STAND with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka

#26: Barbara Richter

• Kelly Tshibaka and Niki Tshibaka

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Have you ever stopped to consider the sheer power of the written word, or how your ability to read and write has sculpted your life's journey? That's the beating heart of our latest conversation with the inspiring Barbara Richter. She brings to the table a wealth of knowledge as an author, ghostwriter, and entrepreneur, all while offering her unique perspectives on the decline of American literacy and its ripple effects on personal and societal growth. With a childhood immersed in literature, Barbara understands deeply how books can ignite a lifelong passion for learning.

Throughout the episode, we peel back the layers on how literacy intersects with legacy and entrepreneurship. Barbara opens up about her evolution from an educator to the creator of a ghostwriting company that champions the voices of those yearning to share their stories but may be hindered by barriers like cost or self-doubt. It's an invitation to explore not only the significance of capturing personal histories but also the strategies we can embrace to nurture a robust reading culture among children - especially for those shying away from more challenging texts.

We wrap up by looking beyond individual stories to the collective narrative, pondering the impact of literacy rates on a community's ability to thrive. From the far-reaching effects of book banning to the essential nature of free speech, our discussion takes a hard look at the importance of preserving the freedom of ideas. Furthermore, we underscore the profound role early literacy interventions play in shaping an informed, participative society. Join us for an episode that's both a celebration of the enduring power of words and a clarion call to action in the face of a literacy crisis.

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Kelly Tshibaka:

Welcome to Stand. This is where we make courage become contagious, helping you stand for freedom, truth and government by the people. I'm Kelly Tshibaka, your host, a former government watchdog and candidate for US Senate. I'm joined today by my wonderful co-host and son, Josiah Tshibaka so happy to have you with me. This is our show on. Stanshoworg is where you can follow us. Please hit subscribe. We'd love to have you become one of our awesome standouts. That's where you can find all of our podcast episodes. Follow us on social media. Check out our YouTube channel. Everything you want is there. Stanshoworg Today.

Kelly Tshibaka:

I'm so happy to have with us Barbara Richter. She's an amazing author, a ghostwriter, an entrepreneur and the founder of diybook. us. That's diybookus for do-it-yourself book, and she's also the host of a podcast called Writing for Immortality. She's been doing this professional writing for 20 years, and so we're so excited to have her talk with us today about the boldness and courage it takes to be a business owner and the freedom that comes with literacy, writing and taking the stand for yourself. Barbara, thanks so much for being with us. We're so happy to have you today.

Barbara Richter:

Thank you for the beautiful introduction, Kelly. Amazing to be here and with your wonderful audience.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Yeah, we're very happy to have you. I have so many questions to ask you. I'm really inspired by what you've done in being an entrepreneur and writing. I'm inspired by how you help other people turn their memories into memoirs. I think that's fascinating.

Kelly Tshibaka:

One of the things I want to really talk to you, though, is the difference in the dichotomy between legacy and literacy. We have a massive issue in America right now. I'm super concerned about where only 40% of our current youth are considered literate, and literate being where they're functional in society, where they can reach their potential, where they're even able to get a job that requires any level of reading. That's really concerning. So when you look at the numbers, there was a study that came out that less than 75% of Americans can read past.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Sorry, 75% of Americans read below a sixth grade level, and so I love that you are helping people write books, and I want to talk about that, but one of the things that concerns me is when we think about what led to things like the civil rights movement or the freedom for slaves in America, what has led to freedom for an independence and democracy for countries around the world. So much of it ties to literacy, and I know that reading and literacy has been such an important part of your background. I wanted to just get some of your thoughts on the decline of literacy in America.

Barbara Richter:

Well, I think we could have multiple episodes on this topic, so I'll try to do what I can in the time that we have. It's a big issue and actually some of my ghostwriting clients. One of the issues that some of them have worked on is improving literacy rates in the United States. It's multifaceted. Some of it has to do with the K-12 system. It has to do with what's happening at home. There's a lot of issues.

Barbara Richter:

So here I am I'm trying to get people to write and it's hard enough when people are having a hard time reading. Here I am I'm trying to get people to write and it's hard enough when people are having a hard time reading. What I would say is that a lot of this starts at home. If you can get people at home reading with their family, with somebody that they trust or that they love, it almost doesn't even matter what. You'll get a spark. You get this feeling of ownership and that can lead you to so many different things in life.

Barbara Richter:

But you're right, this is just such a huge issue I mean, I don't even know where to begin with it, but once you do have the ability to read wherever your level is and when you can increase your level to something more advanced. The world opens up to you and I think that's something that gets lost with. I just don't know if people are talking about it that when you can read and you can comprehend, your brain is doing things, your brain is getting stronger and you're better equipped to deal with what's going on in the world around you.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Yeah, that's right. There's a great freedom in literacy. It's something I think that was really lost during COVID. I know that your generation, when you were in high school, has really shut down because of the lockdowns and COVID, and kids were just really lost. It seemed like two years of just like a literacy setback, as they didn't have those prompts at school and weren't forced to do reading at home. How did you get into being such an avid reader and writer? Where did this passion of yours come from?

