00:23:35.529 --> 00:23:40.736 as a and I look at their transcripts and I just go back and I find the 00:23:40.769 --> 00:23:46.746 bees and the CS, every student has B's and C's somewhere. They might not 00:23:46.779 --> 00:23:50.746 have A's but they all have B's and C's somewhere. And then you, if you go 00:23:50.779 --> 00:23:54.127 back and hopefully they were in your district long enough that you go back 00:23:54.160 --> 00:23:58.706 and you find it and then you go forward until you see the Fs and then you 00:23:58.739 --> 00:24:03.305 ask them what happened and there's always something, always something. My 00:24:03.338 --> 00:24:08.217 dad died. My mom died, my brother died, my parents got divorced. We moved 00:24:08.250 --> 00:24:13.446 , you know, I went from this school to that school. I got bullied, you 00:24:13.479 --> 00:24:18.097 know, and it's sad because it's always the same answers. I mean, I could, 00:24:18.130 --> 00:24:21.795 I could write now for you, write down a list of the 20 things that these 00:24:21.828 --> 00:24:26.607 kids go through. They're all the same 00:24:26.640 --> 00:24:32.436 and they end up here. And, um, because it's smaller classes and because 00:24:32.469 --> 00:24:36.686 the teachers at continuation schools are usually drawn to continuation 00:24:36.719 --> 00:24:38.805 schools, 00:24:38.838 --> 00:24:44.097 you know, there's no benefit to working here. Like almost literally none, 00:24:44.130 --> 00:24:48.857 maybe they're smaller class sizes, but it's filled with the 30 kids that 00:24:48.890 --> 00:24:53.467 were the worst kids or the worst classroom management problem at the other 00:24:53.500 --> 00:24:56.476 school. So there's no benefit to being here. You don't get paid more and 00:24:56.509 --> 00:25:01.416 you don't, you know, it's far more emotional and then, you know, so 00:25:01.449 --> 00:25:04.426 there's no benefit. So therefore the teachers that are here are the ones 00:25:04.459 --> 00:25:10.756 that really wanna be that actually leads to my next question. So what, how 00:25:10.789 --> 00:25:16.467 , how, why did you choose to work with? Title one kids? Credit recovery 00:25:16.500 --> 00:25:21.217 kids. Why are you here? Um 00:25:21.250 --> 00:25:29.250 Well, yeah, there's, there's, there's a several very clear reasons. One I 00:25:30.299 --> 00:25:36.217 was and always have been and still am one of them. 00:25:36.250 --> 00:25:40.486 I used to look at the clock and I would tell myself I can do five minutes 00:25:40.519 --> 00:25:45.315 , right? Like I can endure five minutes. And so I would just stare at the 00:25:45.348 --> 00:25:48.717 clock and wait for that five minutes. And then after the first five 00:25:48.750 --> 00:25:53.276 minutes of class was over, I'd tell myself I can do five more. I li, I, it 00:25:53.309 --> 00:25:57.766 was a painful experience for me to sit in that class. The topics were 00:25:57.799 --> 00:26:01.565 interesting. I didn't have a problem with history. Right. And I didn't 00:26:01.598 --> 00:26:07.785 have a problem with, uh, Shakespeare. I loved Shakespeare, you know? But 00:26:07.818 --> 00:26:13.696 so it wasn't the curriculum. it was the format and it was only the format. 00:26:13.729 --> 00:26:17.006 It wasn't even the teachers. I'd never had a personal problem with the 00:26:17.039 --> 00:26:21.295 teachers. Like I said, most of my teachers were good. Right. They were 00:26:21.328 --> 00:26:27.127 good caring individuals that were doing their best. Um Some, uh most of 00:26:27.160 --> 00:26:30.926 them cared way more about me than I ever cared about them. Like I can only 00:26:30.959 --> 00:26:36.897 name a few of them by name, you know, all of them can name me. 00:26:36.930 --> 00:26:39.186 Um, 00:26:39.219 --> 00:26:45.766 so that's one, I was one of them. Uh, two, 00:26:45.799 --> 00:26:50.926 my time in the military watching the change from somebody who would come 00:26:50.959 --> 00:26:55.416 into the military and be like, always on the verge of total failure, which 00:26:55.449 --> 00:26:58.736 there was like a difference between life and death and not only for them 00:26:58.769 --> 00:27:03.186 but for the people they work with. Right. I mean, I literally had a 00:27:03.219 --> 00:27:08.746 soldier pull the pin from a grenade and then throw the pin. Yeah, and 00:27:08.779 --> 00:27:12.357 dropped the grenade. So we're standing over a live grenade. Right. And I 00:27:12.390 --> 00:27:18.857 have to like grab him and throw him before we both die. Um And everybody's 00:27:18.890 --> 00:27:23.756 standing around, right? Like it's, 00:27:23.789 --> 00:27:27.706 and I had to teach him this guy, oh my goodness. I had to teach him left 00:27:27.739 --> 00:27:32.887 and right. He literally did not know his left from his right. We had to 00:27:32.920 --> 00:27:37.075 start there. I had to go all the way back to. This is your left foot. This 00:27:37.108 --> 00:27:43.516 is your right foot when I say left to move that foot, right. And we had to 00:27:43.549 --> 00:27:49.565 get this basic and I had to get real creative like climbing rope. Uh And I 00:27:49.598 --> 00:27:54.647 had to write on issues with chalk and, but we got it and we learned it and 00:27:54.680 --> 00:27:57.016 later we, I mean, we got to the point where he could read a map and 00:27:57.049 --> 00:28:00.967 navigate terrain by himself. 00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:09.000 So there's my experience teaching difficult soldiers um 00:28:09.088 --> 00:28:14.446 enduring the hardships that I've endured in my life. Unlike most of my 00:28:14.479 --> 00:28:19.835 students were brought on all by myself. My parents were middle class broke 00:28:19.868 --> 00:28:25.226 , right? Like we were fine, we were ok. Dad made good money, just not 00:28:25.259 --> 00:28:30.347 enough for all of us in the way we spent it, I guess. I don't know, you 00:28:30.380 --> 00:28:35.565 know, timing was different. Um 00:28:35.598 --> 00:28:40.996 Finally when I was doing like my student teaching and I think this was the 00:28:41.029 --> 00:28:46.867 final point where I was like, I'm going to continuation and nowhere else. 00:28:46.900 --> 00:28:53.206 Uh I worked with Mr Simmons who always had the hard cases, the rough cases 00:28:53.239 --> 00:28:58.726 and I, you know, so I took over and I totally failed them as a student 00:28:58.759 --> 00:29:02.347 teacher. I did, you know, I made good connections and relationships with 00:29:02.380 --> 00:29:05.686 them. Like there were a couple 00:29:05.719 --> 00:29:10.446 uh that I, you know, convinced to do school even though they, you know, 00:29:10.479 --> 00:29:15.347 just weren't doing it. Like I remember I had this kid Jose and he got 00:29:15.380 --> 00:29:18.696 behind, you know, he, he got to the point where he couldn't graduate. And 00:29:18.729 --> 00:29:22.276 so they marked him for going to the continuation school. And so he dropped 00:29:22.309 --> 00:29:25.696 out, he quit coming to school 00:29:25.729 --> 00:29:32.217 and I, I hunted him down and I found him and, you know, I talked to him 00:29:32.250 --> 00:29:39.706 and, you know, like cell phone calls and, um, and we, you know, after the 00:29:39.739 --> 00:29:44.045 conversations, I was like the, uh, you know, basically I convinced them, 00:29:44.078 --> 00:29:46.676 like, look, you're going to the continuation school and that's all fine 00:29:46.709 --> 00:29:51.946 and you'll earn your credits. But in the four months until you go there, 00:29:51.979 --> 00:29:56.726 why not come to class here and learn how to do this? Like, it's not gonna 00:29:56.759 --> 00:30:02.226 be like bad, it's not gonna ruin you. It's not gonna be some impossible 00:30:02.259 --> 00:30:09.486 thing. And, uh, you know, I was like, in fact, we don't care if you pass 00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:14.387 my class, right? I was like, so you don't have to pass, you can come to 00:30:14.420 --> 00:30:19.045 school and you cannot care about doing the work. So why don't you just 00:30:19.078 --> 00:30:23.627 come to school? Forget the work, forget passing the class and doing the 00:30:23.660 --> 00:30:29.426 work, just come to school with the sole intention of learning. Right. Just 00:30:29.459 --> 00:30:32.426 learn the thing that I'm teaching. Don't worry about passing the class and 00:30:32.459 --> 00:30:40.459 all that. And so he did, he came back and he started just learning and 00:30:41.410 --> 00:30:46.785 when I made the lesson engaging and fun or, you know, like, well, not fun. 00:30:46.818 --> 00:30:51.367 I've never been one of those that made things fun. My class is never fun 00:30:51.400 --> 00:30:55.555 but it's always, it's engaging. Um, anyway, I'd make it and he would start 00:30:55.588 --> 00:31:00.867 working. He would do all kinds of crazy, hard work, you know, and then 00:31:00.900 --> 00:31:05.156 he'd refuse to turn it in, you know, and I'd be like, why don't you turn 00:31:05.189 --> 00:31:08.406 it in Jose? And he's like, well, I don't need the credits. Right. So my 00:31:08.439 --> 00:31:13.016 turn and I'm like, for the feeling he's like, I got the feeling this was 00:31:13.049 --> 00:31:18.756 great learning this, this was awesome. Anyway. So, uh, and the final 00:31:18.789 --> 00:31:26.789 reason was that there are some kids many that it doesn't matter who's the 00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:31.565 teacher. It really doesn't. You put almost anybody in front of the 00:31:31.598 --> 00:31:36.736 classroom? I think that they're gonna get by some will even excel or 00:31:36.769 --> 00:31:43.186 succeed. Like, it really just doesn't matter, um, parents, family or, you 00:31:43.219 --> 00:31:46.127 know, like 00:31:46.160 --> 00:31:50.246 they just really, you