The Josh Crain Podcast
Long form discussions with interesting people on a variety of topics.
The Josh Crain Podcast
JCP #8 - Tim Nance
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Tim Nance grew up in New England, amid ice and snow, and was educated by a variety of untraditional means, from small town one-room schoolhouse to homeschool to private city school. Eventually, his family moved to Tennessee where his parents had roots. He studied literature, French, and education, receiving his Masters in Education before spending twenty years as an educator, again in a variety of places and ways: University and Community College, public and private high school, work in teaching ESL courses to students from Costa Rica and China, homeschooling groups, and church groups. He has a beautiful family with five children and loves reading great books and pursuing creative projects with them.
All right, guys, here we go. Another episode of the Josh Crane Podcast. Hope everybody's doing good out there. Today's podcast is brought to you by State of the Art Security, your partner in protection. When it comes to safety and security, there is no room for compromise, and that's why I trust State of the Art Security LLC. Founded by Arthur Williams, a 10-year law enforcement and corrections veteran, State of the Art Security brings unmatched expertise to every client they serve. Whether it's overnight patrols, armed security, or executive protection, Arthur and his team of highly trained professionals are dedicated to keeping you safe. From construction sites to high profile clients, they deliver results with precision, professionalism, and a passion for protection. Visit state of the artsecurity.com or call six one five-five zero four six five four one to learn how they can safeguard what matters most to you. When safety is your priority, trust State of the Art Security to provide peace of mind. And guys, I can tell you this, I've been working with Art for two or three years now. He and I have trained together, we've taught together. I consider Art and his company to be absolutely at the top of the personal protection business here in Middle Tennessee. But my guest today, I'm really excited about for a multitude of reasons. I think this is going to be a wonderful conversation. Tim Nance. Tim Nance grew up in New England amid ice and snow. He was educated by a variety of untraditional means, from small town one-room schoolhouses to homeschool to private city school. Eventually, him and his family moved to Tennessee where his parents had roots. He studied literature, French, and education, received his master's in education, before spending 20 years as an educator, again, in a variety of places and ways. University and community college, public and private high school, work and teaching ESL courses to students from Costa Rica and China, homeschooling groups and church groups. He has a beautiful family with five children. He loves reading great books and pursuing creative projects with them. Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Nance.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for having me on. I'm really excited to be here.
SPEAKER_00Man, I'm I'm glad you're here. You know, I was thinking um I was thinking this is gonna be a little different podcast than I normally do. And I was thinking about that the other day after I had reached out to you, and I I thought, maybe in a lot of ways this isn't gonna be a lot different because I I talked to a lot of first responders, uh police officers, firefighters, paramedics, uh people that are in that kind of service world who have to respond to emergencies. And as I was thinking about that, I thought, you know, in a way, I'm sure I'm I say I'm sure, I don't know, but my guess is you've probably never thought of yourself as a warrior. And you probably don't think of yourself as doing battle every day. And yet I would argue that you are literally on the front lines of one of the biggest battles we face as a nation, and I think the world faces uh collectively, and that is the the the battle of educating our children.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um I appreciate you putting it that way. I I don't think of it in those terms all the time, although I will say one of my favorite books on education, or at least a book that has had some impact on me, is uh titled The Battle for the American Mind. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it.
SPEAKER_00Uh The Battle for the American Mind. Who wrote it? Uh Pete, yeah. That's what I thought.
SPEAKER_02When I first read it, I had no idea who he was. I mean, now everybody knows who he is, of course. But um but it's an excellent book. Uh have you read it? Yes, I have. Yeah, it's good stuff. Yeah, good stuff. He's got some interesting um you know prescriptions for the whole concept of education in the United States. And that's it's it's it's he doesn't he doesn't pull punches. That's a fact.
SPEAKER_00That is absolutely a fact. Um well I want to ask you a lot there's several things that I kind of want to explore with you, but let's look to to give the audience kind of a background, let's just tell tell them about you. Like how how did you get to where you are now? Did you know you always wanted to teach?