Barbara Richter:

Oh, I think if I had done anything other than working with books, it would have been strange. I grew up in a house full of books. My father is a nonfiction author. He's working on book number 11 right now and growing up he was a journalist and he was a book editor. So every day felt like Christmas because we would be getting review books. They would be coming in and they were books that were coming out on children's books, cookbooks, adult books, everything. We had access to it all.

Barbara Richter:

So it was a free-for-all and there were really very few constraints on what we were picking up out of the boxes. If my dad was not reviewing it, we could take it, and so that's really where it started, and there were just books everywhere. You can't really see behind me, but in the rest of the house I've continued the tradition there's books in the bathroom, there's books in the kitchen, they're just, they're everywhere. So you really can't go someplace without picking one up. So that's really where it started and I've continued with it.

Barbara Richter:

So I read forever, I've been writing forever and I've been really, I guess, blessed because my daughter has also picked up this bug, and I will say, during COVID unfortunately the schools did shut down, but she was okay because she just got to go and sit and read her books in her room and I ran out of books to give her, which I feel very fortunate to be able to say I was in that position. One thing I want to say is that you cited that study about kids during COVID who lost their reading levels. I did see another study recently that also found that kids were able to bounce back, but it also depended on the kind of system that they were in if the school systems that they were in were also prepared to help them bounce back. So kids are flexible. If you can give them the resources and the scaffolding that they need, they can rise to the occasion.

Kelly Tshibaka:

That's interesting, Barbara. What school systems were more helpful for kids bouncing back with literacy?

Barbara Richter:

Schools that had robust English programs, that had early intervention programs. You know things that you would expect.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Oh, that's super interesting. So let's talk a little bit about what it's like being a woman who's an entrepreneur and business owner. So you've been in your own business writing, you know, for 20 years. You've launched DIYbooks, where you not only help with ghostwriting but you help people with really easy process for being able to prompt people in the writing process.

Kelly Tshibaka:

I really believe anybody can write a book. It's actually the discipline that's hard. It's almost like a weight loss program. Anyone can lose weight. It's just it's micro decisions over time. Right, and writing a book is really similar. But if you don't have a coach, you don't have someone in the gym helping you. You don't have a weight loss program and you're kind of like that. You're like a boot camp instructor or a gym instructor, your gym trainer for book writing, which is amazing. But it must have been really hard saying you know, this is an idea that I have no one else really doing that. You know, helping someone with that concept, with an online process for helping somebody write a book. I'd love for you to talk to the audience because there might be other budding entrepreneurs listening in, people who want to write a story or they have an idea. They don't know where to start. How did you decide? I'm gonna start a business and I'm gonna persevere in this. What are some of those challenges you've had to overcome?

Barbara Richter:

Well, I have to, I guess, back up a little bit. Before I launched my ghostwriting company, I actually used to be a teacher. So I guess, deep down in my heart, I always want to help people, whether they're learning French lit in that case or if they're writing a book. I want to help. So my ghostwriting company with ghostwriting it's an intense, you know, relationship. It's I call it, like a nine-month marriage, but it's also it can be an expensive undertaking for a lot of people.

Barbara Richter:

And what I found for every client that would work with me with ghostwriting, I would probably turn away a dozen who had wonderful stories, had great things to say, but they couldn't. They couldn't afford working with me, and that that really made me sad. So I said well, how can I help people actually write their stories in a way that's affordable and in a way where they're not going to get scammed? Because unfortunately in the ghostwriting world, if you go online you can type in ghostwriting services and you'll see people who will write a whole book for you for 500 bucks. And they also, by the way, they wrote like the cat in the hat and little house on the prairie. And, by the way, all of these companies, they all wrote the exact same book so they wouldn't be out there if they people weren't using those services. So that really got me upset too, that people were getting taken advantage by these other companies. So I said, well, how can I do that?

Barbara Richter:

And I had to basically disassemble the ghost writing and writing process but also make it accessible for people. Um, who may be intimidated by writing for various reasons. You know, maybe their English teacher in high school was not very nice to them or not very caring, or they just, you know, people feel intimidated, just in general. You see people who've written, you know, hundreds of pages for a book and you say, how am I going to do that? And so we just really stripped it away and made it a process where people can go at their own pace. I provide a pacing, so I guess, kind of like a coach in a gym, I'm encouraging the writer to go.

Barbara Richter:

Once a week we send out email prompts based on a series of genres that the customer picks out when they sign up.

