#36 - Justin Gabinet: Unlocking the Secrets to Holistic Education: Empathy, Culture, Death and Resilience - Long Term Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello You Beautiful people. Welcome.
Back to the long term podcast, I'm your host, Advan Villa.
Today we have one of the best teachers ever, Justin Gabinet.
Justin is a senior. Program.
Coordinator with the Ministry ofAdvanced Education, where his

(00:21):
passion for education truly shines.
With a background as a dedicatedCTS teacher for a decade
specializing in high school foods, Justin brings a wealth of
real world teaching experience to his current role as a
professional human ecologist. He deeply appreciates the

(00:43):
interdisciplinary nature of education and its power to
foster interconnectedness among.Learners.
Justin's commitment to educational excellence and his
unique blend of practical and academic expertise positions him
as a valuable contributor to thebroader educational landscape.
Everyone welcome. We are live.

(01:06):
We are live. OK, let's do it.
Here with. V Justin Gabinetz That's me.
Yeah. So.
Yeah. How was your day?
The day was good. It was busy.
Did a lot of reading, a lot of writing.
Yeah, it was a it was a good day.
Busy. Yeah.
For all of you that don't know, this was my teacher back at

(01:29):
Archbishop Jordan High School and wow, five years ago now,
since it. Which is why I didn't feel like
five years ago. What inspired you to integrate
nutrition and cooking into life preparation courses?
And how do you believe it enhances students overall
education? So really good question.

(01:51):
I think first and foremost I think we get caught up in the
idea of academia and for a lot of people that can be, and
rightfully so, like the end all,be all.
I'm a firm believer in teaching holistically, so I taught
academically. I taught non academic courses in
university in my education classes.
My major was in human ecology which lent itself to more foods.

(02:15):
Why did you choose human ecology?
I think originally when I was inhigh school myself, I've always
was really passionate about cooking and food and had a
really good relationship with how to cook and stuff like that.
But I didn't want to go into becoming a chef.
I was like, I need something a little bit more academic.
And what ended up happening there was my food teacher was

(02:37):
like, you know, you can become afood teacher, right?
And I was like, oh, that's that's a route.
That's a route. Didn't know that was a thing.
So went to university, went to grad QN.
And then I guess it's now McEwan.
And then just EU of AI. Did two years at each.
And yeah, I know it was a reallycool experience.
And in and of itself, kind of going back to my forward comment

(02:58):
about teaching holistically, being human ecology major in
secondary education allowed me to take a lot of very
interesting courses. So one of my favorite courses
was when I got to it was Classics 3363.
I can't remember exactly the number.
Pathology. That's Classics.

(03:18):
Gosh, it's not. It's based on that one, but it's
a higher level. So it was actually when I got to
go and live in Rome. Yeah.
So I did an exchange program. Yeah.
So I I was there for about 3 months.
I lived in a Polish convent, so I lived with nuns.
I had two pH DS as my essentially not tour guides but
like my professors at this course has been mind blowing.

(03:39):
It was really cool. And you got a really, really in
depth version of what Rome is like in Italy and the classical
literature and everything. And it was, it was such a cool
eye opening experience and you got to really not only immerse
yourself in ancient Rome, but also the the, the everyday of
Rome in and of itself. And it's just such a cool
experience. And that really opened my eyes

(04:00):
up to a lot of things I've I've really been obsessed about
ancient Rome. And Marcus Aurelius.
Oh yes, just his, his philosophy, meditations and
everything. Yes, I have his book and just
his ideas on forgiveness about discipline about.
Viewing. Others as just humans, right?

(04:21):
For what they absolutely the most powerful person in the
world, arguably at that time. At that time, Yeah, ancient
realm. Like, I know there's a trend
like about talking about like how often you can think about
the Roman Empire. And I was like, oh, I probably
think about it way too much, 'cause I literally lived in
Rome, but yeah, no, Rome. And like the classics that they
taught there so much profound transcendent knowledge that I

(04:42):
think people can learn. Like there's there's a reason
why it's classical is that it istimeless and and there's so many
good lessons to pull from it. So like for example there's an
Epictetus quote who again was a Roman philosopher or maybe
Greek. I can't remember exactly but
it's like he had he had beautiful just thoughts like
food. Like let your security to

(05:04):
Epsilon Latin which roughly translate is not only take care
of yourself but let thy food be like medicine and medicine be
like food. And there's just something also
that that kind of goes kind of full circle about why and how I
got into teaching nutrition and and kids how to cook.
And to that end, I would say, like seeing kids how to cook is
just wild because so many peoplecome from families or

(05:27):
backgrounds where they don't cook or they don't have any
capacity to learn about nutritious, learn about
nutrition. And you know, I'm very blessed
in the sense that I get to teachkids and even adults how to make
meals. Like we always we don't
necessarily make our own clothes, we don't necessarily
build our own cars, But food is the longest relationship you're

(05:48):
going to ever have. Because.
You can't live. Without it, exactly.
Food will always be something that you need.
I I don't know. I can't picture a world where we
don't need. Food I that would be an awful.
World I wouldn't want to live there.
Food is. There's a quote that I always
like to say is food is love madevisible and there's there's a
great deal. I think of something so

(06:09):
transcendent there and that the idea that everyone, it's one of
the things that always unites usis that the idea of food,
everyone at some point is sitting down breaking.
And in and of itself, I think that's why people should learn
how to cook. And that's how you connect with
people. And you had mentioned Epictetus.
Is that Epictetus? Yeah, I've been pronouncing it
wrong all the time then. So Epictetus was an Epicurean.
So that's where you get the ideaof that lingo.

(06:32):
But yeah, he he had some amazingquotes on food.
I don't know if it's quite aboutfood, but I I.
Repeat the quote that he says it's wealth is not in having
great things, it's in wanting few in that kind of depart that
with food really when it comes to what to be content to focus

(06:55):
on what you truly need. Food's one of them.
Oh, absolutely. Like there's all these people
with. Materialism and just wearing
design or everything? But Food's one of those.
Things where if you treat your body right, if you design energy
that is a custom for your own mind and body, then you're going

(07:16):
to augment every facet of your life because it floods in to the
interactions that you have with other people.
How you feel, how you view the world, the lens that you view it
and it all comes down to your food and you you hit the nail on
the head. It's like food.
Namely, another thing that like that, not say it controls, but
like our wound revolves around on a daily basis.

(07:39):
I'll wait, because there's nothing, right?
There's food is both something that is so interconnected and
something that is so important to all of us for different
reasons. And going back to your report
about like simply is like some of the best food you've probably
ever had is also the simplest like just like making a loaf of
bread like something if if everyone like when you think

(08:00):
about freshly baked bread, that's just something,
especially when you're hungry, exactly maximizes the the
dopamine, the satisfaction. Oh, absolutely.
You go through. A fasting period.
Just the next. It doesn't matter what it is.
Anything tastes good. And especially especially when
it's a food that you love. And that's, yeah, no, I can talk

(08:23):
about food for literally hours. That's awesome.
How do you approach teaching nutrition and cooking the
students with the varying levelsof interest and experience in
the kitchen? So another great question.
I guess the first thing I alwaysdo is I try to make people to be
at a similar level. So whether that be lowering or

(08:44):
raising the bar, depending, you just go ahead and start
somewhere. And I think in terms of like
varying degrees of interest. I've always had a couple kids
that in my past that I took foods because they thought it
was going to be fun. Easy.
It's always fun. To some degree it's food should
be fun. But I've never had people who
are just like so over the class because XY or Z, they they end

(09:07):
up loving the class because I think there's something so
catharic about not only for mental health but also just like
it's teaching a life skill. And again like we've seen that
the transmission of knowledge like especially around COVID
like a lot of people what do they turn to?
Oh they turn to baking bread anda lot of cooking and they fell
in love with cooking and making their own food.

(09:30):
So I think when it comes down toit is people are always going to
have very interesting self. It's as a teacher, I always
approach it from a sense of I'm bored.
Then the kids will be bored. If I'm excited, then people,
people will feed on that energy.And I always try to come about.
It was like, I'm excited about make.
We're going to make something. Yeah, you could always be.
I'm always going to poop on matha little bit.

(09:51):
But yeah, you could always be doing math right now.
But hey, making cake, what's more exciting?
I think it's one of those classes too, where people do not
skip foods. I just don't hear but.
They don't. At least in my class there was
always a couple and I haunted them down when they did.
But the Yeah, no, a lot of kids.Again, we know that high school

(10:12):
and your academic rigor is so intense.
And I think. There's going back to the.
The piece about teaching the whole child is like there's
something to be said about just taking a class that yes, you
learn a lot from, but also you get to you get to literally
taste that you've made and not to again, bad with any other

(10:33):
subject area. But like, yeah, I'm always a
little bit biased because like people are excited about it.
Like I'm excited about teaching it.
The I've been in one foods class.
I wish I'd taken more. But.
You are a part of this communityand you guys work towards an
objective and after that objective is reached, the
reward. And that's where.

(10:54):
You sit down and you eat your own creation.
There's such beauty in that because you're working with your
friends and you're there's a head, there's a teacher and you
guys. Are just the communication.
Part of it and it's just you don't really need to study as
much. It's not.
As you said, it's very cathartic.
When you see that bread just popup and find to come to fruition

(11:18):
and you see the the meat that you've diced and minced and you
see the red veggies that you come up and you make this soup
and it all comes together. It's an artwork, Yeah, 100% and
then you. Indulge in it.
Exactly. Like, I think there's also a
piece that, and if you kind of hit the nail on the head is like
you're talking to when when you're taking a food class,
you're not just learning how to cook, you're learning how to
communicate. You're learning time management,

(11:40):
you're learning budgeting, learning.
There's a lot more that that we call the hidden curriculum that
kids are learning. And I would say kids, but I
really mean young adults becauselike, when you're cooking with
groups, like things can literally get really feisty.
Like, I've seen fights and I've seen break UPS happen in the
foods lab. I've seen it all.
And again, you're dealing with like essentially like I'm giving
you, doesn't use knives and fire.

