Peter and Chris Sciarretta join their brother, Dr. David Sciarretta, on this special episode to discuss their family's journey through education, from childhood to careers. They reflect on attending a Waldorf school that prioritizes capacity over content, but isn't without its challenges in staying relevant amidst today's educational landscape. The brothers cap off the episode by discussing the joy of learning and being a lifelong learner as a tool for personal growth.
Peter and Chris Sciarretta join their brother, Dr. David Sciarretta, on this special episode to discuss their family's journey through education, from childhood to careers. They reflect on attending a Waldorf school that prioritizes capacity over content, but isn't without its challenges in staying relevant amidst today's educational landscape. The brothers cap off the episode by discussing the joy of learning and being a lifelong learner as a tool for personal growth.
What you choose to do to make a living doesn't define you, and so the most important thing to remember is that it's the journey that's important.
Speaker 2:On this episode. I was privileged and honored to have a wide-ranging conversation with my two brothers, peter and Chris. Collectively, the three of us have 85-plus years of experience formally in education as teachers and administrators, and we covered topics from Waldorf education to academic rigor, to the role of love and spirituality In education should those exist or not? We had some laughs along the way. We even dropped some names of the most influential teachers that have been formative in our lives. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did recording it in La Ventana, mexico, baja California Sur. Welcome to the Superintendent's Hangout, where we discuss topics in education, charter schools, life in general, and not necessarily in that order. I'm your host, dr Sharedda. Come on in and hang out. Welcome, pete and Chris. Thank you for coming and hanging out on the Superintendent's Hangout for a little bit. This is a fine evening in La Ventana, mexico.
Speaker 2:This episode is going to be a little more focused on career and education and experience and philosophy than the other one that we recorded. That's also going to air on this podcast, but it doesn't mean we can't take some sideways detours into our upbringing and other things. But I'm going to try to keep this a little more focused on career stuff. You guys ready to go? Let's do it. All right, rock and roll. I'd like to start out where Terry Gross always starts out with a very simple question. That's not always an easy question, and it is tell me about yourself. So let's narrow that a little bit and tell me about yourself in relation to education, and specifically from an educator standpoint. So whoever wants to take that first? Collectively, we have about 85 years of experience in formal education as practitioners in one capacity or another, and so, chris, why don't we start with you and you can tell us about your 25 years or so and what that looked like, and we'll go from there.
Speaker 1:Sure. So my primary interest has always been the natural world and as a child I spent as much time as I could outside in the woods, in the creek by our house, exploring, and I always figured I would go into science in some form. I had a dream of being a marine biologist and I continued with that into my own schooling and majored in biology in college and found myself going to education after college. It just felt like a natural fit. I had been camp counselor and worked with young people in various settings.
Speaker 2:Okay, just tell us about that. I know you worked at an outdoor school in the near San Diego right, that's right.
Speaker 1:yeah, In Mountain Center, California, and I also worked in Massachusetts as an outdoor educator, so that was right.
Speaker 1:After college and did that for a little while and then ended up in Japan teaching English conversational English for a little over a year and then came back to the States and went back to school for my master's degree in conservation biology. I thought that that would lead me out of education, but it never really happened. I found myself coming back to education once again and this time worked my way up to teaching high school science in a private school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I did that up until this past year, so my journey to that was not perfectly straight and I did other things in between, but it was always working with young people in an educational setting of some kind. And now I'm at a place where I'm not sure if I will continue with education, at least not in a school setting. But I can't imagine that I won't go back to some form of education. But it's hard for me to know what the future will bring, which is kind of exciting actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a liberating thing. Pete and I were just talking about that a little bit. What lessons have you drawn from the creek, or as our stepdad would call it, the creek that ran near our house? Hunger Hollow Road shout out to Spring Valley, then became Chestnut Ridge. But I remember as a kid you were always in a free moment. I actually remember summer jobs. We would be, we all worked summer jobs and one of your criteria was it had to be outdoors.
Speaker 2:And so what lessons, what through threads, have you brought from those days four or more decades ago, all the way up through a master's degree, and then Japan, which must have been a different experience, and then to the present?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really good question. The first thing that comes to mind is being able to become so familiar with a natural environment and its inhabitants that you just feel like you know it intimately and it's almost part of you, and being able to know what that feels like, be familiar with that and take that into other aspects of your life, into other natural environments and maybe not so natural environments, but that's sort of a touchstone going forward in your life. It was for me.
Speaker 2:How do you handle or think about this phenomenon of romanticizing the natural world? So if we look at how people interact with the natural world now, let's just say in the United States, there's a lot of selfies. There's a lot of oh, that brown bear is so cute, oh, that elk is. Oh, my gosh, look how beautiful it is. If I could only just get much closer, this much closer, I could get an even better photo. I can't imagine hunting, I can't imagine all these things.
Speaker 2:There's this romanticizing that happens and the natural world is unsentimental or nonsentimental I don't know what the word is and fierce. Here we're recording and we're on the Sea of Cortez in Baja and this morning, as we went down the beach, there's carcasses of animals, fish and different things, one fish eating another fish and birds eating that fish, and there's nothing sentimental about it. It is really survival of the fittest. I think there was some somewhere. In literature they talk about the tooth and the claw, and that's what the natural world is. How do you bring that understanding to your students but also have them have an appreciation for and a love for, and a stewardship for, nature? Does that question make sense? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:So that last piece is the most important, that's the connection, and over romanticizing nature is a sign of our disconnection with it, and so trying to foster that connection, starting with an interest in learning about the natural world, is really the key. So EO Wilson, the famous entomologist, had this. He coined this concept of biofilia, which is an innate love for all living things that we humans have, and I don't think anybody can argue that we don't have this. This is why we keep pets, this is why we have plants in our homes and why we follow cats on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and this is why the shape of a palm leaf is beautiful to us. So we have this because we need we are part of the natural world Everything in it we need If spiders. This is something that comes from the world of entomology as well, that entomologists say and believe this fully, even though it's incredibly difficult to fathom this fact that if spiders were to disappear today, all humans would be gone within a one month off the face of the earth.
Speaker 3:And this is whoa hold on.
Speaker 2:Whoa, I think I just stepped on the spider walking yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I said you know my company has a you know, sometimes get rid of them from places they shouldn't be, but but spiders.
Speaker 2:Because of the whole chain of yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. Spiders are incredibly important keystone species and we don't realize it, but you know they're helping to control insect populations. Insects are incredibly I mean, they are the most successful group of organizations the world has ever seen and if they're not controlled, everything would just fall apart and we just we we so easily think we're superior.
Speaker 3:We think we're separate. I can't relate yeah.