Barbara Richter:

But they don't have to follow them, because the beauty about writing a life story is that it's personal to yourself. So if you want to write about your military history, if you want to write about your faith journey, if you want to just write about your family or adversity, any of those things, you can choose those and you can write them when you want, when you feel like you can. And the nice thing about the prompts that we give is they're based on my experience with ghostwriting clients who have covered all these different topics anyway. So I try to be as hands-on as possible without me actually being there helping them. And that's been really rewarding to hear people say I've been wanting to write this book, kind of like you said earlier, but I've been intimidated by it. Or I've heard the term analysis paralysis, I've just overthought it. And then when they get in there, they're not necessarily following the prompts, they're going and they're doing their own thing, which I think is just very beautiful.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Yeah, that's really wonderful. I want to pick up on the other side of our break on DIY book and so, for audience, diybook. u diybooks is where you can find Barbara Richter in this process. She's talking about some of the services that you offer, but specifically, I'd like us to talk about why this is important. So it's not just people out there thinking, oh you know, I want to write a book, but why is it important for people to take the time to write, to capture their stories and capture these memories, what that process is about? And for people who might not be as literate as someone who grew up around books and had their dad as an editor and journalist, what can they do to overcome maybe some of those reservations or insecurities they have? Like, I might not be that great of a writer, so what are some of the answers for that?

Kelly Tshibaka:

So we'll pick up on the other side of this break with Barbara Richter at diybook. u diybooks. I'm Kelly Tshibaka with my son, Josiah Tshibaka. You're with us on stand. We'll see you on the other side of the break. Make sure to hit up stand showorg and hit subscribe. We'll see you in just a minute.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Welcome back to stand. We're here with Barbara Richter. She is the founder of diybook. us, a ghost writing service allowing you to write your own books with the help of professional writers who can really help you bring your stories to life. She specializes in personal memoirs. Barbara, before the break, we were talking a lot about how.

Josiah Tshibaka:

I believe you said something along the lines of just get people to start reading. We were talking about literacy rates in our children and how, if we just get people to start reading we were talking about literacy rates in our children and how, if we just get people to start reading, they will move that forward and it will come alive on its own. One of my concerns with that is I often see younger people, third, fourth graders, picking up books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Big Nate. They pick up a lot of these, as my mom would say, junk books, and that's well and good because it's something that they like and they enjoy and it gets them reading and I'm all for that. But then they continue to read these books through sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, and I think that that's where we see a lot of our literacy rates drop off. So what are your thoughts on that?

Barbara Richter:

I think of it like a balanced diet. So I think there is a place for those kinds of books, especially if you're working with reluctant readers, if you can kind of get them. If that's the way that they're going to get their carrots, I guess get them with those books that perhaps they're reading. Perhaps they're reading, you know. I think of that scene in League of their Own, where one of the characters, well, she's reading, all right, it's okay, and it's like a romance novel. So you start there. But also you do need adults to say all right, you've worked on this one, let's find something else. I think if you just let kids kind of go and pick their own thing, of course, I mean it's like with food are you going to pick your salad? Are you going to pick your chocolate? I know where I'm going to go.

Barbara Richter:

And to make it enjoyable though I think that's another thing is that there's this tendency to say, well, if it's not Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I'm not going to read it. So that's a shift in perspective. And I remember back when I used to be a teacher you have to sell it. If you're excited about it, your students are going to be excited about it. So I think that's something that educators and, of course, parents, because it does start at home I mean parents, and I know parents can be intimidated too if they're not confident readers.

Barbara Richter:

They may be growing with their children and I think being honest about that is OK. I mean kids, we can be I know when I used to teach sometimes and I taught middle school, so every day was different and it can be, you know, the kids can be your toughest critics, but I think they do appreciate when you speak to them and say, look, we're going to go on this journey together. We're both going to find books, we're both going to read something that just brings us joy and then we're going to challenge ourselves a little bit. I think another issue is going from maybe like Diary of a Wimpy Kid to, um, you know something by Ernest Hemingway. You know that's a huge leap and that's super intimidating, and then people will say, well, I'm never going to read again. Um, so having professionals, you know, having educators, having librarians who you can go to and say this is where I'm at, help me. I think all of that can go towards creating a better literacy amongst our children and our adults as well.

Josiah Tshibaka:

That's a really great response, thank you. It's something that I've seen kind of happening with my younger siblings as well, and I've tried to think through you know, where was it for me in my own personal reader's journey where I moved away from that easier content into that harder content, and for me it was reading a lot of fantasy books, because I was really into fiction as a kid and so it was a pretty easy jump to go from the Chronicles of Narnia to some big, thick book.

Josiah Tshibaka:

That's ridiculously big, because that's what I was into. So what I hear you saying is it's about finding what people are interested in and just using that to grow their education, but not in a way that limits their future potential.

Barbara Richter:

Right and that takes time, it's not automatic and kids aren't going to know it on their own necessarily.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Yeah.

