E39: Candid Conversation with Colleagues David Carmichael and Josh Watkins: From Classroom Teaching to Administrating

Episode Transcript
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Mr. Webb (00:00):
Oh my gosh yeah, we are now.

David Carmichael (00:03):
Joey's already having second thoughts about
this, Josh.
I have to start a terrible ideawhy don't I invite them both on
at the same time.

Mr. Webb (00:11):
I say, okay, we're recording.
That was sorry, that was theworst cricket sound I've ever
heard.

Josh Watkins (00:20):
Oh, I thought your pager is going off.

Mr. Webb (00:25):
Welcome to The Conservative Classroom, where
we're teaching the truth andpreserving our values.
I'm your host, Mr.
Webb, and I'm glad you're here.
This podcast is a haven forconservative educators, parents,
and patriots like you, whobelieve in the importance of
free speech, traditional values,and education without

(00:47):
indoctrination.
Each week, we dive into issuesthat are plaguing our education
system and keeping you up atnight.
In each episode, we offercommon sense ideas to improve
education in our classrooms andcommunities.
You may feel like you're thelast conservative educator or
parent, but I want you to knowthat you are not alone.

(01:10):
By the way, if you like whatyou hear today, please share
this podcast with a like-mindededucator, parent or patriot.
Together, we can teach thetruth and preserve our values.
In today's very special episode,I'm joined by a couple of
remarkable educator friends.
So grab a cup of hot cocoa,settle in by the fireplace and

(01:35):
let's dive into a conversationfilled with holiday cheer,
insightful perspectives and asprinkle of conservative wisdom.
Now let's get started.
I'm excited to welcome twospecial guests to The
Conservative Classroom mycolleagues and friends, Josh and

(01:55):
David, and we're here on aspecial holiday episode of The
Conservative Classroom to catchup on old times and talk about
education.
So you guys introduceyourselves and tell us how you
got into teaching.

Alright, David, I'll let you go first.
Age before beauty.

Fair enough, sir, alright.
Well, I am at David Carmichaeland I started in education back
in 2008.
I started teaching middleschool band and music and I did
that for a total of 10 years.
Along the way I picked up amaster's degree in curriculum

(02:37):
and instruction as a musicteacher.
I figured another degree inmusic would just give everyone
two reasons to fire me, as thearts are often on the chopping
block.
And so I picked that up,thinking if I ever did lose my
job as a music teacher, I couldmaybe take a practice and teach
something else for a while.
But always knew since sixthgrade that I wanted to be in

(03:00):
education and teaching.
And then in, I guess about 2014,I was persuaded by the
principal I had at that time toenter into a principal cohort,
and my wife seconded thatbecause she knew rank one would
be a pay raise.

(03:21):
And so I went through theprogram fully intending never to
use it, never really wanted toleave the classroom and think
about an administrative position, but just a couple courses or
really a couple in-personmeetings in, and I realized that
the administrative world wassomething I very much wanted to

(03:41):
get into and be a part of.
We, as teachers, often want abottom up approach to fixing a
lot of problems and that'sreally the way it should be.
But sometimes I think in orderto get things done, you have to
be some people who are willingto move up to help those things
take place.
And so, as much as I dosometimes miss being in the

(04:04):
classroom, I still get in itpretty often and feel very
blessed to have been.
I guess now I'm in my sixthyear as an administrator for as
a principal and two as anassistant principal and was able
to stay in the same place for14 of those 16 years and met
both of you guys on the podcasttoday there and just really

(04:28):
enjoyed that time there andexcited about being more back
home now with my family.
As the job opened up last falland I'll pass the torch, josh
you want to go ahead andintroduce yourself.

Well, I'm Josh Watkins.
I have been in education nowfor 11 years.
Four of those were in thespecial education setting as a
LBD teacher, five of those as asixth grade, seventh grade and
eighth grade math teacher, andthen the past two years have

(05:02):
been an administration, all atthe same school, and I too was
persuaded to go into or take anadministrative route from a
principal that we had at thetime and, like David, I never
intended to use that rank one tobe an administration.

(05:27):
But after Mr Carmichael decidedto move back home, I was
presented with the opportunityfrom the principal that took
over or assistant principalunder David had asked me
personally to be her assistant,so that I took over.
My original bachelor's was inbusiness and I did that for a

(05:51):
few years and honestly, the drawfor me to education was summers
off, and which I quicklylearned that summers off that is
in quotation marks, especiallynow and then I pursued my
master's in special educationand got my highly qualified
status in math and then on myrank one in administration.

(06:13):
So I haven't enjoyed my timeand use my planning skills to, I
feel, better help the schooland we are now no longer TSI
from our state testing data.
So whatever we were doingworked at least one year anyways

(06:34):
.

Mr. Webb (06:35):
And excuse me, can you explain what TSI?

What is that?
So, basically, we were one stepaway from from having the State
Department come in andbasically clean house.
Our scores were very low.
It's ranked on a goes and,david, you may have told me out,
but it's red, orange, yellow,green and then blue, blue being

(07:00):
the top and red being the lowest.
And so the prior year we weredown in the low orange, which
was right before you get to thetop, and so we were under
underwatch, I guess kind of likea probationary period.
And then this past year we'vemoved up to yellow and we were

(07:20):
only about 10 points away frombeing in the green status.
That's awesome.

Yeah, it is good job, Sir.

So thank you, and I know David schools in the
green this year Congratulations.
We were.
Thank you, sir.

Mr. Webb (07:40):
So, Josh, how long were you an LGBT teacher?
Oh, that's LBD.
I'm so sorry, but you know assoon as you said LBD teacher
please don't forget this.

Don't Sorry.
Learning and behavior disorders, Gotcha Okay.

Mr. Webb (08:06):
That makes way more sense.

I'm not well versed in the other.

Mr. Webb (08:13):
I worked with you guys for two years and where we
worked was an amazing, amazingplace.
The students were amazing, theteachers were amazing and I
learned so much from both of youguys.
David was my oh, what's thatteacher?

(08:34):
What's that called?
I just went blank.

Teacher internship program.
It's not around anymore, Iguess officially by the state,
but K tip was it Kentuckyteacher internship program and I
guess it's still in effect forthe different.
The state no longer funds itbut the board of education in
each district is responsible formaking sure that new teachers
do have that, that mentorprocess that still goes on

(09:02):
mentor yeah, that's the word Iwas looking for.

Mr. Webb (09:04):
You were like my mentor teacher, so you would
come in and observe and, man,you were always willing to help
and you gave me some greatfeedback and I honestly felt
like you made me a betterteacher, and I worked with Josh
too.

And he was just there.

I was glad I was the only one that didn't
pick up on the long silencethere.

Mr. Webb (09:31):
But seriously, Josh, Josh was the co-teacher, so I
don't know if other districtsand other parts of the country
call it co-teacher or not, butbasically he was a special
education teacher that wouldcome in my classroom with his
students and we would co-teachand I've been in situations

(09:52):
where the co-teacher was a trueco-teacher and I feel like
that's the situation that wewere in, Josh, like we would
talk, we'd work behind thescenes.
If I was up teaching math andJosh had an idea, he would just
jump right in and we had that,like you knew it was okay to do

(10:16):
that.
And I wanted you to do that andI learned from you and I feel
like you learned from me maybenot so much, but I learned a lot
from you and I feel like weworked really well together and
we were just a great team.
I feel like we really got toknow the students.
The students had a blast whenwe were together in class, so my

(10:38):
hats off to both of you guys.
I think you're awesome, amazingeducators and you'll never get
a compliment like this behindthe scenes.
So suck it up.

We'll bask in that for a few moments.
I think I'll speak for me andJosh too.
We learned plenty from you too,sir, excellent master teacher.
I appreciate that, yes,absolutely.

And especially coming from a.
We're both option sixcandidates.

Mr. Webb (11:09):
So yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
So, option six for folks thatdon't know, that is where,
instead of now.
David, you said you knew youwanted to be an educator from
sixth grade.
Is that right?
Yes, so you went.
When you went into college, youwent into the teaching program,
absolutely so.
Option six is for the folksthat got a degree in that wasn't

(11:34):
in teaching, that later decidedto teach, not a traditional
route, right and non-traditionalroute.
I was in the, I went intobanking and insurance and did
that for about 12 years before Igot into teaching.
So I was.
I was thought about this a fewminutes ago and was going to
mention it, david, when you weretalking.
There's a lot of folks.