know, almost or, or a lot of people can do the job, 00:31:50.279 --> 00:31:53.916 you know, I'm not saying the teachers don't matter, the teachers, you know 00:31:53.949 --> 00:31:58.467 , matter, it matters who's, but there's a more options. A lot of people 00:31:58.500 --> 00:32:04.785 can do this class. Right. Like, not a lot of teachers can really teach 00:32:04.818 --> 00:32:09.575 advanced gifted kids. Well, gifted kids will push them and test them and 00:32:09.608 --> 00:32:15.085 the teacher can't keep up and it turns into a kind of a nightmare 00:32:15.118 --> 00:32:22.246 and we're the same way at the continuation schools. I honestly, I, there's 00:32:22.279 --> 00:32:28.887 not a lot of teachers that can do it and the kids need the teachers that 00:32:28.920 --> 00:32:36.226 can. So for me, that's why for those who don't know, could you briefly 00:32:36.259 --> 00:32:42.805 explain what the credit recovery system is? 00:32:42.838 --> 00:32:49.676 Um, I, it varies greatly, it varies immensely across the nation and 00:32:49.709 --> 00:32:55.575 greatly in California, all schools are, there's a ton of different ways to 00:32:55.608 --> 00:33:03.608 set it up, but essentially there, uh, they are uniformly smaller schools 00:33:04.828 --> 00:33:08.206 with smaller classes that's a given. If you look at any single 00:33:08.239 --> 00:33:15.256 continuation school in California, they are very small schools. Um, 00:33:15.289 --> 00:33:20.916 and they have smaller classes 00:33:20.949 --> 00:33:25.676 and the kids have an opportunity to earn more credits than they could at 00:33:25.709 --> 00:33:31.236 the comprehensive or at the traditional schools. The way that they earn 00:33:31.269 --> 00:33:38.887 more credits changes. It, it, it varies depending on the school. There's 00:33:38.920 --> 00:33:45.535 typically only one credit recovery or continuation school in the district. 00:33:45.568 --> 00:33:52.676 Um, a few have more than one, very, very few. Uh, they tend to have, um, 00:33:52.709 --> 00:33:56.137 a continuation school and then an adult school and they tend to level them 00:33:56.170 --> 00:34:01.335 like first go here, then they're, you know, if that doesn't work, a lot of 00:34:01.368 --> 00:34:05.016 the schools you earn, you go into the continuation school and you earn 00:34:05.049 --> 00:34:09.537 your regular credits and then they'll have like Friday school. So they go 00:34:09.570 --> 00:34:12.896 to school Monday through Thursday and earn regular credits on those days 00:34:12.929 --> 00:34:16.537 and then the kids on Friday earn extra credits. Right. They come in on 00:34:16.570 --> 00:34:23.624 Friday and they earn credits above and beyond or, um, a lot of the schools 00:34:23.657 --> 00:34:28.035 that, you know, you, you have more classes and, you know, they like, some 00:34:28.068 --> 00:34:30.785 of the schools will do like you, oh, you have eight classes and so you 00:34:30.818 --> 00:34:35.026 earn more because you have more classes. Some of them do less classes, 00:34:35.059 --> 00:34:39.555 some of them double credit, some are on semesters, some on quarters, some 00:34:39.588 --> 00:34:45.735 on trimester. Uh there's just so many different variations but when you 00:34:45.768 --> 00:34:51.405 get down to the base core of it on a yearly, 00:34:51.438 --> 00:34:59.438 on a, in a year, the student at a continuation school can earn, uh 25% to 00:35:00.398 --> 00:35:04.586 100% more credits than they could at the traditional school in the same 00:35:04.619 --> 00:35:07.546 amount of time. That's, that's essentially what it is is, it's just 00:35:07.579 --> 00:35:12.876 providing them avenues for earning more credits at a faster pace. And it's 00:35:12.909 --> 00:35:18.166 based on, according to the, the State department, it's based on the idea 00:35:18.199 --> 00:35:22.057 that they have taken these classes and failed and you're kind of, you're 00:35:22.090 --> 00:35:25.767 filling in the gaps, like that's kind of the ideas that you're filling in 00:35:25.800 --> 00:35:30.807 the gaps, not that you're like doing it all over again, but it's supposed 00:35:30.840 --> 00:35:35.247 to be helping fill in the, the problems, focus on those issues. The 00:35:35.280 --> 00:35:40.436 scaffolding that the students need. Um, some schools focus on getting them 00:35:40.469 --> 00:35:43.577 back into the traditionals. Ok? Bring them in, get them caught up to speed 00:35:43.610 --> 00:35:47.046 and then send them back and some of them focus on, bring them over, 00:35:47.079 --> 00:35:52.327 graduate, them, get them done and some focus on transitions. Ok? Bring 00:35:52.360 --> 00:35:57.195 them in and then figure out where they wanna go. Can you talk a little bit 00:35:57.228 --> 00:36:04.046 about the politics surrounding credit recovery? 00:36:04.079 --> 00:36:07.865 Uh Let's see, 00:36:07.898 --> 00:36:15.365 that's pretty sketchy. You go. Um, yeah, it has changed over the years. So 00:36:15.398 --> 00:36:19.336 many different times, there's one universal 00:36:19.369 --> 00:36:27.369 and that's that if you, if you look at um, the traditional schools, uh and 00:36:28.128 --> 00:36:31.227 if you go around and survey, 00:36:31.260 --> 00:36:35.845 the general conception out there from teachers at traditional schools is 00:36:35.878 --> 00:36:43.736 that students come to the continuation schools and do lower level, less 00:36:43.769 --> 00:36:49.577 rigorous work and earn credits for doing less. That's, that's a pretty 00:36:49.610 --> 00:36:54.396 general if you go around and survey, that's, that's what you tend to find. 00:36:54.429 --> 00:36:56.945 Um, 00:36:56.978 --> 00:37:01.006 on the other hand, at the continuation schools, you can go around and talk 00:37:01.039 --> 00:37:07.365 to teachers. It's like, well, we do a ton of scaffolding to get them up to 00:37:07.398 --> 00:37:12.885 where they should be or is as close to where they should be as we can. 00:37:12.918 --> 00:37:18.856 Uh, politics come into play on several levels. You've got the state, you 00:37:18.889 --> 00:37:22.396 know, you got state level where they set mandates for like credit 00:37:22.429 --> 00:37:26.836 requirements. California says 100 and 80 is our minimum and then the 00:37:26.869 --> 00:37:32.267 district set their minimum, right? So like, uh our district says 230 00:37:32.300 --> 00:37:36.256 credits to graduate high school, except they make the allowance that the 00:37:36.289 --> 00:37:41.396 adult school can earn 100 and 80 get a high school diploma. Uh I know 00:37:41.429 --> 00:37:45.896 other districts where the high school earns 200 credits and the 00:37:45.929 --> 00:37:52.095 continuation school earns 180. Um There's several down in southern 00:37:52.128 --> 00:37:59.467 California where everybody gets 180 continuation and the regular um 00:37:59.500 --> 00:38:07.500 a few of them close to us do uh they do like 230 or you know, they're in 00:38:07.590 --> 00:38:12.327 the two hundreds somewhere and then they'll do uh in two hundreds and then 00:38:12.360 --> 00:38:18.166 the continuation school is 180 the adult school is 180 right? And the idea 00:38:18.199 --> 00:38:26.199 is that once they're in the continuation school, are you worried about 00:38:26.659 --> 00:38:32.876 checking the boxes? Like, does it matter whether the kid has 20 elective 00:38:32.909 --> 00:38:36.925 credits or 30 elective credits? Like the question is why are they earning 00:38:36.958 --> 00:38:44.526 elective credits? Right. For, for example, we have English 123 and four or 00:38:44.559 --> 00:38:49.195 you can translate that English 9 1011 and 12. Well, common core state 00:38:49.228 --> 00:38:52.876 standards, right? Which are the adopted standards, say that there are two 00:38:52.909 --> 00:38:56.166 sets of standards for high school English, there's nine and 10 and there's 00:38:56.199 --> 00:39:01.296 11 and 12 period. Right. So you teach the same, same skills to another 00:39:01.329 --> 00:39:05.856 junior as you teach to a senior. The difference is that they're supposed 00:39:05.889 --> 00:39:13.115 to take English. The thing that we've agreed to 100 years ago was that 00:39:13.148 --> 00:39:18.307 high school kids should take English every year. Right. They should just 00:39:18.340 --> 00:39:20.885 continue in English. This is a really important subject. And so they 00:39:20.918 --> 00:39:28.506 should take English every year and then those became level 9, 1011, 12. Um 00:39:28.539 --> 00:39:35.296 And then people started doing typical things like, oh, we teach, um we 00:39:35.329 --> 00:39:41.236 teach Catcher in the Rye at this grade. We teach, you know, uh we teach 00:39:41.269 --> 00:39:47.287 Romeo and Juliet in the ninth grade, right? Like California back in uh oh 00:39:47.320 --> 00:39:52.925 , this is actually a good example. So like in Colorado, we learned Romeo 00:39:52.958 --> 00:39:56.595 and Juliet, everybody does Romeo and Juliet in the sixth grade in 00:39:56.628 --> 00:40:01.425 California. They do it in the ninth grade, right? So they see Romeo and 00:40:01.458 --> 00:40:05.566 Juliet as ninth grade curriculum, right? So like when I moved from 00:40:05.599 --> 00:40:12.316 Colorado to California, I got put into Romeo, I got put into an English 00:40:12.349 --> 00:40:16.865 class. I just turned in my sixth grade essay, right? I just turned in all 00:40:16.898 --> 00:40:20.006 my sixth grade work and I got credit. I'm past English nine because I just 00:40:20.039 --> 00:40:24.247 did all turned in all my sixth grade work. So you get this like what is 00:40:24.280 --> 00:40:31.256 grade level curriculum? You know, and, and you have different. Um 00:40:31.289 --> 00:40:35.876 So you got the standards then you've got the curriculums that you adopt as 00:40:35.909 --> 