Wes and Ted gripe, gab, and get to work highlighting the problems we've all known were there.
Do they solve 'em? Watch and find out!
https://wescarroll.com | https://tutorted.com
1:07 Digression #1: "Kabuki" & "Inertia"
3:53 Ted rocks the SST Korean test
5:15 COVID-19 reveals flaws in the education system
9:26 Specialization and teachers
12:12 Three massive questions
15:10 "Our education system isn't perfect..."
19:49 Knowledge or tricks? A false dichotomy
24:41 The emotional side of learning
26:18 Our infamous teachers: Sr. Enriquez & Dr. Chuck Bayless
31:25 Tone and emotions in the classroom
35:10 Why is tutoring so powerful?
36:30 Classroom dynamics and cultural decisions
39:40 Unschooling, and learning how to learn
41:50 Problem-solving and self-learning
44:10 Being lost in a classroom can mean you're doing it right.
46:10 What's the motivation?
50:20 Digression #2: Let's embarrass Wes about his touring-musician past
54:13 What COVID-19 is teaching schools
56:30 School's job depends on who you are
59:32 W.E.B. DuBois and Jackie Robinson
1:00:24 What's the goal of the classroom?
1:01:23 What do you want us to field next?
Wes and Ted gripe, gab, and get to work highlighting the problems we've all known were there.
Do they solve 'em? Watch and find out!
https://wescarroll.com | https://tutorted.com
1:07 Digression #1: "Kabuki" & "Inertia"
3:53 Ted rocks the SST Korean test
5:15 COVID-19 reveals flaws in the education system
9:26 Specialization and teachers
12:12 Three massive questions
15:10 "Our education system isn't perfect..."
19:49 Knowledge or tricks? A false dichotomy
24:41 The emotional side of learning
26:18 Our infamous teachers: Sr. Enriquez & Dr. Chuck Bayless
31:25 Tone and emotions in the classroom
35:10 Why is tutoring so powerful?
36:30 Classroom dynamics and cultural decisions
39:40 Unschooling, and learning how to learn
41:50 Problem-solving and self-learning
44:10 Being lost in a classroom can mean you're doing it right.
46:10 What's the motivation?
50:20 Digression #2: Let's embarrass Wes about his touring-musician past
54:13 What COVID-19 is teaching schools
56:30 School's job depends on who you are
59:32 W.E.B. DuBois and Jackie Robinson
1:00:24 What's the goal of the classroom?
1:01:23 What do you want us to field next?
Wes and Ted's Excellent conversation, a podcast about teaching, learning and anything else that pops into Wes and Ted's heads. My good friend Ted Dorsey is here with me. Ted is the proprietor of Tutorted.com doing SAT and ACT and related test prep for 73 years, isn't that right?
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, it's almost 74. Now, yeah, coming right up. And can I introduce you? I'd love to do that. This is Wes Carroll. Wes is a tutor educator extraordinaire in working out of the sort of San Francisco Bay Area, specializes in math in particular, I'd say. He's an MIT grad. He's done test prep, plenty of test prep, and SAT, math level two and the test that I always forget the name of the Azmi in replace the asked me what's it called the AMC 10. And 12. Sure, sure, AMC. It's so funny. There's one of those things I just just can't sock that one away. I don't know why,
Wes Carroll:you know, it's fine. It was the Azmi when you took it. And that's all fine back in. What was it? 1902.
Unknown:Yeah,
Ted Dorsey:Exactly. The other two words, this is this is me just sharing off the cuff, which is something I like to do. The other two words that I can never remember. But of course, I can remember them now because I can remember them as the words that I can never remember are Kabuki. Kabuki and inertia. And I just don't know why I can't remember that. But of course, like
Wes Carroll:I used to live next to the kabuki theater and the Kabuki hotsprings I was near japantown in San Francisco. So those those are the ones burned on my brain. I was like that was a fun day like movie and like I don't know, I guess was it wasn't a hotspot. It was a spa though. You could go there and soak in the hot tub get a massage. See a movie it was brilliant.
Ted Dorsey:I used to live within the same city block as something called the Beverly hot springs. And it is a hot spring in Los Angeles. There's a lot of geological activity in LA. But here's the funny thing. I've never been there.
Unknown:Oh,
Ted Dorsey:it's like what was my problem? I mean, it was literally a four minute walk from my front door. And I just I just don't know what happened. I just didn't do it. So
Wes Carroll:it's not too late. If I if I were that close, I think I might most days leave when they closed but other day, right? I try and just like, you know,
Ted Dorsey:yeah, what's the monthly membership? You know what I mean? It's like, you know, I'm just sitting on
Unknown:I got distracted.
Wes Carroll:I got AMC The name of this entire series, I got distracted with Western tech. What were the other
Ted Dorsey:ones? We had another title? We've been thinking about having a podcast
Unknown:out of our depth four out of my depth, I've heard that.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, I think out of our depth. Yeah, that's sort of inclusive version. Yeah, fair enough. We hadn't worked that through all the way, the concept of that one, which we can totally still incorporate is that basically one of us presents a topic to the other one and the person who presents it has done the research. But it's it but it's a job for the other person to sort of like hypothesize about how that characteristics.
Wes Carroll:And the thing that I love so much about that, though, is that it's totally germane to what we both do with students for a living because like, you know, you know how it is like the first year or three that you do sa t prep or whatever you're all about, Oh, I got to know all the facts. And then you you know, as you get a bunch of experience, right, you realize it's not about what facts you know, it's about how well you can perform under pressure, when you don't really know 100% of what you're doing, right? It's like, Can I connect some dots and kind of playfully put it together? And I mean, obviously, you got to know stuff, but I'm just saying,
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, but there's a method to it. And the approach and the method is is the dead essential, you know?
Wes Carroll:Yeah, totally. It's like, you know, everybody I know who who did really well on those tests. It wasn't because they memorize the dictionary it was because they were willing to get in there and get their get their hands dirty up to their elbows with kind of messing around with stuff that they had no business getting right. And, you know, yeah, figured out the method and got it right.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. I mean, that's, yeah, totally. Yep. I once it's a great idea. Sort of, like deep to student now, this was not me actually being competent, but faking competence instead. But it was kind of funny. He was like, admiring how successful I was at answering all the questions on the test. And he's like, Can you do this on every test? And I was like, absolutely. You know, I was like, 23 years old, and just, like, super brash. And, you know, I was, I was joking, but I figured, you know, it would get, I'd be found out. So we went to we flipped to the SAT subject test in Korean, which is a language I do not speak. I can identify the characters. I've got a little bit of great, but that's
Wes Carroll:you can tell Korean from Japanese good. Okay. Sure.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, thank you. I actually can. And I think I answered two questions in a row. There were four choice questions. And I got both of them. Right. And I was like C and C again. And then we looked it up, and they were both correct. And he's like, no way. And I was like, that's it. That's the end of the show not doing anymore.
Wes Carroll:Yeah, exactly. It's like that was a bit of a lucky break down one and 16 I mean, you had better odds than that, because yeah, some stuff for sure. But
Ted Dorsey:yeah, when it Yeah, one in six. I mean, there. I had no reason to choose the answers. I was choosing, you know, it was just my pure Good luck. Yeah,
Wes Carroll:I like it. I like it. So So let's try and let's try and provide some value for anyone who might be rolling along on our crazy conversation. Right. Good point. Good point three listeners. Okay. So COVID-19 good times. Yeah. But what I what I wanted to focus on is school, and how this crazy time is giving us sort of a new perspective on what's happening educationally. You know, throughout the country. Yeah, like kind of, I mean, it's what you can do about it.