(12:02):
What could go wrong? And part of it is like,
sometimes there's there are reallife stuff.
Yeah, because people to save money.
What do people do? They stop eating out.
That's kind of the first thing that always pops up.
And what do they need to learn after that?
They need to learn how to cook, to make it taste good.
Exactly. In our in our generation.

(12:23):
I'm going to put ourselves in the same generation here a
little bit. But a lot of people don't know
how to cook. And it's surprisingly like the
the amount of people that are like come in and they have blank
slate when it comes to their ability to cook.
Always, always amazes me. Yeah, it's it's quite terrifying
actually, because what are you, what are you going to do?
And if mom's not around. If dad's not around.

(12:46):
To cook. He's always over eats.
But yeah, over eats and then if you spend that every night,
racks up very fast. Absolutely.
Not only that it's not the healthiest for you.
No. And I always, I always jokingly
say that food and teaching food and nutrition is it's always a
combination of like treat yourself and how good naked it's

(13:07):
that it's that happy medium where you always have to like
have a good relationship with your food.
Like growing up, I didn't necessarily have the best
relationship with food. Not going to be attributed to a
lot of different things. But that's also part of the
reasons why I went into becominga food teacher is I got to have
a healthier relationship with food.
And we're seeing. These huge huge.
Things coming out from the pandemic.

(13:28):
We've seen huge bodies, huge things.
I meant diagnosis that come out from these because like, what
did everyone turn to again during the pandemic?
More hard times. It turned to food because it's
comfort. And yeah, like, I again, I could
just start talking ad nauseam about this because I love
talking about you. Yeah, no, me too.
I this is beautiful. And I actually had Jayden

(13:51):
Sarson. You taught him?
Yeah, he's a chef now that I forget what which place he was.
I think he's at, actually. No.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I had him on the podcast.
That's awesome. But you had mentioned the kind
of the mental illnesses that have come about with the
pandemic and I I thought part ofit.

(14:12):
I just the food was my escape when there was no one to talk to
when there was just the morale was low and just to to numb the
pain of existence. Yeah.
I mean like again we're going through a global trauma.
Yeah. And so again what do we turn to
when we're hurting some capacitythings that were confident to
us. Yeah.

(14:32):
For many people that's food. Yeah.
So like I get I get like I probably did the exact same
thing. Like we always talk about people
gaining weight during COVID and it's because we again, we we
weren't allowed to do anything really.
And yes, did people start cooking more?
Absolutely. But did people probably over
indulge in a lot of other thingsas well?
400% easy access? You don't have to go anywhere.

(14:55):
It's the easiest. Thing to do?
Absolutely. Just indulge.
In what ways do you think learning about nutrition and
cooking fosters important life skills and healthy habits among
students and kind of touched up?Touched up on this.
But elaborate, yeah, no, I thinkthere's when it comes to how
like I mentioned earlier is the food that you consume and have

(15:17):
is the longest relationship you're going to have.
You get to have that very personal relationship with food
And so teaching nutrition which is the science of food, it is
also the the, the looking at it in kind of the law of averages.
So if we're talking about if we look at like the Canadian Food
Guide in the last five years it's changed.
And the reason for that again isthe the science and nutrition

(15:39):
has evolved. And so I think there's something
to be said about teaching kids about nutrition and doing it in
a something called a a body neutral language.
And again, whenever I teach nutrition, there's always going
to be anxiety around those because people automatically
think oh, I'm not healthy or I'mtoo healthy or whatever.

(16:02):
And I I always do an amazing article, one of my favorite
food, food people. Her name is Julie Ben Rosendahl
and I recommend her. I always say I want to be Julie
when I grow up because she just literally she just has such a
cool ability to write about food.
And she wrote an article that I always teach when I teach

(16:22):
nutrition and it's it's the dangers of what was it the
dangers of using the term clean eating.
And Julie was a person who was always deemed bigger than what?
Her health, her health and her family were always really active
and she was just bigger. And that really affected her
mental status a lot, and rightfully so.

(16:43):
And that affects so many kids, especially going in high school,
When your body's changing, goingthrough puberty and whatnot, it
makes people very anxious to talk about.
So when I talk about nutrition, I always try to use something
called body neutral language. So we kind of, as a society, we
always are kind of hyper aware, but also kind of ignorant to the
language we use around like, oh,I need to lose weight because of

(17:03):
XY and Zed. I need to do XY and Zed to look
better and realistically, yeah, definitely something there.
But there's also something to besaid about like, hey, your body
is going to changes. You are not just your body.
There's so much more to you thanyour your size and there's just
there's so much more to unpack there and like literally they

(17:24):
deemed a new neurosis about it. It's like orthorexia, the
arthorexia. So I'm sure you've heard of like
anorexia and bulimia. Of course like orthorexia is
when you hyper fixate on eating healthy foods and like
exercising to the point where it's not healthy anymore.
So that's interesting. And then we also there's a new

(17:45):
term, not new, it's not technically had of.
Orthorexia then, yeah. Yeah.
OK. A little bit too, but I'm much
healthier. Everything was healthier, but in
terms of having a better relationship, yeah, And exercise
probably. Well, thank you for sharing that
with me. Yeah.
No, with the pandemic and just things in the family now, we're

(18:05):
very solid. We've been consolidated, but
when things were just at its worst with the pandemic, because
there's also not very not a veryfun time with my family.
As you. Say that and I turned to my
health to feel and control. And what ended up happening was
I have this image and I can telleveryone that, hey, I'm, I'm

(18:27):
this healthy guy, I'm this person.
That goes to the. Gym all the time and I eat
healthy. But then the the the compulsion
was I was depriving. Myself.
Of the foods that everyone else is eating.
So I felt left out and I felt suffocated and I felt So what I
would do was it was kind of likea bulimia thing too, because I

(18:47):
would indulge in all these unhealthy things that I would
hide. I would never tell anyone.
About because I was just very. Ashamed of it.
I would indulge in McDonald's and whatever was in the pantry
that was sugary and sweet. And I'd never opened up to that,
to that, to that phase of my life, up until last year, when I
was just talking about vulnerability.
I've discovered books. But the pattern would be I'd

(19:12):
consume tons and tons of food, let's say, during stress
periods, Probably 3004 thousand calories.
Yeah, Yeah. Then I'm a runner.
I'd run it all off. So because I couldn't quite
expunge it out of my system, so I'd run all of it out.
And that's just the reality of it.
And I've talked to people, I've opened up to people, and it's

(19:34):
very it's a very common problem for body dysmorphia.
People have anorexia, bulimia. I know I'm not alone, but I've.
I've recovered and I've. I've just gone.
About it, I'm very open about itwith people because I can
provide insight on to how peoplecan find ways to better their
lives. And I think part of.

(19:55):
Vulnerability for me is actually, it's turned into a
strength now. I feel suffocated.
I feel like, OK, I went through that.
I feel stronger now that I can talk about it and I can.
I can be in touch with my emotions and I I view that part
of the past is OK. That happened.
But I learned. Something from it and I think
the nail on my head there is like it's about you.

(20:18):
It was a piece of your story. It's chapter of your book but
it's defining chapter and that'salways an important thing to
talk about is because and again thank you again for being
vulnerable. But I think it's a lot more
common especially amongst young men.
I I was blessed enough to talk about two young men a lot about
they used to do this thing called the Dove Real Beauty
Project years ago and I always ended up talking to women.

(20:41):
But there's a severe thing wherewe don't top of men and with the
onslaught of like TikTok and social media, so many of those
images of the attainable body isnot realistic.
And a lot of these people who have, like, again, if you think
of their own gear, Oh my gosh. Yes.
And there's so much to unpack there.
And in that same thing, there's also this term that I was like

(21:03):
to throw around. It's called We've Talked about
Eating Disorders, But you know the inverse about disordered
eating. When you again hyper fixate on
certain aspects of your meal, I'm like, oh, I found to be
naughty and have a piece of cake.
And cake is neither good nor bad.
It's cake. And it's that guilt.
That guilt, exactly, once you put that in your mouth.
How do you feel about that? It tastes good for everyone.

(21:23):
Yeah, like it produces dopamine.Yeah, but it's that soft dog.
What do you what do you tell yourself when you Are you
calling yourself a loser? You're calling yourself fat in
your head, and hopefully people realize that your body is just
one facet of yourself and that at the end of the day your body
is like, not a result of like, how many phrase this your body

(21:47):
is. Yes, the result of what you put
in your body in terms of like food, but at the same time, it's
like you shouldn't be ashamed ofeating that cake.
It doesn't. Your body doesn't define.
Who you are. Exactly.
Taking notice is. If you define yourself with
something that is, it's just theone thing.
It's very linear. As soon as that's taken away and
as soon as you that's challenged, it's like your

(22:10):
entire being is just. Out the gutter.
And for people, for a lot of people that have body
dysmorphia, they define their entire identity with their body.
OK, I've I'm a guy and I'm, I'm jacked, or I'm a girl and I'm
very fit and I eat healthy. But they forget that that is not
the meaning of life. They know that's not, that's

(22:31):
your body that can be taken away.
It's the connections that you have.
It's the the passion, the love, the connections that you feel
for the everyday reactions. It's the the pets, the belly
rubs. You get the TV shows 100%.
The people, the company that youkeep.
Madame Rock, Joanne, I'm sure you're familiar with her.
She has a really good saying. And Joanne and I are.

