October 28, 2025 • 33 mins
At a time when 67% of students are not at grade level, Kellie Lauth is revolutionizing education in America. Her nonprofit MindSpark is spreading an innovative approach called problem-based learning like wildfire across the country. And it’s resulted in over 25 of their students owning patents, starting dozens of companies, and a 15% improvement in STEM and literacy achievement!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
We continue now with part two of our conversation with
Kelly loth Right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
There was a box on the desk, the only thing
the former principal left me with four thousand keys in
it that were not labeled. They went to every single
cabinet indoor in the building in a jumbled box, and
I thought, this is the greatest metaphor for what I'm
doing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I don't even know what they represents. A child, Yes,
like this challenge.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
You know, we had a dead body on the campus,
like the first couple weeks. Yes, like domestic balance this
skuy flew over the fence and died on the grounds.
We had squatters out back. My custodians got in a
fist way. I mean, I cannot make this up. And
I remember calling my dad saying like I this.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Is this is too much.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I'm a little Yeah, I'm in way over in my head.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
And what Bob say.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
He said, you know you figure it out, Yeah, yeah,
you got it. Get back on the worse. You're fine.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
But so we went Bob in just to hang out
at the school for a week, hit a couple of
kids with a witch and straighten things out.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yep, and uh, twenty five twenty five teachers walked out.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Walked out when you walked in, Huh, guy, they weren't
having you.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
They weren't They were done. They were done the whole thing.
And so I had to hire pretty much a new staff.
And when I walked in the ones who stayed plus
the new ones, the first thing I said was if
you don't believe that kids who are poor, kids who
are black, or kids who are brown, can learn, then
you get out because I'm not doing this with you.
This is not happening all of your classrooms. You have
(01:54):
shown me that you lower standards for these kids and
not raise them. And this stops today. And so if
you're not going to be on this journey with me,
you're out you. I will not work with you.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yes, that's what I expected the first school. So that's
what happened the school. And I walked over the dead
body and left left.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yep. I said, you know, we have to climb out
Everest twice and we're not even at base camp. I
have six graders who can't read most of my kids
are three levels behind, like this is this is real.
So if you're not up for the challenge, you gotta go.
And they did so in one year, one year, one year,
we went from a turnaround school on the verge of
(02:33):
being closed to a performance school. How by just doing
problem based learning, by investing in my staff, by saying
we're going to believe kids can learn, and we're going
to invite industry in to make things relevant and authentic.
And that's it. Like everyone, you know, we're always looking
for this like silver bullet or this magical thing in education,
it's not it's about people. Keep telling people, it's not
(02:56):
about stuff. It's about human beings. And just really investing
in my staff, leadership training, project management training, again, throwing
them out into industry, saying you're going to leave this initiative,
you're going to do that, you're going to figure it out.
I mean our values were have porous boundaries, be a
yes organization and fail fast and pivot. That's it. And
that looks more like a business mantra than it does
(03:17):
an education mantra.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
It does, and that's how we I'm thinking, that's what
I do every day.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Right and That's how I led the school, was, you know,
on the model of industry of like, we're not going
to be stuck. We're just going to dig in and
figure it out. And we just started doing lots of things.
We started feeding kids, started clothing kids, we started helping
adults connect to education. I mean, just all these programs
and all these things just start. We fed kids breakfast, lunch,
and dinner. You know. We just started becoming this kind
(03:43):
of community hub and this innovation center, and that was
really the goal. And people came to visit and got
it pretty excited.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
How old your son at this one?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So here's the thing, Mike, I have three kids, and
my son's in middle school at this point. They're in
a private school up north, and I said to my husband,
I got to walk my talk. So we took them
out of a private school and put them in my school.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
That school, Yeah, how much should your kids like you?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
It was a huge change for them. And I will
say one of the greatest things we've ever.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Done, that's getting kicked off a horse. That's your version
m hm.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Because if it was going to be good enough for
the kids in that neighborhood, would should be good enough
for my kids.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Did it worry doing that? It worries a little bit
of a.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Mom Yeah, definitely. I mean I'd be lying if I
said it wasn't. But I also knew that it would
be okay, and it was. I mean, not only was
it such a much better learning trajectory for them, they
went on to the high school that I had worked
with prior. We have a great high school in our neighborhood.
(04:53):
Everybody goes to the high school. And I'll never forget
putting a Northland High School stake in my ground because
my kids were getting ready to graduate and my neighbor said,
your kids go to Northland. Why like what? I said, Yeah,
they do like it, just you know, it's like it's
still just had that.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Sort of Are your kids any What are their ages?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So they're all in college now, they play all of
them play sports in college.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
All play sports in college.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yes, And my son was studied engineering in my Stem school,
study engineering in the Stem high school, is studying engineering
in college.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
What's he play? He lacrosse, all right? The next two lacrosse,
lacrosse and lacrosse.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And my daughter also plays flag football in college. So
she plays club because they don't have Yeah, programs, that's
so cool, it's very cool. And then she's in BAOMED
and she started that track in middle school.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Wow. All right, so now you say, yeah, So I.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Had partners, industry partners and donor partners still anthropy partners
that were like, this has gotta be scaled, this has
got to go somewhere. And so this mind spark was
sort of born of this idea that teachers matter, adults
in the system matter, and we do a lot of
programs for kids, but we don't often kind of put
those adults in that equation and could we scale what
(06:13):
we were doing nationally? And that's really I mean, that's it.
That's the premise of it.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Well, so tell me what the mind sparks go. It's
a spark as an acronym, and you've got really five
targeted rifle shot and things you're achieving.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah. So the S stands for sustained transformation. So we
don't want to be a one and done, We don't
want to be this drive by organization. We want to
know that if you work with us, not only is
there return on your investment, but also that this idea
is sustained. Right, it grows its scales, it's replicable, it's durable.
The other one is partnerships are formed so we don't
go into any community where I don't leave behind five
(06:53):
to seven foundational partnerships for the schools, industry, community, orgs,
whatever it is. The AA is that all succeed. Again,
just this foundational belief that this should be good for
all kids, right, that we all succeed, no one is
left behind. And then the ours for recruitment and retention.
So teachers tend to not stay in the profession very long.