Ted Dorsey:It's fascinating. I mean, it's just that the challenges that it's presenting the sort of, like, flaws that it's revealing. So, like, so, so clearly, I mean, one of them is the fact that, and you can talk about this because you've got kids, but that parents basically want their kids out of their houses. You know, they want them to do something besides be in their houses, you know, they do want them to go to school, but they just want them to get the hell out to,
Wes Carroll:you know, that it's, and the funny thing is, this is tough for me. So I live in Berkeley, and Berkeley has its own like, little bubble of, you know, whatever. And, and I've got my own, like, you know, super strong views and will not be dissuaded by whatever, you know, I'm totally happy to be the guy who, you know, says the unpopular thing. But the thing that really gets me is that I i've, I mean, I've got two young kids love them dearly. And I have never shied away from saying, you know, like, you know, I want some time away from them, that sort of thing. Yeah. And I've, like I've really, when we were thinking about having kids when we were first, you know, just getting going, right? Yeah, we had a lot of experiences of like, this is just unpleasant, like soup to nuts. Like, this is not something I'd wish on people right and which part
Ted Dorsey:the making, okay, there's that part.
Wes Carroll:There's, there's the epic diaper cleanup. Okay,
Ted Dorsey:okay. After you had kids, okay, okay.
Wes Carroll:Well, even even, um, well, yeah. So there's not just that, but there's just like the arguments you get into with your, you know, with your toddler, where the toddlers not arguing the toddlers to scream up, you're trying to have a rational argument, because it's the only way you can sort of stay sane in the context of this crazy situation, you know, that kind of thing. But, but there are so many parents who are like, unwilling to say, Oh, my gosh, there's unpleasantness. I mean, there's no right. You know, things have changed a lot in the last even just a couple years for us. But I've always been okay with saying, you know, what, I don't have to love every piece of this, right? Remember? Did you ever hear about all joy and no fun? All joy and no fun? No, at all, I think was the name of the book, but it was the idea of like, you know, identifying that dichotomy of like, you know, having kids is in many ways a joyous experience. And in the large, right, there's, it gives richness to your life, not that you couldn't get the richness in other ways. But like, there, you know, there's something very special about that, right. And yet, at the same time, you can feel like the, the joy of this experience, even while you're in the middle of something where it's like, never in a million years, what I choose to be doing what I'm doing with the person I'm doing it with right, diaper cleanup comes to mind, but there are other examples too. You know, it's like, this is not a fun activity. You know, it's positive in one sense, but it's, it's, you know, negative in the short, you know what I mean? Like, it's very Buddhist thinking there.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah. I think that's great. I mean, I think that, yeah, life is suffering.
Wes Carroll:parenting, parenting is suffering, to get to suffer for everybody. But I really feel like we're seeing a lot of that stuff. You know, it's like, none of these parents are like, Look, I you know, I don't love my kids. But at the same time, it's like, Look, I also have a job and you know, actually enjoy doing it. And I'd like people to stop screaming at me, so I could concentrate on it for 200 minutes. Yeah,
Ted Dorsey:I love that video, the viral video of the guy who's like a sort of an international politics expert, and the the kid comes like tromping into the room in the background. Yeah, I love that video, because it's so humane. You know, it's like that guy know, that guy is also a dad, he's also got these responsibilities. And those kids live in that house and are super happy to live in that house and do their thing. There's just so sweet about that. I don't know. Like, it's, it was funny at first, and then it just became something like, more, more beautiful to me over time.
Wes Carroll:Yeah, why? One of the things that that that connects to for me is the idea that, oh, gosh, how can I say this? It's so funny. It's like this idea that seems really clear in my head. But when I try and say it out loud,
Ted Dorsey:aren't those the best?
Wes Carroll:Yeah, well, we'll see. Um, so it's the idea that we've built up this culture in this economy and this world for ourselves, where hyper specialization means that I can send my kids off to school, and I can reasonably expect that even at again, God, I don't mean to be offensive or whatever. But like, even at a soso school, they're going to get a teacher who on balance is probably better at teaching them the stuff they're specialized in, then I would be like, I have a very high opinion of myself as an educator, but like, fundamentally when it comes to one First of all, my specialty isn't six year olds right? My own six year old who knows, right? But the other thing is like, not only would I be teaching my six year old, but I'm also her parent and that carries Oh, yeah, baggage, you know? Yeah. Like, there's all kinds of stuff that goes in there. Also, by the way, I've only had a six year old for a maximum of 12 months. Unless she has an older sibling, which he doesn't, right, right. Whereas the teacher, like, you know, he or she is seen 12 years of six or like,
Ted Dorsey:yeah, you
Wes Carroll:know, oh, gosh, my public school isn't so awesome. It's like, dude, your public school is awesome, relative to some of the alternatives in in that sense. Right. Yeah. And, and so I think that one of the things that we're seeing now in the middle of COVID-19 is a breakdown of some of those specializations, because, of course, you know, those teachers are used to a particular environment in which to do their work. And now they're having to do it online. It's like, okay, some of those advantages that they have get counterbalanced, right, some of the disadvantages they're now dealing with. And then you can also fold it just to make it complicated, right, sure. That wasn't complicated enough, you can fold in the whole business of, of homeschooling and unschooling and some of these other, you know, less popular, but, you know, really powerful approaches where the parent does become the teacher or the kid, him or herself becomes, in some sense, the teacher I mean, there's just, there's so many ways to slice it. What I'm trying to say is that we have this model of how schooling works. If that, that we all sort of agree is sort of, you know, the way rice to Yep.
Ted Dorsey:And it got it is the way we're used to. Yeah, well,
Wes Carroll:okay, fine, but it got invented in the 18. yeah, hundred's. 18. Yeah, whatever you told me before we started recording. I'll get into that cuz it's kind of fun. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Cool. But like, and, you know, for for certain goals, hey, it's a great way to do things, you know, all the alternatives have their disadvantages, for sure. But today, we have some other options. And I think I mean, I guess what it comes down to is that the model really does what it's designed to do really well, right, where you can take advantage of its advantages, more power to you. That's right. But where the model doesn't serve you, it's like, you know, ready or not, now's the time, you got to sort of sort that stuff out. And, yeah, I'm hoping that in the middle of these ramblings will come some useful stuff.
Ted Dorsey:Well, I've got like three massive questions based on what you just saw. Yeah. So let's, let's, let's go after them. And maybe I don't know how big they are. You know, at some point, I think we ought to like, throw open the barn door and just start thinking about all of the possibilities. But first, all the possibilities for education, right, in terms of just ways that you could actually any minute podcast
Wes Carroll:until Thursday?
Ted Dorsey:Well, that's, that's, and that's just the that's just the tip of the iceberg, as they say that the rest of it is basically why, why, you know, what's our goal? That I think is the most important question to answer. It's like, what's the point of this? And and you, you were saying you use the pronoun you basically asking the question, like, What do you want? And I think that that's a question like, Who are we talking to? You know, are we talking to individuals? Are we talking to local community, American society, world society? And just thinking about, like, kind of the orientation of our goals based on that? You know, I think that, yeah, it's good to get into philosophy real quick to just in terms of individuals, if individuals pursue what they is best for them, is that what's going to be best for the society as a whole? I mean, that's the promise of economics in general, right of capitalist economics.