(22:54):
I have nothing but the biggest respect for her because she's
like a mom to me, but she has. She's always says life is about
people and about connection. And I I completely agree.
It left Isabel people. We don't know what tomorrow's
gonna bring. So you might as well enjoy
today. And in 50 years from now are you
gonna look back and say, you know what?
I really shouldn't have eaten that cake.

(23:15):
Probably not. Yeah, I wish my body Nobody on
the death Med goes I wish I had 10 more 10 more pounds of
muscle. I wish I was 30 lbs lighter.
Nobody says that they go. I wish I'd talked to my mom
more. I wish I'd hit up old friends.
I wish I'd took more risks. Defining yourself with your body
is so vain and it's such a shortterm strategy to live your life.

(23:39):
You can. You don't get to enjoy things
because then you're constantly when you're interacting with
people. Oh, are they judging my body or
are they? They do on this.
OK, if they are you, probably. That's more on them.
Probably shouldn't be talking tothem anyways.
They're not true friends, but most more people are so are just
want to be heard. They just want to talk and have

(24:01):
a good friendship and have a good laugh.
They're not going, oh, this guy is. 10 more pounds.
This guy's more. Well, it's good to prioritize
health. Oh absolutely.
It's imperative because you wantto live a life and where your.
Yeah, a long life, that's very rewarding.
That's very fulfilling. You also cannot define yourself

(24:23):
over some such a vain thing. Oh, absolutely.
I think you hit the nail on that.
And like, there's an author. His name is Michael Pollan and
he's written, I think, like six or seven books.
He has a Netflix special called Cooked.
Many of my people who are in my food class, we watch it because
he came up with these rules about food.
And one of them is if you can't pronounce the words, don't eat

(24:44):
it, which I mean, fair. I'm always like, sometimes, you
know, I love a Dorito. I'm gonna eat a Dorito.
But he if you go here's a rule that I always kind of like as my
gold centers like if you want quote UN quote junk food make it
yourself. And the example you use is
cookies. If you want to have 10 cookies,
go for it but don't go to the store and buy it.
Go and make it. And just like just that the food

(25:06):
psychology of simply going and making that food and putting
that energy into it, you'll consume less because it's higher
quality and you know you have that agency of what's going in
it. And so in that same vein, like
in that same vein, like I think that is a really good idea about
life. How to not also saying don't eat
out all the time. I think you should we have
amazing food scene in Edmonton and I think you should enjoy

(25:28):
that. But I'm also a huge thing.
I'm like if you if you can do itand do it better do it cook it.
Mm hmm. When you add effort into your
own creation and you put in thought to the ingredients and
you've gathered all the materials, all the ingredients
and you've put in a couple hoursand you have this product,

(25:48):
you're not gonna squander it by just consuming it in minutes.
You're gonna savor every text. And that's where the beauty of
creating anything you're you're right.
Whether it be art or food or anything.
Yeah, yeah, no, 100%. You're gonna savor this.
And if it's food, you're gonna look at the aesthetics, you're
gonna the the consistency. Because sure it's yeah, yeah,

(26:12):
yeah, you're sure. It's great that you've made
something and it tastes good. But you're proud of that.
Oh yeah, yeah. And enjoying that, the that goes
to, especially just talking about food makes me think about
like, of course we live in like kind of an affordability crisis
right now where like groceries are really expensive.
So that's where my human ecologyside.
So not only I'm a teacher, but I'm also a professional human

(26:34):
ecologist. Like technically a human
ecologist or home economist. I prefer a human ecologist, but
nonetheless, we look at that lens.
The human ecological lens is what we look through, how we
interact with the daily things of our lives of humanity.
So in my case, it's food. And So what I always like to
talk about is not only in talking about human culture do

(26:55):
you want to talk about, like, food waste and like how to make
it. Like, for example, you know you
can make banana bread with the full banana with the peel, but
the peel's all edible. Same thing with lemons and most
citrus fruits, as long as they're clean.
Exactly. A lot of these things are edible
and a lot of like for example like I once a week I make
chicken stock and and that makesme sound super name.
But like yeah no I don't buy chicken stock anymore.

(27:17):
I I never do. I what I always do is and again
you don't have to do it on the stove top either.
I just put like all my I have myscrap egg whenever I'm cooking.
I have my scraps, like my onions, like like all my off
things and or things that are about to go back.
I freeze it and then once a weekI make stock and then I have
stock for whatever I'm going to make, whether it be pasta,
whether it be soups, whether it be best, whatever it might be.

(27:38):
But it's there. And I like the I don't know, I
just there's something again pathetic about creating food.
Now imagine if you had 10 peopledoing that you'd have so much, a
hundred, 1000, a million. There's so much food waste.
Oh huge. We could.
I forget what the statistic is, but if you saved all the food

(27:59):
for a week through the entire world, Oh yeah, no, we we have
the technology and the ability to end child hunger and hunger
in general in the world. It's an active choice that we
don't and that is a huge flux. And that again, going back to it
is like if you have the agency and you have the ability.
And I think that's the key thinghere.
Again going back to like why I love teaching the foods and
people have a cook and nutritionis that they can make such a

(28:23):
huge difference by having the ability to cook at home and
divert food waste. It's it's so amazing to me when
you see people with the aha moment and they are able to
create something for the first time and then they're like, Oh
my God, I made this. And it's like regardless of
whether it's a cake or somethingquote UN quote healthy or.
But nonetheless they they get toimbibe it and enjoy it and it

(28:46):
just it's always one of my favorite things is seeing that
final product and say they're making their face.
Yeah. Yeah, in what?
Ways are Can you share any success stories or examples of
students who have benefited fromincorporating nutrition and
cooking education into their curriculum?
Oh yeah, no, I I can say that for like 2 of my students.

(29:08):
I I you brought up Jayden Sanderson earlier and like I
taught him, I believe it was Foods 10 and 20 maybe maybe just
20. I can't remember.
Sorry Jayden, but I I remember he had to study for foods one
time and he was studying and I just he became to be a chef.
I was still a bit angry at him. Not for not taking Foods 30 and
I do remember that. But nonetheless, he he's gone to

(29:29):
do amazing things and he works at Uchilino, which is by far one
of my favorite restaurants in Edmonton.
That and Barbarica, which are right next to each other.
So shameless pup for that. But nonetheless, I think there's
like, there's countless things I've had former students who
want to become food teachers andeducators.
I've had a couple of kids that have gone into food sciences,

(29:50):
people who go into become Brewers, things, all of these
things that I'm always. I'm always so humbled just to
see how far they've come. And so when it comes to teaching
food and nutrition, I have kids that have come back to me years
and I'm like, honestly, I made my own wedding cake and I was
like, Oh my God, you're married already.
I feel really old, but nonetheless.

(30:11):
I'm. I'm.
Really excited to see that they do those things and that's
incredible. Those skills that I was able to
pass on to them were able to impact their life in some form.
It's beautiful that you plant the seed into your students and
you come out and you get you getto see how the tree has come and
has just flourished and it's just so rewarding.

(30:32):
It must be so fulfilling. It is.
I mean, kind of like taking a macro level view of everything.
Yeah. You get to see like I was
shameless part about teaching, but teachings of the mother of
all professions and you get to see what our students become.
And that's one of the reasons why I love teaching in high
school is you get to see a lot of people, yourself included,
seeing amazing young adults, they become.

(30:53):
Like. It's thank you of course.
No, no, it's no, we've I still talk.
About you a lot, yeah. You know a lot and a.
Lot of people from our school. My main listeners are from ABJ.
So. Yeah guys, this is this is
happening. It's just. 5.
Years. And it's just, I know it feels
weird. Yeah, it was five years ago.

(31:14):
What challenges have you faced in teaching these topics and how
have you overcome them? So in terms of challenges, I
think the biggest one is for me as a professional, it's always
been like people seeing foods and any kind of option class
being like, oh, it's just foods.And that to me is not necessary.

(31:34):
I think that's the biggest time nail or dagger through my heart
is when people oh I need to write an English essay.
I need to miss your class and thankfully whenever I was
teaching foods then eventually stopped.
But when kids come and ask me like, oh, I need to stay for
this test, I missed your class and it's like, well, no.
And let me explain why. In terms of like if you don't

(31:54):
know your lines for a play are you just going to go up to the
play And just down there it's kind of the same thing when it
comes to be like foods in a in away is performance assess
performance assessment in a couple of areas.
And so that's always been the biggest dagger in my heart when
people like choose to like either drop my class or when
they choose to not come. And I realized like I understand

(32:18):
people have busy lives. I get that.
But when you put so much of yourlife and day, because there's a
lot of unpaid hours that people see, like I when I was teaching
foods full time, I was I get up between 5530I get ready, then I
go to the grocery store. I make sure I'm a pretty crazy
person that comes to produce. So I make sure the produce is

(32:38):
the best for my students. And I always have the balance
between, like, cost effectiveness with my recipes,
but also like, I want to do it and like when, for example,
whenever there was like some sort of event happening or
whatever, I have to assume that all my students are going to be
there. And so let's say three or five
kids don't show up. Well, that's huge food waste.

