Lindsay Bednar- Eloquent Exposure of the SEL School Echo Chamber

Today we speak with Lindsay Bednar, who’s an author, publisher, podcast host, curator of storytelling and someone willing to stand up for the Truth.

She also has 12 years teaching experience and was also a Gay, or Gender Sexualities Alliance faculty advisor.

But she now realizes that because she was inside the “echo chamber” of the public education system, that not everyone has the best intentions for teaching these children, as far-left politics, Critical Race Theory and the hyper-sexualization of minors has crept into everyday learning concepts.

We also talk about her publishing house and her podcast and I’m so proud to have met another teacher willing to stand up and provide different perspectives on what is happening behind the brick walls of your local schools.

lbednar on Instagram

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12699069/Minnesota-mom-ex-teacher-eloquently-slams-former-school-district-pushing-gender-ideology-critical-race-theory-students.html

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/maine-source-of-truth-podcast--5501107/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Today we speak with Lindsay Bednar,who's an author, publisher, podcast host,
and a curator of storytelling and someonewilling to stand up for the truth.
She has twelve years of teaching experiencewas also a Gay or Gender Sexualities
Alliance faculty advisor, as that comesout in our discussions. She now realizes
though, that because she was insidethe echo chamber of the public education system,

(00:20):
that not everyone has the best intentionsfor teaching these children, your students,
because far left politics, critical racetheory, and the hyper sexualization of
minors has crept into everyday learning concepts. We also talk about our publishing house
and her podcast, and I'm soproud to have met another teacher, a
mom willing to stand up to providedifferent perspectives on what is happening behind the
brick walls of your local schools.This is the main source of Truth podcast,

(00:44):
and very few parents have said anythingwhat Sean mcbriarty did. Sean mcbriarty
is in the fust Offs today,Sean, how pervasive is that in our
school? Sean mcbriarty joins us nowhe just won this lawsuit and gets forty
thousand dollars from the school board.Good morning, Shawn, it through his
most dangerous dad. Apparently, howare you are you being soon a working

(01:07):
so by a local district for exposingthe transgender library display? Can you explain
to what's what happened? Hey?You all so with everything that's going on
to we just talked to this itslike alcohol mail. Yeah, about the
over sptualization of books and libraries atthe pool and then look like you put

(01:29):
the handle on that. That's thewhy it makes you to support that.
I ask you to support this podcastif you wanted to continue, and if
you want to help me with mylegal expenses and god willing a legal offense
fund to help others in need,please consider chipping in at www dot gibsen
go dot com, slash Sean mcbriardyAnd now onto the show. All right,

(01:49):
folks, This is season two,episode eighty eight. It is November
seventeenth, twenty twenty three. Aswe record this, I think I'm going
to call it Lindsey Bednar eloquent exposureof the echo chamber. Echo chambers word
that she uses a couple times aswe're talking. And I was looking for
some Bible verses about writing and Ifound Jeremiah thirty two. It says,
thus says the Lord, the Godof Israel, write all the words which

(02:10):
I've spoken to you in a book. And that'll make a whole lot more
sense. Because one of the thingsLindsay Bednar has done is created a publishing
house and she has a number ofauthors. I think she's well over thirty
five, probably up closer to fifty. And it's just so important for somebody
to be able to provide the opportunityfor people to write about their experiences.

(02:30):
And we're going to hear a storysoon about her daughter, nine year old
daughter actually writing a pretty pretty coolbook. So as far as updates today,
one of the things Buddha biberrage.So that was the Louden County District
attorney. They call it something elsedown in Virginia. She lost her election
bid. She well, really,George Soro spent about one point one million

(02:53):
dollars to try to keep this liberal, progressive crazy woman in office to her
competitor seventy thousand dollars, and thankgoodness, the voters of Loudon County,
Virginia actually put this guy over theedge by a mere three hundred votes.
Now, folks, may remember wedid this in episode seventy nine. Scott
Smith, a friend of mine whowas up last winter snowmobiling. You may

(03:15):
remember Scott Smith, the father ofthe fifteen year old girl who was sexually
assaulted in the bathroom by a transgirl, a dude wearing a skirt.
The school board there then covered thatup, sent the kid to another school.
He then sexually assaulted a second girlthere, and we find out that
he may have also sexually assaulted someoneprior to Scott Smith's daughter, Buddha Bi

(03:38):
Barrage, who I eloquently called Buddhabitch. She's done, She's done,
I think right now, if Iremember right, all of the school board
members that were part of that coverup are gone. The superintendent got fired.
I think he actually was held somesort of unlawful violation, and now
the district attorney essentially is gone aswell. Because this is a police state

(04:00):
we're living in. I had anopportunity a couple of weeks ago to watch
with my kids Police State again,Dan Bongino and just that show with him
and Deness De'suza, who produced themovie. We are living in his police
state. We are one of thosesituations, and I do a lot myself.
I always wonder, hey, howmany police guys arenna come down my

(04:21):
driveway someday. Because I'm speaking outabout what's going on. I'm also speaking
out about what's going on local politicstoo, So it's just crazy. But
the moralist story is, I'm sohappy that Buddha Bibarrage right now is done.
And you know, she totally blewthe situation with Scott Smith. I
feel for him and his family.I text back and forth with Scott every

(04:42):
once in a while just to checkin on him. But just what a
horrible situation, folks. And that'swhat's going on in the schools today.
Second thing is I put it onTwitter that you know, the GOP is
a rudderless ship under Ronald McDaniels.We're in this situation with two parties.
We've got the Trump Party and theRhinos. Essentially. She was on Ingram
Angle with the Laura Ingram the otherday of Fox and I was lucky enough

(05:05):
to be on that show a fewyears ago, exposing the main teacher of
the year to me. You know, the National GOP, the folks that
are supposed to be, you know, fighting for the truth and fighting for
parents rights and those kind of thingscompletely at redderdless Ship, same thing here
in Maine. There are three itemsthat the GOP can win on. It
is illegal immigration, its abortion,and it's educational freedom. And so far,

(05:29):
not many, if any of thepeople here in the GOP really want
to go down that road because theymight get something written negatively about them in
the bangor Daily News or the PortlandPress Herald. Also, we can effectively
say now that the super liberal andI'm gonna putt my air quotes independent Angus
King, one of our justffeckless horriblelegislators in Washington, DC. We had