Wes Carroll:Right, exactly. Pursue your own self interest. And that'll work out well. I mean, we see some places where that's broken down, but sort of in the large, it's been pretty successful system. Right?
Ted Dorsey:Yeah. Yeah. And it's weird, cuz I feel like I've got a little bit more of a idealistic, socialistic point of view, you know,
Wes Carroll:more idealistic than me. Oh, well, I can't wait to hear this.
Ted Dorsey:So I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think, I don't know, I guess what I, I just want a lot and I want that. children can learn what they need to learn and what's gonna sort of enrich them to the greatest possible extent, and I don't really care what the I mean, I do and I don't care what the kind of After Effects are, if that makes sense. Like I
Wes Carroll:well hang on a second. Yeah. When when you talk about enrichment, right? Yeah. Are we talking about self actualization? Are we talking about well, becoming productive in the, in some cultural context?
Ted Dorsey:I'm less into that I'm listening to, you know, I think I think being productive ends up would end up being a side effect. You know what I mean? Like, I like that, I don't think you can avoid it. But I think that to get there you go on sort of a personal, emotional, you know, academic enrichment journey to basically become you know, you're better yourself. Boy, I that's just sounds so absurd to me right now coming out of my mouth, but
Wes Carroll:Well, I mean, it's, it's I mean, it's a really privileged viewpoint, right. But I think I mean, if you if you get to pursue that, right, why wouldn't you? I mean, that does sound pretty great if you can manage to.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, I mean, yeah. I think that I don't think that our education system, it's not perfect. And there's, you think that's funny? Yeah. Yeah. God, that's that's a good, that's an even a very Pollyanna way of saying that. Um, no, I mean, you know, that the point, the point I would make the curriculum that I always think about that, I think is the, it's one that you and I are both really good at, which is, I think, kind of, maybe makes it a little bit ironic, but algebra two, go beyond algebra two, you're starting to kind of go into like the opt in math classes, like not everyone takes calculus, not everyone needs to take calculus, I sort of wish everyone would take statistics, because it's actually got just an incredible amount of relevance, especially today. And like, across the board in the social sciences, it's like, you know, it's this kind of touchstone between the, you know, some of the more like, humanities oriented subjects and math. And so anyway, I do love stats, but my point with algebra two, you know, you know, just to drop art Benjamin art Benjamin, is that familiar? Yes, I do know that neighbor. Why? He's, he's, I want to say he's Caltech professor,
Wes Carroll:okay, I shouldn't I should have done the research before we recorded this, whatever. But he's the he does this thing he calls mathematics where he does like, you know, four digit multiplication in his head, whatever. And like, it's, it's a cool show, for sure. But like the the thing that he said, I wish I could is probably in a TED talk or something. But the thing that he said that I that was really kind of shocking to me and shouldn't have been right was years ago, he was advocating for statistics should absolutely replace calculus is the default. It's the thing you need to know, in order to figure out when USA Today is lying to you. Yeah, statistics is the language on which the information society is built calculus, we needed it to build suspension bridges, but like, Yeah, exactly. The bridges are built. We've got a lot of models, and we're going to continue to have some people who know who have that skill. But the thing you need as a citizen is statistics.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, totally. I mean, it Yeah, exactly. If you're not designing the Hoover Dam, and the good news is Hoover Dam is already there, then yeah, then you don't need it. Somebody, we propose these big questions, you know what I mean? And I almost think that the questions are, you know, way? I mean, maybe maybe we're going for too much out of the gates? Or maybe it's maybe we need to get a little more micro and work from there. It's easy. I mean,
Wes Carroll:okay, you want you want to get micro, I'll tell you the thing that maybe I should have led off with, okay. I think that the system as it currently exists, works reasonably very well, for people who are sort of in the average category, most of the time, right? And so I think that the real the real, the real juice, the real benefit, is in figuring out, okay, when am I within throwing distance of the sweet spot of what this system is trying to do? And in those circumstances, great, I'm gonna milk the system for all it's worth, and when am I sort of far from the center of what it's trying to do? And in those situations, I'm going to chart my own path, I think that a big problem that happens is we get this you get kind of an all or nothing approach. I mean, again, like as a parent, right, it was like, geez, do I send my kid to public school? Do I send my kid to private school? Do I homeschool? Like the there are these really huge, like, monolithic decisions of like you do one or you do the other. And then the next decision point comes in a year or in eight years, or whatever, like, it's done, it's locked in.
Ted Dorsey:Right, right.
Wes Carroll:But one of the things that we're seeing with COVID-19 is like, you know, my kid is doing online learning and so on. And, you know, the teachers are doing as good a job as they can do in the context of Mad props to them, you know, that's all good. But at the same time, it's like, geez, it would really be helpful if the, you know, if we, the parents, you know, chipped in, and obviously, the teachers are saying the same thing. So it's like, Oh, all right, I'm going to do the best I can to, like, pretend I'm a homeschool parent for a while and try and teach these things, or support these things, or frame these things, or whatever I need to do. Because the idea is, look, if I'm doing the best I can, and the teacher is doing the best that he or she can, and the students doing the best that he or she can, okay, it's gonna, it's going to add up to enough or more, right, it's like, we're just going to all throw in, and we're going to kind of get it to happen. And what that really opens up for me is various other kinds of hybrid models. And then I get into, like, what you and I do for a living, like, at the end of the day, neither of us homeschools the students who come to us for help, right, we handle a very particular set of skills, a very particular topic or sort of viewpoint or whatever, and, Okay, great, if this is the thing you need, boy, you know, we can, you know, go like a bullet with that kid, and, you know, make a huge change, but you get outside of our specialty zones, and it's like, well, you know, then our advantage sort of dissipates pretty quickly, right? I'm helping a kid with US history. It's like, you know, right, happy to try but like, you know,
Ted Dorsey:yeah, okay. Okay, so I had this parent recently. Get me on the phone, and she had a little bit of like a thorat ativ err, you know what I mean? Just like just Okay,
Wes Carroll:in the sense of I know what I'm talking about, or in the sense of Yeah, what you're talking about. Okay, yeah,
Ted Dorsey:dish. Let's hear it. Man, hopefully she's not listening anyway. The she said to me, she was like, some tutoring companies focus on knowledge. Other tutoring companies focus on tricks. Which are you? I was like, I was like, dude, the
Wes Carroll:that like, wow. So you're going to privilege you're tricks going to privilege content by calling it knowledge. Right, and you're gonna you're gonna de-privilege you're gonna deemphasize process.
Ted Dorsey:Right? Exactly. tricks. Exactly. So I bet you Yeah. So I basically said, like, I think I was a little bit more polite about it. But I basically said, neither, you know, like, that's not like those those aren't, there's not, we don't make that choice. We've never, we've never even thought to make that choice. tricks are, to me that word implies things that allow you to solve a problem without really knowing what you're doing, you know what I mean? Like, like a workaround? Like, it's a magic trick. And like, and what, you know, the funny thing about magic tricks, is that, like, what do you think is happening is not really happening. So I've never been a big believer in that. And I remember at times, I've even had strategies that I would recommend to a kid where the kid was just getting, you know, could not get a ratio question, right? And we just had this deal where, you know, the student actually was having a hard time identifying what a ratio question was. And so there were certain keywords I had been read for. And it was it was more of like, like a Pavlovian way of solving the question, you know, like, just looking for these words, and then basically, like doing a certain thing, without understanding and along the way, and I was uncomfortable as I was teaching it, and I tried a bunch of other things. And those hadn't worked either, which is why I landed on this one. Sure, but I just kind of, you know, I, I didn't like it. And here's the funny thing, it didn't work, you know, it didn't land with the kid, because the kid didn't understand it, you know, and if you're like, just kind of faking it throughout, then you know, the probability, the probability of one of those things sticking and working is like pretty low, the probability of enough of those things sticking in landing that you would actually improve a test score is, you know, infinitesimally small, like, it's impossible.