(33:00):
And so that was always really aggravating for me as a teacher.
When I'm like, well, I just likespend all this of my time that I
don't get paid for. I do it before school or after
school. I don't get a lot of prep time
to be able to do that. So it I was and I was very frank
with my students when they when they were doing that and they
changed the tune pretty fast. Yeah.

(33:22):
You put in all that effort to buying the ingredients, to
making sure everybody gets the amounts.
You're making sure that the spoons, the forks, everybody's
it's clean. You're putting in all these
overtime hours without any pay. And when a person just goes up
to you and goes, hey, I need to study for my math 30 dash, which

(33:42):
kind of further values I'll get it.
But same time it's like a huge like, whoa, OK, I guess I'm not
it's not necessarily taking it personally, but it's just like
OK, look, I don't think you understand how much time it
takes to do all this. And they don't mention just
myself but also like your group because again, foods classes are
usually in groups. So it's not only letting me
down, it's also letting your team teacher all right?

(34:05):
Power of culture in a building so.
How? Do you define and cultivate a
positive and inclusive culture within your educational
environment? So the first thing I would say
is this isn't just necessary educational, it could be
literally any building, whether it be a job place, corporate
building or whatever. But culture is a positive and

(34:27):
engaging space in which you wantpeople to be seen, heard and
valued. And that's the biggest I think
3. But in addition to that,
creating a culture and creating leadership, cultivating A-Team
if you will, is you want to get people to line up and not just
stand there and say, hey, you need to line up.
You want to convince people to want to line up.

(34:48):
And the reason why I say that isI think it all comes down to
culture. So creating a space and anything
about culture is about creating things and celebrating the small
things. For example, like at a BJI was
really big on all the small things, whether it be a
Valentine's Day thing, Shakespeare's birthday, all
those things. Yeah, I love it.

(35:08):
It's because you want to celebrate it and you want to
create those memories. In 20 years, you're not going to
necessarily remember what you doin school, what you learn in a
certain class, but you are goingto remember the pep rallies, the
celebrations, the Shakespeare's birthday, whatever it might be.
So when it comes to an inclusivespace is that everyone is
welcome. There's always, when I was a

(35:30):
very regardless whenever school I was at there's always
something called camera was called, but I think it's it was
called a cathedral welcome and it was based off of I think it
was an Anglican denomination butnot unless they have a list and
they talk about like regardless of your XY or Zed, you are
welcome here. And that's what I really tried
and always tried to emulate, is that I at the end of the day,

(35:53):
regardless of whether you're religious, not religious,
spiritual, whatever faith you might come from, whatever belief
system you have, whatever creed,code, colour, whatever that
might be, you should feel safe and seen and heard.
And so, like, cultivating that, I think people are more willing
as soon as you get that safety piece and that same piece,
people are more willing to invest in who they're with and

(36:14):
what they're celebrating. When you walk into a culture
where everybody listens to each other and you, there's no
barriers. You are you, and everybody
accepts you for who you are. And that's when you can become
your happiest. You can become purposeful, and
you can go about the world with a lens of positivity, agency,

(36:38):
and gratitude. And you've had done a very good
job of of cultivating that in your classes and in just the
person who you've become and hasthat, has that.
Taking. Some work was it did you always
have that? I think in terms of I think
there's also the there's like the teacher side of me, but

(37:00):
there's also the real like not to say that my teaching self
wasn't necessarily real, but when I was still teaching
leadership, I still had a lot offamily issues.
So I know we're going to be touching on this on this topic
later. But when I was 26, when I was
in, I think it was like 2016. That's when my mom she had she
was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's.

(37:20):
She we changed her care and unfortunately she passed away
that year. So it's okay like death is a
part of life and it does suck. However, I think there's you
don't know what people are goingthrough.
You can always see the the the thing that they are in that
moment but you don't really knowwhat's going on in their head.
And again, empathy is so important in any any fact of

(37:44):
life is that you always want to lead with empathy.
And for me, I've always tried todo that.
I mean, did I have my exit teenage years in my rebellious
early 20s? Absolutely.
Where you don't really care? No, I shouldn't say necessary.
You don't care. But psychologically and
developmentally, you should be at that stage where you're just
thinking about yourself. Is it the best quality that we
have as humans? Probably not.

(38:05):
But nonetheless, you want to really be able to leave with
empathy. And what I'd really like to see
is over the last, like I would say 1015 years, I've seen a huge
amount of empathy growth, more or less, in the general
population, especially younger groups.
You see a lot of empathy and it comes down to like how you
create a culture and how you cultivate that.

(38:26):
Yeah. There's so many people out there
and they have a smile on their face and they go about the world
and you on the outside, you think nothing's wrong.
They show up to class. They are very.
Friendly they they do their work.
They. They're just one of the.
Popular kids, let's just say. But internally, you don't know
whether their father is dying, whether they have insecurities,

(38:51):
body dysmorphia and all these negativity in their head,
whether they are so fixated on the one part of their face that
they can't show this at a certain angle.
And empathy, as mentioned, is very, very powerful.
And that's kind of where my I been liberated in a way as well,

(39:12):
not fully liberated. I'm not happy all the time and I
think that's a part of life too where you gotta accept the bad
because it's role was life is all about the UPS and downs.
And like in any of those yes youcan have empathy, but at the
same time I think there's no such thing as being happy all
the time. You can generally speaking be
like overtly happy over a periodof time.
But of course life is going to throw you card balls and it's I

(39:34):
think happiness isn't is being content with what where you are
and what you with what you have.And I mean, yes, a piece, you
know, I say about pushing yourself to be better and
absolutely 1000%. However, there's also the pieces
of like, you know what you also need to say, like, hey, you know
what, I am good enough. Whatever stage I'm at, like I'm
good. And to kind of like circle back
to. The main question though is in

(39:55):
terms of like, have I always been this way in terms of
empathy? No.
I think empathy is kind of forged it.
It is, It's done through. It is innate, of course, in
humanity. But like it has to be fostered
and it has to be right. It has to be sharpened and.
That that takes work. It's like a muscle.
You have to work at it, otherwise it atrophies.

(40:15):
And that's kind of the big thingis, is practicing that
empathetic and that like that respect that that all humans
have innately. When you view another person as
someone that's on your team and when they're on your team, you
want to help them and they do the same for you.

(40:36):
You. Have a lens in the world where?
Hey, I go. Through a debilitating issue, I
go through something in my family where it's just so
unbearable. But a shared joy is double joy
and a shared sorrow is half a sorrow.
Absolutely. When you have your friends to
lean on, when you have your family members who actually
truly understand, I accept you for who you are.

(40:58):
The world seems so much lighter and brighter.
Yeah, and brighter. And then you you have, you view
people and you just. You focus on the good.
And you want to help because I don't think a human being at
their healthiest wants to resentpeople, wants anger, wants

(41:18):
negativity. Not everybody wants to be
positive. Everybody wants to be accepted.
And it takes a while and I guesssometimes have to rewrite those
neural pathways. Like I I was, I would say it's
interesting like looking back, oh gosh, in 2016, so I when my
mom got sick and died, that is when I started my therapy

(41:39):
journey. And I've been in like intense
therapy for Oh my God since then.
So I've been for 8-9 years now and doing therapy, I was able to
find the therapist that was right for me and do a therapy
journey. So I do a specific type of
therapy called MDR and it is changed my mental status so
much. And I think even talking about a

(42:01):
culture, creating a culture in aspace where you are confident
enough or feel safe enough, where you can actually open up
about talking about therapy because for whatever reason
people feel ashamed to talk about, oh, I need to be.
I have a therapy like 5. People.
To open up their therapies on here and it's beautiful to see
that it's becoming normalized and more and more people are
doing it to be able to control the emotions that they've been

(42:24):
stuffing down to be able to navigate.
Life. Just to name it to tame it.
Yeah. And one of my favorite lessons
I've ever learned in my therapy journey was something that my
therapist told me is there's no diminished love is there's no
such thing as diminishing amountof love.
So love is not something that isdiminishes over time.
Love is a constant in terms of like, there's no, if you look at

(42:46):
a jar, it's always going to be filled and there's always going
to be, yeah, I love it. I actually have it on written on
like a signboard in at my condo.And I I honestly, I I have not
changed in like 6 years because it just it means love is not a
diminishing value. And I just, I think that's
something one of the most important lessons I've ever
learned. Love is the answer, yes.

(43:06):
For people who love. Yeah.
For people who have. Been loved and.
I have met some people. Who?
Have not experienced much. Love is such a it's it's not
even happiness that nor is it just it's it's I can't quite
explain it but it's so freeing. It's 100% to to say, hey, my mom

(43:30):
loves me. Truly, truly, no matter what
happens, my mom loves me. And no amount of money, no
amount of wealth, status, we'll change that.
We'll change that. Yeah, well, the ancient Greeks,
they actually define love in seven different ways.
Are you familiar with that at all?
I've heard of. It but I.
Don't see if I can remember. It oh sure.
Agape affilia mania storbe pragma ludus Eros Oh got it.

