Just Being Brothers
Just Being Brothers
Katie's Fight - From George Floyd to Banned Books
What happens when an African-American fifth-grade social studies teacher brings an ambitious Black History Month project to a predominantly white school? In our much-anticipated return to "Just Being Brothers," we sit down with Katie, a dedicated educator and advocate for education reform, who shares her compelling journey and the unexpected resistance she faced. Her story not only highlights the intricacies of navigating diversity, equity, and inclusion in education but also underscores the broader issues of banned books and the challenges of teaching under today's heightened scrutiny.
Katie’s resilience shines through as she recounts a tense encounter over a classroom mural, which led to a restorative circle led by the school principal. Employing the fishbowl technique, Katie and other administrators addressed the concerns and questions of fellow educators and stakeholders. Through this dialogue, Katie passionately defends the mural’s intent and advocates for teaching difficult historical truths. Her reflections on the George Floyd era and her commitment to representing diverse narratives provide a poignant reminder of the enduring importance of inclusive education.
As we wrap up, we explore the shifting attitudes toward education across generations. Katie offers valuable insights into the loss of neighborhood schools and the growing disconnect between educators and their communities. We discuss the need to rekindle pride in education and the role of teachers in making learning relevant and engaging for today’s youth. Join us as we bid a heartfelt farewell with our guest, Katie, and extend our gratitude to all our listeners. This compelling episode will challenge and inspire you to rethink the landscape of education. Don’t miss it!
All right, we are back one more time. This is little brother Steve, this is big brother Mike and this is Just being Brothers. Welcome back, fans. Glad to hear from you again, glad we missed. We've been away for a minute. We have been gone for quite a while, fighting illness and work, fighting illness.
Speaker 2:Oh man, we'll be good now.
Speaker 1:We'll be good now. Yes, indeed, we'll be good now. We we're good now. Yes, indeed, we're good now. We're back and we got a guest. Steve, you got a guest for us? Yes, we do. I have a guest with her. We're just going to call her Katie.
Speaker 1:She is an educator of fifth grade social studies at an elementary school. She went to school and high school in Ohio. She's a professional. Her profession, her professional focus was education reform, the scaling up of evidence-based practice, cultural proficiency and organizational system change. She has a few kids and she's in tune with community-performing organizing work as one of Ohio's new educator member ambassadors and, on short, that's one, ohio Network Ambassadors. She has a profound love and passion for teaching and reaching and inspiring people to action. Ms K is a professional motivational speaker and her working presenter and uses her powerful voice and intentional speaking platform to tell her life story and her why. She strives to share with people what drives education and social activism and she's encouraged her audience to find your voice and tell your story. Welcome, miss Katie. Welcome, miss Katie. I am going to go out on a limb and say Katie used to be one of my students.
Speaker 2:I've known her for a very long time.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I am so, so proud of her.
Speaker 1:I bet, I bet man, yeah, yes, that's something you teachers do have that other people don't have, and she'll have it one day. Yeah, the ability to see the result of your work yes, you know to see what you've done. Taking a young mind like our associate producer, seven, eight years old, and now they're 28 years old it's got to be great, yeah. So she told me an incident one day when she was out of school about how she did a black history program and she set it up and then somebody in the school came to her and told her that, oh, she couldn't do that for one reason or another.
Speaker 1:And then we got to thinking and talking and then she mentioned these words banned books. My ears stood up, I perked up, like what are you talking about, banned books? And then she just started elaborating on banned books and so forth and so on. And I Googled it and I researched it, but nobody can tell us better about banned books and so forth and so on. And I googled it and I researched it, but nobody can tell us better about banned books than Miss Katie. Yeah, I'd like to hear that. Whenever you want to take the floor, just go right ahead, take it away, and we'll interject questions here and there when we feel like we don't know what the heck you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Sure, thank you for having me. I'm super excited. It's just such a great energy here with just the two brothers. I love that. And thank you for having me here on the show this evening. Topic for a lot of us right now, and a lot of people here have encountered it in different ways, but for me in particular, as an educator, it was very personal, especially in the realm of honesty and education and that particular incident that, stephen, you're referring to. If you don't mind, I'd like to share that quick story.