Speaker 1:We think we can control things, but we can only control things so much, and we are fully, fully dependent on all the things around us in the natural world, as insignificant as we have come to think they are. So. So just understanding this and understanding how we are all connected and understanding how ecosystems work is really, really important for students at the high school level in particular. And so how do you?
Speaker 2:how do you foment that, how do you cultivate that in students who do, to note, no fault of their own, but there a lot of their connection in nature. You know, even even at the food end is is from the supermarket they're not even seeing. You know their kids who don't know where eggs come from, right, or you know same with with, with vegetables and everything, and you know there's a real disconnect there. And how do you take I understand it now in an outdoor school where kids are sent to your outdoor school because it's something that sixth grade camp is part of the curriculum or what? What have you? And they spend five days and they go walking around the woods and do night hikes and pick up owl scat and all that stuff and that and that there's value in that. But then, but how do you do that more comprehensively and globally, and not only with students but but also with adults, like within the school community?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I haven't really worked with adults, but you have colleagues right Like.
Speaker 2:So how do you? You know?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I mean I, I with the students.
Speaker 1:I took every opportunity to teach classes outdoors, where it's easier to see the the things you're talking about.
Speaker 1:I taught a course every year in which we followed the Santa Fe River from not its source exactly, but near its source, up in the mountains outside the Santa Fe, down to its confluence with the Rio Grande and studied different habitats along the river as well as different ways in which humans were impacting the environment. Sources of water supply for Santa Fe would visit the wastewater treatment plant that's along the river and get a tour of the facility, sometimes visited the Buckman direct diversion plant, which pulls water from the Rio Grande to supplement the needs of Santa Fe, and things like that. So, so that was one course, but in many others I tried to take the students outside as much as possible. And also there are so many wonderful things written about the natural world, so many great writers, scientists who have really gone deep into the ecology of different areas, and so I would bring as much of the really good writing to the students and just snippets of books, and we would always read Silent Spring.
Speaker 2:Rachel Carson, rachel.
Speaker 1:Carson, rachel Carson's work, which most people credit with beginning the environmental movement, actually, even though there were things happening before that. That's really what kick started it and still today people will credit her with that. So yeah, just basically trying to expose the students to as much as possible. That's relevant and some of it would really click, or that's the hope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in a second Pete I'm going to hop to you on that same question. But before that, Chris, how do you think about and deal with this notion that environmental stewardship or being an environmentalist is a left-wing liberal, tree-hugger, crunchy, wear-burnt stalks and shower very sparsely, kind of a thing? You knew what I'm talking about, right? Yeah, absolutely. And how do you address that in a way that all students and people from all backgrounds can appreciate this notion of stewardship and connection to nature?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a tough one because it's really a political problem instead of an environmental problem and the students high school students don't see it that way at all. Every high school student through an ecology course in 11th grade let's say, that's where I taught an ecology course in the curriculum Every 11th grade student will come to a place where they see the importance of environmental work. And it's only later on when, unfortunately, we do get jaded. Our lives change, Our priorities change.
Speaker 1:Money becomes a really big thing that everybody worries about. The economy becomes the most important thing and people forget, I think, quite honestly. So it's about, I guess, reminding people no-transcript, Everybody depends on spiders. Everybody depends on spiders. Everybody depends on a healthy watershed, right, If there's no clean water to drink, that doesn't only impact, you know, people on the left so and actually because the economic side is the most impactful. That's usually where things happen, when people realize the economic side of things, you know. That's why ecotourism, for instance, has been really successful in some places. Once people realize that the natural resources are super valuable in a monetary sense, as well as the ecosystem services that you can't monetize, then things start to improve.
Speaker 2:Shout out to Costa Rica and other places.
Speaker 3:Totally and just with swimming, I mean the idea of swimming with the fishes. When we grew up in New Jersey we thought that was different with the Sopranos than what swimming with the fishes is. We actually grew up in New York, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Close to the border Stone's throw, stone's throw.
Speaker 2:I was waiting when the jokes were going to start. So thank you, chris, for that thoughtful response, and, pete, I'm going to ask you the same question to tell us where you come from, in an educational and from an educator sense.
Speaker 3:I come from New York, not New Jersey in an environmental sense, so my passion was to be a teacher and when I was in middle school that's all I wanted to do and I realized that I completed college and then went ahead and jumped into a classroom in Akron, Ohio, which was a city where we all know it for LeBron James now, and tires and tires Right Tires preceded LeBron and so kind of the cultural and success of the city had left with the tire industry that moved overseas so it was pretty economically depressed place to be. Anyway, started at a Waldo school there.
Speaker 2:And sorry, I mean we're going to come back to the Waldorf topic a little bit later Because this has been peppered throughout a number of my episodes, and we'll come back to all the education more more thoroughly in a minute.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, okay, so I just I completed. Well, so I was there for two years in Akron, ohio, during which time I entered a Waldorf teacher training course that ran over three years, and then, following that, I relocated to New Jersey, Princeton, new Jersey, which is where I also joined a Walder school there, k through eight, and spent my next 17 years really kind of getting thoroughly, deeply entrenched in education and that was on the East Coast, of course and then, from there, moved to Santa Fe in 2013 and also joined a Walder school community the Santa Fe Walder School then and that was that was my journey. So the only time I was teaching in a non Walther setting was when I was taking college courses, which were limited, am I junior and senior year of college.
Speaker 2:So I want to talk a little bit in more depth about Waldorf education, the episode where mom K Hoffman she talked about Waldorf education. She gives kind of more of a history and clearly this is something that's kind of built, filtered or I should say entrenched in our family to varying various degrees. We all attended Walder schools and most of our children have as well, etc. Across the four of us and our family. I'll put this to you, pete, before we get to Chris, if you could encapsulate. You know, you're in an elevator and you're wearing a shirt that says Waldorf on it and people are like oh, the salad Actually oh the expensive hotel.
Speaker 2:What's your answer before you get to the 50th floor of the hotel? What do you? What do you like? Why Waldorf for you?
Speaker 3:career wise, First of all yeah, it's a good question and we're going up.
Speaker 2:Ding, ding ding.
Speaker 3:The reason I chose Waldorf education was because it had given me a platform through the development of capacities within myself and a multifaceted approach to the world that gave me confidence and hope in human beings and the floor Moving forward. So the idea of developing capacities rather than filling kind of an empty jar, empty vessel was was you know it brought me and pulled me in and was something I wanted to then give to others through my work in education. So that's why, that's why Waldorf education and ding ding, ding, ding ding.
Speaker 2:You've arrived at the presidential suite.