(07:14):
And so this idea was that we wanted teachers to
stay and love what they do and kind of create
this identity about being the greatest workforce developers in America, right,
being foundational to the economy, being foundational to society. And
then the last one is just kinetic, this idea that
what you do matters and that you if I upskill
you and I invest in you, I expect you to
(07:34):
go pass it along. You go do something cool with
what you've learned.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
And so the idea is to invest in teachers to
then go back to their districts all in the world
and carry this problem solving model with them.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yes, and we work with teachers principles. Yeah, yeah, and
we work with large and small systems. It's not just
teacher by teacher, but we work with groups, schools, districts.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So how do you get these teachers and where do
they come and how does it work?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
So the interesting about mind Spark is actually our clients
are industry partners. So I work with some of the
biggest brands in the world. I work with Samsung, kpmg IBM.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Auto clients are them, Yes.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So what happens is industry. So you're an industry you
would come and say I want to do something in education,
I want to make an investment in education, or I've
done something for a long time in education it's not
really working. I'm not getting a return on my investment.
Or we have a program we run an education I'm
fed up, right, I feel like the system's broken. I've done,
or we have a program we've done, but we're tired
of running it. So they come to us and we
(08:38):
help them revamp, re up their strategy, reimagine it, create
a new one, give them one whatever it is, and
then we deploy that work with schools all over the country.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Wow, so where are you how many schools. I mean,
tell me what it looks like. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So we currently have worked with just over one hundred
thousand educators. We've been backed at about two point seven
million kiddos. We've worked with tens of thousands of schools
and that's everything from like literally a micro school with
one teacher and three kids to LA unified. So we
don't we define teaching learning very broadly and it's all
community centered. So we come to you, we spend time,
(09:20):
we get to know the community, we get to know
the assets in the community, we get to map all
the partners that are already in the space, and then
we're the whole school district.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yes, an entire district.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, I mean we've had trainings as large as you know,
over six hundred people together. We've had trainings as smart
is certainly.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Follow up to make sure these teachers are doing what
they supposed to leave.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So we follow every cohort. We follow every cohort for
up to two years post engagement to see what they're doing,
and we collect data on the wow to say is
it working, are they still at it, are they still there,
are they making more money? Are they happier? What are
kids doing what's.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
That look like is the can you qualify the return
on that investment at all?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah? So right now, if you are a mind Spark educator,
you've worked with us and a cohort. We have an
eighty eight percent teacher attention rate, no kidding, and I
think the national average is on forty forty two.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Oh, you're better at what you do and happier because
you are better at what you do. We'll be right back, and.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Your identity shifts. You're not just a teacher, right You're
a STEM teacher. You're an engineering teacher. You're someone who
works alongside industry. You've been in an internship with IBM
and you feel really upskilled in AI. It changes who
you are as a teacher. One of our programs, when
you're through about seventy five percent of the program, you're
(10:54):
salary doubles as a teacher.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Closing opportunity gaps, which is a big one for me.
I don't believe everybody deserves happiness. I believe everybody deserves
the pursuit of it. I know that's old school, but
that's how I feel about. Bob would agree with me.
But I do believe that the barriers to opportunity in
a lot of situations exists. I think it's a real thing,
(11:22):
and so closing gaps is one thing. Closing the opportunity gaps,
I think is just a requirement of a civil society.
I'm a Christian. I think it's a requirement of my
faith to close a gap and just opportunity. If the
opportunities equal in the gap exists, well then that's a
(11:43):
different conversation talk about. And that may be more than
one sided, but typically an opportunity gap is closed by
the people with the power. So it's a one sided thing, correct.
That's how I feel, and I feel we have to
get rid of those and one of the things. And
it's one of my big pet beeves. And I was
(12:05):
toward the end of Alexis Prep when I saw this,
and I really wanted you to talk about it. Closing
opportunity gaps for example within Todd County in South Dakota,
which I have no earthly clue where that is. Our
work with the Lakota Sanson and he says, sangsu nations again,
(12:25):
it's a it's a first person's nation. It is lifted
students from three grade levels below the national average to
sixty three percent performing above the district average. That's all
about an opportunity gap, because if that doesn't happen, those
kids don't even have the opportunity to be a part
(12:48):
of a civil society. Correct, how'd you do that.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Papa Beast Learning. So we got a small grant to
go to one of the largest reservations in South Dakota
where it was a huge and schools are generally kind
of hundreds of miles apart, so geography even geographical challenge.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Geographic it's mass expansive.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
And it's a nation Native American.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Nation indigenous community. Yeah. And when we got there it
was actually kind of right on the heels of COVID
and uh So we got in there thinking, so we
went in with the premise of again an industry partner
had an interest in this community. We went in with
the premise of getting more girls excited about stem opportunities
and entering the workforce because they don't typically do that
in this community. When we got there, no running water,
(13:37):
electricity was scarce, I mean in the school, in the community,
in the community, lots tons of houses with no running water,
tons of houses with very little electricity, access to like
electricity and Wi Fi and just some basic humanity pieces.
And so we went back to the partner and said, Okay,
girls in stem is cool. I believe in my whole heart,
that's not what we're going to do. We're going to
(13:58):
start working with schools. We're going to bring in problem
based learning and kids and teachers are going to start
tackling access to clean water, access to Wi Fi, food, sovereignty,
housing security.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I wouldn't have even thought of it that way, but
you said, okay, we'll have our kids. Yes. Six, the
basic problems first.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Because you, when you were part of the system, you
have an obligation and a right and a privilege to
solve the problems in your system, and.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
You would be very interested in that works.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
It's not sustainable if I come in and set solve
it for you, that's not sustainable. When I walk away,
you're not going to You're gonna go back to doing
what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Bottom up solutions too. All this screams bottom up solution.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I mean it's it's these global problems, but they're locally sourced, right.
I mean I every time I hear from a community,
oh we have this, we have this wrong, I'm like
you're not special. That's the problems we see everywhere we go.
But the way you solve it with your people is good.
What's going to matter? And that's what they did. So
kids tackled so one of their biggest problems was a
lot of students were not staying within their culture, so
(14:56):
their language was dying out there, a lot of their
heritage and their traditions were not being sort of captured
by the next generation because they saw it as something
not tied to their identity. And so through problem based
learning again, we spent several years with them, two years
with them, we just started working on problems grade level
by grade level, tackling what I just said, food sovereignty, right,
(15:19):
how do we get healthy food here? How do you
start growing your own food? How do you go back
to this sort of culture you have around egg What
are jobs that we can sort of then start bringing
in the tide of that, this idea of revitalizing the
Lakota language and culture. What does that look like? What
are kids going to care about? So it just started
there and that's that's it. And then that the kids
(15:40):
performing better at reading, it's a byproduct.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
So they.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
That wasn't the goal right, Like I didn't come and
say I'm going to creach your literacy scores. So that's
a byproduct of again being authentically engaged in learning.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
It's phenomenal. Before we go to kind of wrapping this up,
you're gonna have to suffer me for five minutes. I'm
in the hardwood lumber business. I'm gonna have to do
this quickly with you. I wish we had an hour.