(11:58):
I think it's because of my age.
So I'm 50.
I started teaching when I was 40and a lot of folks asked me hey
, are you going to try to getinto administration?
You're going to try to be aprincipal?
I think it's just cause of myage, honestly, because I'm older
than you, know a lot of theteachers and I don't have any
interest in that.

(12:18):
I want to stay in the classroomas long as I can.
But you said something that Ikeyed in on, and that is that
you didn't think you had anyinterest.
But when you got to lookinginto it you changed your mind
and you realized that you didn'tword it this way.
But somebody has to, somebodyhas to do it.

(12:40):
Somebody has to get in thereand be that person that all the
teachers want them to be.
You know, we all, we all want agood principal.
Somebody has to get in thereand make the difference.

Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, and, like I said, youknow, as a teacher I remember
multiple times thinking, oh man,I wish we could do this, I wish
we had the support to do this.
I wish I could experiment in myclassroom and feel like it
wouldn't be a gotcha if someonewalked in and that experience
isn't there all the time.
And as much as you can say, youknow, I want this for me.

(13:17):
If everyone that has thatpassion and that zeal is working
just nonstop and they don'thave the support above them to
encourage that to continue, theyget beat down and decided that
that's not worth it and so thenthey're not enjoying what
they're doing anymore.
You know, and you've got tohave people that are willing to

(13:41):
do that, that, that and again.
I don't.
I don't think there was ever apoint with me where I stopped
wanting to teach.
There are still times wherewe'll have our music or band
teacher out of the building andthey'll have a substitute in
there and I'll go in there andkick them out and say go, enjoy
a long break, I'm going to teachfor a while because I miss.

(14:02):
I miss being in there with thekids in that capacity sometimes.
But again, you've got to havesomeone that's willing to do
that, to say I'll step into thatrole and try to be the person I
wished I would have had when Iwas teaching.
And I think Josh felt the samething when he went through some
of those courses.

(14:22):
There's a part of you that it'sthe same part of you that first
got you into the professionsaying, man, I don't know if
this is really what I want to door not.
And then you have that momentwhere, yeah, this is exactly
what I want to do.
And for me, as much as I wentinto that administration degree
with a whole lot of reservations, just within a few classes the

(14:43):
passion to do that started tobecome stronger than the passion
to just keep going at it in theclassroom level.
And I thought you know what?
Maybe I can do this and nothave to feel like I'm doing
things the way thattraditionally I've seen them
done.
I can do it the way I think itneeds to be done and then hope

(15:05):
that I have people at centraloffice that will support me in
that.
And you know, again, you haveto have people that'll step up
and do that at that level.
Then it all, it can trickle upto the point where someone's
listening and then let ittrickle back down to the people
that need it.

Mr. Webb (15:22):
That's awesome.
What's your?

thoughts on that.

Mr. Webb (15:25):
Josh, I know when you got into teaching.
You didn't automatically wantto be a principal, am I right?

No, absolutely not .
I mean, like David, I miss theclassroom every day, especially
going into some of our mathclassrooms, and like they'll
have to step out and take a callor go use the restroom or
something like that, and I'lltake that time to jump in and do

(15:52):
what I used to do and it givesme that I don't know like a fix
that I need.
But I saw a lot of like therewere good and bad examples
everywhere, and so I try to pickon that and, as you both know,

(16:14):
I kind of talk to everybody inthe school and so, and listening
to things that are good or bad,or people like or don't like,
and then seeing I'm going tobrag on David, I won't ever do
this again.

But you guys are being great on the air.
I appreciate that so much.

But, sadly I'm going to edit this out David,
but seeing David step in andkind of do the same thing that I
feel that I do is stepping inand doing the things that need
to be done, or putting thethings out there that need to be
done or accomplish, or at leasttrying to get the ball rolling

(16:56):
with what teachers need or whatthe discipline needs at that
time, was very helpful.
And then, of course, davidpushed and, pushed, and pushed
and on me to get where I am.
So a lot of examples along theway, whether they're good or bad

(17:17):
, it was a learning experienceand helped to help push me in
that direction.
So, but, like I said, stillneed my fix from time to time.

Mr. Webb (17:31):
The fact that you guys were in a classroom and a lot
of folks get into teaching.
Some of them, you know theirintent is to be a principal, so
that's teaching is just a.
They know it's just a stopalong the way, but then you guys
the kids loved you guys.
You guys were awesome teacherswho eventually decided to get

(17:55):
into administration.
Do you think that makes youbetter administrators?

I think.
I don't think it makes mebetter, but listening and being
able to build relationships.
That rolls over intoadministration.
So if you're not buildingrelationships in the classroom,
you're not going to be able tobuild relationships as an

(18:22):
administrator with your teachers.
And so those high turnoveryears which, david, you were
part of it just as much as I was, but I think that's what lacked
in those years and you cancorrect me if I'm wrong on that.

No, I think you're 100% right and I guess to
me, Joey, no, I don't think itmade me a better administrator
just because, like I wasreluctant going in.
I think probably what makes thebest administrators is, I guess
, when I think of the badexamples, that kind of Josh was

(19:02):
referring to there, the nonexamples they're the people that
the teachers would get togetherand say kind of underhandedly,
they've been out of theclassroom too long and that's it
Like with what Josh is sayingand with what I try to do.
I hate being out of theclassroom.
I want to be in there as oftenas I can, in whatever capacity

(19:25):
I'm working.
I just that's where I want tobe.
And you know, my kids here atthe school know if I'm in my
office for more than an hour ortwo a day that I'm going to be
grumpy at the end of the daybecause this isn't where I want
to be.
Like, I want to be in theclassrooms with them helping out
.
You know, trying to, you knowhead off things before they

(19:48):
become a big thing.
But getting to know, like Joshsaid, those relationships with
the kids a lot of principals theonly time they see kids are
when they're in trouble, ormaybe when they're getting in
you know off the bus.
You don't know names that way,you don't know kids that way and
you sure don't know what'sgoing on with them that way.
The best examples that I haveas an administrator are those,

(20:11):
those administrators who make ita point to get in to the
classroom so you can't say aboutthem they forgotten what it's
like to be in there.
The ones that are awful are theones that don't ever step foot
in there, unless it's for anobservation.

Right, I agree 100%.

Mr. Webb (20:30):
I the principal that that I have now he is.
I don't know how long it's beensince he's been in the classroom
, but he's amazing.
Like he's he's not in theclassroom but he has an amazing
relationship with these kids andI'm amazed at how many of the
kids he knows their names.
I mean he knows everybody'snames and you know you'll see

(20:50):
him give them fist bumps in thehall.
And I worked under principlesthat had that relationship with
students that did not supportthe teachers.
But I have heard of principleswho had a great relationship
with the kids but when students,when their behavior issues in

(21:11):
the classroom and the teachershad to send the student to the
principal for some reason, theymight come back to class with a
candy bar or you know, it waslike they had a great
relationship with the studentsbut they didn't back the
teachers up.
You know it's like theirrelationship.
They didn't understand thatline, I guess of hey, I'm, you

(21:32):
know, I've got a greatrelationship, but I am a
principal.

Well, it's more of a fatherly relationship that
you need to have with thestudent.
If that makes sense, like youfeel, the student feels like you
have a good relationship andsupported, but then they
understand when they mess up,something is going to happen and
right.

(21:56):
The teachers in turn see thatyou know, yes, they have a good
relationship, but they are alsogoing to follow through with
what needs to be done.

Mr. Webb (22:05):
Yeah, that's the kind of principle that I work for
right now.
You never, you know.
He's always going to back youup, even though he has this
incredible relationship with thestudents.
If you have an issue and I tryto take care of everything in my
classroom like it has to getpretty bad you have to do
something very drastic to getsent to the principal's office.

(22:28):
Quote, quote, unquote sent tothe principal's office.
And when you send them to theprincipal office, you know like,
oh, this is going to be veryuncomfortable for them because
he 100% supports the teachersand the efforts and he's not a
micro manager.
He lets the teachers like, youknow, you're the professional we

(22:48):
hired you to teach, we're goingto let you run your classroom
and I love that.

Yeah, David was never like that.