Speaker 1:Please do.
Speaker 2:Give you a little bit of a backstory of how I ended up here. So, as he mentioned, I am an educator in a suburban area in my local area. My background is in inner city education. A large portion of my career was in inner city. I took a pivot in my educational career and decided to take on this fifth grade position where I would teach social studies four times a day for fifth grade and absolutely loved it, but it's in a predominantly Caucasian setting.
Speaker 2:So, as I mentioned to a lot of people when I share this story, this is my why, for why I started working with what we call DEI diversity, equity and inclusion work. It was change, and I'm not talking about the kind that you find dangling in your pocket or wedge between your couch cushion, but I'm talking about the kind that comes like a thief in the night. It's inevitable, it's unpredictable and it's life altering. And so that change found me about three years ago, where I was teaching fifth grade social studies to my predominantly white children and in a predominantly Caucasian setting, and so my principal at the time, she and I were the only African-Americans in this school.
Speaker 2:No, so the principal was African American, oh, african.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So she and I were the only African Americans at the time, and so I tell this story not to anger people, but just to give a real incident of why this work is so important and how this work became very personal to me. So this change came for me very quickly. This change came about in about February about three years ago. My principal asked me and the rest of the school hey, we want to have a black history project and it was school wide and we're supposed to do a door decorating contest and super excited about it. But with me being the residential black person on the team, the only black person and social society teacher, I'll go ahead and take on that charge for the team and so with that I'm extra. So instead of just doing kind of the door, you know, let's just do a quick little cute door and be done with it, I wanted to do a mural that would tell the story Nice nice, nice and so I wanted to go beyond this Harriet Martin and Malcolm story.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. Yes, right, and that's the same response I get from African-Americans, like we got to go beyond this Martin Luther King story, the Harriet Tubman, the same story right the safe story. So I wanted to go beyond that and I wanted to teach the Children's March of 1963. Are you all familiar with that?
Speaker 1:That I am not familiar. Neither am I. I was a child in 1963.
Speaker 2:I was a teenager, but I was a child. How old were you?
Speaker 1:15.
Speaker 2:15. Okay, so the Children's March of 1963, also known as the Children's Crusade.
Speaker 1:I know y'all out there doing the math, don't worry about it, I love it, I love it I already know the math.
Speaker 2:I love it. So the Children's March of 1963 was a different approach that I wanted to take. When the adults were afraid to go to the streets and protest, the children did, and so, if you look this up so I challenge you all as I'm telling this story, yeah, go ahead and put your fingers out there and type in the image type in the topic the Children's March of 1963 and look at an image. You would find that the historical image associated with this would be children as young as six years old were being hosed by white police officers. Now let me give you a little bit more context we're talking about. We're in the heat of the George Floyd story.
Speaker 2:I guess I didn't think about it.
Speaker 1:looking in hindsight, when they asked you to do this project, you were in the heat Right In the throes of the George Floyd incident.
Speaker 2:So I guess you know look in hindsight I didn't think about that but nonetheless it still, you know, was going about, with not that intention to bring that out about the police brutality, of again going beyond the Harriet Martin and Malcolm story, but to also empower my fifth graders to say that you have a voice, just like they did in the 1960s when the adults were afraid to go to the streets and protest. The kids did, and they did it peacefully. So that was kind of the premises of that and the why, and so as a result of that, we started this work and you could walk through our building on any given time and see incomplete doors and murals or whatever kid people were doing. Just as.
Speaker 2:I was. My mural was incomplete so I started to put the pictures of dogs and children, that same image that you would see being hosed. I mean, obviously it is age appropriate and is appropriate. It's not anything brutal or gruesome. Someone in my building took the liberty of taking a picture of my incomplete mural and posting it on social media.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:They did All over the world. So they did. They posted this on, as you just mentioned, the World Wide Web, but they put it in our community page where all of our other community, the parents, our stakeholders, saw this. And they chimed in on this and called me a police hater, a racist, who let this black woman in our district Ain't that something? And they slandered my name, o-m-g.