Wes Carroll:Let me let me try and get highfalutin for a sec. Okay, I want I'm gonna make a claim, you can poke holes in it, I would be delighted if you would, I'm gonna make the claim that if the AC T, or the si t, or the modern high school curriculum, right, is a is a good target for students to aim for. Okay, right. It's a good, it's like we've identified things. Right? Okay. If that's the case, yeah, then to whatever degree you can help people do well get a higher score, or get a better GPA, whatever, you are doing the right thing, the student is learning the right stuff. I want to suggest that if the curriculum is is built, right, tricks aren't going to help you that much.
Ted Dorsey:Right. Right. Right. But knowledge will and knowledge and process will and process so that and the word I was using with her was approach, you know, which is the same idea as process basically, it's
Wes Carroll:an approach kind of kind of straddles process and mindset. In my view.
Ted Dorsey:Yes, it is. Can you say more about that?
Wes Carroll:Well, so approach, right? I think of like, if I have some, like, physical engineering problem, how am I going to mount this blog on this blog? That kind of thing? Right? Okay, then my approach matters. And by that, I mean, sort of, like, how am I thinking of the components of this system? What does the solution need to look like? Right, assemble some stuff, and right. But there's also the business of like, you know, my daughter's mad at me, how am I going to approach her in a way that, you know, right, gets us to where we want it, then it's, it's sort of a mindset perspective thing. And I feel like that word kind of encompasses both in context.
Ted Dorsey:So I was gonna bring that up, too. So this, you were talking about our areas of expertise and speciality. Right? So we definitely have our content areas, you know what I mean? It's like, for sure, I know, my freakin grammar, you know, I mean, it's like, you know, you can't stop the band. You know, and that's, that's, that's fun to try. But yeah, totally, totally. I welcome it, you know what I mean? Yeah, the, you know, I've got, I've got a handful of others, but it's, it's limited, right? And it doesn't include say, medicine, you know, it doesn't include right.
Wes Carroll:When brain surgery, you are not like, I'm not
Ted Dorsey:the guys, but like, but I but I also like I also shouldn't pick up the recycling or the trash in the in the trash truck, because I also don't have that experience, you know, what I mean? And I could learn and that, you know, and I learned about the brain, maybe it could be a surgeon there too. But that that is like speciality in terms of content areas. But this is my point is that there's another set of skills that I think that we both have that I think I think I'm generally a little bit more conscious of this and like more like, you know, outwardly communicative about this than you are but I know you have I I just know you have that because I've experienced that in conversation with you is the Like, emotional side of learning, and and the, the, you know what I mean, the willingness to see where a student is what they have the capacity for in this moment. You know, not not on an intellectual level,
Wes Carroll:you know. Yeah, I always intellectualize that stuff. I mean, yeah. You know, at the end of the day, it's a human human connection. So of course, you know, the emotions come into it, you know, in a constructive way.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, I mean, but but here's the thing, we don't learn, we don't learn the way a computer learns, you know, what I mean? Like, we don't access data. And communication is absolutely critical. And if you just, you know, I mean, like, it'd be like handing handing the average student, say, an algebra two textbook and saying, Okay, go ahead, you know, go learn this. It's like, yeah, read
Wes Carroll:this and figure it out. what's the what's the likelihood
Ted Dorsey:of that actually working? There's so many reasons why it's not, you know, so many reasons, but one of them is just like our humanity. You know, it's like, we want someone to tell us, we want to be able to ask questions along the way. And that is very, very specific, you know, and I think it's a talent that really good educators, the ones you were talking about the ones who have all that experience. have, you know, and have that for, hopefully, for a lot of different kids. I was gonna tell one more story, one more random story about like, you know, especially speciality, right? I had this teacher in high school Spanish teacher, and he was a, he was maybe the most notorious teacher in the school. Because he was a complete prick. I mean, he was like, he was so difficult. And like, and median redeeming qualities, there was Oh, yeah, I mean, he was, he ended up being I had some interesting eye to favorite teachers, and I'll try to keep this as short as this one of them. Yeah. Wow. The one the one who was the other, like, who like, is much more obviously the right answer in terms of like, who should your favorite teacher be? She was probably 30 to 33 at the time, you know, seemed like a, you know, and to my mind, at the time, it's like, oh, this is an old person. You know, to me, it's like, that is a baby. But, but she was a, like a really good mature peer in a way, like a role model, you know, who had some power and authority but and knowledge that she could share with us. But she shared it sort of on like, a, like a lateral, you know, what I mean? Like, a horizontal level, I get it. And she trusted us, you know, and and, and, and I think we earned that trust and, and, and make the most of it, you know, what grade what year, this is, like, high school 10 through 12 was my high school. And we had our school years. Yeah. And yeah, and had like, a very, you know, had I had a personal relationship with her, you know, what I mean? where, like, you know, when I, you know, I came out of the closet after college, and I went and found her and had coffee with her. And I was like, I just need to tell you this, you know, it's like, I'm gay. And, and she had already known, which was also funny. But like, she could have told me six years ago, I know, yeah, I travel a lot. But, you know, she was that kind of like, friend in a way, you know? Yeah, this other guy was, I mean, he was not a friend, you know. And I remember there were times when I like, I was not gonna sound like such an arrogant dick. I was, you know, probably the best Spanish student in the school. And he knew that and we got along great in class or whatever. But I remember there were times when I would cry, I would pass him in the hallway, a long hallway, after school, and we were the only two people they are the only two humans anywhere nearby. And he wouldn't even look at me. You know, I mean, he wouldn't look at me, he wouldn't say hello. He was just kind of a moody jerk. And there were other times when we got along. I had a good time. But anyway, like his approach was very, very specific. This I'm finally if you can believe it. I'm arriving at my point. I know, it's amazing that his approach did work for me. I basically was scared into getting really good at Spanish. And I didn't really mind it. You know what I mean? It caused me some stress, but of stress that I can handle. Well, guess what? A lot of other people did not like it, you know, and he was the only upper level Spanish teacher so it was like, well, tough shit. You know what I mean? If you don't, yeah,
Wes Carroll:I'm reminded, I'm going to name Chuck Bayless. Okay. Dr. Bayless at my at my high school. He since passed away. Like a truly phenomenal teacher. I mean, really excellent. But sort of similar to this guy. You're, you're talking about, I think, in that he wasn't. He wasn't notoriously unpleasant. He was a notoriously harsh grader. And not only like, it wasn't just that he would give you low scores on stuff like I've never had to be before you know that guy, right. But there, but it was also it was very it was present. It was presented in a very objective way. Like here is why you got an 82 Here are the 18 points of mistakes you made which was an One hand, you know, from a notional level it was it was sort of it was harsh and even cold. But on the other hand, like the system held up, like you saw the 18 points, and you were like, if you cared, you were like, Okay, I'm not gonna make those mistakes, right. And that part of it at least was really helpful. Right? That's the other piece was he wasn't, he wasn't all he wasn't at all afraid to call you out in the middle of class for like, you know, like you said a thing, or you wrote a thing. And he would just like, he would just mock your writing in front of it. And again, it was always very specific. And the specificity of it was super helpful, but like, did it did it really have to take that sort of emotional tone? I mean, you know, I, I, one hopes that there's some other way, but the specificity was so powerful that like, You forgave them all the other stuff, because it was like, Okay, I see what the path is.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, I mean, okay, so two things. One is there's incredibly clear communication there, which I think is like that. Is there a more valuable skill for humans than being clear communicators? And I'm not sure, you know, we could debate that, but I, it's up there, it's one of the most important ones. And then the other one is interesting, because there's a little bit of shame in there and and Senor Enriquez also, like used shame and embarrassment and fear as teaching tools. Now, that to me is not necessary. You know what I mean? Now, is it always to be avoided? I don't know. Not necessarily, you know, yeah. If, if you take that away from that teacher, he's not the same teacher. And then the learning doesn't happen as productively you know what I mean? So like, I'm, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and advocate for shame, but it's, but it can be effective. It can be difficult. Here's
Wes Carroll:the thing. Here's the place where it really gets interesting in the context of, of sort of the larger conversation of Okay, COVID-19. And what does it tell us about our educational assumptions? Right? exercising, I'll call them tools. Okay, tools like fear, shame, you know, anxiety, stuff like that. Very, very dangerous tools not to be used rightly. And maybe nay. I mean, gosh, if a teacher were to say to me, Look, I never use fear, shame or anxiety in my classroom, I wouldn't be like, oh, bad teacher. It's like, okay, that's legit. Like, I hear that. Right. other teachers, like the ones we're talking about did employ those tools to good effect. Were the side effects worth it? I don't know. But the point I'm trying to get to is that, that to use those tools in the context of 24 student classroom? Like, that's just so much more dangerous.