00:40:40.247 a district or what? And there's good reason for that. Right. Because some 00:40:40.280 --> 00:40:45.626 teachers, you know, like, you need some uniformity, ok, these are the 00:40:45.659 --> 00:40:53.659 skills that they're learning but that's the purpose for common core, um, 00:40:53.929 --> 00:40:57.267 politics. And then you get down to, like, I mean, you get down to 00:40:57.300 --> 00:41:02.526 classroom level politics. Right? Like this kid, that kid, I want this kid 00:41:02.559 --> 00:41:06.747 in my classroom, I don't want this kid in my classroom. So I don't know 00:41:06.780 --> 00:41:11.905 when you define politics, that's a pretty big wide broad category that it 00:41:11.938 --> 00:41:18.155 is um from your perspective, what is the main goal of, of credit recovery 00:41:18.188 --> 00:41:21.046 for you? 00:41:21.079 --> 00:41:27.077 Um So I actually, I have a poster and I, I tell my kids all the time, my 00:41:27.110 --> 00:41:33.956 resolution for them is that they become a well informed, responsible and 00:41:33.989 --> 00:41:40.236 productive citizen who is able to read critically discuss intelligently 00:41:40.269 --> 00:41:43.146 and write effectively 00:41:43.179 --> 00:41:51.179 for me as an English educator. My goal is um at the end of my class, when 00:41:52.909 --> 00:41:57.865 they read something, when they are presented with an argument, they can 00:41:57.898 --> 00:42:02.717 tell the difference between the truth and the rhetoric 00:42:02.750 --> 00:42:07.416 because that's what our kids need to be successful at. And I don't care if 00:42:07.449 --> 00:42:14.626 it's an email, right? Or uh a dissertation, I don't care. Uh some, you 00:42:14.659 --> 00:42:18.336 just have to be able to recognize rhetoric and truth and if you can do 00:42:18.369 --> 00:42:22.486 those two things, right? And cite evidence and da da, da, you're gonna be 00:42:22.519 --> 00:42:28.557 ok. So, my ultimate goal is to fill the potholes, right? Like, I, I view 00:42:28.590 --> 00:42:34.546 their education as like a road, right? Uh, uh, a highway and, you know, 00:42:34.579 --> 00:42:42.385 some kids man sail down the highway, right. Other kids, trauma has put 00:42:42.418 --> 00:42:45.717 huge potholes 00:42:45.750 --> 00:42:53.750 and sometimes you gotta fill the pothole. Sometimes it's small and you 00:42:53.978 --> 00:42:58.586 don't worry about it. Yeah. Ok. The road's gonna be bumpy, it's fine. 00:42:58.619 --> 00:43:02.356 We'll deal with a bumpy road. Some, you gotta fill the pot pothole, some, 00:43:02.389 --> 00:43:05.356 you gotta just build a whole bridge. So, you know, it's like, man, you 00:43:05.389 --> 00:43:13.389 gotta get and so ultimately, it goes like it's all about, 00:43:13.909 --> 00:43:19.115 it's all about filling the potholes but moving and progressing forward and 00:43:19.148 --> 00:43:23.227 you always have to make the decision. Is this a pothole I gotta fill or 00:43:23.260 --> 00:43:27.827 like, do we have to stop the car fill this pothole or can we just drive on 00:43:27.860 --> 00:43:32.945 the bumpy road and it's always making those decisions? Do you, do you 00:43:32.978 --> 00:43:38.497 think that credit recovery schools are necessary? 00:43:38.530 --> 00:43:43.497 I think that credit recovery schools are essential, 00:43:43.530 --> 00:43:51.195 vastly underrated and absolutely ineffectively used 00:43:51.228 --> 00:43:59.228 the common ideal out there or misunderstanding out there is that the 00:43:59.949 --> 00:44:06.517 credit recovery schools should look at the traditional schools and try to 00:44:06.550 --> 00:44:13.256 mimic them and do what they do. And that's totally bogus. The traditional 00:44:13.289 --> 00:44:18.316 schools are built on a mathematical formula to do the best they can for 00:44:18.349 --> 00:44:26.155 the majority of students. And o well to the others, the credit recovery 00:44:26.188 --> 00:44:30.956 schools, continuation schools, 00:44:30.989 --> 00:44:38.686 I haven't found one ever that doesn't focus on every kid. And I think that 00:44:38.719 --> 00:44:44.287 if you started looking at continuation schools as the model and said, how 00:44:44.320 --> 00:44:49.195 do these schools get that kid engaged 00:44:49.228 --> 00:44:54.595 and productive? And then you took those things that we do back over to the 00:44:54.628 --> 00:44:58.385 traditionals and started implementing them, we could eventually run 00:44:58.418 --> 00:45:01.727 ourselves out of a job. 00:45:01.760 --> 00:45:05.876 I, I really do believe that. And I think, I think if you started modeling 00:45:05.909 --> 00:45:10.396 the traditional schools after the comprehensives, you would have a, a huge 00:45:10.429 --> 00:45:15.166 , huge difference. How do you think credit recovery affects our community 00:45:15.199 --> 00:45:18.267 ? 00:45:18.300 --> 00:45:23.155 Oh, it has a massive impact on our community. I mean, my goodness, I go 00:45:23.188 --> 00:45:28.646 out to eat and stop for coffee and, you know, go to the mechanic shop and 00:45:28.679 --> 00:45:34.787 I'm, I run into our old students all the time, like constantly. Uh I run 00:45:34.820 --> 00:45:39.017 in it, you know, like I'll wear my se yo shirt and like, uh I'll just have 00:45:39.050 --> 00:45:45.206 people. I, I never taught, you know. Um So we opened up a huge door of 00:45:45.239 --> 00:45:53.239 opportunity. Number one, number two, we don't accept the idea that some 00:45:54.750 --> 00:46:00.646 people are unworthy or some students can't do this. Like, that's not right. 00:46:00.679 --> 00:46:05.135 Like, so I think we really put out into the community 00:46:05.168 --> 00:46:13.168 uh belief in maybe that system wasn't for you, but you can do this and I 00:46:13.228 --> 00:46:18.836 think that you have to keep that. I don't think that we can shrug our 00:46:18.869 --> 00:46:25.077 soldiers, you know, shoulders on people that, 00:46:25.110 --> 00:46:31.896 you know, usually suffering from immense traumatic events can't get 00:46:31.929 --> 00:46:36.506 through ninth through 12th grade. And unfortunately, if you don't get a 00:46:36.539 --> 00:46:40.956 diploma, nothing else counts like nobody gets credit for. Oh, did you 00:46:40.989 --> 00:46:45.186 finish sixth grade? 7th, 8th, 9th? You know, if you make it to the third 00:46:45.219 --> 00:46:48.675 quarter of your senior year and you don't ever finish and get a diploma, 00:46:48.708 --> 00:46:53.517 then you, nobody gives you credit for any of it. You know, it's not like, 00:46:53.550 --> 00:46:59.267 how far did you make it? It's, did you finish? So, I think in that aspect 00:46:59.300 --> 00:47:05.425 alone it, it just makes a huge difference. I think on the community, I 00:47:05.458 --> 00:47:11.916 know that I probably get more emails and phone calls from the kids that 00:47:11.949 --> 00:47:19.577 didn't make it than from the ones that did. You know, I get one or two 00:47:19.610 --> 00:47:24.566 emails from kids who finish college. Right. We got a couple finishing 00:47:24.599 --> 00:47:29.486 college and I'm like, one or two from those, but like the ones who never 00:47:29.519 --> 00:47:33.316 finished and nothing, those are the ones I, you know, I, I get a ton of 00:47:33.349 --> 00:47:36.057 emails or phone calls from them and they're like, are you sure you just 00:47:36.090 --> 00:47:41.195 wanted to let you know, you know, you always believed in me and I'm ok. 00:47:41.228 --> 00:47:48.115 You know, and so that tells me that even if they don't graduate, we're 00:47:48.148 --> 00:47:52.396 doing something important. 00:47:52.429 --> 00:47:58.376 Could you explain for people who don't know what ppis is. 00:47:58.409 --> 00:48:06.409 So, uh PB is positive behavior, intervention and support. So, uh it's the 00:48:06.719 --> 00:48:14.236 , a lot of research come out of the universities. Basically, the idea is 00:48:14.269 --> 00:48:21.106 you have to work, um, you have to do things to, you have to come up with 00:48:21.139 --> 00:48:28.747 systems in place to provoke positive behavior from students. Right? And 00:48:28.780 --> 00:48:33.396 that's where you should focus. Don't worry about, uh, well, it's not, 00:48:33.429 --> 00:48:37.736 don't worry about the bad behavior but focus on building the positive 00:48:37.769 --> 00:48:42.456 behavior. You know, you, you can think of it like parents, right. Parents 00:48:42.489 --> 00:48:47.967 are constantly teaching Children how to do things. Right. 