Speaker 2:Now let me add to this as the plot thickens. No one, not even my teammates, asked the question what is this about? And I don't say this to throw any shade against my teammates at the time, but I wanted to bring context of just asking the simple question why? Or you know, give me some context. You know, katie, what is this all about? But instead they just put it out there and just kind of let it run amok.
Speaker 2:Now, there was obviously some malicious intent behind that and that's not the point. But the point here is this. So in doing so, my principal was like oh my God, katie, I don't know what's going on with this mayor, but we got to address it because now the police department is threatening to take support from our district, because at this point no one knew my why. No one still asked what was the motive? What is this? You know, I don't know what's going on, and so they said, if she doesn't take this down, like we're gonna have to remove our support and I need an apology. And so I didn't apologize per se. I mean my, I don't know who did or however that happened, but nonetheless they did require me to take it down. They, the district, did put out a statement and they asked me to take it down unreal this.
Speaker 1:This was on the door.
Speaker 2:This was on the wall, so I'm going to send you the link of the mural that you could see, because it actually became news for me in my local area. And so from that moment, I was very heartbroken because we had just had a conversation about professional trusts. You know, being able to talk to one another about things like this, you know, whatever, we should be able to talk to them and ask the questions. And I actually was going to resign and my principal at the time was like no, that's what they want you to do, katie, they want you to resign and that's not what you're here for. You're here on assignment. And in that moment it really helped me to dig deep in our why.
Speaker 2:As educators, we have to be able to operate out of our why. Because in moments like this, as I mentioned, when change come like a thief in the night, we have to be ready to go back to why do we do what we do, and we can't go by that. So she slid my resume back, my resignation letter back across the table and said I need you to just, you know, kind of, let this kind of think about it, let's think about us, let's work through this. And so, out of my haste. I said, okay, I'm gonna think about it. So she asked me the question what would you like to do? I said I want to be heard because you took my voice and you took my students voice. No one in the building asked me why, like what was this about, katie? I would have told you you wouldn't have never had to go put this in the streets to become a conversation.
Speaker 1:Correct. What was the picture of and how much of it was complete.
Speaker 2:No, that was very good. So for the callers and they can see, it was just the historical picture. So if you again go out to the web and you look up the children's march of 1963, you would find that the historical image of kids being posed by white or, excuse me, the historical image of kids being Host by white or, excuse me, caucasian police officers. So it was a picture of children and Police officers being host.
Speaker 2:If you type in here if you put that in for you can see it a little bit more. You put that in your search, but nonetheless it was just an incomplete mirror. So we were almost about to build context. So here's the picture. Let me paint the picture.
Speaker 2:So on one door there's four doors in my hallways there's a social studies, a math, an ELA and a science door. My door was going to be all black with the white lettering in 1963 to tell the story, and as you walk down our hallway you were going to see all of the historical points that you could pull out of that story. So then the next door would have a picture of Martin Luther King, who was obviously the lead at the time. But when he went to prison, what happened? When you cut the head off, the body wanders. So they didn't have a leader at the time. So then the kids began to come together and protest. We have to continue this work as he is in prison. So his face was going to be on the second door.
Speaker 2:And then we're just going to keep going on and on until we got to the last door where we had the four children of the Birmingham bombing. Like we know that part we want the little cute pictures of the four girls in their barrettes. We want the little cute pictures of the four girls in their barrettes. That's what they wanted to see. But this is bringing us to the topic today about banned books. This is hard truth. This is history, Our history, black history, US history, and part of the reason why they're banning books is to keep us from knowing the truth.
Speaker 1:Part of the reason why they're banning books is to keep us from knowing the truth and for their own prodigy progeny to know the truth.
Speaker 2:So, in continuing not to make a long story short, but just to know why we're here, my principal held what we call a restorative circle. For those of you who are out there may not know what that is. It is a circle where we all get around in a circle. For those of you who are out there may not know what that is. It is a circle where we all get around in a circle and it's called the fishbowl method, when you put someone or people in the middle, where they are having the conversation, and the people on the outside, or spectators, are listening in. So the people on the outside of the circles were the other educators and teachers in the building, the stakeholders, anyone that was willing and able to come to this meeting to let's settle this, let's talk about this, and in the middle was our administrator and myself.