Speaker 3:Waldorf story. It's in the motel Hotel six here on the sixth floor of the motel.
Speaker 2:Chris, what about you? Why Waldorf?
Speaker 1:Well, for me, I guess it was maybe a little bit different because I never thought I was going into education throughout my college years and then again in my graduate studies. So, yeah, I mean, sometimes you know, we think, oh, you make a career choice, we use those words and sometimes things just happen and you go with it and I feel like that's how it was. For me. The Waldorf community was, was really familiar, it felt really good and I enjoyed. I enjoyed working there. The teaching was always challenging and interesting and always required flexibility on my part and the students were were really wonderful. So so that's that's why I did it. And, yeah, it was a positive experience in that way.
Speaker 1:In terms of my own children, who I did send to the Waldorf school for several years If you ask that question, why Waldorf?
Speaker 1:I could just see that it was a good environment for them and you know there are always pros and cons to any situation and there were in the Waldorf school, and at least in our particular Waldorf school for my kids. But I could, I could tell that it was healthy for them and it was. Yeah, they were allowed to be kids. They were allowed to be kids and you know, we know how precious childhood is, and when we push students in certain ways that don't allow them to be truly kids at the particular age that they are, I think that that's that's really sad. So so yeah, waldorf tries to, tries to bring the appropriate setting, the appropriate teaching style, learning style, appropriate experiences, the appropriate stories, pictures, everything at the particular age that the students are at, the particular particular developmental stage that they are, that's kind of at the center of it, knowing what is appropriate. I mean, that's that's the difficulty, perhaps that, but that's that's what. That's what Waldorf schools have have tried to do, have been trying to do all these years.
Speaker 2:So you both talked about what you hope to see. You know, you, you talked consciously about a choice, and you were trained as a Waldorf teacher. Chris, you were, yours was more, perhaps the career chose you, as opposed to the other way around, and we could, you know, go on about other benefits to the education. What's, what do you think is something that you believe that needs to change in Waldorf education Going forward? This isn't meant to be a criticism, but rather a constructive idea, thoughts about education in the future, because I have a number of them, but I don't want to. I don't want to throw those out there yet. I want to see what you guys have to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think that's a totally appropriate question, because we know that there are, we know that there are issues and and the Santa Fe Waldorf School is more, that's right. So it closed its doors in August and, and that is why I no longer am a Waldorf teacher or a teacher at all at this point. And so there are a number of things I think the biggest is is proper leadership. That has been lacking in a lot of Waldorf schools and was, in particular, in our school in the Santa Fe Waldorf School.
Speaker 2:Is there a structural reason for that, like in general in other schools that makes it distinct from perhaps traditional public schools or a Catholic school or something?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are. I think there are things that Waldorf schools have in common, and then there are, of course, lots of differences between the schools, but one commonality is that a lot of Waldorf schools are trying to work off of a model, or they think they're working off of a model established, you know, 100 years ago and when the first Waldorf school was started and in 1919.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, and models have to change because times change, people change, organizations change, and so so that I think that's part of it, but also just this belief I mean In in the Waldorf education. When things become entrenched and then there's like a blind what's the right word? It's just a, a blind following of a particular idea and everybody thinks that's the way it has to be, when that idea was just one of many that was tried out in former times in the past, then Then you have a problem and, and especially when nobody knows why, you have a specific example that yeah, yeah, so Pete will know about this more. But specific example is that the consensus model of decision-making had to be the only one used in a Waldorf school, and so this was an idea that was brought at some point by somebody somewhere in a Waldorf school and it came from the Quaker movement, correct? And? And then this caught on, and so Waldorf schools you know, people at Waldorf schools thought that this was the only way and again a faculty meeting or something in a faculty meeting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and you know, Also the idea that the faculty would run the school. I mean, I think that that's that that statement Can be Misconstrued, it can be interpreted in a lot of different ways and I think it was taken to the extreme in a lot of schools where the where only the teachers could make the decisions and every decision had to be taken to the teachers. And there are a lot of different ways that the teachers can in, can be involved in quote-unquote running the school without having to Be in control of every decision. So that those are just a couple examples, pete what do you think?
Speaker 2:Maybe either about that or just in general, something that you'd like to see change or Think needs to change? Yeah, in the future.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, so Good. Well, that's yeah good question. I would say, first and foremost, we need accredited and competent teacher training facilities for Waldorf teachers. We need to be able to develop capable, well educated teachers to go into the Waldorf teaching force. Unfortunately, I think what what has happened all too often is that there's been a shortage of Waldorf teachers and so the teacher training facilities for Waldorf education Except anybody who walks through the door, and then there's not necessarily a stringent enough Process through which those teachers who are not competent or shouldn't be in front of students are weeded out. Therefore, anybody who's willing is able to enter the classroom.
Speaker 3:We saw that. I saw that in Ohio, I saw that in New Jersey and I saw that in New Mexico, where Incompetent teachers, very willing, wonderful human beings, got in a classroom and they had no business going there and just a quick tie-in was. We experienced in our educational Situation at the Walther school that we attended Green Meadow Walther school in Spring Valley also Chestnut Ridge, new York that Some of the teachers were brilliant, capable, dynamic, but we're not actually trained educators and or we're not good teachers. So that Information that needs to go from teacher to student and the dynamic in relationship Between student and teacher has to be solid, and then there needs to be a way to vet that, like I said, in In practice as well.
Speaker 3:And because we have this consensus model also, you don't necessarily have enough of a top-down Situations going on where people are weeded out and then sentimentality like you were speaking about with nature Over sentimentality comes in and you realize all this person's striving.
Speaker 3:They're really good, kind, human being and they don't end up leaving the classroom of when they should, but instead things just get worse and worse and usually come to a head, so I'd say Poorly educated teachers and facilities going in. We have the structural leadership issue and then also there's some cultural elements as well, and just a quick one is why does a Walther school have to have, you know, the, the aesthetics be less than par, or the functionality of a campus be less than par? Why not invest in the infrastructure of the actual school to create an environment of positivity and and and beauty and functionality for everyone involved? Now we had a beautiful school in Santa Fe, but there was also a lot that could have been done to make people feel more welcomed and for it not to appear to be Different than what expectations were, especially when families are paying hefty tuition.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of questions about. Well, thank you both for those that commentary have a lot of questions about academic rigor we'll get there a little bit later equity and access for A cross-section of society that can't afford tuition we'll talk about that. But I want to get. I want to ask you a question about spirituality. So you know a lot of Catholic schools, for example, nowadays, as opposed to 50 years ago, they're not taught by priests and nuns. Right, it's. It's like Persons and they may be Catholic, they may not, they may be practicing or not.