(43:55):
Yeah. The Greeks did is they kind of
broke love down to the differenttypes of love.
So agape is the kind of love that, like parental love, It's
that love that people again refer to the type of love that
God has for for us. Yeah.
So the idea that it's unyielding, it's uncompromising,
it's just constant. So that I love that that's the
best type of oh, great, yeah, wehave like cilia, which is like a

(44:17):
familial love or friendship loveEros, which is like the sexual
desire piece mania, which is like obsessive love ludus, which
is like the game playing love pragma, which is I call it
shopping this love. So like you have must be XY and
Z to be loved. Oh gosh, Pragma ludus.
Can't remember the other ones, but nonetheless, what I like

(44:38):
about what they did is they broke it down to more
comprehensible bite sized piecesand it defines it a little bit
better so that when you're talking about love, it kind of
makes a little bit more sense from just it's crazy how many
ideas come out of love 100%. Literally seven types like,

(44:59):
yeah, yeah, and. How do you?
Or can you share examples of? How?
Culture impacts student engagement, motivation, and
overall academic success. Oh yeah, if kids.
That does worry about if kids feel seen, heard and safe, they
are willing to do stupid things.And I when I say stupid things,

(45:20):
I say like the T-shirt days, the, the, and I I say that
tongue in cheek in the sense that where else in the world do
you dress up in a like, I don't know, an ugly Christmas sweater?
I feel that's more common now, but like 10-15 years ago, like
having an ugly sweater day like that would be like so hard to
get people to buy into. But if you have a culture where
people all dress up and they do the silly things, not about

(45:44):
living in not caring about themselves and caring more so
about like like everyone. Like it's the we over the me
people will be more willing to go the extra mile.
So in terms of like my thing is like I was, I think it's so
stupid that I keep bringing it up.
Shakes's birthday was my thing. I got you celebrated every year.

(46:05):
I celebrated every year. And my favorite thing was I
actually learned about that and Shakes's birthday when I was in
high school. And so Miss Frandja, who's now a
teacher at ABJ, she was my Grade10 English teacher and it was
really cool to have her as one of my colleagues now.
But her and my other English teacher, Miss Birak, they really
cultivated a love for Shakespeare and they celebrate

(46:27):
Shakespeare birthday. And so as the high score of
flattery is imitation, I was like, I need to bring the state.
That's incredible. And so I put it on little
steroids. But yeah, their ideas that
really impacted me so that I wanted to bring it to ABJ.
And like, I was so happy that itcaught on for so many years.
I don't think they celebrated anymore.
But, which is a little bit sad. But nonetheless the, yeah, it

(46:51):
was something to be celebrated and like if you can celebrate
stuff like that, who's to say, like, what else couldn't be
celebrated? And within that, if people buy
into it, then they're more willing to like just create more
positive culture. It's it's fascinating to witness
a person that is passionate about something of a person that

(47:12):
died what? When was?
Shakespeare 400 and 5400 and 64160 How many your passion just
created a day in which everybodycame together and celebrated
this one piece as little events and little costumes that you
have made? Was fun, right?

(47:32):
And it's fun. And that makes people feel
motivated to be able to. Go home and actually do their
math homework, because hey. That was.
Pretty cool. I want to keep doing that.
I want to. One day host my own thing.
So in turn that being accepted, being part of that culture
building that actually facilitates other endeavors.
Oh yeah, There's a huge ripple effect, like, in terms of like

(47:56):
moving on from Jason's birthday.Like I always like to say, if if
you're excited about something and if you show that you're not
too cool to dress up, then kids will do so as well.
And within that, then they will feel more seen and heart and
you'll have more of a culture. I I dress up every Halloween.
Oh, that's it. There's never been a a day where
I I wish I could dress up every day.
But. There's never been a Halloween

(48:17):
day where I didn't dress up or since.
I moved to Canada when I was nine.
Yeah, I just. Love it so much.
It's fun too because the way I view it is when you embody a
costume, whether it be a superhero or your your
Shakespeare or like your favorite Roman Emperor, change
like you can be this person evenfor a single day.

(48:37):
Hence, if you're a person that'sinsecure, that's doubting
themselves, that's not in a goodplace.
You can just dress up and you can become your favorite
superhero and you can look in the mirror and go, I am Spider
Man. I am Iron Man.
And I can save the day. And I think that's that message
every time I I. Was.
Spiderman for a year. I was a.
Police officer for a year I was a gorilla and I look in the

(49:00):
mirror. I go, wow, this is this is
great. I'm changing a part of myself
and I can be this person even for a day and you can.
I also think it teaches you not only to like there's something
there about like even if you're not confident or not happy, fake
it till you make it. Yeah.
I mean, there's a piece there that you end up embodying that.

(49:20):
And so whether it stems from Wearing AT shirt, Shakespeare's
costume or Halloween costume, there's something to be said
about putting it on. Whether it gives you confidence
or not. It's also not taking yourself
too seriously. This Halloween I went above and
beyond again because you know meand Halloween I love Halloween.
I was Misses Doubtfire this yearfor Halloween.
Yeah, it took me 4 hours to turninto Misses Doubtfire and that's

(49:41):
awesome. I it was probably way too much.
But like I'm whenever we bring that back to school.
Oh. Man.
Yeah, I know. You'll have to chess up that
that's. Crazy.
Oh no. Halloween.
Always. Oh yeah.
There's a lot of prosthetics. I I mean most of the stuff I
either purchased second hand or got or special ordered or

(50:04):
whatever. But you know I I make most of my
not necessarily from scratch butI definitely piece it all
together. And the the people at Theatre
Garage, I think Chrissy's the owner, she she helped me a lot
with just picking which prosthetics to buy like in terms
of like crow's feet chains. It was wild and like, she was
the first person to message me when I posted it on social
media. And she's like, Oh my God, you
killed this. It's awesome.

(50:26):
I was like, yeah, it. Was fun.
Yeah, you should do like. Costly.
I always thought of those. Maybe we'll see.
We'll see. In what ways does a sense of
culture contribute to a supportive and collaborative
learning community. That's a really good question
and I think we kind of touched on it a little bit.
But again, if you, if you have aculture where people feel safe

(50:49):
to fail and and feel safe to talk about their feelings or
shortcomings, that ripples down into the student body because we
model that as educators, right? So, like if I like, if I were to
mess up. And like, I think the best thing
teachers can always do is if youmake a mistake or if you don't

(51:09):
know, if you don't know the answer to something you're like,
you know what I don't know, Let's look it up together and
that whether we subconsciously know it or unconsciously know it
is it's teaching people that, hey, failure or making mistakes
is OK. And that that in itself, in and
of itself cultivates this piece where I'm OK to fail, but I'm

(51:31):
also OK to do XY and Z. Otherwise I can, You know what?
I fail this, I can try to do better.
Or you know what? I I feel comfortable bringing up
something, whatever life experience might be, that that
the entire building again, whether it's a corporate
building or be a school, feels safe enough to bring it up to

(51:52):
conversation. There we go a little bit.
All right, too. That's about it.
It's remote control. That's awesome.
Yeah. Yeah.
Sweet. Yeah, let's I.
Think it cut off in the In what ways does a strong sense of
culture contribute to a supportive collaborative.

(52:12):
I think kind of we kind of discussed it off camera but the
the piece of like if you feel asthough you belong in a culture
will will that be a corporate culture or a school culture
people will be more willing to go the extra mile.
And so creating a collaborative space for kids and and kind of

(52:33):
like showing people how to do it.
Like. And again it's simple sometimes
it's wearing a shirt or doing like the costumes or whatever.
If you if you model that to people, people are more likely
to feel kind of put down with their Pickles and be like hey
you know what? Like I can do this too.
And then within that the kind oflike the ripple effect of that
is it goes into their everyday life.
Hey you know what? I'm you know what I don't take

(52:54):
myself too seriously. I'm going to take a shot at this
And that has just huge compounding effects in everyday
life. People you you had mentioned
that people embody this. The.
The costume and just being part of the community.
And when people experience failure, they view that as
something that's a part of the identity and they view that as

(53:17):
something that's final. But I believe it's actually
formative. Oh 100% for you to learn.
It's just one of those things where it's.
Imperative. It's part of who you're going to
be. Well, we're all going to fail
again. It's like it's one of those
things that are always going to happen.
We don't like it that we're going to fail.
We try to avoid it at all cost because it's uncomfortable.

(53:37):
But failure, as I always like tojoking, this call is it's the
first attempt in learning. And hey, you know what If you're
failing at something that means you're going to learn from it.
So, like whether it be again, like it can be literally
anything that you have failed in.
I I specifically remember like, when I when I was in high school
and in university, I'll do the university one because it's more

(53:58):
recent. But I had a really interesting
English Prof and she, she did not like how I wrote and she did
not like, she did not like how Iwas doing a lot of things.
And of course in university you kind of have to play the game so
you could change your styles, whatnot.
But I went to see her in like her office hours one time and

(54:19):
she was like, you're not a very good writer, are you?
Justin. Ma'am.
Sorry what Sorry. Do you remember you were lost
again. And So what ended up happening
is I I like, I graduated with like not quite honors but pretty
Dang close. And I I always look back at
that. And I was like, if I if I look
back and just focused on on thatone moment of failure, I would

(54:42):
never grow. And I'm going to use like a
little leadership adage that I'msure some people remember is
like a comfort zone is a beautiful thing, which is why we
don't like to fail because it's comfortable to not fail.
But if a comfort zone, if you don't ever exit out of our
comfort zone, we never grow. And the best places you can be
is out of your comfort zone. Whether it be, oh, I don't know,

(55:03):
starting a podcast, whether it be, oh, I don't know, like
changing careers, whatever that might be.
And failure looks different on different people in different
ways. But nonetheless is if you're not
willing to take that risk in that jump, then you're going to
kind of be stuck. True.
True. It's.
That. I.
Was listening to this other podcast and the guy who's the

(55:25):
Navy SEAL, his name's Mr. Ball and then he does like little
stories on YouTube. Very successful guy.
He's got Iman subscribers now and he says that the times in
his life, and this is coming from a very successful guy.
He's gone through many, many trials and tribulations are the
greatest points in his life werethe times where he was so

(55:46):
uncomfortable before and actually doing it, the
fulfillment is just exponential.Oh, yeah.
It's huge. Yeah.
Yeah. Where you.
OK. You don't want to do it.
No, no, That's where you got to do it.
Exactly. If it feels icky and
uncomfortable, that means, like,you need to lean into that a
little bit more. Yeah.
Yeah. And of course, you know, if
it's. If it's actually a healthy kind

(56:06):
of. Yeah, well, there's perhaps that
with. Of course.
Like, if it's like, if you're doing some pretty reckless
things, that's a different story.
On you're, you know, drinking and just doing stupid stuff,
then yeah, don't do that. Yeah, but if you're maybe you
don't try skydiving or you want to write that task.
But yeah, exactly. If you want to try that, like
try that thing that really pushes your comfort zone.