Speaker 2:So whatever questions that you have for me, as the teacher who was leading it, or whatever questions that you have for the administrators who air quote allowed it, shoot the fire, fire the questions to her. So part of what I explained to them in my air quote closing summation is my opportunity to let my voice be heard and for me to bring the voices of my students into this space. I said this, thank you. Thank you for whomever in the room took a picture of my incomplete mural and never asked me the question, because Judas even had a purpose. That's my girl. So thank you, because we are here today to be able to have this hard conversation about something that is important to our changing demographic in our building. Changing demographic in our building, now are we, I asked the question, are we not in an institution of learning where we, as educators, are supposed to be able to teach our children how to have these hard conversations?
Speaker 1:Yep, Especially about about fifth grade.
Speaker 2:About fifth grade? Are we not in the institution of learning, where we are supposed to be able to address conflict? And we as adults have failed just in this moment. But again, thank you, because now we are here and we are open and we are having dialogue About something that is important, because we have to go beyond the Harriet, the Harriet, the Martin and the Malcolm stories, the ones that we are used to.
Speaker 2:When you walk in our hallways you can see the same stories about Martin Luther King, the Rosa Parks. You know those stories out there, but as the air quote the resident black person in the area and as a social studies teacher, I owe it to my students and to this building to go beyond that and teach. Yep, am I not charged to teach social studies and teach history? So nothing out of one idea was out of compliance, because even the website that the district mandated or gave as a parameter had this lesson to teach. So in saying all of that, I pose this question to my colleagues, my predominantly Caucasian colleagues, and I said for those of you who even knew, no decision is still a decision. So for you saying that I knew but I just didn't say anything, silence is still a decision to not come up to me and ask me the question hey, katie, I'm not quite sure what this is, but can you explain to me, because then maybe you could have ran back and shared with whomever was having this problem that this is not out of malicious intent, because you thought I was trying to maybe say that police were were being, you know, uh, trying to paint police officers in this negative light.
Speaker 2:Going back to what I was saying, they kind of giving you some context that we were in the thick of the George Floyd and again looking at me as an educator thing. Like yeah, ok, I'll own part of that. Yeah, I didn't. In hindsight 2020, I didn't think about that, but that's not what I was saying. But if you were looking at air quote playing the devil's advocate, which I know he has enough of that You're looking up there. You're thinking like you got police officers up here hitting hoes and little black kids. Like what are you trying to say? Is this a subliminal message? No, actually, this is hard history that happened.
Speaker 1:This happened.
Speaker 2:That happened, and if you had given me about a few weeks, like you gave everybody else, I would have been able to share the rest. And I had a cute banner about little kids handprints, about how we came together and how we got here, and how we got here and how we talked about the then and the now. Because, see, that's what you do in history, you talk about the connections and so that we don't repeat history or we compare what we've done in history and what we're doing now and how do we change that? Which leads me to now. So this hit my front doorstep and it was absolutely something that wasn't on my radar DI. That's diversity, equity and inclusion. You may hear that a lot was not on my doorstep, knew about it, but it was not a part of my why.
Speaker 2:Now I realized that, me being there as a fifth grade teacher and educator and being one of the only educator, my principal was African American. I knew I was there on assignment because if I were to quit at that point, if I had resigned, I knew at that moment that I had a paradigm shift, that my other kids, my white kids, my Hispanic kids, any other kid, the others, would say my black teacher don't look like that. My black teacher don't smell like that. My black teacher don't act like that. She don't sound like that Because every day when they walk through my door, they get me, contrary to what they see on the media and the housewives of Atlanta housewives, or whatever you watching on TikTok, that ain't it. So I did a paradigm shift so I knew that I was there and I'm still there on assignment.
Speaker 2:So this DEI work, as I was sharing with Stephen, I was talking about how this interesting connection that, as I started this work and looking at this a little bit closely, I started to look at the chronological order of how this BAM book, the voter, the strict voter rights and all of this stuff that's coming up now is just flaring happen as a result of now. This is just my personal opinion. So for those who are out there who may think differently, this is my personal opinion that's what this is we see that the George Floyd protest was the largest protest in history.