Kelly Tshibaka:

So, Barbara, I want to ask you, why, in your opinion, is it important for people to write? So you've started this company to help this people do it themselves. So do it yourself. Book. us. diybook. us to help people write down their own stories, but usually, as someone who's going to make the bold step of kind of staking their entire income on starting a business, they have a really compelling why, and you know Simon Sinek wrote this amazing book. Start With why. What's the big why behind this? Why would you say to all the people listening, why is it important to write your how-to book or to capture your expertise, to write down the passion that you have, or to tell your life story to pass on? You know Josiah has talked about, you know the fantasy books he wrote, so to write down the fantasy book in his heart. What's the why behind that? What would you pass on to our audience?

Barbara Richter:

The why. There's two whys. One, at a very basic level writing is good for your brain. So even if you're just writing for yourself, it actually stimulates the neurons, neuroplasticity. So you're getting smarter just by writing something, no matter what it is. But on a larger level, if you're writing, if you're an entrepreneur and you're writing a book, when you write a book, you become the authority in your field. It's something permanent. You're giving it to people. You're saying I spent time, I sat down and I'm sharing my knowledge with you. So that's one reason.

Barbara Richter:

If you're writing a life story, no one else has lived your life story.

Barbara Richter:

No one else will know unless you put it in a book and you share it with them.

Barbara Richter:

I know, for families I hear sometimes I wish I had done this sooner, I wish I had done this when this family member was here, because when it's written down, you're preserving it for future generations that you may or may not meet. And um, one thing that I think is also pretty important is we have all of these wonderful technological advancements, um, but I know over the last 20 years we've gone from, or even 30 years. You go from CDs, you go from different types of saving formats on your computer. You go from one computer to another, you can lose files, you can lose photos. Who knows what we're going to be using 10 to 15 years from now. But a book bound, hardcover or paperback, that's going to be pretty hard to replace in terms of technology. I mean, there's just a couple things that might affect it, you know, like wind, rain, fire, those sorts of things. But you can be pretty much assured that your words will last when they're bound in a book.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Yeah, I would actually challenge you on that, and this is something that I'd want to get your take on, because something I see a lot in our society is we're starting to ban books, we're starting to censor books, we're starting to take out classics like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn because of offensive content and material. And so, unfortunately, in America today, you know you can write down your words, but if somebody finds them offensive, they might not actually stand the test of time and your ideas might not actually be shared with other people. So, from your perspective as both a writer and an educator, what is the impact of banning books and limiting other people's words in education?

Barbara Richter:

Boy. I mean, I think banning books is just a tough. I don't like the idea. I think if there's a book there that you don't want to read, you don't have to read it.

Barbara Richter:

There's lots of other books out there, states where they were thinking of banning books and actually what they did I think it might have been in one of the Carolinas and they brought the community together and what they decided to do was they were going to read the books that were on the docket to be banned, and it was a range of things.

Barbara Richter:

I mean it was. I can't remember all the books, but across the spectrum of books that have been in the news recently, and of the dozen or so books that they had planned to ban, I think ultimately they chose one or two. So right there, I think sometimes a lot of the stuff just gets caught up in this fervor and I just wish people would actually maybe go and read the books and then think about them and think about what they're trying to achieve with this act. I hope that this is just a moment in time and that we will stop doing this and we will go back to just having the books out there and, if you choose to read it cool. If not, there's others out there for you. I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Josiah, there's an interesting intersection in what you're talking about, that words influence people, they change minds, they change hearts, they shape legacies, and without those words they don't. And I was reading the study that showed that 25% of Americans have not read or listened to a book in this past year. And so, yes, so to your point, Josiah, not only are we banning books, but we do have an option of just self-limiting input. Right that you can self-ban books by simply opting out and just choosing to not be influenced or not be educated. But the way you get educated I mean our entire university and academic system is simply based on the idea that we're going to expose you to X amount of different authors and writers and journal articles. It will inform you of different opinions, it will help to shape your own, you craft a response and then you get a degree. And that essentially happens in two, three or four years, conferring different levels of degrees. But it's basically how many different forms of writing can we expose you to in that amount of time for you to synthesize? And you know you hear all these arguments about. Well, you could just do that at home, like, why are you going to an institution? And I think there is some value in being exposed to the students in the classroom.