(05:53):
a mom actually ask him about thissituation with the male runner dominating physically dominating
female sports, female cross country herein Maine. She asked him what his
thoughts were on it. I puthis letter up on Twitter. It might
have been a week or so ago, but just as opening paragraph quote,
thank you for sharing your thoughts abouttransgender athletes and the federal policies relating to

(06:14):
their participation in sports. I've beena supporter of the LGBTQ plus community for
many years, and I was concernedby many of the actions that Trump administration
took to undermine these individuals equal protectionunder the law, especially those who identify
as transgender unquote. Now we allrealize that transgender athletes don't exist. They
don't exist, like unicorns don't exist, like Bigfoot doesn't exist. There are

(06:39):
people, there are only two sexes, There's an infinite amount of personalities.
And I tell everybody all the timestop using gender. There are, as
we will discuss in this podcast,one hundred and thirty different genders in San
Francisco and San Francisco will actually payyou if you can check the box because
you are an oppressed person, whichis just ridiculous. So, as we

(06:59):
all all know, Angus King isfull of crap. He doesn't support parents,
he doesn't support the six hundred youngwomen who are discriminated against by this
one mediocre male athlete who now isgoing to and it has become a dominant
quote unquote girl athlete. And then, lastly, before we get into this
episode, twenty three way back Junetwenty twenty two, I did a podcast

(07:23):
on sel with parents, write advocateJennifer McWilliams. It's a great reminder the
fact that these schools are not teachingthe basics, they're pushing woke ideology with
your tax dollars. And then Iwas looking back. I actually kicked off
my second episode way back a coupleof years ago about sel and again,
this is going to be a greatrefresher, even for me. Things continue
to evolve and be exposed, andI think you're going to get a little

(07:46):
different perspective from Lindsay as an exteacher of where she started with this,
and then we're all ultimately eventually she'sgot to and she's seeing it now through
the parents' eyes, and I thinkthat's one thing that again, a lot
of these teachers just lose lose sightof They get infiltrated by the Teachers' union,
they get influenced by the Department ofEducation, They are pushed by lawyers

(08:07):
and administrators to keep pushing this wokedoctrine across inside our schools, behind our
brick walls, and it's just crazy. But I do really appreciate this is
going to be about a forty fiveminute interview with Lindsay, but I think
you're going to get a little differentperspective. I certainly did. I know,
I learned quite a few things,and I hope you do as well.
Our next guest today is a parentof two student in hales from andover,

(08:28):
Minnesota, with a love and aknack of writing. She started her
own publishing company called Rodney K Pressand Homage to her grandfather and Mother,
which she launched in twenty sixteen.Her publishing house includes books like Putting Lipstick
on a Pig, which may tiedirectly into what will be discussing today.
With a K through twelve public educationsystem, her Masters of Education capstone was
actually written on social emotional learning,which is what will be concentrating on today.

(08:52):
She also helped craft the sal curriculumin many school districts in her area.
She has twelve years of teaching experienceas a former school English teacher.
But our mindset has evolved to bebe able to at least see some of
the evils in the system, whichis often very difficult for many teachers.
Either they're unwilling to see the evilsor they're unwilling to speak up. But
our guest was willing to speak upand during a public comment session or our

(09:15):
local school board, she actually discussedthe issues that she's seen. She recently
wrote in a Facebook post about thedangers of social emotional learning. Quote.
Being supportive of any given community isnot a singular pathway. Challenging policies is
not equate to a lack of support, but rather it questions the route to
provide the best support possible. Unquote. She was also recently featured in The

(09:35):
Daily Mail with the headline Minnesota momand ex teacher eloquently slams her former school
district for pushing gender ideology and criticalrace theory on students. She's l Bednar
on Instagram. She's an author,a publisher, a podcast host, curator
of storytelling, and someone willing tostand up for the truth. In Actually,
November twenty twenty, you started apodcast called Storytelling with Lindsay Bednar.

(09:56):
So I welcome our guest Lindsay Bednarto the Main Source of Truth podcast.
Thank you very much. I reallyappreciate you spending some time with us today.
Thank you so much. John.And I'm giggling because every time I
hear that, uh, the articletitle from the Daily Mail where I slammed

(10:20):
the school board, I have tolaugh at the hyperbolics phrases that they use,
because I think I was pretty cool, calm and collected, but yeah,
I watched the video. Yeah,you were very calm, and uh,
it's interesting that, you know,I get accused a lot of times
of of you know, being somebig, bad bully, but I get
up and speak, you know,fairly similarly that I'm speaking to you right

(10:41):
now. You know, it doesn'tlike my tone doesn't change. I'm not
pounding the podium. And the samething with you. You you know,
you you read from a statement.You you kept very calm and you know,
controlled, And I think that's apretty interesting piece. And one of
the one of the things I waslooking at your Instagram again, El Bednar,
and one of the things that mightmake sense here overall is that you
had a quote on there opinions canbe like cages, keep the door open

(11:03):
in case you change your mind.I really think that's a great quote.
And it kind of ties into mynext question because you were once obviously a
big proponent of SEL, so youstudied it, you were taught you know,
SEL, the components of it,and I want to kind of see
if you can define for us alittle bit like what is your vision or
version of what SEL could have been, or maybe should have been if the

(11:26):
schools were going to stay on taskwith helping children simply learn it more about
their social and emotional needs and notgoing down this sort of Churchian horse rabbit
hole that we've been talking about.Yeah. Well, I taught in predominantly
alternative schools for all the twelve yearsthat I was an educator, and so
my students were coming from really roughbackgrounds with a little mentorship or ability to

(11:52):
have any kind of emotional regulation.They came from a lot of homes with
substance abuse, you know, acrossthe game of things that make us kids
have a more difficult time managing theiremotions. And so it was huge in
what we were doing, and atits core, social emotional learning, as

(12:13):
I've always understood, it was abouthelping students manage their emotions, setting and
achieving positive goals, feeling and showingempathy for others, positive relationships, and
most importantly, making responsible decisions.So a lot of what I did as
an advisor. In addition to teachingcore classes, all of us teachers had