There you are.
That'll stay in the podcast.

Mr. Webb (23:10):
Oh that's funny and, excuse me, and I don't know, I
don't know if I mentioned thisor not before or after we
started recording.
I don't think I have.
But you know, with you guys Ikind of know your politics.
We were friends as well ascolleagues.
But the principal I have now wedon't talk about politics, so I

(23:32):
don't know.
You know what his politics are.
I feel like as a teacher, weshould kind of keep politics out
of the classroom and you've gotenough said this on many
episodes.
But you have one side, theliberal side.
They are trying to push noteverybody, but they're trying to
push their politics on students.

(23:55):
Meanwhile you've gotconservatives that are just kind
of remaining neutral oneverything.
So how do you balance thatwithout pushing your
conservative?
And I'm really putting you guyson the spot because you're
administrators now you may seeboth sides.
You may have some really leftwing teachers that that you're

(24:15):
trying to rein in, maybe not.

I mean I agree with you.
I don't think politics have aplace in inside the school.
You know we're there to teachthem about things other than
politics.
I mean you can go through.
I mean it's just like teachingabout other religions in a
history class, you know, nottrying to push a religion on

(24:41):
them, just teach the history ofhow that religion came to be and
educate them about a cultureyou know.
And that's kind of the samewith politics You're just
educating about how that came tobe, not, you know what you
believe and what you think isthe right thing.

(25:03):
So I don't know, I just don'tthink it has a place in an
education.

David may disagree, but no, I think your
spot on.
I don't think that's one ofthose things that we get into.
And again, we all knew whereeach other stood on that because
in addition to being colleagues, we were also friends, like we
did talk outside school.
We talked outside of, you know,faculty meetings and that sort
of thing.
It kind of got to know eachother on that level.

(25:31):
And I guess the same is true Ifanyone really wanted to know my
political leanings, all theywould have to do is go visit my
social media accounts, becauseI'm pretty outspoken on there
and don't mind that.
But I don't bring that in thefront door.
I leave that as an outsidething and if anyone wants to
talk to me about that, I'm goingto discuss that with them

(25:52):
outside school.
I'm not going to ask a teacherto come in and share their
thoughts on, you know, somethingthat I posted on their planning
period.
If they try to, I wouldprobably just say, hey, let me
chat with you after school aboutthat.
But I think that's probably theeasiest way just to keep that
at without becoming an issuewhere you feel awkward or

(26:15):
uncomfortable or make someoneelse in the building feel like
you're trying to impose anythingon them, right, right.

Mr. Webb (26:23):
And I've said many times on the podcast that I'm
blessed to be in a fairlyconservative school district and
you know we don't at school.
You know teachers don't goaround talking about politics.
I'd say there's a lot of folksthat don't know what my politics
are.
But when I say that I mean youknow there's no, there's no area

(26:45):
of my school that you'll seepride flags up or you know a lot
of these things that are beingpushed.
So when I say fairlyconservative district, that's
what I mean we have.
There's a lot of issues otherplaces have that we don't have.
And I'm familiar, josh, withwhere you're an administrator

(27:08):
but, David, where you are aprincipal right now, is it a
fairly conservative, meaningthat you don't see, you might
not talk about politics atschool, but you don't have a lot
of issues come up with.
Hey, this teacher's got a prideflag up and there's some
parents frustrated about that.

There are.
I mean, we are a university townand so obviously there are some
some more liberal leanings attimes and some of that in the
district certainly has, you know, is part of it.
I don't, again, I think most arerespectful enough that it
doesn't really come up fordiscussion, but there are some

(27:50):
signs that you know we can seethere are.
There are some faculty that do,at the end of their signatures
you know their, their standardstock signature, at the end of
an email it'll say you know himor her, you know hers, that sort
of thing.
By and large that's not thecase, but there are some who do
choose to use that, which youknow makes me think I have an

(28:11):
idea where their politicalleanings might be, you know, and
that's not by any means themajority, but there are some
that that do put that in thereand so in my mind I'm thinking,
okay, that that might be someonewho leans that direction, but
again, that has no bearing ontheir ability to instruct
students is, you know, in anycapacity there Right, as long as

(28:34):
they keep keep politics out ofthe classroom.

Mr. Webb (28:38):
So it sounds like you guys aren't dealing with some of
the crazy things that you know.
Maybe some folks out inCalifornia or some other liberal
areas are.
But what is your?
What's your biggest challengeas administrators?

Unless you're ready to roll there, david, I've
got.
I've got my mind right now isand this is this is not speak
for for everybody I had a lot ofsupport, but parent

(29:24):
relationships and then beingable to decipher what a child
says versus what a an adult istelling them, and what I mean by
that is we've got a lot of that, plus outside influences, and
by outside influences I meansocial media, specifically

(29:48):
Snapchat.
So that's a huge challenge rightnow.
And then the parents not takingwhat their child says as a
gospel.
We've had several things comeup where it all starts on social
media and most of it throughSnapchat, where there's been

(30:12):
something circulated outside ofschool and then it's brought
into the school we're having nowto, if it starts on social
media, push that to the agency,like the Sheriff's Office or the
police department, to deal withthat before we start dealing
with it in school.
Then, like I said, with theparents side of that I know when

(30:35):
I was growing up, I wasdisciplined at home and then ask
questions about it laterbecause the adults said that
this happened and that'sbecoming a lot less of the case.
It's almost like you'reconvincing the parent that this
is what truly happened in class.
So that's my biggest struggleright now.

Mr. Webb (31:02):
What about you, David?

Yeah, we're certainly seeing some of that
too.
Social media just the kids areconstantly on their phones.
I know all of us are in middleschool and I think we can all
say, just thinking back to ourmiddle school experiences when

(31:25):
we were a student there, a lotof parents say we'll look at all
the bullying that goes on inmiddle school today.
I feel like middle school isthe same, as far as the amount
of bullying that goes on inschool, as it was 20, 30 years
ago.
It's back then we could go homeand get away from it for a few
hours.
They don't have that luxuryanymore.

(31:46):
They go home and it's broughtright back up in their face all
night long, because they haveparents that don't understand
the technology as well as thekids do, or don't care.
It gets them out of their roomfor a while and they can just be
the mush heads on theirtechnology and things are good

(32:06):
there.
We certainly see our share ofthat too, I think.
Probably what I'm dealing withmore so than that right now,
though, is just a lack of drive,I guess, from students and
parents that are okay with that.

(32:27):
What I mean by that, as far asdrive goes I was talking to one
of my former band directorcolleagues just a few weeks ago
and they said they made a phonecall home to just tell the
parent hey, we're strugglingwith this in class right now.
I've sent them home with thisto work on.
If you could help them with ita little bit, I think that it
would really helped them out alot.
The parent's response was well,if they're struggling, we'll

(32:49):
just take them out of band.

We have actually had that exact same situation.

We have students who are struggling
academically and I can call homeand say, hey, we're going to
try to put these supports inplace to help.
The parents' response is nevermind, we'll just homeschool.
We're having to and it's Idon't know if and to a part I

(33:16):
get it.
If you listen especially to thenational narrative about what
public schools are doing, Iwould have caution about the
quality of education my child'sgetting.
Now, everywhere I've worked,I've been blessed to say, yes,
100 percent, I would absolutelysend my kids to the school that
I'm at without hesitation.
But I know some don't have that.

(33:36):
Joey, I know in one of yourpodcasts there was a parent who
started a homeschool for her kidbecause there weren't any good
options that weren't just fartill left, leaning with all of
the indoctrination.
We don't have that.
But it's just like there's solittle community and I won't say

(34:00):
that overall.
It's not like the consensus orthe majority by any means, but
there's just no faith in thesystem.
There's no faith that and Ithink some of that's COVID and
parents are like well, we taughtour own kids at home for a year
and they're okay, and we allknow they're not because we're
still dealing with that.

(34:21):
That did not help them and theydid not proceed as normal.
But it's just like well, we didit, then we can do it again and
not have to deal with theschool calling us and saying
things are wrong with my kid.
It's just so frustratingbecause that kid needs to be
here, that kid needs the helpthat we can provide, and it

(34:42):
almost makes you not want tocall home and tell them this is
what we need to do, for fearthat they're going to just say,
oh, okay, well, we'll pull them.