Kelly Tshibaka:

But all of that to say this all comes up against this concept of free speech and the First Amendment and the value of speech and ideas and this marketplace of ideas that we were fundamentally founded on as a country. That is so valuable. And to your point, barbara, there used to be this idea that if somebody said something a little bit bizarre at a birthday party or the backyard barbecue or the cocktail party, everybody would just say that's just a weird thing to say, and society was sort of self-select out of weird things, and the people who wanted to hear weird things would hear it, but the rest of us would just not read that book. Right and then Right, or move on, move on, right, and then the ideas that were influential and powerful would rise to the top, which is, you know, essentially what we learned in the Lincoln Douglas debates, these long debates that went on across the country and everybody heard them, and then we sided with one guy and built a monument and the other guy most people don't remember. You get the idea. And so there is value in writing and conveying ideas to shape hearts and influence minds in order to, as you said, pass on expertise, share ideas, share lessons learned so other people don't have to learn them the hard way, shape and craft legacies. I love this idea of turning your memories into memoirs so people can learn. I know one thing that we're going through right now is my husband's father, who grew up in Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has crafted his memories into memoirs and learning some of the things he's gone through being raised and living and surviving through coups and dictators and it's just so fascinating and such a great legacy to pass on to our children. So, for everybody listening, if this is tugging at your heart and you're thinking, you know what I'm inspired. I think that I could do this.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Barbara's services are at diybook. us. We're transitioning to a break. Barbara, thank you so much for being with us. You're on Stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka, and today my co-host is Josiah Tshibaka. You can find us on standshoworg. We'll see you right after this break. Stand by. Welcome back to stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka. I'm Kelly Tshibaka, and today my co-host is Josiah Tshibaka.

Kelly Tshibaka:

We just finished an awesome interview with Barbara Richter, who is the founder of diybook. us, talking about all things freedom of speech, the importance of writing and literacy rates in America.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Josiah, you are one of our affected youth.

Kelly Tshibaka:

You're still in the public school system in America, affected by literacy rates in America, and here in Alaska, our literacy rate across the state is well below 30%.

Kelly Tshibaka:

I'm not sure what the exact number is, I just know it's been dropping significantly in these last several years In some parts of our state.

Kelly Tshibaka:

I think our literacy rate is at 10% in some of our communities, and so this is something that directly affects us, and one of the questions we were talking about is not only how do you get people to write when they can't even read, and, as you know, literacy affects things like your ability to get a job, your ability to function in society, but also affects things like freedom. There's high literacy rates correlated to things like imprisonment and things like economic freedom, not only in the United States, but across the world. I wanted to just get a sense from you. What do you see, having been in school? I mean, we're even graduating kids, not just in Alaska, but across America, who are not literate, who don't have I'm not talking about sixth grade literacy, I'm talking about even less than that. So do not have functional literacy for America, independence for America being able to function, being able to reach their full potential. What are some of your reflections, as somebody who's currently in the school system, on literacy rates for students in America?

Josiah Tshibaka:

The absolute most important thing is early reading and early learning, particularly before third grade.

Josiah Tshibaka:

So hearing about this mass illiteracy epidemic spreading through Alaska is extremely concerning to me because I just learned that 60% of our students in at least Anchorage in kindergarten through third grade are well below not just below, but well below the average the national average, not necessarily even proficiency, but the national average for reading literacy. But once we get beyond third grade our students start to catch up. So our fourth through 12th graders aren't as far behind. Most of them are along the national average of reading rates. But we still produce mass illiteracy throughout our states, which tells me that even though our fourth through 12th graders are in fact at the national average standard for their reading, so many of them have been so negatively impacted in their early education and their early reading development that it continues to produce mass illiteracy into adulthood. So targeting that kindergarten through third grade time anyone below eight years old and seriously focusing on reading, literacy, proficiency and even excellency in that time period is absolutely crucial to having a literate society.

Kelly Tshibaka:

I think that's a really great point. One of the things that I've been focusing on is early intervention tools making sure that we have the tools needed. We can't always count on parents or a stable home environment to really be pushing reading or excited about reading, being able to run to the library or get resources for reading, and so we really need to be able to equip our schools to have early intervention resources that work, that give good data, that give good support to the teachers, to the students and then to whoever is taking care of the kids back at home in order to push early intervention, so that they can target, they can see what's the gap, what's the need, and then how do we target it with resources to make sure that the kids have what they need in order to close that gap. And I think you're right that targeting it between pre-K and third grade is really the area that we need to focus on, and I really believe this has been a debate across America. What about funding for schools, funding for education? That funding does not need to go into more administration, more overhead, more people at the top. It does not need to go into more buildings and more sports yards. It needs to go into these intervention programs. It needs to go into teachers who are performing, who we actually produce metrics so that we're actually putting money towards results, because continuing to just fund a system and fund a organization metric, if you will, that actually is just producing illiteracy doesn't work.