(12:39):
an advisory half hour where we wouldmeet one on one with students, talk
about their grades, their goals,and really it was about looking at where
they're at and reframing it in away to say, Okay, do you
see how your decisions have led youhere? What would it look like if
we made this decision would what wouldit take in your eyes to get you

(13:00):
to the place that you want togo? And so it was all rooted
in empowerment, in really helping studentsto build their character. And what we're
seeing today is integration of these ideologiesthat were not a part of social emotional
learning when I began teaching, andthat makes sense. And one of the
things that I had a podcast wetalked about there was over six hundred teachers

(13:24):
in the Midwest and the number onereason that they were resigning was lack of
discipline in the classroom. So thatwas what was really you know, driving
teachers are resigned. The second thingwas due to WOK ideologies. And we're
really going to touch on this.So I mean, you know, my
beef with SEL like although it doessound great on the surface, and we'll
talk through that a little bit,but you kind of said, you know

(13:45):
in that October twenty third Anoka Hennepin, if I'm saying that right school board
meeting, you know, you saidthe SEL is more about pushing ideology so
I want to kind of spend alittle bit of time walking through that,
and I also want to kind ofmaybe give you an understanding of where my
baseline for SCL is so that wecan kind of have this you know,
conversation back and forth. And Idon't think it's going to be a debate.
I think we're probably on the samenot on the same page, but

(14:05):
same book, same library kind ofthing. But you know, to me,
I'm just not a co I'm nota fan of co parenting with the
government, you know, in anycase, and I really think those are
parental concerns now. Also, asa happily married man of twenty three years,
you know, my twins grew upin a fairly stable household, and
I understand that that's not what's happeningin every kid's lives, so that is

(14:26):
unique. But SEL, Yeah,you mentioned a little bit of this.
So the intersection of SEL is selfawareness, self management, social awareness,
relationship skills, and responsible decision making. And on the surface, I think
we can all agree that sounds great. But one of the things I listened
to doctor James Lindsay a lot,and he goes into these two or three

(14:48):
hour podcasts about SEL and other things. But he talks about, Yeah,
I was originally meant for children strugglingwith social emotional aspects kind of getting away
in the way of their learning.But then all of a sudden, it's
really the deeply rooted piece of it, the original sort of undertone, as
I guess, some of this stuffstarts bubbling the circus surfaces, or could
have said circus that might be thesame thing is really how these these kids

(15:11):
fit into this oppressed oppressor power dynamic. And what it's doing is it's really
destroying these kids' innocence by exposing themto really developmentally inappropriate concepts about you know,
victim and oppressor dynamics and gender ideologyand this constant sexuality. And so
whenever you start to hear, youknow, anybody listening to this, if
your school system's talking about transformative SEL, that's really a virus. You know,

(15:35):
this is the sort of the rootcause of inequity and societal well being
and all this stuff that in aperfect world, if teachers had the I
guess, broad infrastructure to not onlyspeak about the basics, you know,
right, like math and reading andscience, that's just stuff. And then
we're going to build upon that.Well, maybe that would make sense,

(15:56):
But for me as a parent,I'm like, I don't want my kids
being taught anything out of the wokeBible, because when it comes to equity,
you know, and we're going totalk about critical race theory, but
equity is impossible, right, Imean, we're all equal under God,
under the law, at least we'resupposed to be under the law. But
when you specifically taught taught you knowSEL, and you learned about SEL,

(16:18):
my assumption is you didn't really knowabout some of these things specifically happening in
your district, and then you startedto kind of have this awareness. So
talk a little bit about the twothings that you spoke about in that public
comment, one being kids being hypersexualized with books and teachers asking about pronouns
and then keeping secrets. So that'sall happening here in Maine. It happens

(16:38):
here in my local district ARSU twentytwo. And then the second piece of
that we'll talk about is because ofthe kid's skin color, which, again,
critical race theory practices. The practiceof critical race theory you know here
in Maine, and I've proven iton a global scale. Scoots kids are
teaching being taught this at five yearsold, you know, like the oppressor

(16:59):
oppressed dynamic is simply insane. Sowhen you when you had your two minutes,
and I know it's hard to packa lot of stuff into a two
minute public comment, but those arethe two things, hyper sexualization and critical
race theory. So you've identified that. So talk a little bit about your
you know, your twelve years ofteaching, what you saw now kind of
what you're seeing as a parent.Absolutely. What I think it's very important

(17:21):
for everybody to know is that whenyou are in the school system, just
like when you're online, and thealgorithm keeps feeding these things that you agree
with, you are in an echochamber. And so when these things start
to infiltrate your school, they're allsold with the package of inclusivity. And
of course I haven't met an educatorwho doesn't want to have allowed all students

(17:44):
to feel seen and safe. Yeah, natural inclusion, right, Natural inclusion
is great, like I think weall have absolutely, yeah, And so
it starts that way, right,And I will say I was also I
was a GSA advisor or a GayStraight Alliance advisor. We could talk about
that is that's all right. Butbut but here's where this is where I'm

(18:11):
hoping that your audience can understand andmore people can start to understand that where
the boundaries are getting blurred. Thattook place outside of academic courses. That
was voluntary. That was simply asafe place where students could just come and
hang out with people they felt similarto. It had nothing to do with

(18:36):
the academic courses. So if therewere if they were discussing anything about their
their how they felt in school,they would have conversations of how they identified
with one another. But again thatwas let me ask, and this is
great because you know, these arethings that I'm trying to learn about.