Right.
Yeah, that's happened five orsix times this year when things
have gotten tough and somethingreally needed to be done.
Good communication from home.
It was pulling them tohomeschool or more enrollment of
virtual academy, something likethat.

(35:10):
I know for the most part of theones who have pulled they're
not putting them in a qualityprogram or seeking communities.
There's a small community ofhomeschoolers around this area
that they meet together to doactivities and get the social

(35:31):
interaction and all that.
That's what I consider a goodcommunity, but a lot of people
are using it as a well.
Things are getting tough, we'lljust pull them out and they can
be alone by themselves.
We don't really care what kindof quality education they're
getting.

Mr. Webb (35:49):
The kids know, that they know that well, I can do
whatever I want because mom'sgoing to side with me, or
they'll just pull me out,they'll send me and I know you
guys have seen this too, andthankfully I haven't seen a lot
of this but where you've got astudent who is a behavior issue

(36:11):
and instead of the parentbacking the school, they'll well
, we'll just pull them out ofhere and send them over to this
school.
But more often we'll getstudents coming from other
schools.
So you know, like when you'rethree, fourths of the way
through the school year and youget a new student, you're like
well, what is yeah?
like what's the story here?

(36:32):
You know why did they getkicked out of their old school
or why are the parents movingthem?
And obviously that's not alwayswhy they're coming in late like
that, but but you do see that,and I think kids pick up on that
and they take advantage ofteachers.

Absolutely Take advantage of a situation.

Mr. Webb (36:54):
But my big takeaway is something David said he listens
to the podcast.

That's my takeaway from that.

That's the most.

Mr. Webb (37:06):
That's funny, oh me.

Yeah, this is the first time you're having it.

Mr. Webb (37:13):
Josh doesn't.
He still doesn't know he's on apodcast.

By the way, Josh, I have a podcast.

Mr. Webb (37:20):
We just didn't have cell phones anyway, oh wait but
I've done several episodes aboutpodcast or about homeschooling
and, david, I think youmentioned in a text or maybe in
conversation before today howsome, some parents will they'll

(37:44):
take their kid out of school andhome school, but not for the
right reasons.
So just to make clear for allthe listeners, that's what we're
talking about.
We're not we're not sayinghomeschooling is a bad thing,
but homeschooling for the wrongreason is when you do it not
because you care about yourchild or because you care about

(38:05):
their learning, but when youcare about it, when you care
more about well, my kid's introuble, so I'm just going to
take them out.
I think that's what we'retalking about here.

Yeah, yeah, they're just.
It's not to help their kids.
And if a parent wants to, if aparent comes in and says, you
know, I don't feel my child'sacademic needs are being met or
I feel like this needs to happen, or you don't offer this by all
means, I'm going to supportthem.
They know their kid and theyknow it's best for their kid.
And if that's why they'rewanting to move or go somewhere
else or homeschool, 100% youknow you're their parent and I'm

(38:40):
going to support you in that.
But the ones that it's just.
You know we don't want theconflict, we don't want the.
You know we don't want ourchild to be labeled as a bad kid
or we don't want we're escapingthis consequence this way,
that's, you're not helping yourkid Escaping consequences.

Mr. Webb (39:01):
That's perfectly said there.
That's what we're talking about.

And that's what a lot has done.
That's either to escape truancyor to escape behavioral
consequences.

Yeah, and I don't think that's the majority
by any means nationwide, but Ithink, with the ones that I've
seen, that that seems to be kindof the going trend.

Mr. Webb (39:25):
Right?
What effect does student apathy?
I see this, you know, as amiddle school teacher.
It seems like to me that eachyear the kids just kind of care
overall, they care less and lessabout learning.
What are you seeing?

Do you see the apathy increasing, or I actually
had this conversation with oneof our teachers the other day.
She had asked me you know, arestudents carrying less or do I
need to?
You know, think about anotherprofession, like, am I doing
less?
And I said no, it's kind of,across the board, from what I've

(40:07):
seen, they're okay with justgetting by and not, you know,
putting forth their best effort,and whether that be in the
regular classroom or in, youknow, a related arts classroom,
even like PE, seeing studentsthat are very athletic, less

(40:32):
interested in, you know,participating in a PE classroom
playing a sport, and that blowsmy mind.
You know, I was athletic kidgrowing up and I couldn't wait
to go to PE to play whatever wewere playing that day, because I
wanted to be competitive aboutit.
So it really really hurts mysoul.
But I'll let David go ahead now.

Yeah, I just, I think you know to quote I
think it was Travis Tritt theyfeel like they're 10 feet tall
and bulletproof these kids havebeen, and I blame the school
systems to a large degree for it.
They feel like there's no waywe can hold them back, there's

(41:19):
no way that they can have anegative consequence for it.
I mean, I know when I went toschool if you got a 93, it was a
B.
You know like there was no 10point grading scale and there
certainly was no.
We're going to let this numberbe the lowest that you can enter
into the grade book, so youdon't give them a zero and there

(41:41):
is that push for that.
And then you look at kidsreport cards and I dare say if
you went into any given middleschool in the Commonwealth of
Kentucky and you said I want agrade report, which they can't
give you, but if they could, Iwant the grade reports from
every kid in the school, youwould have a minimum 80% of kids

(42:04):
who, by and large, were gettingA's and B's.
Are we getting 80% of studentsgetting proficient,
distinguished on state testingRight?
Absolutely not.
Yeah, absolutely not.
There's no reflection in thegrading process to indicate what
the kid knows.
And I think a lot of that isbecause teachers are afraid to

(42:25):
give the score the kid deservesfor fear that the parent will
come in upset and they don'thave the backing of an
administrator to say, no, that'swhat they earned, that's what
they get.
And so kids don't have thatconsequence for their inaction
or their action.
And so they've had, for themost part, all of these kids

(42:46):
have had that from kindergartenon.
This is not a new thing, it'sjust something that's kind of
been perpetuated.
And so now we're at the pointwhere what can we do?
There's a culture of just passthem on to the next grade and
maybe they'll grow out of it,instead of saying we're not
going to tolerate that, you'regoing to get a zero, you're

(43:09):
going to fail, and if that meansyou're retained, that's your
choice.
And I'm not a fan of retention,I don't like it.
In some schools it's awfulbecause you're sticking the kid
right back in the same classroombecause you've got a lot of
singletons, and that's not idealand it's torture on the teacher
that just had them.
But at the same time there hasto be a consequence there, and

(43:31):
maybe it doesn't have to be aconsequence, maybe it needs to
be a bigger scale conversationat a bigger level to say we're
not going to do things that wayanymore, like it's just not
going to happen.
So be advised, this is what'scoming.
I know when I first startedteaching, the first year I was
teaching, and I gave a kid a Din band on a report card and I

(43:56):
got the worst parent phone callI've ever gotten in my life,
even as an administrator.
Like that parent phone call wasworse and it was how dare you
give my, how can a kid get a Din band?
And I said well, have them pickup their trumpet and play
number 58 for you.
I don't know what sounds cameout on the other end, but I did

(44:20):
get an apology a few days later.
And they said thank you for notgiving them a failing grade
instead of the D.
You know, thank you for givingthem a D, but at the same time,
like there's that expectation ofoh, band should be an easy A,
take band it's an easy A.
Well, that's a cultural thing.
That's been the way it's beenand the unfortunate thing is
we've kind of gotten that wayabout everything.

(44:42):
Like you should be able to passjust because you showed up, and
I think that just when you'vegot kids that are lazy already,
that just tells them why shouldyou?

There's less of the showing up as well.
I see it in the in the sportsrealm.
Kids will be like well, I'm,I'm just not going to practice
today, or I'm not.
You know, I'm not going todaybecause I don't.
I just don't feel like it.
I might have mom or dad canpick me up or whatever.
So I mean it's bleeding overinto to everything Do you guys

(45:20):
see students.

Mr. Webb (45:22):
I'm seeing an increase in this, where students will
take vacation in the middle of aschool year.

Yes, oh yeah, Absolutely.
We had a.
We had a parent actually uphere just within the last week
or so that was asking for a, aneducational opportunity for them
, which is what those are.
You know, sometimes you can goon trips and they are very
educational.
And then there's the familiesthat want to go to Disney world
and give me the form so I canfill it out.
But we had a parent that cameand literally requested one of

(45:56):
those forms and the student hasbeen at school fewer days than
they have been out.