Ted Dorsey:Like, that's so dangerous. How dangerous for the for home for the teacher for the students?
Wes Carroll:Well, yeah, okay, fair question. So, you figure if, if someone's teaching a classroom of 24 students, right, it's not like you have 24 copies of the same kid there, they right have differences and their and their significant differences, right. You know, set aside all the various psychological landmines that the students can have, because as humans, we have those right. And yet, let's only let's abstract it away, and just only look at like, there's a lot of variability there. Right. Some kids have better handwriting some better some kids are quicker thinkers on their feet, some kids are clear communicators, you know, whatever, there's 1000 different ways in different ways in which these kids are different. Yeah. And you you like if you manage to get the tone, just right, with one kid where your otherwise negative comment has a positive educational outcome and doesn't have terrible side effect. Right. Okay, awesome. Yeah. But like, Can you really get that right, and not cause collateral damage in any of the other 23 kids in some way? Like, I'm gonna single out some kid because I know, he needs to be motivated by a little bit of fire, you know, burning under him. But some other kid is going to be like, Oh, boy, I better never answer this guy's question, because you can get in trouble that you know what I mean? Oh, yes. So. And what I'm really getting at is the extremely self serving idea that like one on one education, yeah, offers something really important that that one too many education can't. Okay, and that the entropy. And that, you know, we still have the problem that we have a lot more students out there. And we have good teachers, okay, sure. It's not like we're going to have a total one on one model. But but but the thing I'm trying to say is that, again, that one to many system works really well in certain contexts. And if you know that, you're in that context in the moment. Awesome, that's great. And when you get outside the lines on that thing, it's like, that's the time that you need to find, you know, either a one on one teacher or a different classroom or something else, so that you can get more benefit out of it. And that's what that's what you know, 10 100 whatever many millions of parents are grappling with right now. Right, right, is the idea of, you know, when my kid was away in school, either they got what they needed, because the teacher had more capacity when he or she was doing it in a normal classroom where she was comfortable with it, right and used to it how to ride things, or I just didn't see the ways in which it wasn't a good thing, because it wasn't right in front of me day in day out when I'm supposed to be in some other meeting. And now I'm seeing it and it's like, oh, you know, I want to I want to show up over here.
Ted Dorsey:Something somebody No, no, I've got I just have so many thoughts in response, and if I don't, if I don't jump in, I'm gonna lose the thread. Okay, here's what I'm, here's what I think we're saying so far. Teachers have skills that are, you know, borne out like they might show up to the profession with them. They develop them over time. Some of them can be dangerous in some cases. You know, But they, they get good at teaching in addition to knowing stuff, they get good at teaching. And that's which is its own
Wes Carroll:skill. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Ted Dorsey:On the tutoring point, so if you look at education research, it all confirms that one on one tutoring is the by far the gold standard of education. By far it there is no, there is no arguing you know what I mean? Like everything shows that if you teach a student one to one, that they will learn more than in any other capacity.
Wes Carroll:And the emotional component you're pointing to is a is a strong driver for that I'm sure right, as
Ted Dorsey:a person, a personal emotional, you know, component basically for seeing the student where they are and moving them from exactly that place to the next place. Yeah,
Wes Carroll:well, that's an intellectual thing, right? It's the best if you're teaching the thing, you you're tracking where I am, you're, you can figure out what I most need to hear next in order to maximize? Yeah, sure, definitely.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah. And that is, and that is intellectual. And that's emotional to you. And I mean, that's, it's about like, what do we, you know, how much room do we have today? You know, what I mean? Like, how much more disk drive space? Do we have? Basically, to use the computer metaphor, that's not a very good metaphor. So, here's my next point. And this is something that that I mean, maybe we could make a meal out of this one, too. But why? Why do students get educated and just hang with me, because this is gonna be sort of like a devil's advocate a situation, I'm gonna lean back. Why did we choose to educate students on a one to many basis, and here's, here's, like, my follow up point to that. You've got, you know, you have the one teacher in like an ideal classroom, you'd have, say, 15 to 20. Students, That, to me, is kind of like the sweet spot of, you know, maintaining order in a lot of other classrooms. It gets bigger than that, you know, it gets to 3035. I've seen 40. I think 40. I've heard of 45. And never seen that, but I've been told about it, like, six to 12 around a Harkness table. But yeah, right. Right. Right. Good point. Good point.
Unknown:So
Ted Dorsey:we've made that decision. You know, what I mean, we've made the decision that we need about this many teachers, and that they need to get paid about this much, you know, all right. So that's a system decision that's assist, you know what I mean? Like, we've, we've decided on that together, there's no absolute reason why I asked to be that way. So you know, I love the model of the Oh my god, I can't think of the name of the school. The schools in the started New York charter schools where the teachers come in, and they make $120,000 a year. And you get really good teachers as a result. What's the name of that school? zeek is the name of the guy who started it. Boy, someone in the comments help us out?
Wes Carroll:Yeah, totally. I remember reading that article some years ago. And I think, yeah,
Ted Dorsey:yeah, there's still happening, it's still, they're still going, that we can make that decision. You know what I mean, you can make that decision whenever you want to, and you can get better people. And I'm not saying that teachers are bad, but like, why not get the best people you possibly can? Why not recruit people from? Like, you know, there are sort of 14 selling medical devices? It's like, Well, why don't have to do that, you know?