(56:28):
Like I back in my younger days, I loved jumping off of cliffs.
Fun fact. Not necessarily the highest
Cliff, like into water. Clearly loved it and do it when
I do it. Now, probably not.
But was I scared to show this when I was there doing it?
Yeah. But again, I overcame that.
That's awesome. How do you incorporate diverse

(56:50):
perspectives and experiences into the cultural fabric of your
educational institution? Oh, good question.
I think there's in terms of including other cultures within
a culture, it is very delicate balance, of course, but I think
the the thing that needs to be remembered in all of that is

(57:10):
being human and authentic. The moment it becomes
performative is the moment people are are kind of tuning
out. If people like young people,
especially young adults, young humans in general, they have BS
detectors and they can tell whenpeople are being authentic and
inauthentic. And as soon as it becomes kind
of like performative rather thanauthentic, there is something to

(57:34):
be said about people just completely disconnecting because
they're like oh it's it's not real, it's and I don't want to
be in that space and be vulnerable when it's not real.
So I think it it is a really important thing to be cognizant
and be authentic about. Like for example, I'll do that.
One of the things that were recently was I'm part of a

(57:55):
diversity, equity and inclusion group at my current job.
And one of the things I always we were doing is we always like
have like a list of days of celebrations for multitudes of
different fates. And I asked the question I was
like why didn't we get an e-mailabout Ramadan like so many of
our employees are Muslim like why are we not supporting this.

(58:16):
And like again I I'm raised up like Ukrainian Catholic like I
like I have no real like tell interms of like Ramadan but like I
think it's important for other people and other cultures to be
celebrated and a shout out to give it given to them And so I
guess for me it's it's adding a voice because I have that

(58:36):
privilege and that voice that I can give that I want to empower
others to be able to do it. So in terms of like the
educational school culture, I think it is of the most
important that people honour other viewpoints, other lenses
and other experiences and and ina way celebrate them and
acknowledge them. And because if you do that, the

(58:57):
culture will be healthy as soon as it becomes toxic and it's
unfortunate, it kind of has to be proactive or it's and it'd be
kind of like if it's not proactive then you have to kind
of like step back and you reallyhave to do kind of like a
letting swamp drain and kind of like adding new things back.
But it is you have to be very mindful and you have to be smart

(59:19):
about it. And again, as soon as it becomes
performative, that's where you run into issues.
Yeah. Truly understanding other
people. Just for.
Them and the understanding. That.
Oh, this? Is what they were raised with.
And this is kind of what's important to them to bring that
to light and to recognize that, hey, this is a group of people

(59:39):
that we've we're neglecting, notpurposely, but a person that
should be recognized that everyone is equal definitely
brings such a fulfilling and such an unaccepted environment.
Going back to culture, it's it'sbeautiful.
Yeah. I think there's something that I
learned from my younger years atuniversities is a little bit
morbid, but like in life, we allsmell different, and death we

(01:00:01):
all smell the same. And I I I don't think that is a
necessary dark thing. I think in the terms of like,
hey, just because we all are come from different backgrounds,
so it creates colors, codes, whatever.
I think there's something there to be said about like we're all
human and at the end of the day,we're all human.
We shouldn't be looking at our differences.
We should be looking at more of like what makes us human.
Yeah. Instead of dividing, why don't

(01:00:25):
we connect more and absolutely longer table on the higher
fence? Yeah, yeah.
What strategies do you use to address and mitigate the
conflicts and tensions that may arise within the cultural
dynamics of the school? Because there are.
A lot of kids that separate themselves.
Oh, I won't hang out with the hockey boy because I'm in with

(01:00:45):
the robotics and the girls. Oh, I'm not with the soccer
girls and with the volleyball girls, and that can cause fights
and even with the race and a lotof people like.
To hang out with. People that are like them and
they like to alienate other people and I think that goes
back to a piece of culture if you so educational world.

(01:01:05):
It's called siloing. So the people are just fitting
into their one silo and not interacting.
To me that's a broken culture and that needs to be like, hey,
what can we address holisticallyto make people be invested, seem
heard and feel safe? Because as soon as you start
seeing in an educational settingor even like a real like a quote
UN quote real life job. But as soon as you start seeing

(01:01:30):
those kind of symptoms, there's a bigger issue.
And so you need to step back andsay, hey, these people are
feeling this way. How can we make them feel as
though they're seem heard and celebrated?
And it always breaks my heart when I ever hear.
Like. Kids saying, Oh yeah, in high
school or in my experience, I was, I was called this slurred

(01:01:52):
word or whatever. And that should not be happening
anywhere. And it goes to show you like
societally, like, I feel like there's an intense polarization
about a lot of things. And I'm going to go back to what
I said at the end of the day, weall smell the same in death and
in life. We all smell different.
And at in those points you need to make sure you address it.

(01:02:13):
And I do it like like probably not necessarily the health
history, but I call it and because if you see it, you have
to name it to tainment. And so in doing so you have to
say like, hey, that's not OK youcan't do that.
And making sure that culturally everyone knows in that space,
that building, office building or a school, that is not
acceptable to do that there. Of course you can't recognize a

(01:02:35):
skeleton. From like you.
Just can't. After your die.
You cannot tell what can it is. You cannot tell what religion it
was. Yeah, yeah.
So why do people? Or why?
Why is it? Still a constant.
Problem, right? Just because they're black,
they're Asian. White, just Jewish.
It's just a learned thing. And unfortunately, I think

(01:02:57):
because of the intense polarization people are
experiencing, there is a constant riling up and when
people are riled up, they're more likely to lash out.
And I think there's something tobe said about like, again, you
need to build a longer table, not a higher fence.
And I don't know, like if if I had a a quick and easy answer to

(01:03:18):
that question, I think we'd all be billionaires.
And that's. I'm also gonna add that in the
negative side of culture building is you can build a
culture rooted in hate. Yeah, 100% you can.
Yeah. And it's just it's truly awful
when people gather together to somewhere alienate.
Yeah, yeah. To produce hate in the world.

(01:03:41):
To destroy because it it takes so.
Long. To build relationships, to look
at the buildings it takes. So.
Long years of manpower and work,but then it takes.
Just. 10 seconds of a bomb, everything you've worked for?
Yeah, I think there's so much. Again, there's so much
polarization about things and topics and people need to again

(01:04:04):
lead with empathy. And at the end of the day, like
you don't know what people or cultures are going through.
So again, calling it out, not necessarily, doesn't always have
to necessarily be the most respectful way, but I think I'm
just going to go back to what I said earlier.
There's no longer table. I think there's so much more to
be said, like I have very different opinions about certain

(01:04:25):
things than my sister and we were raised in the same
household. However, we can say, yeah, we
can have a political debate or any type of debate for that
matter, but we can still sit down at the same table and say,
you know what, I love you. And just because you have this
opinion doesn't mean I hate you.At the end of the day, there's
still love. I got it.
I got so many. Friends that are.
On like a complete, a complete other side of the the political

(01:04:47):
spectrum that I even get into arguments with.
But the end of the day, the loveis still there.
It's not like you're trying to to kill people.
You're just trying to go about in the world.
And maybe it's like in today's day and age just in, in Canada.
It's like both parties are they're trying to do good,

(01:05:07):
right? If you look at the intentions,
the intentions are all there butthe acts.
They're not so much not so good.I'm a believer and like, put
your money where your mouth is in the terms of, you know what,
if you're going to walk to walk,you're going to talk to talk.
And if those are misaligned, that's when you got true
negative culture. Yeah, that's how it is.
Yeah, that's that's pretty much it.

(01:05:28):
For all of. Culture building.
That was the last one. Yeah.
Let's talk about death and grief.
I love it. 1 inspired you to include lessons about death and
grief in the curriculum. And how do you approach teaching
to these sensitive topics to students?
And I add that I do remember youteaching Leadership Nine with
our class, and it still stuck with me.