Mr. Webb (46:01):
Wow.

Like they.
They are so just habituallytrue and at this point, and some
doctor excuses, some not, andso I mean it was denied and the
parent called and said just soyou know we're going anyway,
it's that idea.
It's like he said that there's,there's, the importance on

(46:24):
education is is not there fromthe students or the adults in
many cases.
It's sad.

Well, I haven't seen is good, no, go ahead Josh.
I haven't seen.

Mr. Webb (46:38):
And don't worry about interrupting me, I'll just mute
you.

I haven't seen as much of that, just like the
random in the middle of theschool year.
But what I have seen more ofbecause, well, david knows, and
you know from being there, we're, we don't have a whole lot of
people running everything, so ifour front office secretary has
to run out, we're sitting there.

(47:07):
And so I look through theparent notes that have been
dropped off and and I feel likeI keep going back to athletics.
But it just feels so differentthan when I was growing up.
But there was a note there saysmy student had a basketball
game last night, so that's whythey were out yesterday.

Mr. Webb (47:28):
Now what kind of message is that sending to the
student?

Right, you know, if something's a choice that you
do after school, are we puttingthat priority over their
education?
That's kind of what I'm seeinglike sports or priority over the
education.
But how many professionalathletes do we have coming from

(47:55):
the world in general?

Mr. Webb (47:59):
I muted you a few minutes ago, Josh.
I'm sorry, did you saysomething?

No, I was just working on playing the nose
flute over here.
I'm getting pretty proficient.

Mr. Webb (48:13):
You have to get good at it or David will give you a D
.

That's right.
I don't want to hear from yourparent either.

You're right, you gave that to me.
I did not earn that in any way.

Mr. Webb (48:24):
Oh, that's a good point.
He did say that you gave me,and that's something else that
we hear.
You know, if a kid does well,oh good job, billy, and if they
do bad, like you, gave my kid abad grade.
So there's a lack ofaccountability there too, and I
think one thing that goes alongwith student apathy is the lack

(48:46):
of grit, and I'm seeing this asa trend too.
What I'm seeing the trend is isthat the first little bump in
the road is like oh, I'm done,I'm gonna give you a hand up.
Can I get some help over here?
I will let them work inindividually, pairs, groups of
three, and I explained to them.

(49:06):
Okay, now, if you struggle, Iwant you to talk about it with
each other.
And if you're still struggling,you know, look back in your
notes and we do several examples.
You know a lot of math is justdo this.
You know, here are the stepsI'm going to show you.
I'm going to tell you what theyare.
We're going to do severalexamples.
We're going to do these samesteps every time.

(49:27):
Okay, now you do it on your own, and this is hard.
Yeah, can I have some help overhere?
I mean, there's not even, noteven an attempt sometimes.
That's always been a thing, butI'm saying I see that getting
worse and worse and worse.

Well, I think that that's and I'm not going to
make an excuse for it, but Ithink it's something that I
don't know, that they have beentaught how to really have the
grit.
You know, going back to socialmedia, everything that they see
is success.
They're not seeing the stepsthat it took to get to that

(50:06):
success.
What did that person do?
And you know teaching them.
You know you're going to askyourself first, you're going to
ask a peer next and then you'regoing to ask me.
And when you ask me, the firstquestion I'm asking you is what
steps have you taken so far?

(50:27):
And if you can't tell me that,sorry, I'm not helping until
you've you've gone through.
Well, I've tried this, this,this and this and this is what
I've got written down so far andI'm stuck.
So making them I meanchallenging them that way and
really teaching them how to, Iguess, self-evaluate.

(50:51):
You know well, I've done allthese things.
I need to do somethingdifferent.
I'm not getting to where I needto be Right.

Mr. Webb (50:58):
Just getting them to write their work down.
And I don't understand that,like, and I tell them you know,
I need to see your work, I needto see your work, I need to see
your work.
So they'll come ask me for helpand I'll say, okay, did you?
Did you talk about it with your, with your partner?
Yeah, we don't understand.

(51:18):
Okay, did you look through yournotes?
And even if they did that whicha lot of time no, and I'm like
well, we did three examples,just like this.
So go, you guys, go look atthat and then let me know if you
still need help.
But even if we get past thatpoint, it's like okay, so you've
done all that.
Let me see what you've done sofar.
And the page is blank and I'mlike you know, I need to see

(51:43):
some start, because we did doexamples.
We've got some track to run on.
Or they just have an answerwritten down and I'm like how'd
you get that answer?
Oh, I just I did this and that.
Like, well, I need to see.
So, and I tell them everysingle day show your work so
that if you make a mistake or ifyou struggle, I can help you,

(52:07):
so we can figure out.
Oh, here's where you got offtrack.
But I mean it seems to begetting worse and worse.
Just trying to get students toeven show their work, just to
write something down.

I think a good .
There's no concept of the ideaof productive struggle.
They just they just want tostop and move on to something
else, or they'll raise theirhand and ask for help and get
through one problem and thenwait until you're free to come
back around for the next problem.
Like it's they.
There's no attempt to say OK, Ithink I have a little handle on

(52:42):
this.
Let me go ahead and try a fewwithout someone helping me.
That they just they want itdone as easily as possible, and
that idea of I'm going to, I'mgoing to hit failure over and
over and then eventually reachsuccess they don't want that.
I mean.
I think back as simple as likevideo games.

(53:02):
You know, when I was growing upI remember the video games like
I got really good at the firstworld of Super Mario Brothers
because I kept failing until Ifigured out how to do that, you
know.
And and they don't design gamesthat way anymore, Like if they
do, it's, this is story mode andthen we're going to put another
mode on here where you can justgo in and have fun and not get

(53:25):
your feelings hurt that you'renot very successful at this game
, you know, because otherwisethey wouldn't sell the game.
The kids would throw it in thetrash and go to get something
else.
Like they don't want that.
I have to learn how to besuccessful at this.
It's just easier to throw theirhands up and say I can't do it.

Mr. Webb (53:45):
So yeah, I'm not that familiar with games nowadays.
When I was coming throughschool, checkers had just came
out.

They were just starting to carve the chess
pieces.
Oh my gosh, I think some ofthat can be negated with
starting, like with the end inmind, so like with a math
problem.
If you're just going to writedown an answer, here's the
answer.
Show me how to get there thatway.

(54:19):
You know, just writing it downis not enough, I mean and you
could do that in really anysubject, but I see it more in,
like the writing classroom.
If you're, you know, havingthem write a personal narrative,
they're like I don't know, Idon't know what to write about.

(54:39):
It's your personal narrative,it's about anything you want it
to be about.
I just can't get started.

Mr. Webb (54:46):
Can it be about getting a dub on Fortnite?

Absolutely.
You just said you didn't knowanything about gaming.

Mr. Webb (54:57):
So switching gears just a little bit because I want
to make sure and get into this.
This is something that you hadmentioned I believe it was David
that mentioned this in a textabout the lack of resources and
textbooks etc.
That aren't full ofindoctrination, that are on
approved vendor lists.

(55:17):
Oh yeah, so there's a couple ofthings there First of all, the
lack of resources that aren'tfull of indoctrination, and the
second part is that are onapproved vendor lists.
So is that a two-parter?
Are there good resources thatjust aren't on approved lists,

(55:38):
or is it just difficult to finda period?

I think there's some actually really
good materials out there andagain, I know I don't have to
plug your show to your listeners, but you've had some people on
that are working on curriculumthat are trying to get some of
just the old facts that need tobe presented out there that
doesn't have any sort of slantto it, that doesn't have any
sort of indoctrination in it.
The problem with that is mostof the people that are doing

(56:05):
that are doing that themselvesor maybe with a small group or
maybe with some funding to kindof help.
But then you have the secondhurdle, which is these approved
vendor lists, and it's a racket.
The people that want theirproducts to be purchased have to
pay in to get that on that, toget their name on that list.

(56:27):
They have to pay a yearly feeto be on that list and then the
schools are required to purchasethings only off of those lists.
And so for people who areworking to create a curriculum
that could be marketed out therefor schools to use, that are

(56:48):
good products, they don'tnecessarily have the capital to
go into all these differentstates and to pay these fees.
I know in Kentucky it's aregional thing that they have to
pay in to and to say we've gotall this extra funding, they're
spending what they have tocreate the documents, to create
the curriculum, and so you knowto have to pay that to.