00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:53.595 Right. And every once in a while you have to discipline a child for doing 00:48:53.628 --> 00:48:56.606 the wrong thing after you've taught them how to do the right thing. Like 00:48:56.639 --> 00:48:59.896 very few parents out there will punish a child for something. They've 00:48:59.929 --> 00:49:04.577 never taught them how to do. Right. Yeah. You didn't wash the dishes. I'm 00:49:04.610 --> 00:49:07.537 gonna spank you. But I've never taught you how to wash the dishes. No one 00:49:07.570 --> 00:49:15.327 , no one does that. So it's taking that idea into schools. And, um, you 00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:18.796 know, research shows that when you focus on the positive behavior and 00:49:18.829 --> 00:49:24.247 interventions and you really teach students who, you know, aren't doing, 00:49:24.280 --> 00:49:30.827 um, school, well, aren't being successful in school and you focus on how 00:49:30.860 --> 00:49:36.327 to be successful in school. So you focus on how to be successful in school 00:49:36.360 --> 00:49:42.247 that they, they, they learn because deep down every kid wants to be 00:49:42.280 --> 00:49:47.416 successful in school, they do, they want to be able to do it. Now some 00:49:47.449 --> 00:49:51.486 will put up a game and a front and pretend like they don't care, but deep 00:49:51.519 --> 00:49:54.885 down they all care. And if you train them and teach them how to be 00:49:54.918 --> 00:50:00.945 successful here, they'll do it. So PB is, is a, it's a tiered system. You 00:50:00.978 --> 00:50:05.986 know, you start out with just positive uh setting a culture, right? You 00:50:06.019 --> 00:50:10.405 build a culture and a climate, 80% of the kids are gonna respond to that. 00:50:10.438 --> 00:50:14.046 If you just build the culture, like when, when I was in the military, the 00:50:14.079 --> 00:50:18.276 idea that somebody would steal was like impossible, right? If a guy stole 00:50:18.309 --> 00:50:24.945 , everybody would be like, no, that goes back, right? Like the the culture 00:50:24.978 --> 00:50:30.006 was like, no, if, if somebody said, hey guys, this moving this pile of 00:50:30.039 --> 00:50:34.706 rocks is ridiculous and stupid. Let's work slowly. So we get it. No, no, 00:50:34.739 --> 00:50:37.276 no, no, we're all gonna work really hard and we're gonna get this done 00:50:37.309 --> 00:50:42.106 together and we're gonna, so you build a culture, 80% of the kids will 00:50:42.139 --> 00:50:47.827 respond to that. But then there's a tier system like so tier 1 80% of the 00:50:47.860 --> 00:50:51.247 kids, they're gonna respond to that. Tier two kids are gonna need more 00:50:51.280 --> 00:50:59.280 help, more intervention, more support and so you do more um uh what's the 00:51:01.878 --> 00:51:04.836 word, more, 00:51:04.869 --> 00:51:11.376 more personal, more interactive uh things, right? So like right now we're 00:51:11.409 --> 00:51:16.217 really building on the tier two system check and connect. Um, we're adding 00:51:16.250 --> 00:51:19.827 in check in check out. Right. I got a student who didn't show up for two 00:51:19.860 --> 00:51:24.057 weeks of school. And so we put her on check in, check out. She has to 00:51:24.090 --> 00:51:26.905 check in with me every morning and she has to check out with me every 00:51:26.938 --> 00:51:32.477 night. Right. We haven't gotten to the checkout yet. Ok. She hasn't been 00:51:32.510 --> 00:51:39.876 able to do that but she went from not attending to making it at 10 o'clock 00:51:39.909 --> 00:51:45.595 to, to, to nine o'clock to 930. Right. And today she showed up at 830. So 00:51:45.628 --> 00:51:50.425 we've got this, like, huge improvement in showing up. Right. But it, and 00:51:50.458 --> 00:51:54.017 it's just this check in with me every morning, check in with me. Well, 00:51:54.050 --> 00:51:58.486 that's what the student needs. Right. She doesn't have, um, uh, she's 00:51:58.519 --> 00:52:01.635 never been trained. And how do you go to school? How do you do this 00:52:01.668 --> 00:52:04.885 successfully? 00:52:04.918 --> 00:52:08.787 You know? And, and I had the same thing I wasn't trained. Here's how you 00:52:08.820 --> 00:52:12.876 do school. Like, if somebody had actually taken time and said, look, Dean 00:52:12.909 --> 00:52:18.155 , let's, um, let's do something different with you. Right. Why don't you 00:52:18.188 --> 00:52:23.175 read this book and then come and talk to me about it and when you're done 00:52:23.208 --> 00:52:27.077 after we talk about it, you can go write an essay and I'll just grade, I 00:52:27.110 --> 00:52:30.126 would have done it. I would have been all about it. I love writing essays 00:52:30.159 --> 00:52:34.467 . I write, you know, I, I've been, I used to journal and write essays like 00:52:34.500 --> 00:52:38.365 crazy on my own because I wanted to argue with somebody, you know, and I 00:52:38.398 --> 00:52:41.876 would have done it, but there was no system for that. It was do this 00:52:41.909 --> 00:52:46.276 worksheet answer this discussion question. Nothing else was allowed. 00:52:46.309 --> 00:52:51.405 Anything doing anything else is a rebellion, you know, so there was no 00:52:51.438 --> 00:52:58.546 alternative. Um So PB is, is kind of taking a deep look into your culture 00:52:58.579 --> 00:53:03.365 in general, starting to build expectations and train them in how to be 00:53:03.398 --> 00:53:09.706 productive uh intelligent, creative citizens. And then, and then it moves 00:53:09.739 --> 00:53:14.135 into the upper tier students and it starts to work on individual supports 00:53:14.168 --> 00:53:18.626 and, you know, it really focuses on engaging individual students and 00:53:18.659 --> 00:53:25.307 training them. Can you explain a little bit about check and connect? Um So 00:53:25.340 --> 00:53:31.836 check and connect is a um system, the students you identi, we, we've 00:53:31.869 --> 00:53:35.675 identified the students who are like uh a high needs, right? So they're 00:53:35.708 --> 00:53:43.708 tier two uh or tier three and we identify them, we pull them in and we um 00:53:45.219 --> 00:53:52.276 talk to them, we tell them that we're gonna, you know, mentor them and uh 00:53:52.309 --> 00:53:55.807 basically, we're gonna, we're gonna help them problem solve and, and get 00:53:55.840 --> 00:53:58.747 their stuff together. 00:53:58.780 --> 00:54:05.945 Does uh does PB A S check and connect check in, check out, does that all 00:54:05.978 --> 00:54:10.675 complement like restorative justice or could you explain restorative 00:54:10.708 --> 00:54:15.885 justice? I think, I think so. You know, because the, as I understand it 00:54:15.918 --> 00:54:21.787 the fundamental idea of restorative justice is that um we need to be fair 00:54:21.820 --> 00:54:27.655 and open minded uh about where we have Erred and where we have uh where 00:54:27.688 --> 00:54:31.026 others have Erred. So you, you kind of have to look at both sides, right? 00:54:31.059 --> 00:54:36.345 It's the uh it's the thief saying I stole and the cops saying I was a 00:54:36.378 --> 00:54:41.606 little hard on you, you know, so, and it, and it kind of builds like, you 00:54:41.639 --> 00:54:46.217 know, there's justice, there still needs to be discipline and consequences 00:54:46.250 --> 00:54:52.827 for your actions, but they need to be equivalent and fair and, but it's a 00:54:52.860 --> 00:55:00.860 re-establish of, you know, respect for one another. And I think check and 00:55:01.228 --> 00:55:05.717 connect does a fantastic job of this because, you know, the students come 00:55:05.750 --> 00:55:10.227 in and ultimately, they know why they're there because they're not earning 00:55:10.260 --> 00:55:14.675 credits and they're not doing it and they have this huge sense of failure 00:55:14.708 --> 00:55:18.526 and you have to acknowledge that failure because you have to be like, you 00:55:18.559 --> 00:55:22.115 know, you, you're failing. Like if you keep doing this, it's not gonna go 00:55:22.148 --> 00:55:24.405 well. 00:55:24.438 --> 00:55:29.385 So you acknowledge the failure but you don't say you're failing because 00:55:29.418 --> 00:55:33.856 you're a failure because you can't do this. It's quite the opposite. It's 00:55:33.889 --> 00:55:41.416 like you're not being successful because we haven't really trained you how 00:55:41.449 --> 00:55:45.686 to be successful. So I'm gonna help you and I'm gonna teach you the system 00:55:45.719 --> 00:55:51.876 and here's how you work the system. Here's how, how you do school and you 00:55:51.909 --> 00:55:55.077 know, like, I've got some, I'm like, teaching them how to wake up on time 00:55:55.110 --> 00:56:01.146 , how to set an alarm clock, how to not blow up on a teacher, like, how to 00:56:01.179 --> 00:56:05.236 go to the bathroom at the right time and not the wrong time, right. Uh, 00:56:05.269 --> 00:56:12.155 when to make that choice. And so they, um, 00:56:12.188 --> 00:56:16.186 I, I think there's a very, a, very good and it's, it's a very personal 00:56:16.219 --> 00:56:20.256 thing. You know, it's, it's one on one, it's teacher and student and it's 00:56:20.289 --> 00:56:24.675 a mentorship. So they, they get to see, we ask them a lot about what are 00:56:24.708 --> 00:56:29.425 you dealing with what's going on? Right. And every time they make 00:56:29.458 --> 00:56:33.066 decisions, I'm always asking them, why did you make that decision? What 00:56:33.099 --> 00:56:37.026 was it? Right. Was that an emotional or a logical decision? Which, which 00:56:37.059 --> 00:56:39.767 drove that 00:56:39.800 --> 00:56:47.666 and man, they, they see themselves differently. It's amazing like you, as 00:56:47.699 --> 00:56:52.436 you go through the process, seeing them change how they see themselves. 00:56:52.469 --> 00:56:56.615 You know, I got students now that I'm like, I would totally kick them off 00:56:56.648 --> 00:57:02.905 check and connect and they're good to and they're good to go. But 00:57:02.938 --> 00:57:10.938 I can't because the truth is their lives are not easy. And if they hit the 00:57:11.090 --> 00:57:16.155 wrong road, the wrong bump in the road, the entire train could be derailed. 