(18:56):
I actually exposed the local teacher herewas the taxpayer funded administrator for the gay
sexuality Alliance and the local Herman schoolsystem, which none of the parents knew
about. So that's that's part ofmaybe keeping the secrets is you could send
your kid to soccer band chorus ortalk sexuality with a forty year old teacher

(19:18):
after class. And when I wastold it wasn't about sexuality, I said,
well, why are you calling ita gay sexuality alliance? And so
to me, all well and inour case, I had multiple you know,
it's it's it's sponsored by Castle,it's in four thousand schools. Chris
Ruffo really did a very big exposeeon this. But I agree in context,

(19:41):
you know, if kids wanted toget kind of with their peers after
school in a group. It justto me seeing and hearing all of the
stories that I'm you know, exposing, and that you know, we're all
exposing about parents keeping secrets, tome, that makes it a little more
difficult if parents are not aware,which in this case, in this town,
none of the parents, none ofthe taxpayers were where in fact,

(20:03):
it only said GSA on the extracurricularsheet, like nobody knew what it was.
And then when we exposed it,they pulled it off the curricular sheet.
And even though it's still going on, like they doubled down and they're
keeping the secrets thing. So yeah, I would love to know a little
more about sort of Like I agreewith you if your intent was, hey,

(20:23):
we got a group of kids herewho are maybe I don't know,
just need some support or need someextra attention. But to me, it's
hard to delineate where does the schoolcounselor where does the social worker and where
does the faculty advisor to the GSAsort of get intermingled? So can you
help me understand that from your perspectivefor sure? Okay? Yeah, So

(20:44):
when I first started teaching, Ibelieve there were stickers from Education Minnesota that
had the safe space stickers. Idon't I don't exactly remember where they came
from, but there were stickers youcould play on your door just to know
like, hey, this is asafe classroom. Where so here's my counter
to that. And this isn't anargument, but it's like to me,

(21:07):
a yeah. To me, it'slike, okay, does that mean it
wasn't safe before you put the stickerup? Like to me, because we
had the same thing to hearn ina local school, I had a parent
send me a picture and it waslike, you know, room one oh
two safe space, and it wasall in rainbow graphics, you know.
And so I'm thinking, geez,I thought schools were supposed to be super
super safe to begin with. Doesthat mean that this classroom is super super

(21:32):
super safe? Like is it anextra degree safe or is it just an
attention scenario where you know? Tome, it's kind of I don't know,
there's there's a lot of sexual narcissismthat we're seeing in the school.
So that's another interesting piece. Andagain I think your perspective as you're learning
and kind of seeing some of thisoutside influence. But you know, when

(21:52):
you got that sticker from wherever itcame from. To me, it's kind
of like, Okay, what's thepoint of this thing, and what's it
gonna do? Like is a isa kid gonna then go into your classroom
because they know you're a safe spaceperson. Like just it's so confusing to
me. Sure, all great questions. And I can tell you at the
time, society looked differently that youweren't having it. There wasn't as many,

(22:18):
you know, all of these acronymsunder the LGBTQ umbrella. I don't
know how many there are now.That's probably infinitumu and thirty pouns in San
Francisco, one hundred and thirty thirty, okay, one hundred and thirty Okay.
So it was more the culture,at least of being a homosexual in

(22:41):
high school was still very tabboy.You didn't have when I started teaching,
You didn't have kids going to promthat were seeing sex couples. Both agree,
So I I really I wanted thekids to know that it was a
safe room in that I wasn't goingto allow any kind of you know,
this is still very derogatory terms arebeing tossed throne for gay students, and

(23:07):
so it was literally just like,this is a safe space. So your
best intention, Yeah, your bestintention is, hey, look, I
want to make sure these kids havean area that everybody knows. We're just
going to treat people maybe equally,not equity. Yeah, we'll talk about
equity a minute, but equally everybodygets a fair shot. You know,
there'll be no you know, banteringaround any of these you know, negative

(23:30):
tones and those kind of things.Yeah, and you spoke to several things
that I became awakened to after leavingthe echo chamber of education. First of
all, as a GSA advisor,do I know if every single one of
my students' parents were aware that theywere attending those groups? No, I

(23:51):
don't. It took place outside ofagain, the academic courses, so I
don't know if they knew they wereattending those. In my eyes at the
time, that was it had nothingto do with secret keeping. It was
if some kid is near suicidal andthey need a place where they can feel
safe, here's a club that theycan do on, very very innocent and

(24:15):
inclusive in my mind, and Idon't disagree with having those clubs available still
to this day, because I thinkthat there is a separation between school and
club activities and they're completely voluntary.But again, what we're seeing now is
this integration of those conversations coming intoacademic courses where the students aren't asking for

(24:41):
it, not everybody obviously, whereparents are comfortable with it being talked about
in the classroom as well as thereare a lot of educators with whom I've
connected with that are saying they're notcomfortable with it. It doesn't align with
their values. And yeah, youwant you're not a clinical psychologist either,

(25:02):
right, I mean, you're tryingto teach teach the basics of English in
your case, right I mean.And that's one of the things I think
that a lot of parents are nowstruggling with learning that Hey, Okay,
I get the fact that you're tryingto help my kid, but if by
chance the kid is suicidal, doesn'tthat then scream mental health issues? And
try not to enable that situation andDevil's advocate, I think most of the

(25:26):
parents. And we're going to talkto one of my which we're going to
talk about one of my wife's friends. It's a teacher who can't stand the
fact that I've sort of become inthis anti sel kind of you know voice.
But I think, yeah, youknow, it sounds like to me,
like you get into this, you'rebeing taught this in this echo chamber.
I don't know if you remember theUnion or not, but you know
the union and in this case,the main school Management Association, the Department

(25:48):
of Education, they're all pushing thesethings and they're like, hey, this
is the best thing that's going tohelp our kids learn. So I think
as a professional, you take thatin and you're like, oh, well,
yeah, hey, all this soundsand is really good. Yeah,
it's it's tough to see the largerpicture when you don't zoom out in your
in it all the time. AndI think one of the things that stepping

(26:12):
away from it is I look ateducation far more from a parent perspective now
as I had two kids when inelementary, one in middle school, than
I did from an educator's perspective,and well, I believe, you know,
most all educators are very well intended. There is definitely boundaries being blurred

(26:33):
between that kind of counselor teacher role. And of course, you know,
again when I was in alternative education, that was I had students coming to
me all the time just about whateverit was that was going on. I
just needed event, they needed totalk it out, and that felt like

(26:57):
an important role. And I'm alsoseeing now that there are clear boundaries of
where what a teacher's role is inan academic setting and what should be referred
to a conversation with the parents,with the school counselor with the administrator.