Speaker 2:Waldorf education has a spiritual underpinning and that was at its founding In the person of Rudolf Steiner. And anthropocopy what do you guys see as the role, if any of that, in today's Waldorf schools, and is it even important in the future? And then the second part of that is Are there challenges to having that be part of a school community? That may either may seem weird or Off-putting or may Attract Families to the school for things other than a quality education? So there's kind of two parts that what's the role and then shouldn't even be that way, and what are some of the impacts? So anthropocopy and don't worry about if you're going to get canceled by the North American anthroposophical society put about the good deal on them. So it may be a good deal on them, it's just if we, if we're this education about freedom.
Speaker 2:Part of freedom means being able to talk about things so they can email me. So, pete, why don't you take them? Yeah, boy, so so challenges definitely exist. That was also an attractant, I believe four people To attend the Waldorf school, the.
Speaker 3:LMA, and I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 3:There is the element of spirituality and, you know, I always this kind of a little bit of a tangent here, but I always think of, you know, our legal tenders, all the money we have in our wallet, and I think that's a good thing to do and I think that's a good thing to do, and I think that's a good thing to do, and I think that's a good thing to do Tangent here, but I always think of you know, our legal tenders, all the money we have in our wallet, at least in the US, as in god, we trust there's an invisible element, which you can call the life force, whatever you want to, and I always kind of make the analogy of love, actually Not lots of little heart with your two hands, that kind of stuff, but the true love that we have for each other, life, so on and so forth. That's actually an invisible force, but it is powerful, probably more powerful than anything, and we all know it exists, but you can't see it and it's there. So I like to say that there's an invisible force, which is the spiritual reality of human beings, that exists and so that is alive and recognized as being present in each human being. It's not tied to religion, but that it is something more than what we can actually see or sense with our five or twelve senses. And that I think is wonderful, because we trust in that impulse to be present in the lives of the children and an aid to them as well, and through pictures and wisdom passed on through narratives from thousands of years. Some of those pictures come to life and then can be taken up by students in their own way, as individuals, throughout their entire lives. So that's how I see it.
Speaker 3:Does it have a place in all of the education? Absolutely. Is it tricky? Yes. Is there dogma that comes in because of it? Yes, will it last down the road? I don't know. You can't rely on the spiritual impulse of the students or in life to do the teaching for you, and that's not enough. You can't default to that as a well. Let the spiritual world take care of that. That doesn't work in education or in life. Actually, we have to participate more than that. But it does exist, and it's a really tricky one. I'll stop there, okay.
Speaker 2:Chris.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree that I guess you didn't say this exactly, pete, but I think that, to answer the first part of your question, dave, that spiritual impulse does have to be there. It does have to remain in the Waldorf school if it's truly a Waldorf school. But I do see a lot of problems, One of them being that if you look more broadly at anthropocopy, which is the belief system that Rudolf Steiner came, up with created it's not just spirituality but it's specifically esoteric Christianity, and so that does present a problem sometimes.
Speaker 1:If schools were to just focus on the spiritual component, as Pete described, that's more universal, and when people dig a little bit and they find that, oh, this is connected to specifically Christianity, esoteric Christianity, then there can be a problem. And also you have very cultish aspects as well, connected with anthropocopy In schools, Sometimes in schools not as much in schools, but it can get there because it's something that's a part of anthropocopy, I feel like, or has been spawned by it or exists around it.
Speaker 2:Like, the only ideas that ring true are ideas that came from one philosopher 100 years ago. Translated from German from 100 years ago through multiple translators to the president, interpreted by scholars or whoever.
Speaker 1:Right, right that those aren't just ideas to explore but those are facts, that everything that Steiner said is a fact and not just, maybe, a spiritual path, right? So I think when we read let's say we read about Buddhism I don't think most people take every word that exists as a fact, of a universal fact. It's a way of seeing things and so, yeah, that's, I think, been an issue, particularly with the older generation of Waldorf teachers. And I don't know, maybe I'm jaded and maybe I would be better off having faith in those things. That that's fact, you know, because there are people who don't question those things and just take everything that Steiner said as fact. And, you know, maybe there's a wonderful freedom in that too.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I see it as problems and you know how it manifests in the school is going to be really unclear. I mean, it's going to be coming up in different ways and I think in my experience I could never speak my full mind about things, because as a teacher, as a teacher, as a teacher, I could. I could never, because it was just sort of accepted that that everything that Steiner said was was a truth and it was not up for discussion, when actually, from what I know from what I've heard. Um, that wasn't Steiner's thing. You know, he wanted everybody to discuss things he wanted. He wanted everything to be talked about, worked through, thought about and explored. It wasn't about dogma, dogma.
Speaker 2:Correct. Yeah, so do you have any concrete examples? I mean, I'm assuming it has something probably related to the sciences, because you're pretty, you're a pretty methodical scientific thinker. Uh, you know, I know we had had a conversation. We've been talking about, um, um, you know lately been exploring, uh, some breathing exercise in Vim Hof, breathing and, and we were talking about whether it's really possible to to alkanize. Is that a word, alkanize?
Speaker 1:alkanize, alkanize, alkanize, alkanize, alkanize to make alkaline your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, and you were saying, actually scientifically, um, it's probably by deep breathing a few times and holding your breath. That's probably not doing anything on that level that's being claimed to be but maybe it has some other effects. If you feel good, you feel different. Um, and so you know, you and I were thinking that through and and you're way better versed in that than I am, but do you have any examples of something? Is it something that would come up in a staff meeting or in you know, and you'd be thinking yourself that's not, that's doesn't.
Speaker 2:That's not borne out by the facts, but everyone's going. Oh yeah, and the fourth lecture on knowledge of the higher worlds. There's this, this, it's got to be.
Speaker 1:It wasn't so much in my teaching.
Speaker 1:Actually it wasn't in my teaching at all, because it in a world of high school, the teachers should be free to teach, to teach and and, and I felt I was, and I didn't ever feel like I had to do anything that somebody was saying is the way to do it in the Waldorf school.
Speaker 1:Um, I was, I was entrusted to teach biology and and and, and you know, that's what I tried to do. So so it wasn't in the teaching, but it was more, um, yeah, more in faculty meetings, in college meetings, um, just the, the understanding that, um, yeah, just, I don't, you know, it was never spoken, but I felt like if I spoke up with some challenges, with um, steiner's ideas, let's say, or something we were reading, or um, just ideas of, of, uh, how things were done in the Waldorf school, if I was really challenging some of these things, that um, that I would have kind of been I mean, I don't, you know now the word canceled is kind of crazy to use, but but in effect that I would be sort of canceled or um, deemed, deemed unsuited to be a teacher in a Waldorf school. Actually.