Wes Carroll:Well, well, I mean, yeah, and yeah, of course, like the the project, the procession, procession, the profession has a certain amount of cachet if you increase the cache, you get more people, you get more money, all that kind of good stuff. But you're making a really good point, which is, it isn't that the T shirts we have aren't good enough, it's that they're they aren't numerous enough to double the number of teachers even by patting the ranks with people who are less capable than our current teachers, and you're going to get better outcomes across the board. Because guess what, teaching eight kids is easier than teaching 16 teaching 16 is easier than teaching 32 like, everybody's skill level goes up when you get to a point, right? But like, you know, that's part of the reason you can group students by ability. You don't I mean, you can you can have students that work together, who are, you know, the sort of like the the better mathematicians, the better readers or whatever, and more, if you choose not to group them by ability, then, you know, that's fine, too, because then you have a teacher who's aware of that sort of mixed model and can sort of guide all the students into into into student discussions that, you know, that our most productive
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, sorry, sorry, you know, it's a really interesting model that I am, like, I'm just starting to wrap my head around it I'm curious about it is the old one room schoolhouse. And then what's funny is there would only be one teacher there. It's a very different educational model. And in a way, I feel like it's what I'm advocating for right now. Because, you know, you have to teach the eighth grade or eighth grade stuff, you know, and you have to teach second grade or second grade stuff, which means that everybody at any given time is only getting one on one instruction or maybe one on three, you know, if there's three second graders or whatever. And so if you're, you know, it's sort of like it's private tutoring education. Are you familiar with unschooling? I've heard the term and I don't know what it is.
Wes Carroll:Okay. So at the risk of of mansplaining to something I don't understand very deeply. Let's just let's just dive in. My limited understanding is that unschooling is it's a it's a kind of homeschooling in which the agreement between parent and child is that the child is primarily responsible for his or her learning direction. Hmm. Okay, so like unschooling to to to people who aren't from With it unschooling can look like, you know, the the inmates running the asylum. Right. Okay. It's just like there's completely no structure to it, whatever. But my sister in law unschooled as a child. Oh, just and. And the sense that I have is that, you know, completely unsurprisingly, some students or some, some kids are perfectly content to sort of wander through their day, and just, you know, kind of do whatever occurs to them. And they have sort of the right ratio of, you know, I don't know, whatever, right, curiosity, self direction, or just, you know, just fun, playfulness, whatever, right? That they, they can hardly help the fact that they learned stuff as they move through the day, particularly if they have a loving adult parent, right? Who is sort of there to sort of, you know, to frame certain things, you know, what is this? Oh, it's a dandelion, Oh, what's that? You know, and you, you can go pretty deep with a question like that, you know, it turns out, right. And also, you don't need to be a college professor to go deep with that question, too. It can be like, here's the stuff that I know, here's some place where we can learn some more, let's go learn more,
Ted Dorsey:right. I mean, you know, there's, there's all kinds of stuff that's method and process to you. I mean, that's, that's learning how to learn.
Wes Carroll:Hi, yeah, it's not it's not I mean, cyclopedia giving you facts. It's like, Look, I'm gonna model for you what I've learned in my three, four, whatever decades of adult life or, you know, whatever, about how one goes about this sort of finding what's important, and yeah, yeah, totally, that that sort of intellectual triage. And I think that the, you know, I've never been in a one room schoolhouse, but I can imagine that there are some components of unschooling there were like, if the teacher is working with one or three kids and in a 35 room, or 35, student, one room schoolhouse, that means there are 32 kids who are in charge of their own learning in that mode.
Ted Dorsey:Exactly. Absolutely. Have to be Yeah,
Wes Carroll:yeah. I mean, they might be just, you know, getting in trouble getting in fights, whatever, right. But they also might be doing the thing that the teacher was talking with them about half an hour ago, they might be going off on their own and having some discussion that I mean, there are a lot of educational. Oh, I'm reminded. So I read this great article A while back, that describes how things work in a particular school room in Japan, which apparently is quite common in certain areas in Japan, where the teacher will come in his math class teacher will come in, and we'll put some problem on the board that she knows the students have no hope of being able to solve off the bat. Like, it's just alien to what what she knows they've learned, okay, she puts the problem up on the blackboard. Right? She writes it down. She answers any questions about what the question says? Like, is it clear what I'm asking here? Yeah, okay, great. And then she just goes, sits at her desk, and lets the kids noodle it out, right, we'll answer questions, we'll do whatever, like, it's not that she's checked out. It's that it's the difference between I'm in charge of putting knowledge in your head. And you're in charge of letting knowledge into your head, and I'm here to help you, however you think you need to be helped,
Ted Dorsey:I would love to see that I would love to see video of that, like, you know, working for sure. You know, it would just be interesting to hear how the conversation goes, I'd like to see it over the course of say, like a week or two and see if like certain students are sort of taking the lead to see if other students are able to kind of follow follow along and keep up to you know what I mean? Because different problem solvers, I think would have, you know, have an advantage, and then it would be their job in a way to share that that insight.
Wes Carroll:Well, one of the things that comes up for me, when I see stuff like this, I've seen some clips, right, is that I'm watching this classroom of many kids. And I immediately identify, okay, here's the kid who gets it. Here's the kid who's completely lost. Here's the kid who needs this particular intervention in order to get it like that's my frame for this. Because I'm looking at through the through the eyes of what I remember thinking myself as a student in a classroom. I'm thinking in those terms. And the thing that always strikes me is that when you get a really good teacher from that context, she's not thinking of it quite that way. She knows the kid who already gets it. She knows the kids who are completely lost, right? But she but but for her, it's not okay, let's focus on on the kids who are on the cusp. It's also about, let's make sure that the kids who totally get this, our constructively and positively interacting with the others, let's make sure the kids who are completely lost, completely lost, completely lost. Let's make sure those kids recognize on a deep emotional level, that being completely lost doesn't mean you're a loser. Being that you're lost. Yeah, right. being completely lost in a classroom means you're doing it right. If you're never lost, you're doing stuff that's too easy. Life can be challenging, and sometimes you're gonna feel lost. You don't need to beat yourself up about it, like get comfortable with that discomfort, like the world's not gonna end sit with it. Let's work on tools that will help you get unstuck, but like, yeah, you don't know what you're doing. That happens. And it's okay.
Ted Dorsey:I was I was gonna make that point about behavior. You know what I mean? Even the kids were behaving badly in the one room schoolhouse, and then sort of Yeah, exactly, right. Yeah. in a way that's not as productive as you know, it could be otherwise. They're learning. They're gonna learn something, too. You know what I mean? They're going to be taught that, hey, there are times when you're in this sort of group responsibility mode, and you need to turn off that behavior because it's not productive for everybody else. Whatever. valuable lesson. I mean, like, what an amazing thing to learn.
Wes Carroll:Yeah, and part of what you're talking about is that, you know, you need to have a little bit of flexibility, the boundaries, like, we're not, neither of us is advocating for an anything goes educational environment. Obviously, there have to be some rules there. Right. But structure, yeah, structure actually rules is the wrong way to think of it. There needs to be some structure there. But sort of the, you know, the, the boundaries can be a little bit flexible, right? Because, you know, when you have a student who fundamentally is, is there to learn, at least on some level, and you have a teacher with some skill there? It's like, yeah, you can let things go outside the bounds a little bit, and you might get a good lesson out of it. I'm thinking of the, you remember that? so embarrassed. I can't remember her name. But the famous teacher who? Who? In the 1960s, did the whole blue eyes Brown? Yeah, where there was just this one day lesson and like, it really struck her and she then staked her career on this, you know, super powerful aspect of something that came up one day in her classroom, but that pervades the culture and that she decided, you know, okay, let's dive into this. Anyway. Sorry, I'm taking this off track.