Speaker 2:We're talking the. The Martin Luther King March on Washington was 250,000 people. We're talking the George floors. Whether your opinion, whether how you have we got there, we're there. The organized the protesting, for I think it was like 40 million. 40 million between June and July, and I could be wrong on those numbers a little bit, but the point is that it was the largest protest.
Speaker 1:I mean, there were people protesting in places. I didn't even know.
Speaker 2:Around the world Denmark. So that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So here's the problem. Here's my theory. Here's my theory. What became the problem was our Caucasian babies went home and said why didn't you tell me Meemaw was racist? I need to know why. So they start opening up those books and figuring out how did we get here? And figuring out, how did we get here and start wanting to learn about our hard history, thus causing the what we call the extremists. Let's just put the extremists out there, the extremists, to start this effort of CRT critical race theory and I'm not going to go into that today because I know we have a time constraint, but do your own research and maybe we could do another episode.
Speaker 2:But CRT and they started this effort with banning books. Now, banning books has been an issue right. The American Library Association has always had what we call challenged and or banned books over 20 years, but never like this when they came home and they said we got to know the history. We got to stop that because they've been able to keep us. We've always been broke, pro, pro black. You know black power and they can manage that.
Speaker 2:But when they got, when we have the allies, the awareness, we have to shut that down. Yep, Because of all things to ban, why do you ban our African-American studies? Why do you ban? Why do you start with the African-American history?
Speaker 1:All the books that you can ban, all the books about the means of books that you can ban.
Speaker 2:And if you haven't been following what's been going on in Florida with the governor, he gives us the framework, like I mean we're talking history repeats itself. Like we're talking Willie Lynch with his framework and like let me show you how to keep these niggas in line. The governor's like let me show you how we going to keep these niggas in line, let me give you the framework. And we start being radical in Florida and we start showing you we're going to attack all of the groups.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's pretty deep.
Speaker 1:It's really deep and I had not put it together that way.
Speaker 2:I told you I had neither man when she ran that on me.
Speaker 1:I'm like wow, and I think you know we see this. I mean, first I thought, well, the first thing, let's just try to kill as many of the young men as we can. How are we going to do that? Easy, the cops, hey, that's a good idea. Or drugs, oh yeah, oh yeah. But after 30, 40 years, that's something to be working. Since that whole Ronald Reagan, george Bush war on drugs, we've had, like Venus and Serena, tiger Woods, barack Obama, these folks getting stronger. The more bug spray we put on these people, the more these folks get stronger is how they look. We have to do something else, because killing them physically is not going to work, not working. And this is why I taught my mind and thank you for your input, that's how I my mind. They came to the banning books, the banning right. I mean you got people running for president in the land of the free and they're running on a platform to take away freedoms.
Speaker 2:It's our First Amendment, right, and that's what I would. That was the whole purpose of empowering my students and again, that's what I'm talking about. They don't want that. It's part of the ploy. Let me get rid of all of the books that we take them off the shelf and let me start saying that these are the issues. For those reasons we don't want our little white babies or we don't want our kids to feel like this is a bad thing.
Speaker 1:Teaching our children to feel badly about themselves Really, because I can think of 15 other ways to teach this without making anybody feel bad about themselves at all, but that's how y'all would teach. So that's what you see.
Speaker 2:And so that's part of the again the ploy to keep people ignorant. Let's take it off the shelves, and not just our people, ignorant Everyone.
Speaker 1:The awareness, god forbid. One of their children picks up an autobiography of Malcolm.
Speaker 2:X, absolutely, absolutely and that's exactly what. And then so I had a professor I was listening to a few weeks ago who spoke on that, because he is a professor at the Ohio State University who teaches the civil rights movement and teaches. He's like this is what's interesting about my audience is that it's not black people in my class, it's filled full of white kids who want to know who want to know black history and the history of black people.
Speaker 1:In some white households it's the same as a liquor cabinet being locked up Can't get near it, don't want to talk about it, and just like most people, when you get kids that's why kids be out here getting drunk oh, I get a chance to drink they overdo it, they can't want to take it in. And now you get your children 15, 16, they're like Mom. You know I'll learn when I get older. I'll explain when I get older. I'm older. What's up?