Kelly Tshibaka:

As we know, government will always grow. The education system is part of government. Government will always grow, it will always consume resources and unless its feet are held to the fire, it will not produce results. And we really need to focus on this, on producing literacy as a result, producing, I would say, a love for reading as a result, so that our kids actually have the skills and the strength that they need in order to contribute to that marketplace of ideas, reach their full potential, be functioning in society, be equipped for the workplace so that we can have a strong America and a prosperous America in the future.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Otherwise, we will produce, class after class after class and then, ultimately, a generation of non-read. Otherwise, we will produce, class after class after class and then, ultimately, a generation of non-readers. And how will those generations you know we talk about America's greatest generation how will those generations of illiterate Americans even compete against China and Russia and these countries that obviously are adversarial to us and undermining us every chance they get. Let alone countries that are are adversarial to us and undermining us every chance they get. Let alone countries that are right next door to us, like Mexico, that are competing with us in trade right now and competing with us even at the border.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Yeah, absolutely so. One of the things I was going to bring up, as you said, instilling a love of reading in children, getting not everyone has the opportunity to run to the library, and the thought that that put into my mind is you know the library here in Anchorage isn't safe. If I were a father, I would never let my child go to that library, we don't go to the library.

Kelly Tshibaka:

We don't go to the library. It's become a homeless.

Josiah Tshibaka:

It's become a place filled with illiterate people. And so, as we continue to produce a society of illiterate Americans, this next generation of illiterate Americans is going to feed into that vicious cycle of making an unsafe, unproductive society in which reading is not accessible to the majority of people, furthering the problem even more so. Something to note there this is a vicious cycle. Illiteracy is not like literacy. Literacy does not self-reproduce self reproduce.

Kelly Tshibaka:

it doesn't that's a great point. Literacy does not just happen.

Josiah Tshibaka:

No, illiteracy does in fact it's contagious it replicates on its own.

Josiah Tshibaka:

the other thing that I would touch on is talking about education funding and how throwing money at the problem doesn't necessarily fix it. There's a very classic american saying if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and I would kind of reverse that saying if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and I would kind of reverse that saying and apply it to funding and education If it's still broken, don't act like it's fixed. You can throw money at a system that's working. If a system is working and in well order and producing results and then you throw money at it, you're going to see an exponential explosion of production and success and excellence in your students in that system. If the system is broken and you throw money at it, you're just throwing your money out the window. So while I absolutely support increases in education funding, it needs to come into a fixed system that is already producing results with the resources that it has.

Kelly Tshibaka:

That's a really great point. It's a basic investment principle. You don't throw bad money after bad money. If your investment isn't producing results, you don't say, well, maybe if I up my investment, this one will do better. You end up changing your investment manager or reallocate your portfolio, and that's fundamentally what needs to happen. As someone who has spent her career as a government watchdog, you actually can make changes in government without changing the money. You change the system, you change the process, you change the people, you change how funds are currently allocated in order to drive mission and results. Before you say, okay, now we're going to put more money into this in order to pump up the results, but right now we have to ask what are we funding? Because what we're funding, fundamentally, is illiteracy.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Exactly. If you're funding a system that is not producing results you want to see, why would you even put money in that? Why are you choosing to produce results that you then say you don't want to see?

Kelly Tshibaka:

That's right. Something I think is encouraging is we do have models across the country. Just like Barbara was saying, there are schools that have actually succeeded and done this well, not only in fixing the pre-K to third grade intervention and literacy challenge, but fixing it pre-K to 12th, and we have great models of school systems. They're not just in private schools and, as a side note, we've had not so great experiences in private school and we've had some really great experiences in public school. So, whether it's public school or charter school or homeschool or private school because we've done them all in our family there are great school systems that can be modeled across the country. For whoever's listening to this because this show is broadcast nationally that we can model our school systems after and we can say you know, we don't have to create this from scratch, we can look at who's done it before.

Kelly Tshibaka:

There are plenty of people who've walked this path ahead of us and figured this out. Reading didn't start in this century. Reading has been going on for a while and people have figured, figured out the tools for literacy a while ago and we can model after what they've done and then improve on it for our culture, our context and our communities and figure out what works best for us, but we don't have to reinvent the wheel in order to make this thing, to make this thing work. So I would recommend that we look at these best practices and implement what works, instead of trying to figure out something from scratch or, as you say, continue to invest in systems that aren't working.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Right, and I think it's especially crucial with where we see America at today. One of the things that they try to teach us so often in college courses, especially anything pertaining to reading or writing or english in college courses is media literacy, critical thinking, analyzing a source, validating its credibility, being able to spot bias, being able to spot fake news. And if you can't even read, how can you think through truth, how can you reason? Is this person lying to me? Is this a valid? How can you rationalize or apply logic to any argument? How can you lead a world nation, a superpower, how can you influence, impact or take a stand on anything in america if you cannot even read and understand basic ideas? And what kind of a government that is supposed to be for its people would do such a disservice to its citizens as to cripple them from birth in such an important way?