I really did hardwood. The difference in hardwoods and softwoods
(16:22):
are scientifically. Hardwoods are deciduous and nutree that loses its
leaves are in the winter is a hardwood that keeps
us comfort during the winter. As softwood, it's has nothing
to do with the texture of the way. In terms
of use practicalities, think of it this way. Softwood's build
of structure. Hardwoods furnish it. Hardwood's going to flooring and cabinets, molding, millwork,
(16:46):
things like that. The hardwood industry is robust industry. The
hardwood log is really a two piece thing. The outside
of the log, the outside half of the log creates
the lumber in a lower grade, of middle grade and
higher grade that make all the things I talk about.
But the inside of the log is very important for
(17:08):
industrial uses. It is what you make railroad ties on it.
It is what you make crane mat and board road
out of for oil and gas exploration. It is where
tractor trailer flooring comes from. It is where it's got
all kinds of really important industrial and really economic and
national security uses. And there's really no substitute for it
(17:31):
other than if you get into really expensive plastics. But
it's not there. Because housing has gotten so expensive, people
have started using substitutes for things like flooring doors. The
very floor you're looking at right now is not hardwoods.
That's lvl, it's plastic. It's horrible for the environment. It
(17:56):
does it's not biodegradea but when it goes on a
landfill and you can't refinish it, but it's thirty percent cheaper.
So the advent of these substitutes. If you'll think of linoleum,
like your grandmother's linoleum countertops, it used to be that
shiny green yes, well, that very product, that very plastic product,
(18:18):
which is a petroleum based, mercury based product excruded through
plastic machines, then glued on top of glued up breast board.
Back in the seventies, people knew exactly what that was,
with a little hard squared edge around the corners, very ugly.
Science has evolved to a place that they can now
(18:40):
make that stuff to look just like textured hardwoods and
all kinds of different colors with everything else. And so
now people are making flooring and cabinets and everything out
of it. And it's smoking my industry because it's thirty
percent cheaper, and people are trying to build houses cheaper.
And now even architects that used to snub their nose
that these things are I specking them for cost issues.
(19:02):
As a result, the hardwood industry, my industry is getting
absolutely smoked as a result. How we're going to build
our railroads from the middle of a log if can't
use the outside, how are we going to dol and
gas exploration. There's a lot of downside to all of this.
One other thing is there's three times more lightning strikes
(19:25):
east of the Mississippi River as they are west of
the Missippi River. But the west seems to as forest
fires all the time. In the east. Do you know why?
Because we log A logging road is a natural firebreak,
and when you take mature trees and you select of
cut and use the little ones. We actually have seventy
percent more harvestable timber east of the Missippi River than
(19:46):
we did one hundred years ago because of sustainable forestry practices. Okay,
I've gone on that's I could do this forever. But
the point is we're going to start having forest fires
and losing timber and losing industry because if we're not
taking these lugs and cultivating for the use, Look what
happens to the forest and you have then you get
that bent of beetles and all kinds of things that
(20:07):
kill the forest. And at any rate, here's a problem.
How does the solid hardwood industry compete with cheap or
sit in at one cheap knockoff plastics and substitute products
that are bad from the environment and every all of
(20:29):
the problems. How does this and and you know understand
why it's important that it does remain about all industry
in the United States, how does it compete with largely
forearm made environmentally infrat imported plastic bella mean imitation knock
(20:52):
off products. My question is, as a business industry person,
is that the kind of question I would bring you
your kids, and they would figure it out one thousand percent.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
My answer to you is going to be you let
kids figure that out, right, Yes, you bring it.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
To kids, yep, Okay, well good, I'll just call me
in the next week or so after they figured out. Yeah,
we've been working on her for the last three years
and have not come up with a solution. We'll be
right back.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
But I mean, that's that's part of what we've been
talking about this whole time, is you get kids to
care about this, right, this is a problem that everyone
should care about, but we get kids to care about it,
and it changes the community.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
So really, this changes half of the United States exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
So this is a really small example of this in
a microcosm. So in Florida, we have a huge issue
with invasive species, right, we have a big issue and
it's everywhere. We have the Beatle, We've got all kinds
of things.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And so that eating up trees probably, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I mean, you have this huge thing. So when you
get first grader or second graders, third greaters, high schoolers,
whatever involved in this problem, and you get them to care,
they influence their entire family. You see decision making and proof,
you see buying practices change, you see consumer activities change.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Did they fix the batal problem in Colorado?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So they're they're working on it, and we have second
graders tackle that problem alongside industry, and we have two
patents pending out of that work from second graders, because
again they're so they're naive, they're just looking at a
simple problem and saying, why don't you try this? And
then industry's like, I don't know what I do that
right because we're.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Over there, so we don't understand rocket surgery.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
But the thing is is that you influence an entire community.
You actually change the outcomes for families and communities by
getting kids excited and getting kids to tackle this's like
you take so I hear all the time, especially in
poor communities that we work with, like we can't recycle.
It's too expensive, we can't we can't get a part
of that program. It's it's too expensive. That doesn't that
doesn't really attain to us. They don't care about us,
(23:01):
don't care about how we engage in that. You get
a second grader to set up a recycling program in
their community, and all the adults follow along, like this
is the thing, you can change, this by getting kids
to care about this and getting involved, and they influence.
They have great influence.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Mine was not a metaphorical example, just to fill a
few minutes of a podcast. And I'm just dead so.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Excited while you were talking, because I was like, that
is the perfect problem.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
I am dead as serious.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
It's a problem.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Love to talk with you later about setting every one
of your schools absolutely loose on the side. No, there
needs to be a solution. There are so many reasons to.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Carry so many.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
There's environmental there's self defense, there's national security, there's economic reasons.
And I wish we'd had your schools back when the
foreigniture industry left the Carolinas in the eighties and the
textiles left it in the nineties, and all those blue
collar jobs left, all those cool little towns up and
on the Eastern Seaboard vacant. Well, that's about what's going
to happen with the American logging and lumber industry if
(24:05):
we don't figure this out. And so far none of
my contemporaries, including yours, truly has come up with a solution.
And as I read through all of this and listen
to you, I'm like, I want an army of normal
third graders to figure this out, because it clearly it works.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
It does, it does.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Plus it would be a really great learning experience for kids.