Ted Dorsey:No, no, I mean, I was thinking to Okay, so I think I think the most important for me, the most important factor in education is motivation. And I think that it applies to the student, and I think it applies to the staff. I think it applies to the society, basically, like, why are we doing it? And I think that, you know, you were saying, you said, you know, if a student comes to school, and is planning to learn, right, well, are they you know, what I mean, like under the conventional model, like, what's, you know, what percentage of students when you stop them at the bus stop and say, why are you know, like, you know, what's up today? You know, why are you going to school? I guess, you know, I guess some of them would say, I'm going to school to learn. But is that their value? Is that, you know, are they excited about that? Are they really thinking about like, this is the purpose of this is for me to come home? better today than I was yesterday? Because that should be the motivation, but I don't I feel like school can turn into a bit of a holding pen. Sometimes. You know, that that's the dark version of it. Yeah.
Wes Carroll:The line that I got fed as a kid that I that I completely believed, and then I'm not sure what's wrong, was education is your way out of here. Right? Like, no one was willing to say that where we were was a bad place. But I could tell that getting out of there was highly regarded and that this was the path. You know, oh, yeah. So I was really, like, I wasn't interested. Well, I was kind of intrinsically motivated to figure stuff out and to know how this stuff worked. And like, Oh, it's a puzzle. Let's figure it out. algebra two, it's fun puzzle, let's figure it out. Right. But like, at the end of the day, that probably just came from that culture of Look, this, you know, apply yourself to this thing. And, you know, you will have more options open to you than if you don't?
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, that that's a good one. I think that was the case for me, too. You know, I had a really good childhood in Minnesota, and then, you know, turned 18 and graduated high school and, you know, kind of never went back. I mean, I still go back to visit but it was like, oh, there was never a possibility of me living there. And it's and, you know, it remains that way. Were you in Minneapolis? Yeah, suburban Minneapolis, like Minneapolis and St. Paul are surprisingly small cities with surprisingly huge suburbs around them. Okay. Almost everyone lives in the suburbs. Basically, I kind of wish I I wish I had grown up in the city. But you know, what can you do? Yeah, but yeah, I mean, I but I, that was motivation for you. And for me. What's motivation for everybody? If there is one, you know, for a lot of
Wes Carroll:your students are in LA, a lot of my students from the Bay Area, obviously, we both teach people who are outside the zone outside the state outside the country, whatever. But I gotta say, like, if I had grown up in Northern California, what I have the same motivation to get the heck out? No, I don't think so. I like to think that I'd have the same, you know, eagerness to solve the puzzle, whatever, like, after, like, you know, after I got through my formal schooling and all this kind of stuff, I wound up doing, you know, puzzle competitions and all kinds of stuff like that. So clearly, like, there's something you know, in me that's excited about figuring stuff out. But like, is that intrinsic? Maybe, or maybe it was just a coping mechanism to sort of line up with this idea of look, you got to do well in school if you want to, you know, have some options. I wonder.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah, yeah. I just want to I do want to throw in a quick sidebar that Wes is not only a multiple and national time champion of puzzle solving, the MIT puzzle of competition, right? Is it?
Wes Carroll:Well, it's, uh, so yeah, the MIT mystery hunt. It's a team competition. So I don't get to like take the super high, low, but still, yes,
Ted Dorsey:but let me find Yeah, and how many different teams have you been on that?
Wes Carroll:Yeah, that's a fair point. I've done a couple different things, though.
Ted Dorsey:So that that's something I believe that does probably mean something. I mean, you know, you could be okay, so in terms of NBA you could be like the Robert Henri of you know what I mean? The guy but yeah, you know, Robert Aria was big shot Bob. It's like you need that guy. You need that guy to hit that three to win you that game and I my guess is you're doing more than just hitting the club. Three But anyway, I guess you could be
Wes Carroll:I love the running basketball because because I come from Indiana right who's your boss? Yeah, and I'm five foot seven when I don't have shoes on. So it's like basketball was never ever out of possibility.
Ted Dorsey:Yeah,
Wes Carroll:I mean, it's setting aside the fact that I have absolutely no skill and you know, whatever. But that's all
Ted Dorsey:so that that was one of the sidebars I wanted to make the other sidebars that Wes is also also at the exact same time a champion beat boxer.
Wes Carroll:Isn't that amazing? So that's so that's a funny thing, right? So, oh my god, this is so great. So there's this. There's this thing called the found footage festival, okay, where they go, they go digging through garage sales and find embarrassing VHS and they like, you know, like Mystery Science Theater for sure. They show the video and they make fun of them. And they they found my beatbox instructional video for what? No, no. I mean, it was totally great. And it was they were they were very sweet about it. Because they were like we we wanted to just rip this to shreds, but we actually kind of got into it enjoyed it. And we thought it was kind of cool. It was like okay, yeah. But it was so it was so funny to like, what and I'm watching myself and it was just like, I'm sitting here cringe. I don't need the commentary to feel cringe worthy, right? And yet they're really up in it. Oh my god, how old? were you when you made the video? Yeah, sometime in my 20s. Okay, okay. But the, but the thing that really strikes me there is that the reason that I had become like, I mean, I was like, I internationally toured as, you know, when I was part of a group, and we did original music and whatever, but like beatboxing was my instrument, right. And I toured with this group, and I went all over the world with this thing. And it wasn't like, we were gonna get rich, but like, you know, it was a lot of beer money. And it was just a ton of fun. And it was great guys, and all this kind of good stuff. But the thing that really strikes me about it is that, like, how did that happen? For me? Is it because I'm, you know, naturally inclined to be like, you know, a beatboxer, or whatever. It's like, no, it's none of that stuff. It's that it was like this super, super niche II thing at the time, that I just kind of thought was cool. And I was like, I'm gonna see what I can do with this thing. And, and I also decided, you know, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna teach everyone who wants to know about this thing, how to do it, I'm not great, but I'll figure it out. And every student I had, I'd learned 10, I'd learned I teach 10 things, and I'd learn one thing, and you do that enough times, and pretty soon, you know, a lot of stuff, right? You have a lot of skills, all this kind of stuff. The reason I'm making this point is that at the time, I was thinking, I'd really like to be, you know, a professional musician. So I better pick an instrument that nobody plays, because that's my only shot. Like, I remember thinking that that's pretty clever. You know, it was like, I better become a great violist accordionists, right box or something. And it was like, okay, beat box, I don't need to buy anything great. Let's give that a shot. Right. But I think that there's this long circle, kind of circles back to what we were talking about in the beginning of the traditional educational system is all about teaching, the average student some average stuff, so that they have some shared knowledge, no shade on that, like, that's, that's great, a great thing to do. But if you pick a particular skill, you want to get good at if you want to pick a particular niche, that's going to be your thing, if you have some temperamental bent, that you want to do something, right, yeah, it's very difficult to do those sorts of things in the context of the traditional educational system. And now that we're seeing through COVID-19, all of these classrooms become video and all this kind of stuff. It's like, suddenly people are discovering, you know, open courseware, and all the stuff you can learn on YouTube and right. I mean, you know, you want to learn some foreign language, guess what, there's a 19 year old kid who speaks that language natively, who has a video connection, who's happy to take your mom's ready right now? With Yeah, you know, it's like, my gosh, it's like we don't, you know, do you need Spanish class Spanish class is still valuable. But you got options today, that when you were in high school, just didn't exist in the same way?