00:57:16.188 --> 00:57:21.206 And so with check and connect, we do put them on a one year, it's the 00:57:21.239 --> 00:57:25.095 whole year, no matter what, if you do great, good. It's just more 00:57:25.128 --> 00:57:29.956 cheerleading. Right. It's more celebration. Uh, but then if the bumps come 00:57:29.989 --> 00:57:35.557 , you've still got the relationship and you can, uh, address those needs 00:57:35.590 --> 00:57:40.296 as they come up much faster and better and hopefully the kids come to you 00:57:40.329 --> 00:57:44.577 with the problem like that started to happen. Um, you know, kids are, like 00:57:44.610 --> 00:57:49.635 , coming in before. Right. You know, I had a student who's pretty 00:57:49.668 --> 00:57:55.655 notorious on campus, um, not enrolled in any of my classes and actually 00:57:55.688 --> 00:58:02.675 not even check and connect right now. Uh, but she came into my classroom, 00:58:02.708 --> 00:58:07.896 sat down and decided to do her work in Miss Wallace's class in my 00:58:07.929 --> 00:58:11.956 classroom. You know, I was like, you're not gonna cheat. Right. No, she, 00:58:11.989 --> 00:58:15.675 but she did, she actually sat and did the work. But what she was doing was 00:58:15.708 --> 00:58:19.686 she was avoiding another teacher. Right. Uh, so it wasn't even Miss 00:58:19.719 --> 00:58:22.916 Wallace, but she was avoiding another class where she felt like she was 00:58:22.949 --> 00:58:28.856 going to lose control. And so she came into my class to 00:58:28.889 --> 00:58:35.477 maintain that self control. Right. And, and it's all just because I've had 00:58:35.510 --> 00:58:37.635 the opportunity, 00:58:37.668 --> 00:58:42.557 it's kind of like an informal check and connect, uh, so far, but I've been 00:58:42.590 --> 00:58:46.126 checking in with her on a daily basis and starting to build that 00:58:46.159 --> 00:58:50.175 relationship, you know, where eventually I hope to make it a formal 00:58:50.208 --> 00:58:54.706 mentorship where she's like, actually has to. But until then we're not 00:58:54.739 --> 00:59:00.296 ready for that, you know, we'll take what we can get, but hey, not blowing 00:59:00.329 --> 00:59:03.925 up on the teacher was actually a big step and then she did work 00:59:03.958 --> 00:59:10.217 voluntarily. So, do you think that this credit recovery system is in 00:59:10.250 --> 00:59:12.456 danger? 00:59:12.489 --> 00:59:20.489 I do, I do, I actually think that, um, 00:59:21.079 --> 00:59:24.686 I think that it's in a great danger 00:59:24.719 --> 00:59:27.356 because of stereotypes 00:59:27.389 --> 00:59:31.827 because of misconceptions 00:59:31.860 --> 00:59:37.577 and because of funding, it costs more to have smaller schools and smaller 00:59:37.610 --> 00:59:42.756 classes, it just costs more. And so when you're looking to cut funding, 00:59:42.789 --> 00:59:48.146 you tend to make classes bigger and schools bigger. But the problem is is 00:59:48.179 --> 00:59:53.046 that when you make schools bigger, you lose relationship, a school with 00:59:53.079 --> 00:59:58.467 2500 kids and one principal cannot have the relationship that is necessary 00:59:58.500 --> 01:00:04.146 to run a good school. It just, you can't, you could put the most amazing 01:00:04.179 --> 01:00:09.557 principal on the planet in that school and it's just not gonna, it's not, 01:00:09.590 --> 01:00:14.945 it, it's not gonna do justice for those students. I don't think, I mean, 01:00:14.978 --> 01:00:19.497 you might get the majority of them to graduate and pass, but I think 01:00:19.530 --> 01:00:23.537 you're shrugging your shoulders on the kids who don't and especially on 01:00:23.570 --> 01:00:27.155 the kids that aren't doing well in the system. If you're gonna do that, 01:00:27.188 --> 01:00:32.287 you need to flag kids faster and get them out of there sooner. If it any 01:00:32.320 --> 01:00:35.896 kid, it works for great. Keep them in there and make that school big kids 01:00:35.929 --> 01:00:41.767 that kids that do well in a big school, fine. Do it right. But kids who 01:00:41.800 --> 01:00:49.800 don't get them out fast before we build on the trauma before we grow in 01:00:51.159 --> 01:00:56.195 the trauma. But credit recovery is in danger. For another reason that a 01:00:56.228 --> 01:01:01.577 lot of people look at it, not being here, not teaching here, not 01:01:01.610 --> 01:01:07.577 understanding it and think that it's not doing justice, right? Like their 01:01:07.610 --> 01:01:12.686 view is that their kids should pass their class 01:01:12.719 --> 01:01:19.706 and be able to pass their class and you know, should master this test. But 01:01:19.739 --> 01:01:23.006 if you stop and you really think about that and you're like, yeah, that 01:01:23.039 --> 01:01:27.436 would be great. That would be wonderful. If every kid could pass your test 01:01:27.469 --> 01:01:30.365 at the end of the year. That would be wonderful. Like the California exit 01:01:30.398 --> 01:01:34.896 exam. Right. That's ideal. And, and I actually believe in that program, we 01:01:34.929 --> 01:01:40.236 , I think the exit exam was a great idea if you prepared the students for 01:01:40.269 --> 01:01:45.666 it, but it's not right or fair or just to give students a test that you 01:01:45.699 --> 01:01:51.635 haven't prepared them for. That's wrong. So, uh, we're in danger for that 01:01:51.668 --> 01:01:55.635 reason. They think that, oh, they come over here and they get free credits 01:01:55.668 --> 01:02:01.816 and that's not right. We're also in danger because, um, we shoot ourselves 01:02:01.849 --> 01:02:06.166 in the foot continuation schools far too often complain about how hard 01:02:06.199 --> 01:02:08.816 their job is. 01:02:08.849 --> 01:02:12.865 I think we need to stop complaining and I think we need to start doing it 01:02:12.898 --> 01:02:18.695 right. And, well, I think we do a lot of things wrong. I think that any 01:02:18.728 --> 01:02:22.986 time that your system is built on the model that failed the kid in the 01:02:23.019 --> 01:02:25.385 first place, 01:02:25.418 --> 01:02:30.827 you're doing it wrong. Um It's like committing suicide with two bullets. 01:02:30.860 --> 01:02:38.860 It doesn't work. It's not suicide. That's homicide. Right. So, um, 01:02:40.010 --> 01:02:45.727 if they failed at the traditional school, 01:02:45.760 --> 01:02:50.586 the continuation school should not be expected to do anything in the same 01:02:50.619 --> 01:02:53.807 way as the traditional. 01:02:53.840 --> 01:03:01.166 That's not to say that we don't hold high and rigorous standards. 01:03:01.199 --> 01:03:05.945 We have to hold high and rigorous standards. You have to set the bar high 01:03:05.978 --> 01:03:09.057 and maintain standards. 01:03:09.090 --> 01:03:13.566 The biggest reason that the students here respect me is because I actually 01:03:13.599 --> 01:03:18.967 believe in them enough to hold them to the high standard. When teachers 01:03:19.000 --> 01:03:23.827 don't hold them to a high standard, they know that and they see that and 01:03:23.860 --> 01:03:29.206 they feel disrespected by it. So when you drop the standards and that, but 01:03:29.239 --> 01:03:32.486 they will let you, they'll let you drop the standard. In fact, 01:03:32.519 --> 01:03:36.747 historically, what they do is they don't work and the teacher begs and 01:03:36.780 --> 01:03:43.086 pleads and tries and they don't work and then they wait just long enough 01:03:43.119 --> 01:03:47.217 and the teacher lowers their standard and the teacher says, ok, I've 01:03:47.250 --> 01:03:53.586 lowered the standard now, do the work and the kid thinks, well, not doing 01:03:53.619 --> 01:03:58.876 the work, made this teacher lower the standard. So I could do this work or 01:03:58.909 --> 01:04:05.856 I could wait and see if the standard drops a little more. And the teacher 01:04:05.889 --> 01:04:10.405 in absolute frustration lowers the standard again. And eventually they get 01:04:10.438 --> 01:04:14.385 to the point where they're asking them to do almost nothing and then the 01:04:14.418 --> 01:04:21.635 kid just does, it turns it in and demands credit. 01:04:21.668 --> 01:04:26.467 So I say this because this is the other part where we're, we're shooting 01:04:26.500 --> 01:04:30.876 ourselves in the foot. You know, sometimes we do drop the standard. I mean 01:04:30.909 --> 01:04:37.675 , as a school in general or we don't enforce standards. And 01:04:37.708 --> 01:04:43.247 ultimately, that's verifiable. You can go and look at student work and, 01:04:43.280 --> 01:04:48.566 you know, if they're not being educated, the system is gonna get shut down. 01:04:48.599 --> 01:04:52.586 So sometimes we lower the standard. Uh We get a lot of pressure from the 01:04:52.619 --> 01:04:56.227 outside saying we're not really doing anything or those students don't 01:04:56.260 --> 01:05:04.260 deserve, you know, which is a ridiculous thing because, you know, I like 01:05:04.449 --> 01:05:09.345 the amount of students, I've never had a class that didn't have a girl 01:05:09.378 --> 01:05:13.186 that, you know, like every class I've ever had, I've had a girl that's 01:05:13.219 --> 01:05:17.186 been raped. 01:05:17.219 --> 01:05:23.287 It's a ridiculous idea to think that these Children can go through that 01:05:23.320 --> 01:05:31.320 and do school, especially when so many teachers are demanding worksheets 01:05:33.110 --> 01:05:41.110 that don't teach. A lot of times we've replaced teaching with worksheets 01:05:42.269 --> 01:05:47.956 in my own practice. I uh went through a real severe growth spurt. Uh 01:05:47.989 --> 01:05:52.925 couple of years ago where I started really, I, I read a book called 01:05:52.958 --> 01:05:59.956 Assessments Matter. Um and I started to go is the thing that I'm asking 01:05:59.989 --> 01:06:06.195 them to do, teaching them the standard. I want them to learn or is it just 01:06:06.228 --> 01:06:10.425 proof for me to put in the grade book? 01:06:10.458 --> 01:06:14.776 And what I found was that most of what I was asking them to do was just 01:06:14.809 --> 01:06:20.936 proof that I could grade and put in the grade book. And at the same time 01:06:20.969 --> 01:06:25.756 I'm burnt out. There is no time in school for me to grade. Literally, I 01:06:25.789 --> 01:06:29.126 don't get paid for grading. There's no time like there's, there's time for 01:06:29.159 --> 01:06:33.615 me to set up my classroom. That's it. That's all the time. I have to 01:06:33.648 --> 01:06:39.925 design curriculum to, to develop it, to fit these students or any student. 