It would be Oh, their mind would explode.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
The perfect problem because it's it's I always say, you
want it to not be something you can google, but
you want it to be rich in media and messy
and ill defined, ill structured. But at the same time
you wanted to have all these different perspectives that they
have to vet it through. My fourth grader's tackled nuclear
power recently, and they had to really they talked to
experts on all sides of the fence, people who are
madly against it, to everyone who loves it, and they
(24:51):
have to decide within all of that research and information,
where their solution is going to lie. And that's the
beauty of this and what you just described spans, you know,
all of these sort of difference. It is right, it
spans like you said, environmental, clear to scientific, it's cultural,
it's all the things. It's the perfect problem.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Well, I don't think it was a very great problem,
but I knew you'd be excited about it, and so
we'll have a follow up interview with you one year
from now when you fix our industry's issues.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
How's that sounds great?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
So let's end with this three impacts. First, your teachers,
let us know really what that evolutions looked like. Second
the kids, and thirdy.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So I mean, I think with teachers, you know, they
are community superheroes. And I know that sounds a little
bit cliche, but underpaid, underpaid, underappreciated all those things, and
they spend the most time with kids and deeply usually
understand what they need and where they're headed. And so
(26:03):
I think just investing them and I don't mean a
ton of money, I just mean some time and some
effort goes a long way. So a little bit appreciation,
a little bit of investment, and we've seen it completely
change teachers' lives. They stay in the profession longer, that
changes their identity, they go on to do really incredible
things themselves. So that's that's a huge impact. And it's
(26:26):
very understated when we think about education, and we always
want to go straight to the student. I get it,
but if we don't take care of the adults in
the system, then it's our student solutions aren't going to
be viable. Second, kids, I mean it's emotional for me,
and I could tell you bazillion stories. I currently have
a brilliant student who now works for me. She was
(26:49):
in middle schooler when I was her principal, and she
started out maybe not the strongest student. I saw a
lot more in my office than I did in the classroom,
and but over the years we remained close. Since she
went on to CSU, she graduated with a degree in
math and physics. She should not be working for me,
she should be working for a defense contractor. She's brilliant.
(27:13):
So working with me, I'm hoping to help her with
some confidence and some different things that she needs to
work on, and then introduce her to some of our partners.
But we've seen it change the entire trajectory of a
family's economic outcome. It's not about academics. It's really about
social structures. It's about the you know, like you said,
(27:34):
just access an opportunity for kids. And when we work
along someone like yourself and they see a different type
of role model than maybe they have in their lives,
even just that small interaction opens up so many doors
for them that they didn't really think was possible before.
So I cannot forget to.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
You, I like I heard you put it elsewhere that
the most profound impact has been on narrative change. And
like these students would think, Hey, my mom's hair addresser.
That's the only thing I could possibly do in getting
them to think beyond that. Not that there's anything wrong
with that, but they should have every opportunity before them.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
And not only that, we.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Had a student her mom that's was thinking of. Her
mom was worked and she was a hairdresser, and she
always said her what do you want to be? And
she's like, oh'll probably do something like my mom. And
I always said, yeah, there's nothing wrong with that, right,
like we need all jobs. And she spent a couple
of years in the first school that we were part of,
and she has now gone on to be a neurologist. What, yes,
(28:35):
she's studying neurology in college.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Well, I mean she and her mom are both working
on people about the nut perfect They are doing the
same thing, ones on the outside, ones on the inside.
Ahead family.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I had at first grade boy that just said, you know,
my dad works on the roads. I'm going to be
in construction. I'm gonna work on roads, which again very noble,
And I said but what have you got to design
different types of roads? What if you could be an
engineer and design types of things and just you know,
it's just that this is again, this is not that
big so but students have really shifted, you know, you
when you meet our kids, it's not I'm a student
(29:10):
or I'm It's like, I'm an engineer, I'm a scientist,
I'm an artist. You know, I'm a creator, I'm a
business owner. So it makes a big difference. I think
for me, yeah, I I mean I feel I love
what I do and I think that's the greatest gift
that you can have. And I think profoundly for me,
(29:35):
it's made me realize truly what a difference, you know,
individuals can make. But it's really really taught me that
it is just about people at the end of the day, right,
It's about hearing their story, approaching with a little bit empathy,
and that the very core of my DNA is solving problems.
(29:58):
And I think that there's nobody better to do that
than kids.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I cannot help but summarize all of what's happened and
all that's been accomplished, and all that you've done, and
this problem based learning and all that you're going to
continue to do and that the lives you and your
approach is going to affect. I cannot help, but just
(30:26):
think about Bob telling you to figure out that horse.
It just feels like that mentality that old school ranch
working in the oil fields. Tough but empathetic, truly understanding
(30:48):
the perspective of another being, whether it's a human or
a horse, and seeing in another person and ability that
they don't even seeing themselves, and requiring them to both
metaphorically and literally get their ass back on that horse. Yes,
(31:10):
I can't. It's just really this thing should be called
Bob Spark.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It should be. But yeah, he triys to be crazy.
We were just recently there for the summer. Hit a
whole pile of gravel he needed moved, and heavy equipment
would do it in two seconds and we got shovels
and wheel barrows.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I love Bob. I want to hang out with Bob.
I want to have a beer with Bob.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
He's a good guy.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Kelly. Just phenomenal story. Thank you for sharing it. Thank
you for the work that you do. Folks hearing us
that want to find out about mind Spark, how do
they do that?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
So website's easy. So it's just mind spark dot org.
Or you can also email me if you want.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
How do you email you?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So first name K E. L I E. Kelly at
MindSpark dot org.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
That's good enough, Alex, you got anything else? We're good?
How about you, Kelly?
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Anything we miss you want to cover?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Its wonderful?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
When do you and when do you and Bobby? You
married w Robert married to Robert? When do you have Bobby?
State anight? Or you're headed up?
Speaker 2 (32:14):
We stay tonight meeting with a few more. He's got
some business means that I'm going to meet with some
of the schools.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Good. We'll enjoy our fair city. Thank you, and I
hope you have a safe trip home and I will
follow up with you in six months to a year
after your children have figured out my big problem know.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Thanks thanks for being here, Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
And thank you for joining us this week. If Kelly
Loth has inspired you in general, or better yet, to
take action by engaging your community schools about mind Spark,
engaging your company about becoming one of their partners, implementing
problem based learning with your own kids, or something else entirely,
(33:04):
please let me know I'd love to hear about it.
You can write me anytime at Bill at normal folks
dot us, and I guarantee you this, I'll respond. If
you enjoyed this episode, I'm begging you, share it with
friends and on social subscribe to the podcast, rate and
review it, Join the army at normal folks dot us,
(33:26):
any and all of these things that will help us
grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Cordy. Until
next time, do what you can do.
Everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
We continue now with part two of our conversation with
Kelly loth Right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
There was a box on the desk, the only thing
the former principal left me with four thousand keys in
it that were not labeled. They went to every single
cabinet indoor in the building in a jumbled box, and
I thought, this is the greatest metaphor for what I'm
doing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I don't even know what they represents. A child, Yes,
like this challenge.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
You know, we had a dead body on the campus,
like the first couple weeks. Yes, like domestic balance this
skuy flew over the fence and died on the grounds.
We had squatters out back. My custodians got in a
fist way. I mean, I cannot make this up. And
I remember calling my dad saying like I this.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Is this is too much.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I'm a little Yeah, I'm in way over in my head.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
And what Bob say.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
He said, you know you figure it out, Yeah, yeah,
you got it. Get back on the worse. You're fine.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
But so we went Bob in just to hang out
at the school for a week, hit a couple of
kids with a witch and straighten things out.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yep, and uh, twenty five twenty five teachers walked out.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Walked out when you walked in, Huh, guy, they weren't
having you.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
They weren't They were done. They were done the whole thing.
And so I had to hire pretty much a new staff.
And when I walked in the ones who stayed plus
the new ones, the first thing I said was if
you don't believe that kids who are poor, kids who
are black, or kids who are brown, can learn, then
you get out because I'm not doing this with you.
This is not happening all of your classrooms. You have
(01:54):
shown me that you lower standards for these kids and
not raise them. And this stops today. And so if
you're not going to be on this journey with me,
you're out you. I will not work with you.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yes, that's what I expected the first school. So that's
what happened the school. And I walked over the dead
body and left left.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yep. I said, you know, we have to climb out
Everest twice and we're not even at base camp. I
have six graders who can't read most of my kids
are three levels behind, like this is this is real.
So if you're not up for the challenge, you gotta go.
And they did so in one year, one year, one year,
we went from a turnaround school on the verge of
(02:33):
being closed to a performance school. How by just doing
problem based learning, by investing in my staff, by saying
we're going to believe kids can learn, and we're going
to invite industry in to make things relevant and authentic.
And that's it. Like everyone, you know, we're always looking
for this like silver bullet or this magical thing in education,
it's not it's about people. Keep telling people, it's not
(02:56):
about stuff. It's about human beings. And just really investing
in my staff, leadership training, project management training, again, throwing
them out into industry, saying you're going to leave this initiative,
you're going to do that, you're going to figure it out.
I mean our values were have porous boundaries, be a
yes organization and fail fast and pivot. That's it. And
that looks more like a business mantra than it does
(03:17):
an education mantra.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
It does, and that's how we I'm thinking, that's what
I do every day.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Right and That's how I led the school, was, you know,
on the model of industry of like, we're not going
to be stuck. We're just going to dig in and
figure it out. And we just started doing lots of things.
We started feeding kids, started clothing kids, we started helping
adults connect to education. I mean, just all these programs
and all these things just start. We fed kids breakfast, lunch,
and dinner. You know. We just started becoming this kind
(03:43):
of community hub and this innovation center, and that was
really the goal. And people came to visit and got
it pretty excited.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
How old your son at this one?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So here's the thing, Mike, I have three kids, and
my son's in middle school at this point. They're in
a private school up north, and I said to my husband,
I got to walk my talk. So we took them
out of a private school and put them in my school.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
That school, Yeah, how much should your kids like you?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
It was a huge change for them. And I will
say one of the greatest things we've ever.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Done, that's getting kicked off a horse. That's your version
m hm.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Because if it was going to be good enough for
the kids in that neighborhood, would should be good enough
for my kids.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Did it worry doing that? It worries a little bit
of a.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Mom Yeah, definitely. I mean I'd be lying if I
said it wasn't. But I also knew that it would
be okay, and it was. I mean, not only was
it such a much better learning trajectory for them, they
went on to the high school that I had worked
with prior. We have a great high school in our neighborhood.
(04:53):
Everybody goes to the high school. And I'll never forget
putting a Northland High School stake in my ground because
my kids were getting ready to graduate and my neighbor said,
your kids go to Northland. Why like what? I said, Yeah,
they do like it, just you know, it's like it's
still just had that.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Sort of Are your kids any What are their ages?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So they're all in college now, they play all of
them play sports in college.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
All play sports in college.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yes, And my son was studied engineering in my Stem school,
study engineering in the Stem high school, is studying engineering
in college.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
What's he play? He lacrosse, all right? The next two lacrosse,
lacrosse and lacrosse.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And my daughter also plays flag football in college. So
she plays club because they don't have Yeah, programs, that's
so cool, it's very cool. And then she's in BAOMED
and she started that track in middle school.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Wow. All right, so now you say, yeah, So I.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Had partners, industry partners and donor partners still anthropy partners
that were like, this has gotta be scaled, this has
got to go somewhere. And so this mind spark was
sort of born of this idea that teachers matter, adults
in the system matter, and we do a lot of
programs for kids, but we don't often kind of put
those adults in that equation and could we scale what
(06:13):
we were doing nationally? And that's really I mean, that's it.
That's the premise of it.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Well, so tell me what the mind sparks go. It's
a spark as an acronym, and you've got really five
targeted rifle shot and things you're achieving.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah. So the S stands for sustained transformation. So we
don't want to be a one and done, We don't
want to be this drive by organization. We want to
know that if you work with us, not only is
there return on your investment, but also that this idea
is sustained. Right, it grows its scales, it's replicable, it's durable.
The other one is partnerships are formed so we don't
go into any community where I don't leave behind five
(06:53):
to seven foundational partnerships for the schools, industry, community, orgs,
whatever it is. The AA is that all succeed. Again,
just this foundational belief that this should be good for
all kids, right, that we all succeed, no one is
left behind. And then the ours for recruitment and retention.
So teachers tend to not stay in the profession very long.
(07:14):
And so this idea was that we wanted teachers to
stay and love what they do and kind of create
this identity about being the greatest workforce developers in America, right,
being foundational to the economy, being foundational to society. And
then the last one is just kinetic, this idea that
what you do matters and that you if I upskill
you and I invest in you, I expect you to
(07:34):
go pass it along. You go do something cool with
what you've learned.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
And so the idea is to invest in teachers to
then go back to their districts all in the world
and carry this problem solving model with them.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yes, and we work with teachers principles. Yeah, yeah, and
we work with large and small systems. It's not just
teacher by teacher, but we work with groups, schools, districts.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
So how do you get these teachers and where do
they come and how does it work?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
So the interesting about mind Spark is actually our clients
are industry partners. So I work with some of the
biggest brands in the world. I work with Samsung, kpmg IBM.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Auto clients are them, Yes.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So what happens is industry. So you're an industry you
would come and say I want to do something in education,
I want to make an investment in education, or I've
done something for a long time in education it's not
really working. I'm not getting a return on my investment.