Speaker 2:And that's why I said, like you have our kids, like you said the, the Caucasian kids, going home saying you didn't tell me that me ma was racist. It's this awareness and what I realized is that this generation is ready to, this Gen Z's generation is ready to kick down doors. I think is ready that this gen z's generation is ready to kick down doors. I think so right. And this baby boomer generation is like you know, it's that embedded racism that needs to die off, like it has to die in this tolerance, because we are here. Here's what else. White supremacy, let's just put it out there cannot live in a multicultural world. And here's the real reality is that I don't know about you, mr E, but my classroom composition, my classroom dynamics, the demographic, my school has changed drastically.
Speaker 1:Oh, it definitely has.
Speaker 2:And we have the Turkish. I mean we have Somalians, we have Haitians. I mean we have Somalians, we have Haitians. I mean you name it Yep, but a white supremacy can't live in a multicultural world. So what do you do? You begin to make a concerted effort, an extreme effort, to change that.
Speaker 1:Suppress it.
Speaker 2:To suppress it. We see the harsher, the harsh voter laws in the southern states. We see the banned books. We see CRT. We see attack on higher education. We see attack on education. So that's part of my why. And when I said in my biography that's what I do as a union member organizer, so that's I don't know if you, I kind of saw you look like what is a member organizer. So I traveled around the world oh, really, yes, and I talk to teachers and energize them, to encourage them. That now is not the time because teachers naturally are non-confrontational, like as an industry, as a as a profession, we don't really like to fight, but now it's not the time to close the door and say that's not me, I'm just going to teach my little babies and put my head in the sand. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, education needs your vote. Education needs your time to be educated, because I don't care what stance you are on whatever political issue or whatever, there's an issue for you to stand on.
Speaker 1:As long as it's the right kind of education. Education needs your voice. Who are we educating and how are we educating them?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know it's also as important, but that doesn't get done without involvement.
Speaker 2:And we know education is the bedrock of our democracy. So what are we talking about? Like education is under attack. We need to get up and get out. Speak up and speak out.
Speaker 1:And what about our own community? What about? What can we do to raise the awareness and make it, make education special? You know, we come from a generation of people when they were finally no longer enslaved. People were walking miles to get cramming into like one room schoolhouses. They're 40, 50 years old with six-year-olds, because why, I can learn, I wants to learn to read. And now people like man, I'm late for school, I ain't got no time for no daggone school man. What happened? What happened there? Katie, you know and I know that's kind of on the spot there may be another show coming toward the end, but we definitely going to have you come back and talk again. But real quick, what happened when, all of a sudden, I'm like it's a big deal to go to school. You walk a mile. They got the little wagon. Back in the 30s People didn't have cars, we all going up to school, or there was so-and-so's coming over after church and they could have spelling. Those kind of things happen.
Speaker 2:That's a very good question. I would love to come back to be able to elaborate on that, because I'm very passionate. He's like oh my God, I can see that passion spewing out of your vein, in your neck.
Speaker 1:Folks, y'all. She's got all energy in here. The walls are bulging. She's got on a Betty Boop t-shirt Boop boop, but it's all legit.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Excellent, it's all legit. And I will say and I'm going to even do something that I hate to do and that's complimenting my baby brother no, I's not true. I went to his house. I went to his house, to his classroom, Okay, and I left there saying, and I said it to other teachers, but I'd never seen them in action. Yes, People tell me what they do and I go. I don't know if I could do that, but I saw Steve. Okay, I'm gonna give him a shout out for three classes?
Speaker 1:Yes, and I taped it Maybe on my phone still, looked at it the next morning, looked at it again. I called him that morning I said man, I can't do what you do. Very similar. We have similar communication styles, et cetera, et cetera. But his is fashioned in a way Little kids, oh, et cetera. But his is fashioned in a way Little kids, oh hell no, what grades do you teach when he?