(01:05:51):
You talked about vulnerability. That's kind of one of the first
times a teacher has done that. Really.
Yeah. Yeah, I guess there are some
points in Elementary you don't really remember it, but it
wasn't really as raw as kind of how you talked about your your
story with your mom. And like the students were all
shocked. We'd all look each other because

(01:06:11):
people were usually on their. Phones.
They look around. But when you gave that the
speech, you did. Then.
I forget how you implemented that, but it was just so on time
like it was. A lot of people needed that.
I think, I think the lesson you were talking about, I want to
say it was the the level 1-2 or three activity where I would get

(01:06:34):
anonymous like levels and post them.
I think that's what you're referring to.
I think so. At the end of the day, I think
there's something people know when again, when you're being
authentic. And so in terms of my story is
death, I, if you were to ask me five years ago, would you be an
advocate for talking about deathopenly?
Probably. Not over the last 10 years.
I've lost all my parents. So I lost my stepmom, Maureen,

(01:06:58):
when when I was 21. I lost my mom when I was 26.
And then I unfortunately lost mydad during COVID.
He died of cancer. So I lost a lot of parents but
was in. I think two things is their
lessons about life and the experiences that they lived by
have helped me become who I am. And so I always talk about death

(01:07:21):
because people shy away from it because it's so uncomfortable.
And at the other day, we're all going to die.
No matter how much we try to fight it, we're all going to.
Die Memento Mori. Memento Mori?
Exactly. All going to die.
I actually have it. Momento Mori tattooed.
Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. It's awesome.
Yeah, it's like a little hourglasses.

(01:07:43):
But yeah, So nonetheless, I think talking about death and
grief is really important because it humanizes people.
And I as a teacher, I always like to bring up those things
because death is one of those things that people weirdly still
respect no matter what I remember specifically the year

(01:08:04):
my mom died, we were doing what was back then known as Geomir.
And I came back literally the day after my mom died.
And I I'd taken a week before and we were leading into
Christmas break. So I was like oh, I need to just
get away from my family for a little bit.
So I went in to school against my better judgement.
And I just remember, I mean thiswas like December, let's say
twenty 19th, 20th. And it was the point where, like

(01:08:29):
everything was, everyone was gonna be getting excited for the
holidays. And I came in, we were doing
this huge jamming project. And I just remember the kids
were being such Dicks. And I was like, guys, I
literally, my mom died yesterday.
I came back for you guys. What's going on?
Everybody is probably just like whoa.
Yeah, I I I lined it up there pretty quick, but like, let me

(01:08:52):
tell you like it was AII still remember that because I was
like, oh, I really just did thatand.
It's not feel cathartic your. Way.
But it was also like guys, what the heck are you doing?
Probably authenticity going backto that vulnerability.
Yeah you head now on that. I think people are need to be.
When people are talking about things that are really authentic

(01:09:13):
to them and they are authentic about it, then people will
listen. And I mean I, I, I, I love
talking about death. I've done a lot of grief work,
clearly. I've also done a lot of death
work. There's a really great YouTube
channel out there called Ask Mortician.
There's a really great death author that runs it.
Her name's Caitlin Dowdy and shedoes a lot of talking about like

(01:09:34):
death questions. And I guess in a roundabout way,
how I got talking about that stuff was there was something,
an event that we hosted at the school after hours it was called
like an unconference and people got to students included that we
invited. They got to post post notes on
topics on all kinds of topics they have to give their
opinions. And one of them was, I wish my

(01:09:56):
teachers would talk about death because.
And I was like, oh, interesting.And then so I brought that up to
one of my classes and they're like, yeah, we would actually
like to know about it because noone ever teaches you what to to
expect. And I was like, you make a good
point. So I kind of worked a cricket a
little bit in that I was able toinput it here and there and we
had some really good conversations not only about

(01:10:19):
death and grief but also like the the decal process of a human
being, which sounds morbid looking back.
But I think those are important things to learn because again,
we're all going to die and we need to understand, hey, you
know what? These need to be kind of in
place for it. And in my experience, I think
I'm kind of a little bit of a death expert in the sense that
I'm buried a lot of my all of myparents, but also other family

(01:10:42):
members. And I'm really good at planning
a funeral and knowing what deathrituals or things that need to
be doing. Because again, at the end of the
day, death and grief are something that we're all going
to experience. And to that end, I would also
add that we need, we are all going to be, oh, I just lost my
train of thought. Where was it?
We're all going to be no it's not.

(01:11:05):
It happened with Sorry with death.
It really sobers up a lot of people it really for people that
are anxious that are just going in their heads.
When I I talk about it a lot toobecause I think about it a lot.
I think that's just. It's a big.
Motivator I know for in the pastit's been something that would
inhibit my progress in life, butever since learning about

(01:11:26):
Stoicism and learning that deathis a part of life.
And I've had. Some people who weren't.
They weren't that. Close to me, but it's just kids
that I went to school with and car crashes and people and
overdoses that I hear. And these people I've met,
people I've worked with and while nobody close to me have

(01:11:47):
has really died, I hear about itand I've.
I got really scared that it would happen to my family
members one day. And I kept asking myself, would
I be able to take it? Would I be able to take it?
And then I kept telling myself, no, I wouldn't be able to.
I wouldn't be able to. And then I kind of just.
This really drove my mind crazy for a bit.
Yeah, that would, yeah. But then I just accepted it and

(01:12:09):
it is, it is coming. And instead of using that as a
as a thing that would propel me to fear life, I used that to add
meaning. Oh yeah, that OK, we're all
gonna die. So I might as well hear people

(01:12:30):
out. I might as well not give in to
the short term gratification of giving it to my anger, of
treating someone of resentment, of a of just putting some other
people down. And death is such an important
asset of life aspect. Every teacher needs to teach
their kids. Yeah, and like, I love talking

(01:12:53):
about it now. And it's always interesting to
me just bringing it out there and just talking about it,
because so many people have varied, wildly different
experiences with death and Greece.
But I think it's such an important life lesson to learn
about in terms of like okay, well, this is what this means
because there's a lot, I think not necessarily misinformation,

(01:13:15):
but there's a lot of things thatpreconceived notions perhaps
that people have around the funeral industry or what rates
you have as a a mourner and and like all of that stuff.
Like for example, most of this was during COVID.
But in my death where it's something that I've known is I
always wanted to wash my parentsbodies after they passed.

(01:13:36):
It sounds really weird. I watched.
I watched an episode on it on this midnight gospel it's
called. I did and.
It's just a little just talks about those.
Death. And all.
All the the this. Stuff was last week.
But yeah, go on. I was just going to say the so
when my dad died, I actually wasable to ask the Funeral Home.
I was like, I would like to washmy dad's body.
And they were taking back to like, what?

(01:13:59):
You know. And I was like, you know, like
it's an act that a lot of other cultures have done throughout
history, but it's an act of love.
It's like my, well, my dad took care of me when I was a kid and
raised me. I want to do this one final act
of thanks so that I can do it. And unfortunately because it was
during COVID, they weren't, theywouldn't allow me to do that.
Then I kind of was like, well, how about how about I press the

(01:14:20):
button for the cremation becausehe did get cremated.
And the the funeral director must have not liked me because
she was just like, no. And I was like, but like why?
And it was just it was interesting.
You know what? At the end of the day, it was
more like, OK, this is, I don't want to get butting heads with
people who are, like, really taking care of my dad's body.
So it's like, hey, it's whatever.

(01:14:41):
But, like, I know, like I openlytalk about, like, what I want
done with my remains once I die.And people find that very odd
because I'm only 34. But yeah, people, people get
weirded out about death. But I think again, it's the
great equalizer. It's the thing that we're all
going to experience at some point.
And there's a There's something important to talk about it
because at the end of the day, we're all going to experience it

(01:15:03):
to some degree. And there's just nothing.
Like you said, it's nothing moresobering than death.
And so that's why one of the reasons why I always love, love
talking about an educating people about death.
Yeah. And.
It's can happen at. Any time you don't know, you
don't know you, you don't know whether tomorrow within the next
hour or hopefully not within thenext hour, yeah, and obviously

(01:15:25):
not. But for many people that is the
reality of it. Well, it's just it comes out as
a shock and you've sat in the previous deaths of your your
parents, you sat in the room. Oh yeah, Can you tell me?
How that felt. So I was there usually right
before. So I I do believe that people

(01:15:46):
get to have a choice when they get to pass.
So when my my stepmom passed, she I for both my mom, like my
stepmom and my mom. It was right after we left.
It's when they passed. And I I think it was one of
their final acts to, like, not make us worry.
So when my, for example, my mom died, she had her sisters there
next to her and we had gone home.

(01:16:08):
My sister and I, we were just going back to the park.
And it was just one of those moments where my aunts told me
it was right after we left and they phoned us and they're like,
we just didn't want to tell you on the road.
We waited till you got home. But yeah, mom passed and it was
like, whoa, so can you when you heard that news.
How did that feel? Well, I think so.

(01:16:31):
With each parent, it's different.
But like for my mom, she had herearly onset Alzheimer's.
So it's often called a long, long goodbye because the body
that was there was not the mum that raised me, it was her
physical body. And so we mentally were prepared
for that for a long time. Was it still a potentially gut?
Absolutely. It was like one of those moments

(01:16:52):
that you see in the movies whereeverything just goes silent and
you're just like, not necessarily hype.
It's ringing, but you're just like whoa, that just happened.
It just happened. And yeah, it was very much very
somber. And it was very hard because at
that point my sister was living elsewhere and I was living with
my dad and of course my parents were divorced.

(01:17:13):
So it was, it was really weird in terms of, like, how my dad
reacted. And so, like, my sister came and
got me, and we just literally sat in silence afterwards
waiting for my aunts to come back.
And we ended up staying till, like up until 3:00 or 4:00 in
the morning, just talking and reminiscing, processing that.
And there's something beautiful about that as well in the sense
that like funerals are for the living not the dead because it's

(01:17:36):
that's our act of outward mom I guess final goodbye.
Yeah. I would say the the hardest one
out of all my parents not to like rape them but like the
hardest one was my my was my dad.
So I was with him up until like,so he got diagnosed with cancer
and he got bilate cancer. So it's a very very similar to

(01:17:59):
pancreatic and so that hits realfast.
So she he was doing a lot of chemo and then got kind of a
clean bill of health. But then it came back to the
vengeance. And when it came back to the
vengeance, the doctors gave him 30 days.
And when a doctor gives you a time frame, they usually try not
to do that as they can. But when they gave you a 30 day
notice, like it is very accurate.