(57:10):
To be on those lists and thenhope schools will seek it out is
a huge struggle and and yeah,I'm fully aware of some great
curriculum that's out there thatthat just we couldn't get if we
wanted to get it here, simplybecause it's not going to be on

(57:30):
that approved vendor list.
And if we said, hey, board ofEducation, we'd like to purchase
these, these materials, we we.
Well, you've got to get threecompetitive, competing bids and
you know, obviously those aregoing to be undercut to serve
schools and then you have to gothrough all those hoops.
It is made difficult so thatthe textbooks and the curriculum

(57:56):
, that the powers that be and Imean on a probably national
level are the ones that we'regoing to have to choose from.

Mr. Webb (58:06):
If you have to scary to be on an approved vendor list
.
Doesn't that automatically makeit more difficult?
Or doesn't automatically makeit more favorable for these huge
companies that it's just a dropin the bucket?

100% it does.
I know, when I was in the banddirector world, you know the,
the, the instrument shops thatsell the kids the instruments,
had to pay in to get on thatthat list.
And then I mean I knew theowner of one of them and he said
, yeah, I hate this because I'mhaving to raise my rates in
order to pay our company to paythe fee to be on that list, like

(58:44):
it's, it's a racket and and Idon't know that that exists in
every state, but I know itexists, at least in ours, and
and it's difficult to get pastthat, which is unfortunate.

Mr. Webb (59:00):
So again, my takeaway there is that David listens to
the podcast.
I'm all joking aside.
And I'll probably leave somebodyout and I hate to do that, but
just off the top, my head,patrick Garrison with the true
corrective.
I had him on.
That was one of the firstprobably 10 episodes.

(59:22):
I guess he's going throughsocial study curriculum and then
, I think, moving on to othersand Ted Lam I had him on the
podcast.
He has dug into primary sources.
He's also a social studies orhistory teacher, so he's like
completely going around thatpurchase curriculum and he's

(59:46):
using primary sources to teach.
And I just found out that TedLam is going to be working with
Patrick Garrison at truecorrective.
I can't wait to see what theycome up with together.
But episode 28 was with BeanieGohagen of freedom and education
and one of the things they'redoing is they're going through

(01:00:10):
curriculum and finding goodcurriculum.
Whereas some resources are,they're creating their own.
They're actually siftingthrough all the curriculum out
there to be able to suggest whatcurriculum is good for and what
doesn't push a liberal agenda.

(01:00:31):
So, freedomandedorg, I'll plugthem because I think that's a
great idea.

David Carmichael (01:00:38):
That's exciting, that would be
tremendous.

Mr. Webb (01:00:43):
So tell me more about how you guys listen to my
podcast.

Go ahead.

Mr. Webb (01:00:50):
Josh.

Josh Watkins (01:00:51):
I've been there, josh.
Yeah, I listen every time thatI have a free second.
Okay, it's all I listen to.
I don't even watch TV anymorebecause I listen to the podcast.
So much Repeat old episodes,yes, it's like Seinfeld to me.
I just can't stop.
Yeah, the, the.

Mr. Webb (01:01:11):
BS oh, meter on this is going off the scale again.
Some of these, some of thesetopics as I'm looking through,
you know, lack of grit.
We talked about that.
Oh, adverse effects of virtuallearning.
I thought that was a great, agreat topic there.

(01:01:33):
David, you came up with thattoo.
Adverse effects of virtuallearning during and post COVID.
So what?
What have you guys seen there?

I'll start and then Josh can chime in.
I guess.
Yeah, I think obviously postCOVID we realized that you know,
teachers teach students,computers do not.
And most schools, when we wentvirtual for the first time and
everyone is struggling to getcomputers to be one to one,
realized a little too late thatthe idea of trying to push

(01:02:12):
curriculum out virtually througha computer based online program
or that sort of thing, just itwasn't as effective and
unfortunately, I think a lot are.
I think a lot of schools rightnow are pushing virtual learning
so they can keep enrollmentnumbers up because that student

(01:02:32):
still counts If they're in thatvirtual school, when really it's
just doing a disservice to thekid.
I think it I don't remember itwas a Super Bowl commercial or
if it was just a commercial onTV, but it was probably four or
five years ago in my mind, whichprobably means it was more like
10 or 15.
Because I'm getting old and theyears go by quick.

(01:02:52):
But I remember a commercialwhere it had these, these, these
young kids and they split themoff into two like you know rooms
where obviously you've got acontrolled group in both and one
group like we're watchingYouTube videos on on how to tie
a tie and and how to you know berespectful to ladies and how to

(01:03:15):
change the oil in a car.
And then in the other roomthere were fathers teaching
their sons how to tie a tie, howto change the oil in a car, how
to be respectful to a lady.
And then they interviewed thesekids and I mean every time,
obviously, as you would expect,the kids that had their dads
teaching them those things justby far outperformed.

(01:03:39):
And the kids that had watchedthe videos just stay there
looking at them like I don'tknow, I have no idea what to do.
And that's it with.
Computers need to be seen as anaid.
It, in my eyes, it is asubstitute for paper and pencil
or it is a substitute for, maybe, a textbook.
Where you're, you'rereferencing the material, but as

(01:03:59):
far as teaching goes, that wego to school for a reason, we're
perfect in this profession, fora reason, it's not a job to to
show.
Say everyone read page threeand then do these questions.
Anyone can do that.
It takes teachers, it takespeople with a passion for
changing kids lives who aregoing to take the time and and

(01:04:23):
and work the curriculum to makeit meaningful and to make it
make sense.
And when you take the peopleout of the equation and rely
solely on a piece of technologyto give that to them, it's such
a disservice to those kids andit's just.
It's so frustrating anddisheartening to me see so many
school systems really push that,that mode of learning, as the

(01:04:48):
chief mode of instruction, and Ido worry what it will do to the
next generation of learners ifthat's where the bulk of their
teaching is coming from.

And I wish honestly that I could go back
and to my first years ofteaching and tell myself how
good it is there compared to nowwhen we've got one to one.
Because, David, you know aswell as I do, part of your day
is spent turning in tech ticketsbecause of broken computers not

(01:05:28):
from.
You know, they were working so,so hard on their math.

They were talking so hard, the keys just
jumped off.

Yeah, they just jumped right off of the computer
that you know they're usingthem for other things, and
anytime I go to work on a kid'scomputer though I've got a close
out of 500 tabs of games beforeI can, you know, actually work
and look at what I've got infront of me.
So we've shifted to, like Davidsaid, we're sometimes not using

(01:06:04):
it as just an aid anymore, andthat's doing a disservice.
And, like you said, being shownhow to do something and
physically doing it are a lotdifferent than doing it on on a
computer or just watching avideo about it and doing it.

(01:06:24):
I think that you have to.
I know even from my personalexperience.
Yeah, I learned a lot of thingsthrough YouTube or how to do
things through YouTube, but I'mdoing them as, as it happens,
I'm not watching a video andthen cutting it off and saying,
all right time to go do itself,and I don't think kids have that

(01:06:45):
ability to do as they go, tolearn as they're going, and so
they have to be taught how to dothat.
And you don't get taught how todo that unless you've got a
teacher.
They're helping you along theway.

Mr. Webb (01:07:02):
Right, I felt with COVID.
You know it was a necessity.
Kids were suddenly out ofschool and schools decided okay,
we need to go virtual.
So we had to do something.
You know you couldn't just andI'm sure if we could go back and
do things over again and when Isay we, I mean like from the

(01:07:23):
classroom through the districton up to the state and maybe
even national levels I'm surewe'd do things differently.
But part of it was a necessitythat post COVID we kind of
leaned on.

I guarantee there's no educator in the
country that says, yeah, thebest year of my teaching career
was that year.
You know that's, that's when Igave my best instruction.
Pretty confident that waseveryone's worst.

Well, you're probably right on that.
The thing is too.
It was we were hit with it soquickly that it was like, oh,
this is the best option to kindof you know, shooting from the
hip type deal, whereas really,you know, looking back, I think,
like we did here, was going to,you know, part days where we

(01:08:15):
have this half of the county andthen part days where we have
this other half.
We had plenty of space and Ithink everybody could have.
We could have still gone inthat limited capacity, you know,
instead of knee jerk reactionto technology for everybody
right.
Not everybody had that great ofaccess with a knee jerk reaction

(01:08:37):
, you know.