Speaker 1:came, I was teaching music. I'm mostly multifaceted, but when he came I was doing music. And when you have a special or music class, you teach every class in the building. So kindergarteners get music, first graders get music, second graders, third graders, all the way through up to eighth grade. So I see every class in the building for a lesson class. Alright, so what? Three, six, nine, twelve classes in that hall, twelve in that one, thirty-six different classes. I just take my hat off to educators. I know, bro, I could do it for a day, I could do it for two days, but be excellent, because that's what everybody deserves Every day. That's a professional and that's someone who's dedicated. I take my hat off to a little bro, and to you as well, man, because I can feel your passion. Some of my other teacher friends as well. People have lost their jobs standing up for their own people, lost their jobs as teachers and educators, standing up for their own people.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's really good. If you don't mind, I'm going to speak two things.
Speaker 2:I want to speak back to your question just very quickly. And then I do want to speak to the fact that about that pride issue, like how do we do what we do? And so to go back to your question about you know what happened, I think it's pride, taking pride in your name and that's, like I said, a whole nother conversation. But I don't think there's a connection to school anymore because of the, the neighborhood schools. A lot of districts have moved away from that that neighborhood piece. You know, teachers are like I drive, get on the highway to interstate and go.
Speaker 2:You know, 20 minutes out to my suburban area, if you're in the inner city and you don't go to the school, that you go, that you live in one of the best things that I can say because of my new situation and my employer, I live and work in that community and that was part of what I said in my um, in my circle with my teachers. Like I live and work in this community, the same community that these people think inside of this walls that I'm a racist or a police hater. I a police hater. I have to go back to the community and the grocery stores with my parents and so that puts a different feel and a dynamic when you were a part of that community and we have lost that. And with our neighborhood schools and a lot of areas yeah, we walked to school across- the country and in particular to our African American people.
Speaker 2:I just think, just that whole pride of like, you know, yeah, we don't. You know we don't do that in our house or we don't have the piece of the connectivity of the teachers, you know, who know the parents and know that people in the neighborhood, it's just there's so many moving pieces, smaller pieces, that I think that has just disenfranchised our entire system with kids. They just don't have an identity and they're just kind of wandering about in school. And then I think also part of what I love about what I do is that I'll make education look sexy. Who wants to be a teacher now? And I don't?
Speaker 2:when I say sexy I don't mean that in a you know what I mean, like I want to make some sizzle, yes, some sizzle, some dazzle. Like you know what I mean. Like I want to make some sizzle, yeah, some sizzle, some dazzle. Like you know they got a whole everything else to get there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Can't wait to get to this class.
Speaker 2:Right, you know. But teachers and this is what I tell my educators and my teachers out there when you walk around like I hate my job or they walk in here and frazzled or beat down who wants to look at their teacher and be like I want to aspire to be a teacher one day Absolutely not, and so obviously that's a whole other conversation about how we even address that. But I think there are many, many smaller pieces. That is completely taking this whole dynamic of education and school, how we do school and just it's going like. But all in all I just think it's just that pride piece on all of those pieces there is a lot of.
Speaker 1:We're going to wrap up. We're here, man.
Speaker 2:This was great this was great, I can tell you now, you'll be back.
Speaker 1:You'll be back. I love the energy, I love it.
Speaker 1:I don't think that that, um, I know because after I left Steve's classroom, I think I'm a pretty intelligent, educated guy. I've been in places of trouble. I'd never been in a classroom live. That's in an old video and you have a chance to get a chance to see what your siblings, you know what your siblings do for work, but who goes to their sibling's job In our case? I lived on the East Coast for a long time and to see that I was like I don't know if I can do that the next day and the next day and then the next year and the next year. My baby brother's been in the classroom a long time and that also let me know why some people quit and also I was able to see why some people just will never quit in that same experience. So we will certainly do this again.
Speaker 1:But, steve, let's want to get us out of here, matt. Yes, sir, so I want to thank you very much for coming in and spending time with us. This is little brother Steve. Big brother Mike, who's that right there with you before we go? This is associate producer. This is Deuce Associate producer. Say see you later. See you later, alright, and thank you. That was great. Once again, miss Katie for your being here.
Speaker 1:Love it Alright.