SPEAKER_02Or um I have a story, I guess, from uh middle school. So I it was at a time when I was at a private school. We had a small private school, and it was uh a great experience. I was in um Concord, New Hampshire at the time, and um my English teacher um I think I told her specifically that uh being a teacher was absolutely the one thing I would never do. So, you know, you sometimes you say those sort of things, and I wasn't one of those kids who was like, you know, acting out my profession when I was three. You know, there there are things. But um and uh when I was in college, uh I was jumping back and forth in what I wanted to do. And I was um I didn't enter college with a clearer path in mind, and you know, I was trying to figure it out and you being one of those young kids who's just really I I wanted to do something. I was generally good at most of the things I put my hand to, um, you know, but not phenomenal. It's kind of like a you know uh so there was a variety of ways I could have gone. You know, I dabbled in math. Um now I've let that part of my brain completely dry up and blow away, so please don't ask me anything about numbers. But um but you know, I dabbled in math and and uh a couple of other um possibilities. I really had no idea, you know, just completely just like completely reaching in the air for something. And um but I did like English, and one of the things I liked about English um and literature and uh and the study of of you know the art of of the English language is uh that it's more open. You know, there's so much possibility in it, and there's so many areas for exploration, whereas um a lot of other fields felt more concrete. So there was something very uh this is sort of an openness at the time and I was that I was interested in. And I did take an education class because if you're going to you know study English, you're not going to be in English. You have very few paths in front of you. So I took an education class, um, just trying it out. And um we had uh an observation where I went into a classroom for a day, and we were just sitting in the back of the classroom and watching a teacher work. And as soon as I sat down in the classroom, I was just I knew that's where I wanted to be, just deeply um excited by the idea of sitting down in a classroom and working with young people. And so that's been I it is definitely a passion of mine. And it's it's a it's a job that I uh do not just because I'm trying to, you know, put food on the table, but because it's something I care deeply about. And if, you know, I suddenly was filthy rich and could retire right now, I would find some way to educate. And I have uh, you know, I've I've done it in volunteer ways um in all kinds of different places and locations just because I d I deeply love it.
SPEAKER_00Right. Well that's good, and um I think it's evident, you know, I as a as a parent, um it's been a long time since I've been in the classroom, and so what I am able to discern from the classroom comes from my kids. And of course, for us, we homeschooled all of our children until my oldest daughter, Ava, um started high school. And that was kind of the deal that we made. We have our own story on how we uh why we started homeschooling in the first place, but she she and you know my daughter, she's very social, she's very, you know, talkative and all those things, um, which is very uh very different than my son, who is my oldest, and even very different than my youngest daughter. But she was always, I want to go to real school, right? I mean, that's what when you're in the homeschool world, there's homeschool and then there's real school, right? So she always wanted to do that, and the deal that we made her was that would only happen if uh by the time she started high school, her mother and I were in a position to send her to a private school. So we have very strong feelings about that. Uh but coming into the school that she's at, uh, you were one of her very first teachers, you know, other than her mother. And we got to hear about Mr. Nance at home. And you can tell when when your child is talking about a teacher at school, you can tell uh whether that's a person who enjoys what they do. Sure. And there was always a sense that I got that, yeah, this is a guy that I I think he loves teaching. That's a cool thing. That's that's the impression I got from my daughter.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've said a few times, um, you know, education, teaching is is the job that um you have to absolutely love it in order to do it. And if you do, it's the greatest thing in the world. If you don't absolutely love it, it's the worst job in the world. I mean, it's on par with like you know, scraping out sewer systems and stuff. It's it's it is hard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I can see that. All right. Well, let's uh let's just jump all over the place. I mean, my mind goes all over when especially when we talk about education, because I I have um my own opinions about the educational system through my my own experiences. Sure. Uh I have opinions that may not be fair. Sure. Um but let me let me start with this one because this is one that my wife and I, mostly my wife, has experienced over time, and I have an opinion about it, which correlates to my opinion about practicing law also. And that is do you think that it is necessary for an individual to go get the education degree in order to be an effective educator?
SPEAKER_02Oh wow. All right, yeah, we're starting here, huh? Okay. Um, yeah, I so I spent uh 15 years in public school, teaching public school, you know, and I I've spent um about four years teaching private school now, and then you know, uh a smattering of other other things. I did get my master's in education, and um and the the program that I was going to was uh as good as one could expect for a master's of education program. Um but I'm always ever so slightly embarrassed of my masters of education, you know, it's not not necessarily like a a a badge on my sleeve or something like that where I'm like, oh I'm proud of this. It's okay, yes. What did I learn in my education degree? Uh not to disparage the teachers who are trying very hard to educate me, but I learned how to make a bulletin board. And you know what I do every time I have to change a bulletin board? I find a creative and talented student and say, hey, would you make me a bulletin board? You know, that's what I do. So because there's no point in me making a terrible bulletin board. You know, there's there are that's not something that's going to change much in my, you know, and and a creative student will have a blast doing it, kind of thing. So, you know, there that that was one thing I I learned. I learned how to um change slides on an overhead projector, which we'll do at this point. Yeah. Um and so there's there's a lot of that that I learned. The one class that was actually beneficial to me was actually a master's level class. It wasn't a part of the general, you know, teacher certification program. And that was um uh law. It was a law class. It was about uh educational law. So we went through