(27:21):
And I think those boundaries are justbeing learned. Yeah, it's very difficult,
and again I think you know takingand I have you know, family
members friends that are teachers, andtheir best intent is the same thing.
They want to help kids. Ultimately, that's how they gone into this.
You know, even though it's aprofession they're paid for it, but that's
ultimately they want to make sure.And I know in a number of your
cases, and we'll talk a littlebit over your publishing house, you've had

(27:41):
you know, students come back andwrite books for you, which I think
is just so rewarding that you sawsomebody you know, flourish underw York tutelage
and now they actually have a book. You know, that's so awesome.
But one of the things you mentionedwas, you know, again kids being
hyper sexualized with books and teachers askingabout prona owns, and that is a
characteristic of grooming. So I think, to me, social emotional learning is

(28:06):
like the gateway drug to critical racetheory and hyper sexualization of minors. And
like I said, to me,it's a trojan horse of like this far
left ideology. And when you startgoing into the follow the money scenario,
which always gets you to the answer. We talk about that all the time.
You know, it's sponsored by Castleand the Fetzer Institute, and it's
basically this you know, almost religiouspseudo spiritual development for these nonprofits. And

(28:30):
so you know, when you getinto scenarios where you're now starting to see
these lines be blurred between counselors andadministrators and teachers and kids. Where I
graduated nineteen eighty nine, so itwas a million years ago from high school,
right, you never knew anybody,You never knew any teacher sexuality back
then. But now they literally theyliterally they wear it on their sleeve,

(28:52):
they wear it on their lanyard,like hey, you know, I'm I'm
a you know, demisexual, pansexual, whatever, And it's just like,
okay, well what happened to mathand science and English? Yeah?
Well, the National Education Association hasthey put out legal guidance on transgender student
rights and so even within their ownguidelines, and I'm quoting this here,

(29:18):
it so students should be addressed bytheir preferred names and pronouns without being required
to obtain a court ordered name orgender change to their official records. It
also furthers the states that is,according to any A, does not have
to involve the parents. See that'sthe problem, right, I mean that's

(29:40):
yeah, that's like the alarm shouldbe going off in any teacher's head or
any administrator's head, like, well, wait a second. Not only are
we paid by the parents as taxpayers, they're their kids. They're not your
kids. They're their kids. They'renot the kids. They're not the product
of the government. When you hearstuff like that, did your kind of
did the hair on the back ofyour neck just go like, wait a
second, that does doesn't that right? Well, in our district, there

(30:03):
were text messages of Facebook posts flyingaround after the first day of school because
kids sat down in their math orsocial studies class or whatever. It was
an academic course, and the sheepsaid what are your preferred pronouns? And
then underneath it it said what preferredpronoun would you like maybe use with your
parents days. See that's oh drivesme crazy, I mean to some degree

(30:27):
that So that's that scenario where theschool and again you've heard Joe Biden say
this, like, there are kids, right, they're the product of the
government. They're not the parents' kids. They're not going to the local public
school anymore, They're going to agovernment run scenario. And in that case,
and this might be a stretch,but I think I can still connect

(30:48):
the dots I've been saying for Jesusprobably a couple of years now. If
you can get an eleven year oldto pick their pronouns and talk about their
sexuality, the wrong person, anevil person, an evil teacher, administrator,
social worker, counselor can get thatsame eleven year old to pick their
sexual partner. And that's where itobviously goes down. A very very dark

(31:11):
path. It would be one thing, I guess if people were just asking
about their pronouns, even though againI think it's sexual narcissism. I just
I think it's not necessary. Butthe immediacy of hey, by the way,
you know, do you want totell your parents or not? Holy,
I just it's hard to beat myhead around it. Yeah, it's
the secret keeping for me, noquestion, And just this obsession with gender

(31:37):
fluidity in gender and general in general. You know, people who pushed back
on what I said were saying,you know, trying to fight against whether
sex and gender are one and thesame. But okay, well again there
again, that's the split conclusion.If you believe sex and gender are very

(32:00):
different, the next person is goingto disagree with you. So when you
are a public school teacher teaching toyou know, twenty six to forty kids
every class for five to seven differentclass periods a day, you can't assume
that everybody in that room is okaywith the ideology that sex and gender are

(32:24):
two different things. And so it'sit's inadvertently also getting those ideologies into the
classroom without outright saying it. Ifyou are asking for their pronoun. You
know, it's a way to Yeah, it's like the subtlety of it,

(32:45):
right, the subtlety of division,and ultimately division is what I believe is
all of this ideology is to dividethe child from the parent, Divide the
school system, divide the community,divide the state, divide the country.
And so far we've we've seen thathappen, right, I mean, you've
you've obviously got many people in yourcorner saying, hey, thanks for standing

(33:05):
up as a teacher. I wishI had, you know, the balls
or ovaries to say that. Andthen you've also got probably half or more
of a vocal minority of people,like here in Maine, where the Department
of Education claims that one third ofall K through twelve kids in Maine are
part of LGBTQ plus one in three. Right, nobody believes that. Nobody
believes that that's real. But that'sthe number that they actually promote on posters.

(33:30):
And it's just like self fulfilling prophecy, because, as you know,
teachers are respected people. You know, you're spending seven eight hours a day
with certain kids depending on you know, school, and those kids are looking
up to you. And if yousay hey, oh, by the way,
yeah, hey Karen, you canbe a cat today. Well they're
gonna be like, hm, wellmaybe I can be a cat. You

(33:52):
know, it doesn't make any sense, but you know, right, so
so the the other thing, it'svery difficult. And another piece that you
really touched on here is that kidsshouldn't be treated differently because of their skin
color, which again that's critical racetheory practice and to me, the easiest
way to find it is skin colorover content of character. Right anytime you
bring in skin color. And againI prove this at my girls previous school,

(34:13):
MSCD fifty one, they started teachingthis at five years old in kindergarten,
about oppressor and oppressed dynamics. Soyou know, when you get into
that scenario and now you're seeing Idon't know how it is in Minnesota,
but you know in Maine, onlyone in three kids can read at proficiency

(34:34):
K through twelve. One in three. Okay, Now proficiency has also come
down quite a bit, like they'resort of dumbing the system down a little
bit because none of these kids canhit the previous you know number, and
then only one in four kids inMaine can do math at proficiency K through
twelve. So to me, Iget into this mode where I'm thinking to
myself, like, SEL sounds greaton the surface, we don't have time

(34:58):
for that crap because we can evenget them to read and write and do
math properly. So did you kindof go through this evolution like explain to
maybe the listeners? Were you reallyconflicted? Like, hey, I've I've
spent time, you know, studyingthis, I got my master's in this,
and now I'm almost I don't knowif you're anti SEL, but at