01:06:39.958 --> 01:06:43.586 The schools don't pay you enough or give you a time to develop students 01:06:43.619 --> 01:06:48.296 even when you're teaching through from the book. Right. I have uh one 01:06:48.329 --> 01:06:51.925 class I teach in the ELD class and it's a scripted, it's right. Straight 01:06:51.958 --> 01:06:57.247 from, I can teach it straight from the book. Right? And even that program 01:06:57.280 --> 01:07:01.956 , the designers and the writers, the authors of that curriculum say that 01:07:01.989 --> 01:07:07.865 it should take me about 15 to 20 minutes to prep for class every day. 01:07:07.898 --> 01:07:15.898 Well, I have 15 minutes and I have five classes. So I have not enough time 01:07:16.539 --> 01:07:22.876 to prep for the classes that I teach. There's no time for grading. So I 01:07:22.909 --> 01:07:27.787 had to go through and I had to be like, why am I giving this worksheet? 01:07:27.820 --> 01:07:31.827 What's the purpose of the worksheet? And I just scrapped any worksheet 01:07:31.860 --> 01:07:36.276 that had, whose purpose was grading. If the purpose of this was to get it 01:07:36.309 --> 01:07:40.936 in the grade book, then get rid of it. I don't need it that can be done 01:07:40.969 --> 01:07:45.436 through practice. I only kept assignments that taught the kids the 01:07:45.469 --> 01:07:51.506 material. And then I started going through, does this assignment? Does 01:07:51.539 --> 01:07:56.336 this work? This product teach what I want them to teach. Well, that's easy 01:07:56.369 --> 01:08:01.675 to find out. Just ask them right. Like give them, give them the work, have 01:08:01.708 --> 01:08:05.316 them do the work and then when they're done, ask them, ask them the 01:08:05.349 --> 01:08:09.666 questions. Do you understand the, what, what do you think were the three 01:08:09.699 --> 01:08:14.066 main causes of World War one? If they can't answer that, then what you 01:08:14.099 --> 01:08:18.634 asked them to do didn't teach them. It didn't help them. So I get rid of 01:08:18.667 --> 01:08:22.717 it. Right. It, it was kind of like Hume's razor, right. I just took Hume's 01:08:22.750 --> 01:08:27.467 razor to everything I do and anything that doesn't actually teach, not 01:08:27.500 --> 01:08:30.987 intend to teach the intention doesn't matter, actions matter. Right. I 01:08:31.020 --> 01:08:34.416 don't care what your intentions were. Were you, were you kind or were you 01:08:34.449 --> 01:08:40.147 a jerk? I don't care what you intended to be and I just, I took the razor. 01:08:40.180 --> 01:08:43.586 What is the purpose of this? Is it so that I can put it in the grade book 01:08:43.619 --> 01:08:46.937 or so that they can learn from it? Ok? If it's to learn from it, does it 01:08:46.970 --> 01:08:49.866 actually teach the students what I want them to learn and I started going 01:08:49.899 --> 01:08:55.067 through and it turns out, yeah, I only need like one assignment every four 01:08:55.100 --> 01:09:00.866 days or, you know, we can do and that's when they really learn and they 01:09:00.899 --> 01:09:07.737 really start to grab and, and so now I, now I grade about half an hour a 01:09:07.770 --> 01:09:13.304 week. Right. And I can do that mostly during my prep. Sometimes I take 01:09:13.337 --> 01:09:18.826 five or 10 minutes home. So we, we kill ourselves through bad processes, 01:09:18.859 --> 01:09:21.746 you know. Um 01:09:21.779 --> 01:09:26.336 and we're so there's miscommunication, there's what people think we do 01:09:26.369 --> 01:09:30.095 that, you know, we don't do and then there's, we're killing ourselves. We 01:09:30.128 --> 01:09:34.376 , we give ourselves a task and, and we, you know, we'll, we'll teach 01:09:34.409 --> 01:09:36.987 school, we'll do school the way that they've always done school 01:09:37.020 --> 01:09:40.086 traditional. Why, you know, I, I had a, I had a conversation like this 01:09:40.119 --> 01:09:43.946 today and I, you know, why do we do it like this? Because this is the way 01:09:43.979 --> 01:09:48.737 we do it. I'm like, well, it's never worked like I can, I, we can look at 01:09:48.770 --> 01:09:52.777 the evidence, we can look at the numbers. It has never worked. 01:09:52.810 --> 01:09:58.086 Let's do something different, right? And I think that for continuation 01:09:58.119 --> 01:10:02.256 schools to thrive because the money is gonna get us ultimately. What's 01:10:02.289 --> 01:10:07.086 gonna happen is the online programs are gonna overcome, they're gonna move 01:10:07.119 --> 01:10:14.206 all, they're gonna move all continuation or credit recovery uh into online 01:10:14.239 --> 01:10:20.317 programs. They're gonna say, all right, Mr Shrieve, all your kids are now 01:10:20.350 --> 01:10:24.756 enrolled in this online English program, you sit here and help them if 01:10:24.789 --> 01:10:29.836 they need help. And that's what it'll be continuation will just be credit 01:10:29.869 --> 01:10:35.277 recovery will be online enrollment. And when kids don't pass, they'll just 01:10:35.310 --> 01:10:38.726 shrug their shoulders because it'll be a different school and it won't be 01:10:38.759 --> 01:10:41.576 an actual school. And then there's nothing for the state to take over. 01:10:41.609 --> 01:10:46.925 It's just a, a program in the, you know, and we ultimately, when it comes 01:10:46.958 --> 01:10:51.446 down to numbers and budgets and money, like, if you look at the world, uh 01:10:51.479 --> 01:10:58.067 you know, with any kind of a historical perspective, you'll see that money 01:10:58.100 --> 01:11:05.296 m money matters, right? Like invest in lives or money, money wins. Can you 01:11:05.329 --> 01:11:09.366 talk a little bit? So we've only got a couple more questions. Can you talk 01:11:09.399 --> 01:11:14.385 a little bit about teacher reten retention, 01:11:14.418 --> 01:11:17.476 not specifically for credit recovery. But if you want to talk about credit 01:11:17.509 --> 01:11:22.515 , how credit recovery plays a part in teacher retention. 01:11:22.548 --> 01:11:26.067 Um 01:11:26.100 --> 01:11:33.055 We in continuation schools, we have a really high turnover rate 01:11:33.088 --> 01:11:38.317 and I actually think it's a good thing in a way if used properly. I read a 01:11:38.350 --> 01:11:44.265 book called Schools That Succeed by Karen Chen Wor. 01:11:44.298 --> 01:11:48.866 And um she goes through, she's a journalist and she goes through and 01:11:48.899 --> 01:11:52.265 starts looking at all these schools that were terrible that got overtaken 01:11:52.298 --> 01:11:56.175 or you know what and turned around and became some of the best schools in 01:11:56.208 --> 01:12:00.376 the country. I read this one. I, I don't remember the principal or the 01:12:00.409 --> 01:12:05.506 school, but he has a philosophy when a new teacher comes in, he always 01:12:05.539 --> 01:12:09.027 keeps them in the first year almost no matter what. As long as they don't 01:12:09.060 --> 01:12:13.885 break the law, you know, and do something like, you know, legally 01:12:13.918 --> 01:12:16.296 untenable, 01:12:16.329 --> 01:12:22.586 he keeps them. But the second year, if they're not great, he gets rid of 01:12:22.619 --> 01:12:30.366 them. It requires greatness and you stay. And personally, if I was in 01:12:30.399 --> 01:12:34.586 charge, that's what I would do. I'd be like your first year, you're almost 01:12:34.619 --> 01:12:39.506 guaranteed to stay. Just don't break the law, don't your second year? You 01:12:39.539 --> 01:12:45.376 better be awesome. Awesome. Right? Like mediocre is not good enough, right 01:12:45.409 --> 01:12:50.595 ? There's a quote that says a and I don't forget who it might be anonymous 01:12:50.628 --> 01:12:55.987 but says greatness will always be violently opposed by mediocrity. 01:12:56.020 --> 01:13:02.976 And it's true because if people can get by doing less, they will. It's 01:13:03.009 --> 01:13:08.777 human nature, right? Human nature is not good. Human nature is like the 01:13:08.810 --> 01:13:12.987 path of least resistance. We're gonna do less, right? It takes you have to 01:13:13.020 --> 01:13:19.765 overcome something in you to do more, right? So, uh, teacher retention is 01:13:19.798 --> 01:13:27.326 all about the teachers finding the right place. I don't think it's really 01:13:27.359 --> 01:13:33.036 a problem of teacher retention. It's a problem of teacher placement when 01:13:33.069 --> 01:13:37.866 you teach a teacher that should be teaching A P honors IB and you put them 01:13:37.899 --> 01:13:44.786 in a continuation school, they become angry, frustrated and jaded, right? 01:13:44.819 --> 01:13:50.506 They, they can't handle it. And when you put a continuation teacher in a p 01:13:50.539 --> 01:13:56.345 , if they're not somebody that could do that, right, then they become 01:13:56.378 --> 01:14:01.036 angry, frustrated. These kids, ah, these kids are entitled and, you know, 01:14:01.069 --> 01:14:06.006 God, they think they're so smart and da, da, da. You know, 01:14:06.039 --> 01:14:10.226 because, you know, when you're dealing with, like, when you're tea, when 01:14:10.259 --> 01:14:14.576 you're teaching gifted kids and they're challenging, you, you step on the 01:14:14.609 --> 01:14:16.717 gas 01:14:16.750 --> 01:14:22.437 and you go faster and harder, right? And then they get blown to the, you 01:14:22.470 --> 01:14:26.946 know, their heads push into the headrest and they, they grab on and then 01:14:26.979 --> 01:14:32.147 they start complying and they start learning and then they get over trying 01:14:32.180 --> 01:14:35.817 to drive the car themselves, they want to drive the car themselves. 