Speaker 2:That's, yeah, it's. It sounds like there's a risk of group think, um, as there isn't anything. Um, uh, you know, and I think I, I like, I'm not a trained Waldorf teacher, I have not studied anthropology, I don't have any interest in in studying it, but, uh, I know that as a, as a student, uh, who did 12 years in a Waldorf school and then gone on in my life, that, um, this, this idea that Albert Einstein espoused I think he did. Now he gets there's about a bunch of quotes that are attributed to him that he never said. So I don't know if this is really him, but the key thing is to never stop questioning. And so you know, I think, when the questioning stops in any system and anywhere, uh, you stop asking the challenging questions. Then you can slide into that, um, the group think, and and eventually you're not, you're, you're part of the problem, um, um, so I, I feel like, well, I appreciate both of you, um, you know, bringing up I mean, I appreciate you bring up the cultish piece because, um, this isn't to suggest that everyone who's an anthropocivist is in a cult Um, but I want to pivot a little bit or reflect on the fact that indications, spiritual indications that were given a hundred years ago in Western Europe, um, by almost entirely white, uh, uh Europeans, uh, in a world at a time when the world was much less, uh, integrated, uh, when Europe was a much less racially integrated than it is today, and certainly the United States as well.
Speaker 2:How does that? How do those indications flash forward to 2023 and beyond in terms of um being able to address the needs of a really diverse society? Or do you think all their schools will continue to be kind of in this primarily white niche, white upper middle class or people who can pay, and maybe that's where they're gonna be doomed to remain? Like you know, private schools can determine who attends and who doesn't. It's not just having the money, it's. There's an interview process and I know the teacher has a lot of power in determining who comes into the school and who's in their grade, etc. Who also people can leave, they can be asked to leave. So there's that dynamic that happens in a private setting. That doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:You know, 90-some odd percent of kids in America are in public schools, right, that's where most of them get their earning and you teach whoever comes in the door. How do you think about that? Diversity, multiculturalism, meeting the needs of every kid, whether it's ethnically, linguistically, but also like special learning needs, special education, all that stuff in the in a Waller school. What's been your experience and where do you think it goes in the future? I know it's a big, multi-faceted question. It's the diversity question, diversity in all senses of the word.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I guess I'll just say a little that you know. First of all, I mean I guess the Waller School movement as a whole right spans I don't know how many countries, but quite a few, maybe 50, and I think there's over a thousand Waller schools worldwide and those Waller schools are in a variety of settings, right Multiple languages. So you know, whatever's going on in our neck of the woods or in the US I mean, right now we're in Mexico but and there's Waller schools all over Mexico as well those schools are hopefully bringing the richness of the culture, the language and the social norms etc. Into those schools and creating community through that, wherever they happen to be. I certainly hope that's the case, and so I think that's really, really important and then we're Steiners.
Speaker 2:Ideas relevant for a multi-cultural diverse population?
Speaker 3:Good, excellent question. So I would say yes, when actually fully understood and applied properly. Yes, in the context that they were given, it was a very small slice of the populace, like you said, but that needs to then be taken and applied in other settings and I think that comes down to sort of the human resources and again, the counterpoint questions and not taking something verbatim as it was given and then applying it dogmatically or well. This is what it was. So we're gonna try this here.
Speaker 3:You know it's the round peg through a square hole. You have to find a way to make it relevant, and that's up to the leadership, that's up to the training facilities, that's up to the teachers in the specific communities, that's up to the parents who support those specific communities, and so on and so forth. And through that, through those means, through those methods, I guess I should say you can make it relevant. But it needs to be really, really understood and I don't think that it has been adequately enough. But I have had the privilege of seeing other schools in other countries and it looks it where it looks different. So that was nice to see. I would say that the architecture still has a very similar feel and is identifiable because of its uniqueness. I would say that's a commonality like no right angles and correct, correct, just as a asterix.
Speaker 2:If you know, you can Google all their schools, architecture and probably see examples from around the world. But I think that was a real Steiner indication about, because he he had indications on medicine and architecture and education and you name it agriculture, agriculture. So I think you can. There's a, there's a even font. Actually it seems like there's been a writing font, that that and that seems to be, I'm sure now it's digital, but but in other schools around the world. So it's an interesting thing that that would.
Speaker 3:That's something that would carry to this day a hundred plus years into the future, and so my understanding about the font quickly is that so in the Gertianum, which is the center built for antiposophy in Europe, that the chiseling yeah, I mean the, the work in the material, the natural material that they were using was done with a series of straight lines like a chisel and hammer, instead of serve correct, and so because of that, it was a series of parallel lines to create the letters, which was then again repeated many, many times. So it didn't necessarily it could have been, it wasn't.
Speaker 2:Well, we're up to another thing, and I am thinking that the letters must be many herky jerky little angles.
Speaker 3:I don't, I don't think so. So even something like that.
Speaker 1:That carries on till now, and it's something that signs.
Speaker 3:Luckily, the Santa Fe Walter School sign was not that it looked, it was just a courier 12-point font.
Speaker 2:That was all that.
Speaker 3:The the signmaker knew how to, how to apply so but but anyway. So I think that that's, that's. Yeah, that's something. So the you know. I just wanted to do a quick follow-up point, if I could, about the other idea, about the authenticity or the dog one, that sort of thing, that when you're in a walled-off community, I think as a teacher, there are those people who hold on to their picture of what walled-off education should be, which is normal, and then you figure it out. But again, that's to study, that's to point counterpoint, and you know, I this little analogy came to mind when you were speaking, chris and Dave. That's when you get a new student who comes to your class and I've introduced I don't know, hundreds of students coming in, you the.
Speaker 3:The one ingredient that I think is the most important for like a seamless integration into the class and social harmony, so on and so forth there's always gonna be some bumps is authenticity, like that student has to be who they look like. They can't come in and act like one thing and really be something else, because that's like kind of a form of dishonesty that students don't accept and then and then it's really hard for them to kind of get uneven footing. I think that same thing for faculty members. Right, you want to come in, you want to do your best, you want to strive, but if you're somebody who uses language, that that is colorful, if that's something you decide to do, if, if you have a certain way of being, then that shouldn't be squelched.
Speaker 3:You should be allowed to express yourself again as a counterpoint and there's a can be an expectation of a certain way of being, you know, holier than now. Even sometimes that is carried through, and if you're not, that that somehow you're not doing the work, and and those two have really not too much to do with each other. So the idea that that exists is not great and just a little anecdote I had. I was at a training in California, in Sacramento, way back in the day, probably 20 years ago, and somebody came up to me and said oh, you're a, you know, experienced Waldorf teacher can ask you a question. I said, sure, go ahead. And she said so.