(35:19):
least you've maybe turned the corner andsay, hey, just something isn't right.
Yeah. I think SEL is importantin the setting in which I was
teaching, and that is the alternativesetting where students were at risk of not
graduating and they had to do areally deep dive into their character, their
decision making and things that got themto where they were and where they wanted

(35:44):
to get to or the average Thatmakes sense, right, because I think
what we hear a lot is andI'm probably gonna screw this up, But
we don't want to teach how's itgo? You don't want to teach kids
how to think? But how doesthat work? Not what to think about
how the exactly right? Yeah?Yeah, So that to me, like
as a teacher or as a parent, I could be like, okay,
yeah, hey, I would lovefor my you know, kiddo to understand

(36:07):
a little bit more about the rootcause dynamics and change and trying to get
to a solution and you know whatdoes that process look like sort of educationally
to help them maybe get through thatfaster. Like I could really accept that
as a parent if it wasn't youknow, completely evil as far as what's
going on, you know, rightin mind you in the in these settings

(36:30):
we'd hold conferences, we had veryfew parents attend. I mean, these
are this is These are environments whereparents were not very involved. And not
every single environment at school I taughtto but I would say overall, when
you compare it to the average publichigh school and like the turnout they get

(36:52):
at conferences, we didn't have alot of parent involvement. And and there
were you know, I had akiddo who was in a gang watch his
best friend get shot in front ofthem when he was fourteen and pregnated somebody.
His parents were immigrants and they wereworking two jobs. They're rarely ever
home, and so his reality wassel was important for his girls in trying

(37:19):
to get him out of the lifestylethat he had been dragged down into.
And so I do absolutely still thinkthere's a place for it. Yeah,
which education gives them the opportunity topull themselves out of that hole if they
can, you know, obtain someof those skills, right, and you
know, not just teaching to thetest, but actually teaching kids how to

(37:40):
critically think, which doesn't seem tohappen as often as maybe it used to,
you know. And so yeah,yeah, yeah, And so in
that setting, I'm still proponent ofit without obviously all these ideologies as a
parent, now that I have seenhow it plays out more are in the

(38:01):
regular public schools where students have auh you know, they have values,
they have a strong family unit,and they have parents that are very involved.
I'm seeing far more of a disconnectof both, uh, why it's
being taught to these students as wellas what is being taught. And so

(38:24):
for me, it's it's about theintegration of where it's being used, what
type of school it's being used,and as well as how it's being used.
And yeah, I mean like Isaid it, I think one of
the things in at least another doctorJames lindsay thing you know again, SEL

(38:47):
is funded by a company called Castleand their mission is to illuminate and dismantle
inequity. So they're they're looking topush intentional outcomes. So they're using SE
as a lever for equity. Soto me, any that ever hears the
word equity or now inclusion or diversity, your radar has to go up because

(39:07):
you know, they're looking to achieveoutcomes with these kids based on a multi
million, if not billion dollar businesswhich is then also linked to diversity surveys,
mental health questionnaires, and bias testing. So one of the things here
in Maine and last year about thistime, I think they do it every
two years. You know, mainasks minors. There's a main integrated Youth

(39:30):
Health survey. They ask eleven yearolds do their parents love them? Do
they do drugs? Have they performedoral sex? You know, these are
things that these surveys get bounced upthrough the system and then they're like,
well we got to start talking aboutXYZ and it's like, well, again,
only one in three kids can readand one in four kids can do

(39:51):
math. So can we get backto that, like can we have a
math club after school or a readingclub after school instead of a gay sexuality
aligance? It boggles my mind,right, I mean, so I've got
a friend, my wife has afriend who teaches her locally, and uh,
you know, we used to hangout drink beers every once in a
while. And then when she heardthat I was really against social emotional learning

(40:14):
in schools the way I view itor the way that you know, maybe
other folks view it. How wouldhow would you as an ex teacher,
you know, maybe using one ofyour favorite characters, like how would Atticus
Finch from Kill to Kill a Mockingbirdhelp inform other teachers about what I perceived
to be the evils of social emotionallearning in the classroom? Like what would

(40:35):
you do? You know Aticus Finchwas you know, he stood rigidly for
committed to you know, justice andwilling to view matters from a perspective of,
you know, the lens of morality, something that it doesn't seem like
a lot of folks have a wholelot of strengthen anymore. But if you
put yourself into that character, howwould you tell another teacher. Hey,
look, this is this is theprocess that I went through, and we're

(40:57):
continuously learning, right, We're continuouslyevolve. But how would you do that?
Yeah, I mean it's hard tozoom out in the same way when
you're still in that environment. AndI think obviously the best first step is
to have more conversations with people whohave a different perspective than you. I

(41:19):
mean, it's one of the reasonswhy I started my podcast and I've had
a lot of different kinds of perspectives, is because I think that's the only
way we start to take down thishard line in the sand that we've come
to in the last several years.But to listen more to parent concerns.
And if they don't know of parentconcerns in their area, then they're probably

(41:43):
not paying attention enough because was youraction? What was your action from the
school board? So I can tellyou in my school board, their policy
is they don't have to follow it. Their policy is they don't ever respond
to a parent getting up for publiccomment. And not everybody has the skills
or even and I don't know,like the internal fortitude to go up to
that microphone because it's kind of intimidating. Right, So did your school board

(42:07):
ever respond to what you were sayingfrom an internal source or did they just
kind of go, well, youknow, hey, go pound sand and
we're going to double down. Yeah, they did. They sent me a
letter. I just received it andlast week, I think, and they
addressed exactly what I said. Theydidn't feel that sel the curriculum was reflective

(42:32):
of what I had spoken to.They did. They were looking into the
matter of teachers concealing student pronouns fromparents, because I believe it wasn't It
hasn't just been parents coming forward.The whole conversation actually not only started with
students receiving those forms, but itwas also a teacher saying anonymously forward on

(42:59):
one of our Facebook data and sayingthat there I know a kid who's being
socially transitioned that school without the parents'knowledge, and I don't want to do
it. I mean, even evenon the surface, let's just say,
I'm not one hundred percent convinced thatin sixth or seventh grade, you know
you're the whole you're born gay orI don't. That's not me, So
I don't have that experience. Butlet's just save the sick argument that you're