a whole lot of different court cases where, you know, various different types of of law, um, you know, issues like you know, religion in schools, uh public education, um things like you know, um negligence kind of things, all kinds of stuff. So that was that was fascinating and very helpful because uh it gave me some sort of, you know, gave me some guardrails to be thinking about as in any particular situation. You know, there was some general common sense advice in in the rest of my education as well. But that one was the one that sort of that was the most practical and useful of all my courses. All the rest, no, I didn't get much out of them. And I I have heard of a lot there's been a lot of uh non-traditional um teachers who've come in from uh career, and they come from a career into education, and then they um go through just a non-traditional route. I think they have to take the praxis probably, and I'm not sure the entire process because I didn't go that round, but um they tend to be very effective teachers as well. In fact, they have a lot to bring to the table from real world experience, whereas um a lot of educational programs, and I'm not about my own, um I actually had a I feel like a fairly positive one, uh, but a lot I think a lot of educational schools are more propaganda factories than anything else. Okay and that that I mean we could go down that route if you want, but but um yeah, I think that um you know part of the problem of education is that we have taken away all that's valued or you know, valuable out of it and boiled it down to something else that isn't good or pretty. And I think that um some of that is perpetrated by the the schools of education, and I so there is definitely a problem there.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Um well, I guess I I probably should have given you this caveat. Mo most of the people that have come in so far know me at uh obviously a deeper level. So if I raise anything that you're like, I'm just not going down that road, you just give me a you give me a thumbs up or thumbs down, I can I can transition, right? No, okay. So here's so to be fair, um my view of teachers going through kind of the the expected process is really the same as my view of lawyers. Sure. So, you know, in order to become an attorney, you have to complete your undergraduate, then you have to go to law school, then you have to pass the bar. Um and I I have a very similar experience to you. If I go back and I say, well, what did I learn in law school from a practical perspective? I mean, I certainly learned things, okay, but what did I learn from a practical perspective that was going to make me an effective attorney? And and that that number of things is actually quite low. Sure. Um, because I went to law school in Pennsylvania, uh and you we had a school where there were going to be kids going all over the country that to practice. So your law school isn't teaching you each state's law, sure, right? Um so they're not teaching law specific. So the the best that I could say is, well, law school kind of taught me how to think like a lawyer, right? That's that was kind of what that did. Um, but but my personal opinion on that is I probably could have done that quicker, more effectively, and more efficiently by being uh an apprentice with an attorney. Where it's like, look, you're not gonna practice on your own, okay, but you're you're gonna apprentice for three years instead of law school for three years. And you know, we're gonna gradually work you into understanding the way the system works and all that. And I think about teachers, I I think one of the things that I would question is if you begin or if you develop a process, okay, because you think and maybe you have good good motives on the front end, but you develop a process to create teachers, okay? Do you end up in a position where you become so process oriented that anyone that can make it through the process by default becomes a teacher?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00But I can look at the effectiveness of the teacher and go, well, process good or not, like you're really not a great teacher.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. Yeah. No, I agree completely. And in fact, I would even broaden that. Um I would say that maybe our entire education system should be more apprentice-based. I'm okay. Yeah, I I I'm you know, almost about to vote myself out of a job here, but I think high school should be completely opt-in, opt-out. Because um you look at um the number of students who sit in a classroom all day long and it's glorified babysitting. You know, they if unless they are eager to learn something there, which there are definitely students like that, and Ava is obviously a phenomenal student. I loved her from you know, the very first time I saw her, she's like, oh no, I was like this kid's gonna be fun to teach. So um, you know, she's she's one of those. But there are plenty of students out there who are just you know along for the ride. They're there because they have to be there. They're there because they have to be there. And um, you know, there's I think and I could go multiple ways with this, but part of the problem stems further back in that we've killed their level of learning way early. And so by the time they get to high school, they have no level of learning left.
SPEAKER_00Okay, what do you what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_02So um, you know, kids are naturally inquisitive, right? Um, and they like to ask questions, they like to explore, they like to figure things out. Um, and you know, they different kids explore in different ways, but um, they're they're eager to learn, you know, and they love poetry, right? And they love um they love uh language and you know again each kid's different, but they they love to put their hands on things and and figure things out. Um, you know, and if if there was a lot more opportunity for that, I think from the get-go, uh, we'd be better off. Now I could go I could go way more in depth on that, but um what I see as a high school teacher, and I've been a high school teacher for a long time, um, by the time they get to high school, there are some students who have, you know, figured out the program and they're doing their thing and they're getting their good grades. And a lot of the higher I go I'm I'm gonna quote quote h higher quality students, and by that I don't mean anything other than that they um enjoy getting good grades. You know, they're they're there are students who are um seeking to excel in education. There are students who are like that, and there are students who are, you know, um being dragged to school every day. Yeah, there's it's it's a wide range. So um the students who are um the learners, I guess the ones who really want to learn, by the time you get to high school, even among that group, the majority of the motivation is purely like a numbers game based. You know, I gotta get that A. And um, you know, a lot of the the shortcuts that I see them taking um are shortcuts that absolutely shortcut their growth and learning so that they can get an A.