Speaker 3:I heard that if you have a bad thought, that that thought is real and that the children will feel that, and I'm worried because I have many bad thoughts and I don't know if I should be a teacher and I said you should have some what the people you're talking about and she kind of looked at me like this guy's crazy but do I have to beat about this show?
Speaker 2:anyway, that that's.
Speaker 3:That's an idea of some of the people attracted to this form of education. So I want to.
Speaker 2:I want to talk about that, not the beep, but then. So I think about this. A lot like it, you know, overarching philosophies, paradigms, modes of thinking, whether it's religiously based, whether it's something like, in my experience, international baccalaureate, which is also a framework and a paradigm, and and has history and has vernacular and has its proponents and detractors and has its vocabulary and has its you. It's. You know some of its commercialized logos, and as does Waldorf. They've got the Osna and etc. But it also has the I think this is me editorializing we run the risk of using it as a foil, and I'll give an example. I'm not talking about the wind foil that we've been experiencing. That's a different, that's much more fun a foil of an excuse or something to hide behind.
Speaker 2:So I've had experiences where you know we were having at work, having a conversation about well, this, why doesn't this have? We don't do, why don't we do this? And someone will say, well, where I be? Okay, well, you know where I be. You know it covers that. It's like well, you know why? Or why aren't we celebrating? You know, I remember conversation about why are we celebrating? You know, the same, whether, whether it's African-American history month or Hispanic heritage, whatever, depending on what time of month, what time of the year it is, etc. And some of the responses were I, where I be, it's just it's embedded, you know, and so think, okay, so is it really embedded? Are we aware that it's embedded? Are we conscious of that, or is that a foil? Is that's that, is that just an easy excuse, something to hide behind? And does that happen in the Waldorf world?
Speaker 2:I mean, I, I, in my limited experience, in my interactions with, even at my daughter's previous while their school, there would be responses to things that would be like, well, you know, I was always curious about math instruction, for example, like, like where, when at one, what point, am I going to get some assessment results so that I can at least see where my daughter is trending before she goes to high school, on a public high school?
Speaker 2:And oh well, you know, and what we're wild if we don't, you know, yeah, we don't really assess, you know. And I just felt like it was a foil and and I was actually born out in my theory, was born out because when we, because we had no idea where she was and you know, my daughter is very academically capable and was able to catch up and go on is done very well, but not every family also has the resources to be able to support a student in that case. And and so do you see sometimes the we are Waldorf or that's not Waldorf as being like tantamount to the woman going well, I've heard that if you have a bath, I'm like thinking, if that's the case, there would be 0.0 people working in Waldorf schools, right? So then, that pretty much today's conversation is over.
Speaker 1:I just had a bad thought.
Speaker 3:I got to turn off.
Speaker 2:So do you ever see that? Do you see that?
Speaker 1:happening, of course. Unfortunately, that exact thing happens in in Waldorf schools. I it shouldn't, and I actually I think it was maybe the exception at the Santa Fe Waldorf school with certain individuals. I don't recall anything like that happening in in the high school, for instance, but but I know that that did occur and, yeah, that's. That's not acceptable to the parents who are hearing that. No, because it doesn't.
Speaker 2:At a certain point the realities of a competition and a market, especially if you're in the private sector where you're competing with free and other options that may cost more or less and maybe delivering different measurable results and maybe marketing that. You know that's a, that's a reality. I don't know if that's what partially contributed to the Waldorf school note and say in Santa Fe not being in existence. But small schools typically live and die by enrollment. Right, you know that's a tricky thing, you know yeah well, just, I mean.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, thank you, you mentioned this idea of well, it's IB, you know. So that's like right there, there's no interrogation. There's there are no interrogatives follow, and that's really unhealthy. Yeah, and I was in Denver a few weeks ago talking to a friend and we got talking about a lot of different things and she started talking about Daniel Pink, who's a lauded author, an incredible person, new York Times bestsellers, power of regret, many amazing books and you're looking at.
Speaker 2:Are you googling that right now, pete?
Speaker 3:I just wanted to make sure that what the book was right. I thought he wrote something that was the power he wrote.
Speaker 2:He has a great book, I think called the something about in the right mind or something he talks about. Yeah, the fact that the future will be will be people who are right, right brain, correct. I don't remember the name because, I'm not cheating now on my Google, so, but anyway, so a whole new mind.
Speaker 3:Whole new mind, that's right and right, and so his whole thing is right. You don't, you don't go home on the weekend and do accounting. You go home in the weekend if you want to do something. You know. You play a guitar, you read a book, you run, you work out. You don't go and like crunch numbers. So it's the right left brain thing. Anyway, that's what he's talking about. But my point was that my friend was telling me she had worked with Daniel Pink and knew him and as a friend of his, and I said he seems like such an amazing guy and she was like yeah, yeah, so nonetheless, I said what's he like? And she said well, first, he's brilliant, super kind. And she said he's interested in everything like doesn't, wouldn't take, it would never give a pat, and it's I be, or there's just a way to really tell me more, what question?
Speaker 3:tell me more about that. And I think that has led to him being able to impart so much wisdom. And so nothing stagnates. Then, right, and there's always new topics he's taking on and talking about, and I think school movements, educational models have to do that, otherwise they become stagnant and then they're calcified and and then they're not alive. Right, that life force thing we were talking about is gone and that's a danger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was interesting that you bring that up. I was, you know, for the listeners. We've we've been on this little, this little trip and you know, as brothers we've been trying to. We don't spend that much time together because we're geographically separated and and I've been really in additional one spent time with my brothers but fascinated by this concept of really taking it one about a time a year to try to learn something new. That's really challenging, that's hard, that's not in our normal wheelhouse when we can do it reflexively, like we're all at a point in our careers or wherever we are, that there's a lot that we do, that We've gotten, we've put in our 10,000 hours and we're kind of there and we can, we can, we can do it efficiently and effectively. But you know, if we don't, if we, if we stop learning, then then we just we don't grow and expand.
Speaker 2:So today I'm getting my Darier dragged through the water on a behind-the-jet ski, as we were both doing alternately, and my instructor shout out to Rodrigo go to Rodrigo. He you know. So we're on a foil and so, to describe it, it's like a, it's almost like an oversized boogie board and then it has a kind of a rudder, like a post that goes down under the water about three feet, and then there's a smaller fin under the that runs parallel to the board. And so when you Reach a certain speed and you do some techniques that I was having a tough time doing today, it actually comes up out of the water and then you have an incredible sensation of flying. And so I was just getting rolled and flipping and falling and I, the very first time, I did exactly what you're not supposed to do. I crashed and my face came up and the Sharp part of the foil was right in front of my head and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:And so I paused and I'm like floating out there, going I may be just Too old for this like it's like wearing me out. I'm in good shape, but it was. It's all new muscles, all new learning. I'm overthinking and I'm questioning myself.