(43:21):
thirteen years old in English class andyour English teacher says, this is what
happened in Hamden, in my hometown. Everybody stand up and give your preferred
pronouns today, right, So you'reconflicted as a kid, You're like,
holy crap, I don't think Iwant to out myself right now to all
my peers and my teacher and myschool. So now you're asking me to

(43:42):
lie. Like the whole pronoun thing, even on the surface, is so
screwed up that you know, it'slike wow, I mean, the fact
you've got a letter first off,is probably ten times better than what I've
heard so far from hundreds of parentswho have addressed issues. And maybe because
of your standing as an ex teacher, you know, maybe they put more
into that. But jeepers, Yeah, I can't imagine. I mean,

(44:07):
to me, the local Drummond Woodson, who is the legal firm here in
Maine, that's I'm suing them.They're suing me. It's a big mess
within these schools. But even theysay parents cannot ask kids for their pronouns.
Teachers, Yeah, yeah, that'ssorry. Sorry kids, Yeah,
sorry teachers. Teachers cannot ask thestudents pronouns, and they definitely can't withhold

(44:30):
it from teachers. But we've seenall kinds of examples here in Maine.
I mean, I have a friend, Amber Levine, whose thirteen year old
daughter was sexually transitioned at school bya social worker in the school. Was
told that we're gonna call you different, a different name at school and different
pronouns, and he gave her twochest binders, which is like a minuted

(44:52):
of evil torture device to hold yourbreasts around. Right, No, I'll
send you some information. It's gonnablow your mind. This is main The
main is the California of the Eastcoast, but it's happening everywhere. When
you mentioned that there's a kid beingsexually transitioned at school by a teacher or
a social worker, these people arepure evil like they it's a it's a
cult. It's like an LGBTU cultmentality when you start going down that road.

(45:15):
So it's it's a really scary thing. And I tell all the parents
I can to me right now,the schools are irreparably broken. They can
be fixed, but they've been screwedup for decades and it's not going to
be fixed in two weeks, right, So to me, I say to
everybody, like, pull your kidsout, figure out how to homeschool.
You could homeschool for one or twohours a day and be the worst homeschool

(45:37):
mom in the state of Minnesota anddo ten times better. And and in
your situation, you're you're obviously yougot a teacher's degree. You know,
I did home school for a yearactually after twenty twenty. It was when
I left education that way, SoCOVID broke you, COVID broke you,
then COVID broke me. Yes,that was the raw, and I had

(46:00):
my kids home for the next year, and it was a beautiful year.
I had a first grader and athird grader and so they were the perfect
age. And man, I wouldhave loved to continue to do it for
so many reasons, but they wereold enough where they were. They wanted
the socialization of school, which Iwas a total social bug. I get

(46:21):
it. And you know, ifwe had different co ops or things going
on here, it might be adifferent situation. Well, you're also super
busy, right, So you've gotRodney K Press Publishing, You've signed your
thirty fifth author a year ago.So I don't know where you're at now.
I assume you're in the forties orfifties. But one of the books
that I saw that what nine yearold your daughter Whitney had written, is

(46:44):
Freddie Fartzilot Goes to School. Andfor me, I'm a twelve year old
trapped in a fifty to two old, you know, year old body.
So I laugh. I think weall are. Yeah, And I was
like, oh my god, forseventeen ninety nine, I think I'm gonna
have to purchase that. See ifI can donate it to my local library.
They'll probably reject it because it doesn'tfit the narrative. But Freddie Fartz
a lot goes to School as astory about a kid trying to find his
way and incorporates humor while teaching valuablelessons of kindness, being yourself despite you

(47:07):
know how much you might not fitin. And so first off, farts
are always funny, and second,what a joy to be able to do
something like that as a professional anda mom. As a parent, I
mean, you know, your daughter'san author. Like how many people could
say, you know, my nineyear old just wrote a book. So
it was it was so cool andit was an organically happened. When we

(47:30):
were homeschooling, we would you know, tell stories, read books every single
night, and and we she startedtalking about she'd made up a character,
h Freddy at farts a lot,and I said, oh, I think
he sounds like a nice like surffreddy parts. Oh yeah, yeah.
Well she didn't like that. She'slike, no, I think he's more

(47:52):
like cyance, timided, timid,and you know, he's just kind of
trying to fit in. And sowe went to bed. The next morning
she wrote the first draft of thebook to me and I was like,
this is really good. That isso cool. Yeah, and so yeah,
we got to work on that togetherand found an illustrator from Brazil who

(48:14):
made these amazing illustrations that it lookslike Pixar just about and yeah, it
was a fun project. Now thatshe's in sixth grade, she doesn't exactly
where that title n year old shecould. I mean, abodys you doesn't
have to say it. She say, Hey, I'm an author, you
know, like there's probably not anotherkid in the school who's an author.
But the other thing that you dois and again you're you know you're working

(48:35):
on the Storytelling podcast with Lindsay Bednar, and this quote from you, I
really liked the essence of what youdo is hold space for people to bring
forward stories already within them. Andso you know, you are obviously a
proponent to bring forth stories and maybenot everybody even agrees. You might not
always agree, but you know,the United States, everything's so divided right
now, and like you said,you said it earlier, you can't dissolve

(48:59):
these hardlines in the sand unless you'reexposed to the material, and then you
have to make the determination. Right. I talk about, you know,
misfeasance and malfeasance all the time becauseDan Bongino says on his podcast, and
if I have it right, missfeasanceis you just don't know how bad it
is. And malfeasance is now youknow how bad it is, and you
choose not to do anything with it, right. So, so you're trying

(49:22):
to bring that tell the listeners alittle bit about your podcast, how to,
where to, where to find it, and and sort of what's that,
Uh, what's that podcast about?Yeah? So it really just bore
from my was born from my loveof hearing people's stories. I mean,
I'm the girl who will sit inthe front seat of the uber so I
can get to know all about thedriver. Actually, what well I was

(49:45):
in I was in Vegas for mybesthroat party and I had a brand new
camera that I left in a cab. And you know how many cabs are
in Vegas likes ridiculous. Well,probably ubern is now, but this was
forever ago my system. We're boththere, so we you know, got
on the horn and we're calling everycab company we know. And because I