Mr. Webb (01:08:40):
Now I'll tell you this is telling, excuse me, this is
telling on myself here, butbefore, like a few years before
COVID, I started making videosand I would use videos, you know
, to supplement what I was doingin the classroom and, like for
each, I was trying to build upexcuse me unit by unit, so I

(01:09:03):
would record myself teaching andthen I would I would post that.
So if students were at home, ifthey were sick, they could
watch the video that I posted inGoogle classroom and they
wouldn't have to miss anything.
And sometimes I recorded beforeschool, to be humorous, like I

(01:09:27):
did a British, I did a Britishaccent on one video and had like
a costume and another one I hada NYPD cap on in sunglasses and
I said we're here to learnabout statistics, which I'm not
real sure is a New York accentanyway.
But so for me oh, I've got totell you a funny story as soon

(01:09:49):
as I finish this For me itstarted out like I started
making videos.
It wasn't to replace myself, Iwas just making videos, you know
, to supplement what I was doingand hopefully building up where
I had videos for each lesson soif a kid was at home they
didn't have to get behind.
If I got sick for a couple ofdays, classroom work didn't have

(01:10:12):
to stop.
I could just post that onGoogle classroom and that it was
great.
And then when COVID hit, Ialready had these videos made.
So I mean that was wonderfulfor me.
I mean not not having the kidsthere, but I mean it wasn't as
difficult on me having to makethat switch because I had
already been making videos.

(01:10:32):
I hadn't made it for everylesson so I did have to, you
know, do some work there behindthe scenes to get that, but it
was nice to have that and to beable to put that out there for
the students.
And then when the students cameback and we were on an AB
schedule for a while where, youknow, half the students from the

(01:10:54):
county were there on like aMonday, wednesday, and then the
other half was there on Tuesday,thursday, where I could, you
know I could we could do alesson on proportions and I
could teach to the kids thatwere in the classroom and the
ones at home could watch thevideo about that topic, and not
we could still, even though halfwas at school, half was at home

(01:11:16):
, we could kind of still stay onpace.
And this is the part that I wasgoing to mention where I'm
telling on myself.
Once the kids were back at theclassroom, I started relying on
those videos and I got to apoint where I kind of felt lazy.
I'm like, what am I doing?
You know, these kids are backin the class.

(01:11:36):
I mean, I wouldn't do it everyday, but I caught myself, you
know, on a day where maybe I wastired or had a lot on my mind
like, yeah, I've already got avideo made for this lesson, I'll
just let the kids watch that.
So I've really tried to getaway from that and just use it
very sparingly now, which wasthe original intent.

(01:11:57):
Okay, so here's the story.
I was afraid I forget, Iremember.
So I did this, this character.
On this one video I introducedmy British cousin I don't even
remember what the name was.
So I had, I was recording itwith a Chromebook and the

(01:12:17):
Chromebook was on me and thesmart board.
So I said, and here's my cousinfrom England.
I paused the video and thenwalked around, put a hat and a
scarf on, unpause the video and,like, I exited from the to the
right and then my cousin fromEngland came in from the left.
So to the students it lookedlike I just walked off and this

(01:12:41):
guy walked on and I startedtalking in a British accent.
Well, the kids love that.
They hung on my every word, andthis is what I mean.
Like you can be creative, youcan usually sing in a creative
way.
So they hung on my every word.
And this, this one student,this one part of the video.

(01:13:01):
I said good day, sir.
So I'm walking around, the kidsare.
You know they're watching thisvideo and they've got their
headphones on and you know what,when headphones are up too loud
, how you can kind of hearthrough the head.
So I hear good day, good day,good day, yes Day.
So I'm like what is going onhere?

(01:13:24):
So I had a student that he wassitting there.
He was dying laughing.
And he was, he had that on loop,he was listening to one part,
good day.
So I said you know, I'm gladyou think that's funny, but you
know, make make these videos tobe interesting.
But if you, you know, if you'reoff tasks, that makes me wonder

(01:13:44):
if I should do this or not.
So just go ahead and, you know,get back, get focus, get back
on task.
He's like I'm sorry, Mr Webb,I'm sorry.
So.
I'm walking around the room.
A few minutes later I hear yeah.
Good day he had figured outthat you can slow the video down

(01:14:10):
.
Yes, he was still listening tothat.
He just had it on like halfspeed.
Oh my gosh, it was so funny.
But you know, for a lot, a lotof these, these things that
frustrate us, we've got storieslike that that just we'll never
forget.
Some of the stories are funny,some are, you know, heartwarming

(01:14:33):
.
Sometimes you know we say thisbut we really mean it, like if I
could just help one student.
Sometimes you have a rough yearand then you find out at the
end of the year maybe this kidthat you thought you weren't
getting through to that lets youknow that you made a difference
.
So share with me if you guyshave a story like that, or maybe

(01:14:58):
just a funny story.
But I feel like we should endon a positive note, since it is
Christmas time and this episodeis coming out around Christmas.

So mine would come from, when it was David's first
year as our administrator inthe building and I had the
student there who was a massivebehavior issue, to the point of
kind of taking over class andthen would just leave, and it

(01:15:28):
became a power struggle.
Well, david helped me realizewhat the underlying issue was
and he shared that with me, towhich really opened my eyes to
really think about how I wasapproaching a situation before I

(01:15:50):
went to, you know, level 1000.
And after that situationhappened, I turned around, I
talked to the student, Iapologized and then, throughout
the year, you know, thingsstarted really turning around
and at the end of that year,that student made a huge banner

(01:16:13):
for me in my room, blew up abunch of balloons, put them in
my room and told me how much heenjoyed my class.
And then, to this day, everytime that she sees me, she will
come up to me and we will have aconversation and she'll say do
you remember me?
I'm your favorite student andwe just, you know it's a great

(01:16:33):
connection, but one that wouldhave never happened had you know
we, or Dave, had been thinkingin a different way than me.
So, using each other, we wereable to help that student and
now you know that student'sbeing successful.
So that's just one that hasstuck with me and I'll never

(01:16:57):
forget.
That's awesome.

Mr. Webb (01:16:59):
You probably don't realize the full effect of your
positive influence on thatstudent.

No, but it's good seeing them out in the community
and being successful.
You know, having a job.
I consider that beingsuccessful, you're contributing
to society, Right.

Mr. Webb (01:17:23):
All right, david, your turn.
David's story starts out withwell, I gave a kid a D.

I was going to say, you know, to start with, I
just like I'm touched thatJosh's story that is the best of
his career involves me.
Checks in the mail, sir.
Checks in the mail.

Mr. Webb (01:17:49):
Wait, I want to change my story.

I think probably mine.
I remember, and I think it waseither my first or second year.
I think it was maybe my secondyear of teaching I had a young
lady in one of my classes andJosh said earlier, you know it
is, it's all about therelationships we form with these

(01:18:16):
kids.
I remember we hadn't been inschool for more than two weeks
and a kid just did somethingridiculous in class and I laid
into him.
I scared this poor young girlJust like beside herself, upset,

(01:18:36):
and I wasn't quite sure how tomake.
I could tell that I'd rattledher, but I wasn't sure how to
make that right.
And so it was just thisconstant thing of I was having
to keep myself in check becauseI didn't want to have that
reaction with her again.
And you know, we never know withkids what's happened in their
past.
And I thought you know, bless,you know, here's this girl who

(01:18:59):
you know, who knows, you know,maybe she's got a verbally
abusive father and now I looklike this big bad guy who's an
awful person.
So always second guessing, andI had that student in band and
ended up having that samestudent over the course of the
next seven years, three at themiddle school and then helping
out at the high school the nextfour years and I always worried

(01:19:22):
about that relationship withthat kid and like it was always
respectful and good and shewould typically smile and you
know, and be polite but wasn'treally vocal in talking and you
know, really getting to know mea little bit and I tried along

(01:19:43):
the way to try to help thingsout there.
That student was actually oneof our faculty members' child
and this past April I officiatedthe wedding between her and her
husband, who was also a formerstudent of mine.

That's awesome.