Speaker 2:And he comes over and he shuts off the jet ski and he says, hey, you know I'm, I just turned 50 and I make a commitment every year I'm either gonna learn a new language, I'm gonna learn a new sport, or I'm gonna learn a new skill. And I'm thinking, all right, that's that, that's that trying to learn something. And you know, we don't all need to carve out time and go to another country to do it either, right, it's like even I was reading that when, if you start brushing your teeth with your left hand as opposed to your right-handed Hand if you're right-handed, no seriously or you or you start doing things with the other hand, even from a kick, from a biological standpoint, it it starts to Kind of rewire your brain, keeps you flexible, and that's obviously a lot Easier to do than to learn a new language or something.
Speaker 3:Daniel pink would support that yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm sure he would. He, in fact, I might have probably stolen it from one of his, from one of his. In fact, I'd love to have Daniel pink on the podcast. He's one of my Absolute all-time dream guests. So if you can hook it up through your friend to Daniel pink, daniel, I'll give you the questions in advance and whatever you, however long you want to talk or not, we're good to go. I want to, I want to. You know, we spent a lot of time talking about Waldorf education and, and I want to kind of Go up on the foil, get up out of the water, rise up above a little bit and look more Globally on a couple questions. You guys have been generous with your time. I'm already and I really appreciate that. I just have some questions, kind of philosophical questions, and see what you, what your thoughts on on this are.
Speaker 2:What does academic rigor mean? Academic rigor these are. These are terms that are thrown out in education in general either. When People are Selecting schools for their kids of a certain Socioeconomic and education level, parents will go out. I need an academically rigor background for my kid, my child. I'm gonna go on. They're gonna do this. I want to make sure they're prepared for the next level. There's so those questions. So those questions. Sometimes, when teachers are being evaluated, there's the questions about academic rigor. Sometimes teachers in the staff room look over at the work that's generated by kids in another teachers classroom and they think there's either too much or not enough academic. What does academic rigor mean? How do you define it?
Speaker 1:I Think it would have different definitions depending on who you ask I.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is you guys. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that for me Teaching high school, I think academic rigor most importantly meant that All of the students could strive for something, that that even even the most capable of the students would be interested and engaged and Active participants in in a course.
Speaker 2:I Mean that that was most important for me, so really, I'm tailoring your instruction to a wide range of Learners yeah, yeah, because and some people might say no, it's all about standards.
Speaker 1:You know, I have to have a standard and you have to have a certain amount of homework, let's say, and things like that, and that might be part of it. But if half of the class can't, is Can't, rise to that, then then there's really no point. But the ones who can, they need to keep getting fed.
Speaker 2:We call that differentiated instruction in the public school world. Yeah, and, by the way, for Listeners, you can go back and listen to the dr Doug Fisher episode where we talk about the research behind homework and the value of homework and it's In terms of an effect size on learning outcomes. Homework has a really small effect size, whether it has to do with then. There's some exceptions. There's one about about literacy and reading practice under certain conditions, but most of it is Really really minimal effect sizes. That and homework has historically been something that has been. I would call it a fat, a false, a false proxy for rigor. You know you can load a kid up with a bunch of stuff and parents will go Johnny's I want to bed at 11 and Johnny was burning them. Yeah, I was like okay, and he's copying textbook pages on history. You know. You know now we hate history. Congratulations on your fake rigor. You know, damn sure, or at the the, you know lower elementary level, a lot of parents, especially again, parents who are educated or parents who have the time and their work schedule and you got, you know, parents doing the work for the kids, right, and so there's there's a lot of those things that happen. I so appreciate that, chris. Kind of a differentiated Access and that's the challenge, that's the art and the science of teaching is like how do you do that? We were even seeing that with the lessons we've been taking, right. You know these teachers who we hire to help us Learn to kite surf, for example, and when there's enough wind, or do this foiling. You know we're.
Speaker 2:We may have more, less ability, more you know than other people. We're not in our 20s anymore. We may overthink things, we may be afraid of getting injured. I know actually. No, we are afraid of getting injured. That's part of it too. And they may teach us. And then they may go on to a 18 year old who's been, you know, surfing and snowboarding for the last five years, and they'll hop right up and they also then have to be challenged, right, they can't just tow them around on their stomach like they were doing with us. Yeah, yeah, what about you people? How do you define academic rigor?
Speaker 2:Yeah without looking it up on Google.
Speaker 3:I'm not looking it up, I'm writing notes while you're talking.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 3:Just about what to say. Well, so I think that's a great great question. You answered it with the technical term, you said something really good about it and I just wanted to say this is a little bit. This is like the foil when you're upriding maybe not quite in the water, but you know the difference between, like you were saying this, attentiveness and engagement.
Speaker 3:So and Is huge right, a lot of students are attentive in a classroom, but are they really engaged in the learning process? And Same thing with homework. Are they engaged in the learning process while they're doing their homework? Are they getting it done and not paying any attention and trying to be as efficient as they can? So I think the element of engagement is Is really important versus just attentiveness or kind of going and doing the bare minimum.
Speaker 3:And I would say that in an academic sense that's the same thing. In a, in a Walder setting, which is my obviously field of expertise, you have the holistic approach of all. The education gives a lot of opportunity for people to be engaged in a lot of different things, not just kind of passively attentive, and I think that that actually wires them to remain Engaged in those things, tangentially perhaps, but then they can return to them, but it also teaches them the difference between true engagement versus just kind of passive attentiveness. So I would argue, I would say that academic rigor, connected to academics specifically, is the ability for Students to remain engaged, which is the job of the teacher. And you do that in a myriad of ways. I'll stop there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's, it's, and I appreciate both of your perspectives. It's something that in over my career, especially in the last in this, the last decade or so, and that's my current role. You know, periodically it'll come up, or in mission and vision statements, or in board comments or, you know, or parent Complaints, for there's a lack of rigor, like you know. You know everyone's got a different Perspective and, as Chris said, a different understanding of what rigor is some people. For some people, it's most easily quantified by a number of hours that a student spends on, on, on their, on their work, homework, number of pages they need to read, etc. And for others it's you know how deeply they think about things. So it's a. You know there is no simple, simple answer to this. I just have two more questions for both of you Now, reflective questions their future facing.