Or we have a program we run an education I'm
fed up, right, I feel like the system's broken. I've done,
or we have a program we've done, but we're tired
of running it. So they come to us and we
(08:38):
help them revamp, re up their strategy, reimagine it, create
a new one, give them one whatever it is, and
then we deploy that work with schools all over the country.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Wow, so where are you how many schools. I mean,
tell me what it looks like. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So we currently have worked with just over one hundred
thousand educators. We've been backed at about two point seven
million kiddos. We've worked with tens of thousands of schools
and that's everything from like literally a micro school with
one teacher and three kids to LA unified. So we
don't we define teaching learning very broadly and it's all
community centered. So we come to you, we spend time,
(09:20):
we get to know the community, we get to know
the assets in the community, we get to map all
the partners that are already in the space, and then
we're the whole school district.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yes, an entire district.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, I mean we've had trainings as large as you know,
over six hundred people together. We've had trainings as smart
is certainly.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Follow up to make sure these teachers are doing what
they supposed to leave.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So we follow every cohort. We follow every cohort for
up to two years post engagement to see what they're doing,
and we collect data on the wow to say is
it working, are they still at it, are they still there,
are they making more money? Are they happier? What are
kids doing what's.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
That look like is the can you qualify the return
on that investment at all?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah? So right now, if you are a mind Spark educator,
you've worked with us and a cohort. We have an
eighty eight percent teacher attention rate, no kidding, and I
think the national average is on forty forty two.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Oh, you're better at what you do and happier because
you are better at what you do. We'll be right back, and.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Your identity shifts. You're not just a teacher, right You're
a STEM teacher. You're an engineering teacher. You're someone who
works alongside industry. You've been in an internship with IBM
and you feel really upskilled in AI. It changes who
you are as a teacher. One of our programs, when
you're through about seventy five percent of the program, you're
(10:54):
salary doubles as a teacher.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Closing opportunity gaps, which is a big one for me.
I don't believe everybody deserves happiness. I believe everybody deserves
the pursuit of it. I know that's old school, but
that's how I feel about. Bob would agree with me.
But I do believe that the barriers to opportunity in
a lot of situations exists. I think it's a real thing,
(11:22):
and so closing gaps is one thing. Closing the opportunity gaps,
I think is just a requirement of a civil society.
I'm a Christian. I think it's a requirement of my
faith to close a gap and just opportunity. If the
opportunities equal in the gap exists, well then that's a
(11:43):
different conversation talk about. And that may be more than
one sided, but typically an opportunity gap is closed by
the people with the power. So it's a one sided thing, correct.
That's how I feel, and I feel we have to
get rid of those and one of the things. And
it's one of my big pet beeves. And I was
(12:05):
toward the end of Alexis Prep when I saw this,
and I really wanted you to talk about it. Closing
opportunity gaps for example within Todd County in South Dakota,
which I have no earthly clue where that is. Our
work with the Lakota Sanson and he says, sangsu nations again,
(12:25):
it's a it's a first person's nation. It is lifted
students from three grade levels below the national average to
sixty three percent performing above the district average. That's all
about an opportunity gap, because if that doesn't happen, those
kids don't even have the opportunity to be a part
(12:48):
of a civil society. Correct, how'd you do that.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Papa Beast Learning. So we got a small grant to
go to one of the largest reservations in South Dakota
where it was a huge and schools are generally kind
of hundreds of miles apart, so geography even geographical challenge.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Geographic it's mass expansive.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
And it's a nation Native American.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Nation indigenous community. Yeah. And when we got there it
was actually kind of right on the heels of COVID
and uh So we got in there thinking, so we
went in with the premise of again an industry partner
had an interest in this community. We went in with
the premise of getting more girls excited about stem opportunities
and entering the workforce because they don't typically do that
in this community. When we got there, no running water,
(13:37):
electricity was scarce, I mean in the school, in the community,
in the community, lots tons of houses with no running water,
tons of houses with very little electricity, access to like
electricity and Wi Fi and just some basic humanity pieces.
And so we went back to the partner and said, Okay,
girls in stem is cool. I believe in my whole heart,
that's not what we're going to do. We're going to
(13:58):
start working with schools. We're going to bring in problem
based learning and kids and teachers are going to start
tackling access to clean water, access to Wi Fi, food, sovereignty,
housing security.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I wouldn't have even thought of it that way, but
you said, okay, we'll have our kids. Yes. Six, the
basic problems first.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Because you, when you were part of the system, you
have an obligation and a right and a privilege to
solve the problems in your system, and.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
You would be very interested in that works.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
It's not sustainable if I come in and set solve
it for you, that's not sustainable. When I walk away,
you're not going to You're gonna go back to doing
what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Bottom up solutions too. All this screams bottom up solution.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I mean it's it's these global problems, but they're locally sourced, right.
I mean I every time I hear from a community,
oh we have this, we have this wrong, I'm like
you're not special. That's the problems we see everywhere we go.
But the way you solve it with your people is good.
What's going to matter? And that's what they did. So
kids tackled so one of their biggest problems was a
lot of students were not staying within their culture, so
(14:56):
their language was dying out there, a lot of their
heritage and their traditions were not being sort of captured
by the next generation because they saw it as something
not tied to their identity. And so through problem based
learning again, we spent several years with them, two years
with them, we just started working on problems grade level
by grade level, tackling what I just said, food sovereignty, right,
(15:19):
how do we get healthy food here? How do you
start growing your own food? How do you go back
to this sort of culture you have around egg What
are jobs that we can sort of then start bringing
in the tide of that, this idea of revitalizing the
Lakota language and culture. What does that look like? What
are kids going to care about? So it just started
there and that's that's it. And then that the kids
(15:40):
performing better at reading, it's a byproduct.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
So they.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
That wasn't the goal right, Like I didn't come and
say I'm going to creach your literacy scores. So that's
a byproduct of again being authentically engaged in learning.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
It's phenomenal. Before we go to kind of wrapping this up,
you're gonna have to suffer me for five minutes. I'm
in the hardwood lumber business. I'm gonna have to do
this quickly with you. I wish we had an hour.