Kelly Tshibaka:

But yeah, by perpetuating illiteracy, it really leaves us open to indoctrination and disinformation and someone telling you what to think instead of how to think, which really disempowers the people. It's a great point. Let's pick that up. On the other side of this break, you're listening to Stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka, and today my host is Josiah Tshibaka. I'd love for you to hit subscribe at standshoworg. You can find all of our podcasts and all of our previous episodes. Thanks for being a standout. We'll see you in a minute. Stand by.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Welcome back to Stand. You're on Stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka. I'm your co-host today, Josiah Tshibaka, here with my wonderful mother, Kelly Tshibaka, and we're going to talk about Dune. Dune is one of my favorite book series of all times and I was super excited, as you know, when the Dune 2 movie came out. You know, when the Dune 2 movie came out, I saw it twice, as you know, in theaters, and I was disappointed, to say the least. Unfortunately, because I'm a fan of the series, I'm a fan of the novels, right, and so when I see certain characters portrayed in certain ways that weren't up to my perceptions or my imagination of those characters, it's personal for me.

Kelly Tshibaka:

I was going to say it actually was a good movie. Tell me why you're so disappointed.

Josiah Tshibaka:

I will be totally candid. They're good movies. If you're watching them as their own stories, they're good movies. My issue with it is it wasn't my story, it wasn't the Dune that I read, it wasn't my story, it wasn't. It wasn't the dune that I read, it wasn't the Dune that I had built in my mind, and I think that really portrays the importance of writing. So I was sitting there and for our audience who doesn't know, I have ADHD, so I'm sitting there with my ADHD brain and just ripping into this when I should be working on literally anything else. But I'm just sitting there with my thoughts, right, and I'm contemplating the impact of writing and the adaptations of books into movies, right, and I was really also looking at the Hunger Games because I read the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and I loved it. It was a phenomenal book, one of the greatest books I've ever read, and the movie didn't. The movie was a great movie, but it didn't live up to the movie was it was not the book.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Why is that? Why do we get so disappointed when adaptations don't fit?

Barbara Richter:

our reality.

Josiah Tshibaka:

so I was thinking through this and it really occurred to me that when you, when you write, when someone writes book, they're writing an idea, they're portraying an idea, an image, a character, a picture, imagination. When you read that writing, you're not actually reading, you are writing in your mind, an interpretation of that person's mental image. Right? So I can read Dune and you can read Dune and it could say Paul Atreides is a young, skinny, 15 year old male with curly black hair and you and I could envision two completely different looking individuals.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Yeah, two totally different characters in our mind.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Exactly because we wrote out different ideas based on the prompt given to us. So when you read a book, you're actually writing ideas in your mind and writing things into your imagination. When you watch a movie, you are reading someone else's adaptation. You're reading what someone else wrote in their mind.

Kelly Tshibaka:

You're now visualizing someone else's imagination or what they wrote and imprinted in their imagination.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Exactly, you are reading someone else's thought writing so to speak, and you are thereby losing your ability to write your own imagination, to write your own thoughts, to build your own Dune. So, for all the people who haven't read the Dune novels, every single one of you enjoyed the Dune movies.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Right, I liked it. I didn't read the book. I was like cool movie.

Josiah Tshibaka:

You have never read it. You enjoyed it as you should. They're great movies, they're great stories on their own, but for those of us who have written, our own thoughts about Dune. It is a completely different experience and I think that really encapsulates the importance of writing.

Kelly Tshibaka:

That's a really good point. What I hear you saying is nobody can capture your thoughts, your mind, your imagination and your unique contribution. So, for those who don't know, dune is set on other planets, and so what I hear you saying is everybody who's read the Dune novels has created other galaxies in their mind and then when you watch these movies, your transport is like being in Star Trek. You're like wait a minute, this isn't what the planet looks like, these aren't what the characters look like, because you have created your own worlds in your mind. And that's really what writing is is. You're creating your own worlds in your mind. You're creating your own ability to contribute to conversations, to contribute to really to humanity ideas and concepts and stories and life and memories and experiences that really can shape people's minds and ideas and how we interact and how we learn and what happens as a collective society. But if you don't contribute, then we lose your particular individual contribution and nobody can make your individual unique contribution. That's what you're saying, right.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Right, that's exactly what I'm saying, and I would just kind of outline for our audience my thinking and thought process here, because some people might say, well, you're just reading someone else's book, you're not actually writing anything. So let's look at writing as the grandfather. Writing is you coming up with the original source and you're the origin, you're the founder and the starter of that source. That's an extremely powerful place to be, because the ideas that are flowing from you are completely natural.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Those have a lot of power to influence. When you are reading, you're writing someone else's ideas in your mind, but that doesn't leave you susceptible to them. When you write someone else's ideas in your mind, you can write in your own things, and that's why we have conversations and debates. That's why we analyze arguments is because we now take these source inputs and we kind of like how AI would generate a text prompt. We receive just a little bit and then we build so much more on top of that, and so building up that muscle that ability to analyze ideas, analyze things that other people create, and then build upon that and expand upon that, bring your own thoughts, ideas and values into that and then also share that with others is so crucial, especially in a country like America, where free speech and public forum are fundamental and crucial to our country's success and prosperity.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Yeah, I really like that. I think writing is really important. I want to go back to this idea that you asked during our interview about banning books. So there are these ideas that are being banned right now because they're socially unpopular. It's this witch hunt culture that has been perpetuated as like a cancel culture. If we decide that we have social fear about an idea, we're going to shut it down. So Dr Seuss books have been canceled, huck Finn, tom Sawyer, other what we would consider mainstream books that once were taught in elementary school.