01:14:35.850 --> 01:14:39.946 Continuation kids are more like matchbox cars, they don't want to drive, 01:14:39.979 --> 01:14:43.067 they don't want to go anywhere and you have to push them and the second 01:14:43.100 --> 01:14:46.937 that you stop pushing, they stop, you know, they're not, they don't have 01:14:46.970 --> 01:14:52.326 the gas to, to push themselves. And so you have to teach them that, you 01:14:52.359 --> 01:14:58.226 know. So I think it's a placement issue and I think that if teachers felt 01:14:58.259 --> 01:15:01.976 more comfortable and principals felt more comfortable with teachers moving 01:15:02.009 --> 01:15:05.826 around at the beginning and being like, hey, it's not an indicator that 01:15:05.859 --> 01:15:09.967 you're a bad teacher. It's just an indication that that wasn't your school. 01:15:10.000 --> 01:15:15.666 I think we would actually do way, way, way better because when you look 01:15:15.699 --> 01:15:19.256 at teachers who get into a school that love the school. It takes some 01:15:19.289 --> 01:15:22.756 pretty serious things to get them to leave 01:15:22.789 --> 01:15:27.555 when a teacher finds the right school they don't leave. And the teacher 01:15:27.588 --> 01:15:32.027 retention numbers are pretty extreme. It's always like the 1st 3 to 5 01:15:32.060 --> 01:15:37.116 years or like, they're dying in the classroom. Like there, there's not a 01:15:37.149 --> 01:15:41.246 lot in the middle. Well, that helps you. It's, you know, and I, I, like, 01:15:41.279 --> 01:15:45.696 I've seen, I, we had a teacher I worked with here, came through as an 01:15:45.729 --> 01:15:50.796 English teacher and she's phenomenal. She was phenomenal teacher, you know 01:15:50.829 --> 01:15:53.696 , and she went here and then she went over to another school and then she 01:15:53.729 --> 01:15:57.336 left teaching and I think it's a shame because she was a phenomenal 01:15:57.369 --> 01:16:01.135 teacher. It was just a placement issue. This wasn't the right school for 01:16:01.168 --> 01:16:07.187 her. Right. But there, there are other schools for her. Unfortunately, 01:16:07.220 --> 01:16:12.416 there's not, we don't have a lot of good mechanisms for coaching teachers 01:16:12.449 --> 01:16:18.196 in that. We have a whole lot of like union and district policies and 01:16:18.229 --> 01:16:24.866 standards and they're really set up as like antagonistic, 01:16:24.899 --> 01:16:29.805 like, for example, um, in California we have the bits of program or in our 01:16:29.838 --> 01:16:35.206 district now it's called Induction. Um, and somebody comes and coaches new 01:16:35.239 --> 01:16:42.357 teachers. And what? Right. Well, like, those should be the same people 01:16:42.390 --> 01:16:47.126 doing the evaluations. I don't think a principal with a math degree has 01:16:47.159 --> 01:16:51.786 any business doing an evaluation on an English teacher. They come in and 01:16:51.819 --> 01:16:55.845 they don't have a clue what I'm teaching, why or why I'm teaching it. They 01:16:55.878 --> 01:16:59.515 don't understand the standards. Right, and vice versa. You know, a teacher 01:16:59.548 --> 01:17:04.726 with an English degree going in and evaluating a math teacher. I, I don't 01:17:04.759 --> 01:17:10.456 think that's fair. I think that somebody who has a greater experience in 01:17:10.489 --> 01:17:14.277 that field in, in that, at that level should be the one doing the 01:17:14.310 --> 01:17:20.546 evaluation and the coaching. I think that if we looked at principal, not 01:17:20.579 --> 01:17:26.425 as mentors, but as in coworkers who are focused on the paperwork side, I 01:17:26.458 --> 01:17:32.187 think we do way better. If t you know, for example, department chairs, 01:17:32.220 --> 01:17:36.095 their focus should be curriculum. They are professionals, they are trained 01:17:36.128 --> 01:17:42.675 and they are competent in designing and uh changing adapting curriculum. 01:17:42.708 --> 01:17:45.996 That should be, that's their job and what they should do and they should 01:17:46.029 --> 01:17:49.946 mentor and coach their, their people. But because they're mentoring and 01:17:49.979 --> 01:17:53.876 coaching their team, they shouldn't be evaluating them. The evaluation 01:17:53.909 --> 01:17:57.296 needs to come from an outside source. 01:17:57.329 --> 01:18:02.726 The principles are all about budgets and numbers and spreadsheets and data 01:18:02.759 --> 01:18:06.576 and that's who needs to be principals, right? And then there's a 01:18:06.609 --> 01:18:10.055 discipline aspect, but honestly, I think that should be thrown out the 01:18:10.088 --> 01:18:14.366 door. I think students should be in charge of discipline, right? They 01:18:14.399 --> 01:18:17.607 should be judged by their peers. I think every school should have a court 01:18:17.640 --> 01:18:22.086 system with the students running it, you know, and there should just be a 01:18:22.119 --> 01:18:25.506 rubber stamp at the end because if you train them well, they can do it. I 01:18:25.539 --> 01:18:30.706 , we always talk about like we won't put a kid in the cafeteria for 01:18:30.739 --> 01:18:34.366 liability issues, but then we leave here because the food is terrible and 01:18:34.399 --> 01:18:38.925 we go to the fast food restaurant where they cook the burger for us. The 01:18:38.958 --> 01:18:44.345 idea that they're incompetent is, I think a terrible presumption, assume 01:18:44.378 --> 01:18:48.987 that your kids can do anything and then teach them how 01:18:49.020 --> 01:18:52.845 so as an educator, from your perspective, I think I really got off track 01:18:52.878 --> 01:18:56.296 on that one, but I'm not sure 01:18:56.329 --> 01:19:00.756 what, what's the legacy that you want to leave behind as an educator? 01:19:00.789 --> 01:19:07.296 What's your legacy gonna be? 01:19:07.329 --> 01:19:09.706 My dream? 01:19:09.739 --> 01:19:17.739 My dream in life is that somebody would say, hey, Shriek, 01:19:18.619 --> 01:19:22.925 I've got this 300 acres. 01:19:22.958 --> 01:19:29.446 I want you to build a continuation school for middle school kids. 01:19:29.479 --> 01:19:33.467 I was teaching sixth grade English eighth grade history. And I had this 01:19:33.500 --> 01:19:36.217 kid 01:19:36.250 --> 01:19:38.666 Joe 01:19:38.699 --> 01:19:42.696 and Joe was a real problem 01:19:42.729 --> 01:19:50.729 child. I mean, my goodness, all the teachers dreaded him and he um he was 01:19:52.770 --> 01:20:00.770 rough. I liked him. We got along but it was a challenge 01:20:01.479 --> 01:20:07.397 and Joe um 01:20:07.430 --> 01:20:11.976 you know, he was friendly, he was talkative, he was always disruptive. 01:20:12.009 --> 01:20:17.567 Um I didn't know any of his background. I didn't have any time uh to get 01:20:17.600 --> 01:20:21.925 to know Joe other than as a student in my class. And from that perspective 01:20:21.958 --> 01:20:29.958 , right? Um He was a very unsuccessful student to say the weakest. But we 01:20:30.088 --> 01:20:34.845 were getting somewhere and, uh, one day Joe came in and he just put his 01:20:34.878 --> 01:20:38.336 head down 01:20:38.369 --> 01:20:43.467 with his, uh, hood over his head and, you know, he's like tapping his foot 01:20:43.500 --> 01:20:46.595 like fast and incessantly. 01:20:46.628 --> 01:20:50.706 And I go over and, you know, I'm, I'd passed out the worksheets, which 01:20:50.739 --> 01:20:54.296 nowadays I wouldn't even pass out because that was a terrible worksheet. 01:20:54.329 --> 01:20:59.425 Um, you know, and, and now when he didn't even acknowledge me or do 01:20:59.458 --> 01:21:03.187 anything, I, I stopped by the next time I tapped on this table and I said 01:21:03.220 --> 01:21:07.086 , hey, Joe, why don't you, why don't you try? You know, and he swore at me 01:21:07.119 --> 01:21:12.515 cussed at me, cussed me out. Couple expletives. 01:21:12.548 --> 01:21:19.397 It's like, oh, ok, a little harsh on the response there, buddy. But, ok, 01:21:19.430 --> 01:21:24.746 um, I sat down next to him and I tried, I was like, is this, uh, what's 01:21:24.779 --> 01:21:27.555 going on? 01:21:27.588 --> 01:21:33.076 You know, he just shakes his head and grunts. Ok. Like, can we talk about 01:21:33.109 --> 01:21:40.916 it? No, you know, f off and cusses at me a little more. All right. So I 01:21:40.949 --> 01:21:45.187 let him sit, well, he's in my English class then my, uh history class. He 01:21:45.220 --> 01:21:50.326 doesn't go outside during the break and hang out or talk to anybody. He 01:21:50.359 --> 01:21:58.359 just stays right there. Third period, same thing, the next period. Uh, he 01:21:59.029 --> 01:22:04.805 has to go to his next class and he goes, and it's not 20 minutes later, 01:22:04.838 --> 01:22:08.555 police are walking past my window 01:22:08.588 --> 01:22:11.786 10 minutes after that they're walking by with Joe and handcuffs. Now, this 01:22:11.819 --> 01:22:17.385 is 1/6 grader. Right? Like, what can 1/6 grader do in a classroom that 01:22:17.418 --> 01:22:24.456 requires cops and handcuffs? I should know because it happened to me, 01:22:24.489 --> 01:22:29.265 but it turns out that he went to the next class, the teacher gave him a 01:22:29.298 --> 01:22:32.385 worksheet demanded. He do it, told him he's going to the principal if he 01:22:32.418 --> 01:22:36.156 doesn't do it, he swore and cussed at the teacher. The teacher told him 01:22:36.189 --> 01:22:40.996 off. They threatened each other, you know, unfortunately, Joe threatened 01:22:41.029 --> 01:22:47.956 physical violence instead of an f or bad stuff on his way out the 01:22:47.989 --> 01:22:52.845 classroom. The teacher noticed the pocket knife in his pocket, you know, 01:22:52.878 --> 01:22:58.476 and, well, we have rules about kids with weapons on campus, you know? And 01:22:58.509 --> 01:23:01.487 so the cops were called, 01:23:01.520 --> 01:23:04.967 well, then 01:23:05.000 --> 01:23:08.626 I was talking to, I don't know the principal or, I don't know, after 01:23:08.659 --> 01:23:12.546 school I was worried about him. So I dug in. So the thing is, is that 01:23:12.579 --> 01:23:17.305 Joe's parents were addicted to meth and they were in and out of prison 01:23:17.338 --> 01:23:24.376 many times over, but they had recently gotten out and were supposedly 01:23:24.409 --> 01:23:28.015 clean. And so they got custody of him back from his grandma and he's with 01:23:28.048 --> 01:23:35.286 them and then he, um, 01:23:35.319 --> 01:23:40.265 the cops raided the house and they weren't clean and they had drugs and 01:23:40.298 --> 01:23:43.397 guns and stuff. 