I really did hardwood. The difference in hardwoods and softwoods
(16:22):
are scientifically. Hardwoods are deciduous and nutree that loses its
leaves are in the winter is a hardwood that keeps
us comfort during the winter. As softwood, it's has nothing
to do with the texture of the way. In terms
of use practicalities, think of it this way. Softwood's build
of structure. Hardwoods furnish it. Hardwood's going to flooring and cabinets, molding, millwork,
(16:46):
things like that. The hardwood industry is robust industry. The
hardwood log is really a two piece thing. The outside
of the log, the outside half of the log creates
the lumber in a lower grade, of middle grade and
higher grade that make all the things I talk about.
But the inside of the log is very important for
(17:08):
industrial uses. It is what you make railroad ties on it.
It is what you make crane mat and board road
out of for oil and gas exploration. It is where
tractor trailer flooring comes from. It is where it's got
all kinds of really important industrial and really economic and
national security uses. And there's really no substitute for it
(17:31):
other than if you get into really expensive plastics. But
it's not there. Because housing has gotten so expensive, people
have started using substitutes for things like flooring doors. The
very floor you're looking at right now is not hardwoods.
That's lvl, it's plastic. It's horrible for the environment. It
(17:56):
does it's not biodegradea but when it goes on a
landfill and you can't refinish it, but it's thirty percent cheaper.
So the advent of these substitutes. If you'll think of linoleum,
like your grandmother's linoleum countertops, it used to be that
shiny green yes, well, that very product, that very plastic product,
(18:18):
which is a petroleum based, mercury based product excruded through
plastic machines, then glued on top of glued up breast board.
Back in the seventies, people knew exactly what that was,
with a little hard squared edge around the corners, very ugly.
Science has evolved to a place that they can now
(18:40):
make that stuff to look just like textured hardwoods and
all kinds of different colors with everything else. And so
now people are making flooring and cabinets and everything out
of it. And it's smoking my industry because it's thirty
percent cheaper, and people are trying to build houses cheaper.
And now even architects that used to snub their nose
that these things are I specking them for cost issues.
(19:02):
As a result, the hardwood industry, my industry is getting
absolutely smoked as a result. How we're going to build
our railroads from the middle of a log if can't
use the outside, how are we going to dol and
gas exploration. There's a lot of downside to all of this.
One other thing is there's three times more lightning strikes
(19:25):
east of the Mississippi River as they are west of
the Missippi River. But the west seems to as forest
fires all the time. In the east. Do you know why?
Because we log A logging road is a natural firebreak,
and when you take mature trees and you select of
cut and use the little ones. We actually have seventy
percent more harvestable timber east of the Missippi River than
(19:46):
we did one hundred years ago because of sustainable forestry practices. Okay,
I've gone on that's I could do this forever. But
the point is we're going to start having forest fires
and losing timber and losing industry because if we're not
taking these lugs and cultivating for the use, Look what
happens to the forest and you have then you get
that bent of beetles and all kinds of things that
(20:07):
kill the forest. And at any rate, here's a problem.
How does the solid hardwood industry compete with cheap or
sit in at one cheap knockoff plastics and substitute products
that are bad from the environment and every all of
(20:29):
the problems. How does this and and you know understand
why it's important that it does remain about all industry
in the United States, how does it compete with largely
forearm made environmentally infrat imported plastic bella mean imitation knock
(20:52):
off products. My question is, as a business industry person,
is that the kind of question I would bring you
your kids, and they would figure it out one thousand percent.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
My answer to you is going to be you let
kids figure that out, right, Yes, you bring it.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
To kids, yep, Okay, well good, I'll just call me
in the next week or so after they figured out. Yeah,
we've been working on her for the last three years
and have not come up with a solution. We'll be
right back.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
But I mean, that's that's part of what we've been
talking about this whole time, is you get kids to
care about this, right, this is a problem that everyone
should care about, but we get kids to care about it,
and it changes the community.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
So really, this changes half of the United States exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
So this is a really small example of this in
a microcosm. So in Florida, we have a huge issue
with invasive species, right, we have a big issue and
it's everywhere. We have the Beatle, We've got all kinds
of things.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
And so that eating up trees probably, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I mean, you have this huge thing. So when you
get first grader or second graders, third greaters, high schoolers,
whatever involved in this problem, and you get them to care,
they influence their entire family. You see decision making and proof,
you see buying practices change, you see consumer activities change.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Did they fix the batal problem in Colorado?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So they're they're working on it, and we have second
graders tackle that problem alongside industry, and we have two
patents pending out of that work from second graders, because
again they're so they're naive, they're just looking at a
simple problem and saying, why don't you try this? And
then industry's like, I don't know what I do that
right because we're.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Over there, so we don't understand rocket surgery.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
But the thing is is that you influence an entire community.
You actually change the outcomes for families and communities by
getting kids excited and getting kids to tackle this's like
you take so I hear all the time, especially in
poor communities that we work with, like we can't recycle.
It's too expensive, we can't we can't get a part
of that program. It's it's too expensive. That doesn't that
doesn't really attain to us. They don't care about us,
(23:01):
don't care about how we engage in that. You get
a second grader to set up a recycling program in
their community, and all the adults follow along, like this
is the thing, you can change, this by getting kids
to care about this and getting involved, and they influence.
They have great influence.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Mine was not a metaphorical example, just to fill a
few minutes of a podcast. And I'm just dead so.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Excited while you were talking, because I was like, that
is the perfect problem.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
I am dead as serious.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
It's a problem.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Love to talk with you later about setting every one
of your schools absolutely loose on the side. No, there
needs to be a solution. There are so many reasons to.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Carry so many.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
There's environmental there's self defense, there's national security, there's economic reasons.
And I wish we'd had your schools back when the
foreigniture industry left the Carolinas in the eighties and the
textiles left it in the nineties, and all those blue
collar jobs left, all those cool little towns up and
on the Eastern Seaboard vacant. Well, that's about what's going
to happen with the American logging and lumber industry if
(24:05):
we don't figure this out. And so far none of
my contemporaries, including yours, truly has come up with a solution.
And as I read through all of this and listen
to you, I'm like, I want an army of normal
third graders to figure this out, because it clearly it works.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
It does, it does.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Plus it would be a really great learning experience for kids.