(01:18:20):
And looking back, I have a teaching for school at the time.
Well all this is going down on one side.
I probably should have just resigned and not taught it.
But on the other hand, I was like, I'm glad I did because at
that point I was living downtown, nice commuting in
every day. So I was able to get a little
bit of an extra long lunch break.
And I got to see my dad and say all the things that, like you

(01:18:41):
want to be able to say because he knew his his time was coming.
But the day that he died. It was interesting because I
went with one of my oldest friends, Jordan, who I've known
since I was in kindergarten. She's one of my best friends.
And we ended up going randomly getting tattoos that day and we
ended up just having a great night And then, which is what I

(01:19:02):
think my dad wanted because my sister was out and about.
And then she came back and we kind of traded places because I
was there for a few days and needed a break.
And then that night when I I woke up at like 1:00 or 2:00 in
the morning and I it was on my phone and I I was like, I missed
like 8 calls. And I was like this is this is
the call. And so, yeah, So like, I think

(01:19:22):
my dad wanted me to not be therein the sense that, like, he
wanted to. He wanted me to be free from
that. And I I have been in rooms where
people have died. So not necessarily my parents,
but like, it is crazy and eerie how peaceful it is.
And yeah, so like, I I think in terms of what the experience was

(01:19:43):
like, it was just, it's very calm in a weird way.
It's the best way I can describeit.
I've talked to some people who have.
Had near death experiences and these are people in their 70s
and 80s 'cause I. I work with.
Some people that are sadly, theyhave to work at that age because

(01:20:04):
they need just need to provide. And this guy had told me it was
he's, he's big into drugs or he was back when he was in his
twenties, 30s and he talked about going on all sorts of
drugs and he said that no amountof peace has ever given him out
of all the 70 years that he's lived while dying in that

(01:20:27):
hospital bed. And I'm like.
Cool. Like I've never.
Really. Looked it up in that.
It just reminded me from the wayyou described it, how it was
somber. And it's just peaceful.
Yeah, yeah, peaceful. And we shouldn't shy away from
that because it is a part of life and it's coming for all
this. Yeah.

(01:20:47):
Mentor and I think there's something to be said about like
we in the West, we sanitize our death experiences a lot.
Like like a lot of people say like oh you you need to die in
Hospice. And that's completely false.
You can actually die at home if you want to.
And that's my dad chose. He chose to die at home And yeah
no it like doesn't make it harder in some capacity.

(01:21:09):
Absolutely. But at the same time, there's my
dad actually always called it end of life decisions in the
sense of like, comfort care. He wanted to be comfortable and
so he stayed at home and he got his wishes, which is kind.
Of cool it's. He.
Lived. A full life.
He raised you and your sister and he's done his job.

(01:21:30):
He did. He's in a better place.
I'm very. Religious.
So I I I'm a firm believer of this.
Is not the end like this real? I believe in heaven too.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I think like, yeah, I like tosee him one day and absolutely,
I know that. So beautiful.
Yeah. Absolutely.
How do you believe? Learning about death and grief

(01:21:52):
fosters resilience and mental grit among students.
Yeah, I think. I think we all in life
experience tumultuous times. And I think talking about
arguably what is the most tumultuous time in people's
lives just really exemplifies and we're talking about mental
grids, that ability to bounce back, that perseverance.

(01:22:14):
And we all know that we're all going to lose someone at some
point. And you could always go and give
up and like just be completely in your grief and let that
overcome you, which is a valid experience if that's what you
need to do. It's beautiful, but at the same
time, grief and experiencing that is only a piece of time you

(01:22:36):
will come out of it. Winston Churchill has a quote
that says if you're if you're inhell, keep going because you're
not done. And I think that's very true in
the sense that you know what, atthe end of the day, grief is
going to suck. It sucks so much, but at the
same time it allows you to become stronger.
I I think grief is I'm going to quote one division here, but

(01:22:59):
there's a quote that really resonated me and that shows that
grief is the price we pay for love.
And I think that it hits nail onthe head in the sense that you
your grief is because it's breaking of love.
You're heartbroken in a way. And there's there's an analogy

(01:23:19):
in psychology called the box andthe ball in the box for grief.
And the idea there is your griefis a little box with button and
as time goes you start with thisgiant ball.
So it's always going to hit thatbutton for grief.
But over time, either the box gets bigger or the ball gets
smaller, and over time it's lesslikely to hit that button.

(01:23:40):
And so you never really overcomegrief, You just learn to live
with it. So like, I always talk about New
Normal afterwards, and there's something to be said about that
in terms of having gone through it and being on the other side.
All those experiences, like if you were to ask me 10 years ago,
do you think all your parents are going to be dead by that
time? No, I was 24 at the time.

(01:24:03):
Like I I don't think so. So I think there is something to
be said shut off again. Sorry about that.
Oh no, it's all good. All right, so.
In what ways can understanding and processing grief contribute
to personal growth and emotionalintelligence?
I think the first thing is that creating a space in which you

(01:24:27):
can toggle grief, it automatically allows people to
understand that it is something that builds character.
And I know in the last question we talked about mental grit, but
it it allows us to not necessarily overcome it, but it
allows us to hurdle that or jumpthat hurdle a little bit in that
you get to experience it. Yeah, like I just death is

(01:24:50):
something that's going to happento us all and it's going to be
really important that we talk about it.
And I think creating that space in which we openly discuss it,
We don't sanitize it. We bring in the visceral
realities of it. I think that just allows people
to grow from it. I mentioned earlier that I would
not be who I am now without having experienced all the loss

(01:25:13):
I have, and that in some cases it can be for a great thing.
But while others, like I would say like, it has definitely
colored my humor and that my humor is a little bit more
gallows related to humor, it's alittle darker.
If you ask my friends, there's like, I will most likely make a
dead Terran joke once or twice. And like, I say that time and
cheap, but that's also the way Iprocess it.

(01:25:35):
And I I do that double standard in the sense of, like, I do it
for A to make more people a little bit more open about
talking about death because thenthey're more likely to laugh
about death. And not that death shouldn't be
respected, because it should. And then also you have to take
it kind of on the chin a little bit in the sense that, like, you
need to, you need to laugh aboutit because it is, yes, it is a
serious thing, but it's also in all the death I've experienced,

(01:25:57):
is that sometimes laughter really is healing.
And I was lucky enough that all my parents had a really good
sense of humor. So, like, I think they'd
appreciate my dark sense of humor about death.
But at the same time, I also think that you talking about
death and empathy surrounding death and people going through
it. It is a way that people know

(01:26:18):
that they can overcome it and they can normalize it, and I
keep on saying that, but we are all going to experience death,
some of us really early. For example, I was the first one
in my friend group to really experience death such a young
age. Now as I've got older or more of
my friends, thankfully not all of them have experienced death
in some way, whether it be theirgrandparents or their parents,

(01:26:40):
now that I'm able to kind of guide them through it.
One of my other really good friends back here, unfortunately
her dad passed away just over a year ago.
And when it happened, she immediately contacted me because
I was at Safe space because I'vegone through it and I was able
to give her and her family pointers.
And again, like, I mean we always talk about like what we

(01:27:03):
can do or like it's always really interesting talking about
like age, generational differences.
And one of my favorite things isthat I think in our generation,
the millennials and the Genzads,that when someone dies in the
old days, it's like the 70s onwards, they would make
casserole, bring food to the families.
Now people start kind of like the, Oh my gosh, what is it

(01:27:25):
called? Like when you raise money for
it, what are they? What is it called that?
What? GoFundMe.
Yeah, GoFundMe. It's just their act of like,
it's their, the modern version of a casserole.
Like I always like to do both personally, but that's just
'cause I'm a huge foodie. But I think there's going back
to talking about the food is allmade visible.
It's like if you, at the very least people who are dying bring
food, drink food, raise money, because it is, it's also very

(01:27:49):
expensive to not die. But like that's another here or
there topic. Nonetheless, though, I think
going back to kind of the root question is, yeah, we're all
going to experience death at some point and it's your mental
grit and your ability to overcome things and teach.
Empathy is just it comes naturally just by talking about
it. Yeah, that's that's, that's

(01:28:11):
pretty much everything. That.
I'm I'm so thankful to have you on today.
Thank you very much for having me.
It's been an honor. Yeah, We'll have to come on
again because absolutely people would derive great value from
this. And I'm sure you've got more to
add on and more topics about thefinance of it all and just
navigating life and how to become a.

(01:28:33):
Teacher. And I just yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Thank you so much, Justin.
You're so. Welcome.
Thank you for having me still. It's like I know.
Mr. Mr. Gavinet thank you. You're very loved.
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
It's been another so much fun. Is there any last words that you
would like to tell your students?

(01:28:54):
Former students? Yeah, I'll just say it.
Make good choices. I'll leave it there.
But yeah, as always to everyone,there's purpose for you in this
chaotic world. Keep going.
Do not lose hope and keep it long term peace.
That was awesome. Thank you SO.

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#36 - Justin Gabinet: Unlocking the Secrets to Holistic Education: Empathy, Culture, Death and Resilience

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#36 - Justin Gabinet: Unlocking the Secrets to Holistic Education: Empathy, Culture, Death and Resilience