01:23:43.430 --> 01:23:47.626 And so they were taken into prison 01:23:47.659 --> 01:23:51.976 and, you know, when you live in that life. When those are your parents, 01:23:52.009 --> 01:23:56.456 you know, the system and you know what being arrested this time means and 01:23:56.489 --> 01:24:00.987 he was sent back to grandma's house and grandma has to go to work and 01:24:01.020 --> 01:24:08.015 grandma needs him to go to school. You know, 01:24:08.048 --> 01:24:13.175 the last place that he had business being was in school. Like that's the 01:24:13.208 --> 01:24:17.317 last place Joe should have been or 01:24:17.350 --> 01:24:25.350 if school was his safe place, like if, if, when the cops raided 01:24:29.819 --> 01:24:35.366 Joe was like, I wish I was at school 01:24:35.399 --> 01:24:40.027 then that would be something. 01:24:40.060 --> 01:24:48.060 There are thousands of Joes out there and Lucy and Jasmines and Jackie, 01:24:50.109 --> 01:24:55.967 we see them every day. We have hundreds of them and they go through our 01:24:56.000 --> 01:25:02.616 traditional school system and we have never built any kind of a program 01:25:02.649 --> 01:25:09.737 that says these students will come through our school and when they do 01:25:09.770 --> 01:25:17.770 this system that we have put in place will identify them 01:25:18.289 --> 01:25:20.925 and help them. 01:25:20.958 --> 01:25:27.696 If we had, if I had 300 acres and $2 million 01:25:27.729 --> 01:25:34.036 I would hire a bunch of awesome continuation teachers who I already know 01:25:34.069 --> 01:25:39.326 we would move them into barracks on the property and we would give them 01:25:39.359 --> 01:25:41.385 jobs. 01:25:41.418 --> 01:25:45.786 Some of them would fix the tractors, some of them would plant the crops, 01:25:45.819 --> 01:25:51.006 some of them would paint the buildings, some of them would draw art, 01:25:51.039 --> 01:25:54.226 everybody would have a job 01:25:54.259 --> 01:26:00.237 and when they learn how to do that job to my satisfaction, then I would 01:26:00.270 --> 01:26:04.796 allow them to take the classes. 01:26:04.829 --> 01:26:07.187 The classes 01:26:07.220 --> 01:26:12.467 would first be 01:26:12.500 --> 01:26:20.500 mechanics, welding, sewing, cooking the life skills. 01:26:21.869 --> 01:26:27.357 Then once they graduated that class, they would have their jobs to do in 01:26:27.390 --> 01:26:32.786 the afternoon and they would take highly demanding, insanely rigorous core 01:26:32.819 --> 01:26:39.496 classes in the mornings. It'd be very simple and straightforward. 01:26:39.529 --> 01:26:45.437 They would take a math class first. 01:26:45.470 --> 01:26:50.476 Then they would take an English class 01:26:50.509 --> 01:26:55.626 and then they would take a history class. 01:26:55.659 --> 01:26:58.397 That's it. 01:26:58.430 --> 01:27:03.976 That's all they would do. There would be no homework except for reading 01:27:04.009 --> 01:27:08.885 and math because you have to practice math. You cannot do math well, 01:27:08.918 --> 01:27:13.246 without practice. Right. 01:27:13.279 --> 01:27:17.476 That's what they would do. They would work hard and then they would want 01:27:17.509 --> 01:27:21.956 to go to these classes and they would be really hard, really thoughtful 01:27:21.989 --> 01:27:26.345 and I mean, rigorous, like hard, like deep thinking, not like a lot of 01:27:26.378 --> 01:27:32.076 worksheets, just hard thinking and they'd be rewarded for that. You think 01:27:32.109 --> 01:27:36.496 hard, you get to eat from this dinner menu which you guys cooked and 01:27:36.529 --> 01:27:41.425 prepared, right? You made the food and I would do that and I'd reen engage 01:27:41.458 --> 01:27:46.925 them and I'd give them an academic plan and a goal for their life because 01:27:46.958 --> 01:27:54.476 ultimately, what Joe really needed was an adult in his life that said, 01:27:54.509 --> 01:27:59.076 what do you want to do 01:27:59.109 --> 01:28:05.595 and let me help you, right. If somebody said, and, and if Joe said, I 01:28:05.628 --> 01:28:09.805 wanna be a lawyer and I wanna be a public attorney because those guys are 01:28:09.838 --> 01:28:13.576 terrible, right? Like, and he knew that, I mean, he had actually said that 01:28:13.609 --> 01:28:18.515 to me before, you know, like those public defenders are terrible. He has 01:28:18.548 --> 01:28:21.265 the faculty, 01:28:21.298 --> 01:28:29.298 we need to catch him early. Uh So my legacy as a teacher uh will be, I 01:28:29.560 --> 01:28:34.687 will design a system and I will get it in place in as many places as 01:28:34.720 --> 01:28:39.836 possible where, 01:28:39.869 --> 01:28:45.256 well, let me take a step back. You can have a fantastic, awesome teacher 01:28:45.289 --> 01:28:50.187 who changes the lives of every single student that comes to their room. 01:28:50.220 --> 01:28:55.756 But if that teacher dies and a really terrible lethargic teacher, you know 01:28:55.789 --> 01:29:01.746 , somebody who's just there for a paycheck and unfortunately they exist, 01:29:01.779 --> 01:29:05.916 comes in and sits down in that desk, the rest of the students will suffer 01:29:05.949 --> 01:29:12.107 until that teacher leaves. That's unacceptable. We need systems that help 01:29:12.140 --> 01:29:17.647 every teacher perform to their max and we need systems where a teacher 01:29:17.680 --> 01:29:22.277 comes in and goes, how do we do it? And you can say we do this for our 01:29:22.310 --> 01:29:25.765 students because it works. 01:29:25.798 --> 01:29:28.666 We should never do anything because that's how we do it. We should do 01:29:28.699 --> 01:29:33.046 everything because it works. And if it doesn't work, then be ready to 01:29:33.079 --> 01:29:39.175 throw it out. If it doesn't work, get rid of it. There's, that's a 01:29:39.208 --> 01:29:42.946 ridiculous idea that you would destroy Children because this is how we do 01:29:42.979 --> 01:29:47.317 it. It's an unacceptable answer to anything. If you can't show me the 01:29:47.350 --> 01:29:51.616 reason that we do it then be prepared to throw it out. And, and I, and I, 01:29:51.649 --> 01:29:57.897 I can't, so, my legacy is to build systems that work for these kids to 01:29:57.930 --> 01:30:02.067 give these kids a shot at an opportunity and an education that they 01:30:02.100 --> 01:30:09.217 haven't yet been offered because they have 01:30:09.250 --> 01:30:12.256 trauma, 01:30:12.289 --> 01:30:16.406 you know, and I get, look, 01:30:16.439 --> 01:30:19.576 the trauma is not their fault, it's not their fault that their parents got 01:30:19.609 --> 01:30:23.317 divorced, it's not their fault that they got cancer. I mean, I've, I had a 01:30:23.350 --> 01:30:28.345 student who had half her brain removed. How do you go to high school with 01:30:28.378 --> 01:30:35.305 that? Right? Like you can't do that. So we need a system that says, hey, 01:30:35.338 --> 01:30:39.756 when you notice or when you find out that a child's parents are going 01:30:39.789 --> 01:30:43.506 through a divorce, we automatically put them into this program and here's 01:30:43.539 --> 01:30:47.156 how we support them because this works. 01:30:47.189 --> 01:30:52.217 That's not unreasonable. It's actually not even that difficult. We just 01:30:52.250 --> 01:30:57.956 have never really had people look at the systems and say, let's do this 01:30:57.989 --> 01:31:02.937 like that, that just hasn't happened in education yet. And to me that's 01:31:02.970 --> 01:31:06.635 insane that that hasn't happened yet. 01:31:06.668 --> 01:31:13.397 We just need to make that happen. I, I know that's oversimplifying it but 01:31:13.430 --> 01:31:17.626 it really is that simple. You know, Kennedy said we're going to the moon. 01:31:17.659 --> 01:31:23.626 It's that simple. It's for NASA to figure out how, but we need leaders 01:31:23.659 --> 01:31:31.659 that say we are going to do this. Here's the problem. Kids, parents die. 01:31:33.279 --> 01:31:36.696 Let's deal with that. You find out a kid, do you find out that their 01:31:36.729 --> 01:31:39.946 parents died or you find out that their parents went to jail were 01:31:39.979 --> 01:31:43.336 incarcerated? They automatically get flagged and they automatically go 01:31:43.369 --> 01:31:48.595 into a program that provides the support that they need. That needs to be 01:31:48.628 --> 01:31:54.296 my legacy. Whether it's, I can do it from the classroom. I'd love to. 01:31:54.329 --> 01:31:57.166 There's nothing I enjoy more than the classroom. I feel like I make the 01:31:57.199 --> 01:31:59.906 biggest impact. 01:31:59.939 --> 01:32:04.607 But at the same time, I have to be willing to accept that. I'm not alone. 01:32:04.640 --> 01:32:08.666 There are many other teachers who make very wonderful impacts on these 01:32:08.699 --> 01:32:14.616 students lives. I'm not the only one. 01:32:14.649 --> 01:32:20.576 So I, I, I'm not entirely sure, but I, I know that my goal is to build 01:32:20.609 --> 01:32:25.885 that system and hey, maybe that school someday. 01:32:25.918 --> 01:32:32.626 Well, thank you so much for um your perspective and everything, you know, 01:32:32.659 --> 01:32:39.425 um sharing with us. So I appreciate you and I am going to click to stop 01:32:39.458 --> 01:32:41.539 the recording.