They came by the school my last year there
and asked if I would be willingto do that for them and I
thought, man, here's this kidwho I don't know if the
impression I made was, you know,an awful one or not, and ended
up being one of the people thatshe wanted to attend her wedding

(01:20:19):
.
Years after that she left myroom, so I used that one just to
point out, you know we don'tknow sometimes the impressions
that we make on kids and youknow to work to.
You know, even if I may nothave messed up, I may have just
caught her off guard that daybut the fact that you know it

(01:20:39):
was important to me.
It's still important for me tomake the relationship with these
kids one that where they feellike they can respect and trust
and be comfortable around me, toknow that at least I did that
with one kid.
You know it's like you said atthe beginning, joey.
You know it's if I know I'vemade an impression and helped
one kid and everyone does thathow many kids are we helping?

(01:21:03):
And so that's one that just.
I mean.
You talk about a good summer.
I got there to that wedding andof course you know it was.
I looked out across the crowdand it was all these former kids
because they were allschoolmates.
You know that were there.
That age group, that's awesome.
It was just such a surrealmoment to think.

(01:21:23):
You know, here I am with.
It's almost like my old class,you know, back here and it was
just probably one of the eventhough it wasn't during the
school day and it wasn'tassociated with school one of
the more rewarding things that'shappened in my career.
That's awesome.

Mr. Webb (01:21:40):
Well, I'm glad I asked you guys that question and I
wasn't going to share anythingbecause I've done that on, you
know, talked about things onprevious episodes.
But I thought it's something Ido want to share because this
goes back to those students.
When we worked together thethree of us we worked at the
same school, the group of sixthgraders that I had, the last

(01:22:03):
group that I had when I went andleft that school to teach close
to home, I went back for theireighth grade graduation.
I took a half day off work, youknow, took half a personal day
so that I could go to theireighth grade graduation.
You guys were there.
You may remember it, you maynot.
Yeah, but those kids were soexcited to see me and I was way

(01:22:27):
more excited to see them, youknow, because I just really had
a connection with them and Itold them that I would be at
their senior, when they graduatehigh school, I'll be there.
Well, I remembered that promise.
I didn't know if theyremembered it or not.
And so fast forward to last year, when those kids were

(01:22:50):
graduating high school, mydaughter had a band event and so
I had to make a choice.
Like I'll have to miss thisband event to go to what I
promised these kids.
You know I would go to theirgraduation.
Well, my daughter.

(01:23:12):
She's like no, dad, you've gotto go to that.
You told you promised them.
You know she knew the storybehind that and I'm like are you
sure?
And she's like, yeah, this isjust one thing, you go to that
please.
So that made me feel better.
I'm like, ok, she's OK with it.
So I'll go thinking you knowthere's going to be a few that
maybe remember who I am.

(01:23:33):
And it was one of the bestexperiences for me.
I had a group of kids come upto I call them kids, but they
were graduating high school.
That came up to me and said MrWeb, I can't believe you're here
.
We've been talking about youall week.
You promised us that you'd behere, starting to get a little

(01:23:58):
choked up guys.
Edit that out too.
But they said you promised usyou'd be here and you're here.
We've been talking about thisall week.
I couldn't believe it, you know.
I thought you know these kidshalf of them aren't even going
to remember me, or so I thought,no, did they remember?
But they'd been talking thatweek and they remembered the

(01:24:19):
promise that I made him.
So it was, it was just.
It was an amazing feeling.

And again, that just goes to show the the
the impact that you had on them.
I saw a lot of those pictureson Facebook and and some of
those kids were smiling biggerwith you than they were with
their parents and I think that'sbecause, like, you meant that
much to them and then to followthrough on that Anyone that

(01:24:46):
knows you know is that youpretty much will always follow
through on what you say.
That's one of the things I'vealways admired about you.
So I like, when I saw thosepictures, I thought, man, that's
awesome and it was.

Mr. Webb (01:24:56):
I appreciate it.
It was awesome and I feel likeI got more out of it than they
did.
But the fact that they got alot out of it, that just it's
just icing on the cake, so it'sa great way to end this special
holiday episode of theconservative classroom.

(01:25:16):
I usually end the episode witha key takeaway.
Is there something you guyswant to leave with the listeners
as the most?
If they don't remember anythingelse about this episode, what
is it you want them to remember?

I think the what we just talked about, the
stories that we just told, therelationships matter, and if you
build the relationships, thestudents will learn.
Let the learning come after,but build the relationship first
and work hard to build it.
Yeah and I'd echo that.

I think Josh is 100% right and and I would
just add to that not only withthe students, but also with each
other Like I haven't had anevening this fun in a while.
It's been so awesome to catchup with the two of you guys and
it's just.
It's been wonderful to chatwith both of you, and Joey says

(01:26:14):
often that you are not alone outthere in the conservative world
.
There's a lot of us like thatand it's it's nice to be
reunited with a couple of youguys that I respect and love so
much as friends and and justkeep fighting the good fight,
folks.
There's a whole lot of us outthere.
Don't ever feel like you're onyour own.
Joey will haunt you in yourdreams and Josh will be

(01:26:38):
listening to it on repeat in hispodcast.

Oh man, is it weird.
If I'm going to listen in theshower, he's still.

Mr. Webb (01:26:48):
Googling what's a podcast?

So, is that something I have to download.

Mr. Webb (01:27:02):
Oh my gosh.
Well, I'll send you a link,Josh.

Oh, OK, I appreciate that, no problem.

Mr. Webb (01:27:08):
I've sent you a link every week since I started the
podcast.
I'm still waiting for you torespond.
All joking aside, this has beengreat.
I so appreciate you guys comingon the podcast.
And as I was looking towardsChristmas break and I've been

(01:27:29):
doing a lot of interviews tryingto get several weeks ahead so
that when Christmas break getshere, you know, I can totally be
with my family and be presentwith them, so I thought, ok, I
need an episode Christmas week.
So I reached out to you guys afew weeks ago because I thought,
you know, it'd be awesome if,instead of interviewing a guest,

(01:27:51):
I could just have you guys onand just catch up on old times
and talk about education, and ithas far exceeded my
expectations and the podcastlength of my previous episodes.
We're getting into Joe Roganterritory here.

(01:28:12):
See, joe Rogan has a podcast.
Josh, he's a podcaster.

I don't even know who Joe Rogan is.
Was he?
Did he used to be on FearFactory?

Mr. Webb (01:28:28):
Oh my gosh.
Hey, I love you guys.
It sounds corny, but it's true.
You guys are more than justcolleagues and friends, your
mentors.
I learned a lot working withyou and I appreciate you guys
joining me on the podcastThoroughly enjoyed it guys.

Yeah, thanks for having us, man.

No problem.
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, absolutely.

Mr. Webb (01:28:53):
Oh, I muted you again, Josh.
I'm sorry.

Just had to get one more, just one more dig.

Mr. Webb (01:29:07):
That's it for today's episode of The Conservative
Classroom.
Thank you for tuning in and Ihope you enjoyed it and learned
something.
If you liked what you heard,please don't forget to subscribe
and leave us a review on yourfavorite podcast platform.
That would really help thepodcast out.
Most importantly, share thispodcast with a like-minded

(01:29:27):
educator, parent or patriot.
You can also connect with us onsocial media and share your
thoughts on today's topic bysending me an email at
TheConservativeClassroom@gmail.
com.
We'd love to hear from you.
If you feel that educationwithout indoctrination and

(01:29:47):
teaching the truth is importantto preserve traditional values,
then support my efforts to keepthe conservative classroom
running.
I'm a full-time teacher and dadand part-time podcaster.
I invest a lot of hours at myown hard-earned money each week
to bring you quality content,but I need your help Check out

(01:30:09):
the links in the show notes andon the website to support the
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Every little bit helps.
You can also visit our merchstore to get your own clothing,
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(01:30:32):
conservative slogans, such asage appropriate does not equal
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Defund the teacher's unions.
Keep politics out of theclassroom and more.
If you want to support commonsense and education without
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(01:30:52):
Schoolhouse logo on it.
We know it's hard to be openlyconservative in some school
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Until next time, this is, Mr.
Webb, reminding you that youare not alone.
See you next time on TheConservative Classroom.
Teaching the truth.

(01:31:14):
Preserving our values.

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