Kelly Tshibaka:

There's other ones that are on the list, but then there's other books that are actually really concerning to society, like, I would say, books that really advocate for and groom children for pedophilia that you know are being banned. Is there a line? Where should that line be? I think one place that I would say is a really good line to advocate where we stop from. You know, as we've seen in some really authoritarian cultures, piles of books in a burn pile so that we can all align with the authoritarian government in charge that doesn't like ideas that challenge it, which is terrifying, because this is our First Amendment.

Kelly Tshibaka:

But where do we draw that line with things that like really push pedophilia is. There's a place where those ideas can be like in certain X-rated or adult bookstores where you can go in if you want, but we don't put those books in, say, the public library where we have in the kids section, the under 18 section of the public library, or in our school libraries where we have kids, because we don't want children exposed to ideas that would be considered dangerous for their health. There's a compelling interest in protecting children and their innocence. What would you say to that as someone who's been involved in those discussions from a student leader perspective?

Josiah Tshibaka:

I would first of all thank you for bringing up the burning of the books occurring in Nazi Germany.

Kelly Tshibaka:

I was being really careful about not accusing a single government, because multiple governments can engage in that.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Multiple governments have done that, but the most prolific example that I can think of in history is Nazi Germany, and what I would really add on to that and warn us to be careful of is such widespread censorship of it. Something that I find interesting is I've looked through a lot of lists of books that people propose should be banned, and I don't think I've ever seen Mein Kampf on the list of books that we should be banned.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Right Like. Have you ever like? Have you ever? Have you ever heard anyone talk about banning mind kampf?

Kelly Tshibaka:

so dr seuss but not hitler.

Josiah Tshibaka:

That's fascinating isn't that so interesting? So clearly, the issue is not with the ideas that are being portrayed, and we we touched on that in our interview today. This whole episode has kind of been about. You know, we should not restrict anyone's ability or rights to create content and share it with others. If you want to seek out that content, if you want to expose your child to that content, you can do that. Let that happen. I would go to I forgot which supreme court justice said it, but he defined obscenity, as I know it, when, when I see it. So when we talk about what should or should not be allowed in a third grade classroom, I know what should or should not be allowed in books in a third grade classroom when I see it. So I think we don't need, as a society, to totally throw these books out the window, burn them, ban them. We also don't need to allow just anything to be accessible to anyone. There's certain content that absolutely should be restricted to only people who are willingly, intentionally seeking that knowledge.

Kelly Tshibaka:

You know it's a really good point. We do this with movies.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Exactly, movies have certain ratings. You can't come see this if you're under 18. Right.

Kelly Tshibaka:

Nor do you have the authority to just access it, like on pay-per-view at home. You have to put in codes and stuff in order to access certain rated movies. It's a good point.

Josiah Tshibaka:

And I think our society is doing a really great job with that. I think so. So many cities, states, counties have started these book advisory boards where, just like we talked about in our interview today, the community actually comes together, reads the books and then decides. Then decides okay, what should we?

Kelly Tshibaka:

or should we not have?

Josiah Tshibaka:

it so I think a solution would be something along those lines. You know we'll we'll no obscenity when we see it, let's not be overly political. Let's all come to the table with all the books that we are concerned about being in kindergarten first, second, third grade classrooms, all the books that we are concerned about being in kindergarten first, second, third grade classrooms, all the books we are considering banning, and let's read through them and then decide as a community okay, what contains pedophilia and should not be allowed, what contains dangerous advanced political thought that should be reserved for people who can like any radicalizing material, should be reserved for someone older, who has constructed the ability to analyze abstract thought.

Josiah Tshibaka:

Let's sit down, decide as a community. Okay, here's what we like. Here's what needs to be restricted, but not removed.

Kelly Tshibaka:

It's a great idea. Thanks, Josiah. Standing for free speech, freedom, truth, government by the people. This is Stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka. Today, my co-host is Josiah. Standing for free speech, freedom, truth, government by the people. This is stand with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka. Today, my cohost is Josiah Tshibaka. You can find us on stand showorg where you can hit subscribe on any of our podcast platforms on YouTube and rumble. Become one of our standouts. We'll see you next week on stand showorg.

Contributor

Kelly Tshibaka

Host
Contributor

Niki Tshibaka

Host