It would be Oh, their mind would explode.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
The perfect problem because it's it's I always say, you
want it to not be something you can google, but
you want it to be rich in media and messy
and ill defined, ill structured. But at the same time
you wanted to have all these different perspectives that they
have to vet it through. My fourth grader's tackled nuclear
power recently, and they had to really they talked to
experts on all sides of the fence, people who are
madly against it, to everyone who loves it, and they
(24:51):
have to decide within all of that research and information,
where their solution is going to lie. And that's the
beauty of this and what you just described spans, you know,
all of these sort of difference. It is right, it
spans like you said, environmental, clear to scientific, it's cultural,
it's all the things. It's the perfect problem.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Well, I don't think it was a very great problem,
but I knew you'd be excited about it, and so
we'll have a follow up interview with you one year
from now when you fix our industry's issues.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
How's that sounds great?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
So let's end with this three impacts. First, your teachers,
let us know really what that evolutions looked like. Second
the kids, and thirdy.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So I mean, I think with teachers, you know, they
are community superheroes. And I know that sounds a little
bit cliche, but underpaid, underpaid, underappreciated all those things, and
they spend the most time with kids and deeply usually
understand what they need and where they're headed. And so
(26:03):
I think just investing them and I don't mean a
ton of money, I just mean some time and some
effort goes a long way. So a little bit appreciation,
a little bit of investment, and we've seen it completely
change teachers' lives. They stay in the profession longer, that
changes their identity, they go on to do really incredible
things themselves. So that's that's a huge impact. And it's
(26:26):
very understated when we think about education, and we always
want to go straight to the student. I get it,
but if we don't take care of the adults in
the system, then it's our student solutions aren't going to
be viable. Second, kids, I mean it's emotional for me,
and I could tell you bazillion stories. I currently have
a brilliant student who now works for me. She was
(26:49):
in middle schooler when I was her principal, and she
started out maybe not the strongest student. I saw a
lot more in my office than I did in the classroom,
and but over the years we remained close. Since she
went on to CSU, she graduated with a degree in
math and physics. She should not be working for me,
she should be working for a defense contractor. She's brilliant.
(27:13):
So working with me, I'm hoping to help her with
some confidence and some different things that she needs to
work on, and then introduce her to some of our partners.
But we've seen it change the entire trajectory of a
family's economic outcome. It's not about academics. It's really about
social structures. It's about the you know, like you said,
(27:34):
just access an opportunity for kids. And when we work
along someone like yourself and they see a different type
of role model than maybe they have in their lives,
even just that small interaction opens up so many doors
for them that they didn't really think was possible before.
So I cannot forget to.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
You, I like I heard you put it elsewhere that
the most profound impact has been on narrative change. And
like these students would think, Hey, my mom's hair addresser.
That's the only thing I could possibly do in getting
them to think beyond that. Not that there's anything wrong
with that, but they should have every opportunity before them.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
And not only that, we.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Had a student her mom that's was thinking of. Her
mom was worked and she was a hairdresser, and she
always said her what do you want to be? And
she's like, oh'll probably do something like my mom. And
I always said, yeah, there's nothing wrong with that, right,
like we need all jobs. And she spent a couple
of years in the first school that we were part of,
and she has now gone on to be a neurologist. What, yes,
(28:35):
she's studying neurology in college.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Well, I mean she and her mom are both working
on people about the nut perfect They are doing the
same thing, ones on the outside, ones on the inside.
Ahead family.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I had at first grade boy that just said, you know,
my dad works on the roads. I'm going to be
in construction. I'm gonna work on roads, which again very noble,
And I said but what have you got to design
different types of roads? What if you could be an
engineer and design types of things and just you know,
it's just that this is again, this is not that
big so but students have really shifted, you know, you
when you meet our kids, it's not I'm a student
(29:10):
or I'm It's like, I'm an engineer, I'm a scientist,
I'm an artist. You know, I'm a creator, I'm a
business owner. So it makes a big difference. I think
for me, yeah, I I mean I feel I love
what I do and I think that's the greatest gift
that you can have. And I think profoundly for me,
(29:35):
it's made me realize truly what a difference, you know,
individuals can make. But it's really really taught me that
it is just about people at the end of the day, right,
It's about hearing their story, approaching with a little bit empathy,
and that the very core of my DNA is solving problems.
(29:58):
And I think that there's nobody better to do that
than kids.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I cannot help but summarize all of what's happened and
all that's been accomplished, and all that you've done, and
this problem based learning and all that you're going to
continue to do and that the lives you and your
approach is going to affect. I cannot help, but just
(30:26):
think about Bob telling you to figure out that horse.
It just feels like that mentality that old school ranch
working in the oil fields. Tough but empathetic, truly understanding
(30:48):
the perspective of another being, whether it's a human or
a horse, and seeing in another person and ability that
they don't even seeing themselves, and requiring them to both
metaphorically and literally get their ass back on that horse. Yes,
(31:10):
I can't. It's just really this thing should be called
Bob Spark.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
It should be. But yeah, he triys to be crazy.
We were just recently there for the summer. Hit a
whole pile of gravel he needed moved, and heavy equipment
would do it in two seconds and we got shovels
and wheel barrows.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I love Bob. I want to hang out with Bob.
I want to have a beer with Bob.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
He's a good guy.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Kelly. Just phenomenal story. Thank you for sharing it. Thank
you for the work that you do. Folks hearing us
that want to find out about mind Spark, how do
they do that?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
So website's easy. So it's just mind spark dot org.
Or you can also email me if you want.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
How do you email you?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So first name K E. L I E. Kelly at
MindSpark dot org.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
That's good enough, Alex, you got anything else? We're good?
How about you, Kelly?
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Anything we miss you want to cover?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Its wonderful?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
When do you and when do you and Bobby? You
married w Robert married to Robert? When do you have Bobby?
State anight? Or you're headed up?
Speaker 2 (32:14):
We stay tonight meeting with a few more. He's got
some business means that I'm going to meet with some
of the schools.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Good. We'll enjoy our fair city. Thank you, and I
hope you have a safe trip home and I will
follow up with you in six months to a year
after your children have figured out my big problem know.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Thanks thanks for being here, Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
And thank you for joining us this week. If Kelly
Loth has inspired you in general, or better yet, to
take action by engaging your community schools about mind Spark,
engaging your company about becoming one of their partners, implementing
problem based learning with your own kids, or something else entirely,
(33:04):
please let me know I'd love to hear about it.
You can write me anytime at Bill at normal folks
dot us, and I guarantee you this, I'll respond. If
you enjoyed this episode, I'm begging you, share it with
friends and on social subscribe to the podcast, rate and
review it, Join the army at normal folks dot us,
(33:26):
any and all of these things that will help us
grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Cordy. Until
next time, do what you can do.
Host
Bill Courtney
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