Speaker 2:The first one is what does your 50 year old self or almost 50 year old self in Chris's case, what would your 50 year old self Tell your 20 year old self that you wish you'd known when you were 20, like? If you could flash back 30 years, what would you whisper in your 20 year old self's ear? About life, about career, about teaching, about education, about buying Apple stock and investing in this strange Company. Has a blue, has a blue. Yeah, buying the URL for Google misspelled by one no.
Speaker 2:There's a strange. There's a company's gonna come out a little bluebird. I bet it's gonna be bought by a guy's gonna change it to an X before that. No, it's gonna go. Hey, dude, yeah, what would you tell your 20 year old self?
Speaker 1:Great question a A few things come to mind. One of them is simply that your hair will go away.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 1:Already knew that. It, fabio. What was the?
Speaker 2:guy. I can't believe it's not.
Speaker 1:But so, yeah, one of them would be what you choose to do To make a living doesn't define you, and so the most important thing to remember is that it's it's the journey that's important, the journey of life. And Because I think a lot of 20 year olds and I certainly did worry about Finding the right, the right career, you know, finding the right thing to do and what is it, and and then and then, once maybe you find it, then how do you get into it and how do you start and all of those questions, and and then, at the point where I am now, that doesn't matter so much and it's more about finding the things that that make me happy and and Support me and my family and all of that. So, yeah, what you do doesn't necessarily define you and who you are, and the it's the journey that's important in life.
Speaker 3:Pete. Wow, that's a hard one to follow, chris.
Speaker 2:You can't Google this dude if you Google it, it's gonna come out. Hey, I'll go chat to you T T. My 50 year old tell my 20 year old first of all.
Speaker 3:First of all, you will feel much older.
Speaker 2:First of all, everything will hurt.
Speaker 3:So I mean absolutely. That's really well said. I agree entirely with with those statements. I think I would say to myself look, that the key to life is not perfection. The key to life is not Getting it right quote unquote it's just doing your best again and again and again, and Know that every time Something doesn't go the way that you think, you just have to keep pushing through and do your best. So definitely that dovetails with it's the journey, not the destination. There is no destination possible, right? Unless you're talking a specific place in the physical realm. I need to get to La Ventana. Okay, we're here, but in terms of who we are, that's always changing. And then I think the other thing I would say is look, the ultimate challenge is going to be parenting and doing the best you can as a parent for your children, because they are the most important beings in your life. And that's what Whitney Houston said. Did she say that?
Speaker 2:Why don't you say another future?
Speaker 3:So that would be something, and then that's where of course you do want. Then you have to remind yourself it's not perfection as a parent, because we all in this room and all those millions and millions of listeners.
Speaker 2:Wait, if you have a bad thought, you can't be a parent.
Speaker 3:Then I'd be out of the race before it even started. But in all seriousness, right, that's the hardest one to remember the mantra of. It's not about being a perfect parent, it's about doing the best and knowing that you are fallible and you're a human being. And it is the journey and I'm just grateful for it. And also, I would say, gratitude is the attitude to employ. And if you have that, oh boy that's what rap sounds like when you grow up in New Jersey and you're 51.
Speaker 2:And yeah, well, thank you both. My last one is this We've all, we've, been, exposed to lots of teachers in our lives, not all great, some damaging, some forgotten because they were just unremarkable, and some outstanding because we'll never forget the lessons from them. And whoever it is, we all have names in our, you know, in our minds, from elementary school all the way up. We have, you know, some of them, we share some of them. We differ on the, on our opinions. You know of them and I have, you know, and some of mine are no longer with us.
Speaker 2:Bonnie Chauncey was very influential with me as an English teacher in middle school and in high school. She's no longer with us. You know the David Sloan's, the John Wilson's, the who here, who we had. We had different experiences with them and different times, and you know college professors who we had, coaches who we had, etc. And we carry the. You know, we carry those thoughts and impetuses with us, whether we're conscious or not. You know we remember times when they put their arm on a shoulder like, hey, you can do this, I have faith. Or you get tapped for a lead role in a play when you didn't think you were the one to do it, or whatever the case is, how? How would you both like to be remembered by your students 50 years in the future? I mean, I'm assuming you know you guys are very healthy, but you might not make it to 100. So let's just assume that you tap out at 99. How do you want to be remembered by your students?
Speaker 3:I would like to say that the students have been my greatest teachers, along with my daughters and Susan Florey, jane Wilson, many, many others. John Wilson as well, encouraging me. David Sloan yes, lenore Richard, I would. I would say that I want to be remembered as doing my best. Will Kees on the basketball court. Will Kees on the basketball court.
Speaker 2:Instead of saying numeric, he would say it's pneumatic. It's not like I could think of it like what there's, like pressure in a cylinder. This play is pneumatic, sorry.
Speaker 3:And I was going to say Larry Johnson, but that wasn't his name. Remember our teacher? Larry Johnson was UNLV, a UNLV basketball player with Stacy Ogman, who came into the league years ago.
Speaker 2:Larry, I remember his tall guy, tall guy beard, red hair.
Speaker 3:His kid was Chris. Yeah, it'll come out. Maybe we'll put on the show notes Shout out. Larry. Thank you, larry.
Speaker 2:Young. I don't know if he and I think, and not to. I don't want to cut off your trip up, but one reason that I even bring this up is because I'm not even sure how many of these people are still around Right and so life goes by quickly, Sure, so right.
Speaker 3:So all those people I mentioned, the classes I've taught, the students who taught me, but I think I would like to be remembered as being somebody who was excuse me, striving to do my best, fallible, interested, engaged and occasionally with a bad thought, Occasionally with a bad thought or two, but really wanted to show that that enthusiasm and engagement in the lives of others and in social interactions is where I feel fortunate, and I hope that they all, the people I've touched, my students, would say okay, I want to be enthusiastic and engaged in a similar level to how Peter Schrametta was.
Speaker 2:Chris.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hopefully they'll remember me as being supportive and encouraging and also as someone who was excited to learn alongside them and that they could see learning with them, and someone who, yeah, maybe opened some doors to them in terms of bringing something that they was new and exciting and interesting to them sometimes.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to thank both of you. I'm not suggesting you're not going to make it to 100, but I do appreciate that and the conversation today and it's really been a privilege to have both of you on the Hangout and to spend this time together and hopefully we can do it again soon. Thank you, David. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, thanks, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Superintendent's Hangout. You can follow me on Twitter at dvs1970. Please be sure to share this show with friends and family on social media and in the real world. Thank you to Brad Bacchial for editing and production assistance and to Tina Reister for scheduling and logistics. Thanks for hanging out and have a great day.