Ted Dorsey:So a couple things that I think and I think this will start to put like a cap on the conversation for today to probably need that. Now. I mean, it's, uh, even. Yeah, it's been a really interesting conversation. I think we've got a lot of questions yet to answer. That's good. And so too, does do we all you know, I think that the, I think the lessons of the school as it existed pre COVID, I think that they were productive, you know, at maybe like, I don't know, like a 70% level, you know, I mean, like, there was, we were delivering, like, pretty decent results. Kids were learning things that they would not necessarily need to know later on. You know, what I mean? Like I at some point, and I actually kind of value this knowledge, but I, you know, learned to say the, the countries in Africa, the continents in Africa. It's good. And like the, you know, when I was like five, I had the US presidents memorized, I don't have that memorized anymore. You know what I mean? And I don't need to because it's on the board. But, you know, there's stuff that's kind of extraneous But then there's a lot of other lessons within that, about learning how to learn about learning how to learn around others, you know, get along with others, form a peer group, just so many different things that happen in that context that I think are good. And I'm not going to complain about any of that. Under covid, we've actually lost some of that stuff, a lot of that stuff. I mean, especially the interactive stuff, students can't kind of hang out, you know, and like, you know, this is weird, but say forum clicks, there's, there's something interesting and valuable in that, you know, just about kind of human behavior. So, I think we're challenged, I think that it does open up these new possibilities, I happen to be a big fan of teaching, allowing kids who are eccentric to develop their eccentric skills. And I think that there's some real major value to that. And if we, if, if the true purpose was only to teach the boring stuff to the boring people, and, you know, use that word, like, you know, I don't really mean that. But if that, you know, that's the sort of like, the bad way of saying boring sometimes. Yeah. And it is, and it is boring sometimes. Yeah, we are too. And I'm probably I'm right now that, you know that that would be a sad mission. You know what I mean? That even if we accomplish it, it's still freakin sad.
Wes Carroll:Well, okay. But here, let me offer a what may be a framing principle. Let me suggest to you that the purpose of school depends on on which stakeholder you are, because school, school is a way to build a culture that allows people to work together. Yeah. But school is also particularly in a country that says sort of baldly meritocratic as we claim to be here, right? School is also the, it's the, it's the, it's, it's the racetrack, where you can see who's the fastest, right? So it's, it's, what I'm really trying to say is that fit as a school administrator, as a political person, as a citizen, I want schools to provide to create the best citizenry, they can so that we all get a better outcome, right? I want everyone graduating from the schools being erudite and capable. And you know, all this stuff, because, you know, when I'm old, and I'm able to do stuff, they're gonna be in charge. And I would like for them to know what they're doing. Yeah, right. But at the same time, like, I want only the best for my kid, right? I want my kid to get blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So from the perspective of, of, let's say, the individual, right, there's, there's this push to Okay, how can I get the very best and so on? Yeah, from the culture, there's this push of how can we get, you know, as much as possible for everyone? And I feel like so often these, these discussions of why isn't school better really come down to? Well, it's because of the tension between these two forces. What are we trying to do? We're trying to make it so that both of these forces can be working. And in a way that sort of synergistic? right we want, we want individual motivation to lead to good
Ted Dorsey:outcome. Right, right. Right. You know,
Wes Carroll:whether it's because the smart kid is teaching the other kids or because the smart kids on to cure cancer, right, whatever. Yeah, totally. And you know, who the smart kid is can change from hour to hour as well as year to year, that's all fine, too, right. But I feel like, so much of this comes down to not really getting your stakeholder, right? Because, you know, because there, I hear you talking about some of this stuff. And there's the, you know, we have our own positions of who we were as as students, and we can inhabit sort of the viewpoints of some of our students now that we're individual teachers and tutors. But then there's also the cultural question of like, you know, but I mean, you know, sometimes you have to choose, are the 24 kids in this classroom going to have an overall better experience? Or is the one kid in the classroom who's especially capable going to get an extra boost? Or for that matter, is the one kid who most needs help? Who's farthest behind? Are we going to catch that kid up? Like, you know, yeah, that obviously,
Ted Dorsey:that's an amazing. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Wes Carroll:Sure. I mean, that's just all I got.
Ted Dorsey:That's an amazing question. It's an amazing question. And I, I think we I think we should hang on to it. You know, I mean, I think we should come back to it. Because I think that's like, it's, it's deep, and it's great. And it brings up so many thoughts. And, you know, I, yeah, I can jump right in. I'm thinking about, like, web two boys, who basically was like, let's talk, let's teach to the top 10% of black males, you know what I mean? Like, and that was sort of, like, you know, let's find the talented ones. And let's, let's raise them up. And I think he had like a broader, you know, intention to, you know, what I mean, I think that he was trying to help all the entire race, but he's basically let's start with these people. Because this is gonna work. You know what I mean? And you're gonna like, yeah, you know, it's a I mean, it's like, you know, Jackie Robinson's an incredible person to be the first person to integrate baseball, because it wasn't about him being good at baseball, what he was very good at baseball. But it was about him being this personality that was like, could be accepted by white people by most white people, and not all of them. Anyway. Yeah, I think the most like the the goal of the we should have the goal of figuring out, or at least discussing more, what's the goal of the classroom? You know, is it to raise the individual? You know, out of the many? Is it to raise the money to become critical thinkers so that they can, you know, make society better, you know, on mass? Is it to take the person who's falling behind and catch them up to the group? And maybe it's all those things? I don't know. But I think that's a critical question, in order to decide how to run your schools.
Wes Carroll:You know, I think that's right. So let me suggest this, at the risk of embarrassing ourselves, because we'll have all of you know, two listeners, and they'll both be us to be posted. My mom will probably listen. Yeah, they see their work two, three. So I really get a lot of our conversations, glad that we're recording this. I'm glad we're posting and I hope that some people will get something out of it. I think that's awesome. I want to keep doing it, at least for a little while. And just Yes, like I really enjoy it. But I would also be super psyched. If anyone who's listening to this, who's watching this, whatever, would would submit post some questions. For future conversations, I think we'll we'll kind of go off on the direction we want to go off on but if someone were to pipe in and say, geez, I'd really love to help us to cover this ground. I mean, yeah, I mean,
Ted Dorsey:I think that would be great, again, to maybe some more detail to you know what I mean, we can even pick like subject matters and dive into those. So sure, yeah, by all means, please, please make suggestions to us. Yeah, I mean, and just to reiterate just Who the heck we are, and why we're even talking about this. I mean, we basically, I'm Ted, and I'm a professional educator, I'm tutor Ted, this is what I do. And you know, Wes, and I have these conversations scheduled every three weeks is we always chat. And we've been talking about doing this podcast for a long time. But, you know, this is basically what we've spent our intellectual energy working on over the years. And hopefully it's useful to you guys. But if you have more, if you have questions you want us to dive into, by all means, ask them.
Wes Carroll:Yeah, I think it's all good. You can find Ted at tutorted.com. You can find me at Wes Carroll. That's Carroll with two R's and two L's dot com, or wherever you're listening to or watching this, whether it's YouTube podcast, or something of the future, feel free to jump in with comments or whatever. And we're excited to include you in the conversation too. Thanks for joining. Thanks, guys.