(50:07):
was sitting in the front seat andmade a connection with the cab driver,
he remembered me he had my camera, came back and dropped it up.
So yeah, I really truly dolove hearing people's stories what shape their perspectives.
I who love stories about trauma totriumph, people who refuse to adopt
the victim mindset, who have gonethrough really tough things and have found a

(50:30):
way to come out even stronger.A lot of my guests have those stories
on the podcast, So I wantto elevate people who are going to inspire
others to you know, if they'vegone through something tough in their life,
it's not going to be the titleof the book or the chapter of a
book of one of their title ofone of their chapters. Hopefully it'll just

(50:52):
be a footnote. Yeah, youcan and learn from right. I Mean.
One of the things that we Ithink we lose perspective of is and
I say off and like, Iknow I'm not one hundred percent right,
but is my perspective based on diligenceand determination and to me, the perception
of truth right, Like, sothe main source of truth podcast I mean,
that's something that for me, Itry to have this experiential, you

(51:14):
know, understanding with a listener thatI'm just I'm overly transparent, like to
a fault almost, But folks likeyourself who have the ability to stand up
and tell people about it, andthen not only that, but take in
the ability to write stories, memoirsand you know, podcasts. I mean,
it's the coolest part of what I'vebeen doing here the last really now

(51:35):
three and a half years, isbeing able to build relationships with folks like
yourself, because at the end ofthe day, we all have to expand
our knowledge base. Mine might obviouslycome from a different perspective than yours,
but at the same time, Ithink during this conversation, you know,
we're able to learn from each otherand at the same time arrive that school
systems really need some They do needsome help. Some school systems are a

(51:57):
whole lot better than others, butparents need to get more involved. Like
that's one of the biggest things.Like you mentioned, ye got to get
parents to figure out how to understandwhat's happening, because like, why else
are we on this earth? Right, That's the only thing that I believe
in is like, hey, I'mas a parent, I'm supposed to leave
this earth better for my twin girls, and I've honestly, I think my
entire generation has failed at doing that. So maybe it's like a boomerang thing

(52:20):
or something. But now I'm like, oh man, now I got to
work ten times. It's hard tomake up for the forty years I screwed
up or something. I don't know, but I took way, I took
way more time than I'd asked forwith you, and I really appreciate that.
Any any maybe parting words for otherteachers out there, other parents,
things that would help maybe from yourperspective, to learn about you know,

(52:42):
hey, what's going on in thein the educational universe at this point.
Yeah, I am blown away byhow much gratitude and support I received from
speaking up and speaking out and fromparents, from educators and people UH across
the nation. It has been unbelievable. And so these are issues that are

(53:07):
resonating with so many people. Ijust want to encourage all your listeners to
to not stifle themselves. And theseare our kids we're talking about. If
we can't advocate for our kids,then you know who else is going to.
And so if these are issues thatare meaningful to you and and and

(53:30):
you are as frustrated as I've been, then I really encourage you to start
organizing in your area. That wasthe first step that we did. We
started organizing, we were able tochange to FUT two seats on our school
board. Yeah, so great.So now we have balance. You know,

(53:50):
it's not swayed either way. We'vegot three parents reps and three union
endorse reps and so I'm hopeful that'sgoing to make a big difference. Well,
I really appreciate it, and Iwant to thank you for being on
with us today and really appreciate thework that you've done. And you know,
I had a couple people send me, hey, you got to see
this ex teacher. You know,really, you know, mention the things

(54:14):
that a lot of us have beensaying for a while, but hearing it
from a teacher, I think it'sthat much more impactful. So I really
appreciate your time today. Absolutely,Sean, thank you so much for having
me on. I appreciate it's somefun. In closing, parents have a
lot to be anxious about when theysend their children off to these schools,
these government run schools. We callthem public schools, but they are government
run K through twelve schools, andyour kids sitting there for roughly six hours

(54:36):
a day, ten months out ofthe year. You know, moms and
dads are seating control of their lessonsa curriculum to their kids, and they're
top materials that not very often theparents see. So you know, there's
been a lot of recent controversies overcurricula and this transformed parent's uncertainty. But
you know, obseeing literature, criticalrace theory, social justice, inequity,

(55:00):
emotional learning, it is it iscompletely saturated politically within our educational system,
and not every educator, as you'veheard obviously from Lindsay and I know a
number of people as well, butit does seem like too many educators now
seem intent on indoctrinating their kids,whether or not they know they're useful idiots

(55:20):
or not. And when you havesomebody like Lindsay Bednar who's kind of wakes
up as an ex teacher and nowa parent seeing this, that's refreshing it.
Maybe it means there's hope, youknow, But these things are not
coincidental. Again, this framework ofsocial emotional learning, to me, it's
the delivery method for critical race theory, for hyper sexualization. And whenever you

(55:43):
see anything about intersectionality, multiple identities, people's identities, how they view the
world, experiential dynamics, you justhave to raise your hand and say,
wait a second. How bad arethe students when it comes to reading and
writing and arithmetic? Right? Imean? And that's the basics. So

(56:04):
in Maine, as I say alot from the twenty twenty two National report
Card for schools, only one inthree kids k through twelve is proficient in
English in reading, and only onein four kids K through twelve are proficient
in math. So it is ahorrible, horrible system. And if you
have you know, if your kidshave friends and you've got ten friends over

(56:28):
for a birthday party. You gotto look at that and just do the
math and just say, hey,only maybe two or three of them actually
know how to do math in school. It doesn't matter what age group they
are. So anyway, this isa really important subject. Sel is something
that you're going to continuously hear.I hope someday that you know, my
wife's teacher friend might maybe listen tothe podcast, might understand a little bit
more about perspective and start doing theirown homework. Because again, as as

(56:51):
Lindsay said, you know, youjust can't see it all when you're trapped
in it in this echo chamber everysingle day. So thanks again for listening.
Please share the podcast, Please uhput on the bell, you know,
make sure that whenever we have anew podcast coming out. As I've
said before, I don't really havea schedule. I do two or three
week just depends on who I canget for guests and what's going on.

(57:12):
So anyway, thank you very muchfor your time, and thanks for listening.
Round them up, Round them ups, Data Mine all right, that

(57:52):
was shine down. This was themain source of truth podcast search for the
show on Facebook and give us alike. I've been your host, Sean
mcbrige, follow me on Twitter,True Social and YouTube. We're working hard
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