SPEAKER_00But they achieve that they achieve the goal of getting the number.
SPEAKER_02Right. And then on the other end of the spectrum, you have the students who don't want to be there, and they take all the shortcuts to avoid doing anything. Either way, they're not learning anything. So I, you know, trying to get students to learn in the traditional classroom is difficult.
SPEAKER_00And what it sounds like to me, and I I can relate to this, is what we have made the traditional way is simply an assembly line that completely ignores the fundamental nature of a human being.
SPEAKER_02Yes, 100%. And every once in a while I hold my fist in the air and shake it and say, John Dewey! So you know, you can go back a hundred years and see where some of the seeds of this began. And um it's it's killed us. It's killed us. And you and we've we've progressively made it worse. And you can see moments in our history where somebody tried to do something to quote fix it and made it worse, which happens a lot, you know. And there's always the like we should throw more money at it, which you know that just draws sharks. And then and then you you you know, we have so you you have millions of of times when when people have made it so much worse. So like yeah, we got a hundred years of problem that's uh back to the Pete Heggseth book, the the idea is like how do you how do you fix that? You know, this this ulcer. You gotta cut the whole thing out? I mean, how do you do that? And I you know, as an educator, I I get a little um you know, I I I feel the weight of it sometimes and you think I look at it and I go like I don't know, I don't know how to like if I could start from scratch, I could do something here, but I don't know how. So I take a s a group of students who are coming in, you know, all in the same room. We've got the you know, even in I'm in a grade school right now, and um and the you know, I would say that what we're doing is is um is a lot better than I saw in public school. But at the same time, um, you know, you have uh the same process where we've sort of kept them contained until they lost all desire. Right and now here they are. And so at this point, a lot of times I'll look at my students and I'll think, you should go apprentice to an electrician. You know, you should go um, you know, start start working on something like cars. Right. You gotta go go do something. Or or you know, and I'm I'm not like you know, manual labor, we need it so bad. Like everybody like poo-poo's on that, and like, oh, I don't want to be, you know, a handyman, but uh that's you know, that's where it's at in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_00Uh man, there is so much in what you just said. I mean, uh okay, so on the one hand, I look at when you talk about you're like, what do you do? What's the fix? Yeah. And I think part of the reason that you can very easily feel overwhelmed with it is it's not our problem is not just the education system, right? Because our education system uh has components of it brought into it from our family unit. Oh, yeah. And that has a component in the way that we've chosen to govern.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, there's so many, there's so many tentacles that are going in that you you say, well, if it was only this, like I could fix it, right? But it's not only this. It's these multiple things. And you and going to the last point you made, I I I I 100% agree with you. So I grew up in a household of blue-collar workers.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00In fact, I watched my mother and my father both at separate times graduate from college because they went to college later in life. They You know, they were working, they had kids, education was something that they, or at least upper education, they had to kind of put to the side. Um, but my father, who was a who's a cabinet maker, he always pushed me to be educated. But my father was very different, I think, than a lot of other kids' parents, you know, when I was growing up, because my my dad's approach was not, hey, go get an education so you can get a job. That was not his philosophy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It was, I don't care what you do for a job. You can dig ditches, you can drive the garbage truck, I don't care what you do. Okay. But I want you to be educated so that you have options in what you do. And of course, my dad's my dad's approach to kind of life to some degree, at least in that regard, was read. Because the better you read, the better you speak, be able to communicate, you know, those types of things. And I look at things now and I get so upset at this almost knee-jerk, you know, what are what are you supposed to do as a kid? Graduate high school, go to college, get a job. Like that's it. And we've we've elevated that that route to like that's what, oh, that's what the good smart kids do, right? And I look at it and I say, wait a minute. You you know, look, okay, look, if you want to go be a brain surgeon, like legit, I guess you got to go to school to do that, okay? I'm fine with that, all right? But what about the kid that like that's just not me, man? I don't do that. I like to build stuff. Yeah, yeah. Then yes, we need to elevate the trade schools, we need to elevate the apprenticeships because we're gonna end up in a world where we've got a bunch of philosophers and nobody can can fix the water system.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. And uh, you know, so jump back in history, you know. Look at uh the kind of people who built our country, you know, and the kind of people who kind of held things together. Uh most of them, you know, you don't necessarily have to, you don't have a whole lot of really higher education, but you s they value the education that they do have. And so you've got tons of people who know how to work with their hands, but also have great minds. Yes, and yes, that used to be developed in what they called grammar school, you know? Shakespeare was not a scholar. And yet he's one of the most, I mean, he he clearly had the best grasp on the English language of arguably almost anybody that's ever spoken it, right? And he had more, he used more words than than you know, blowing everyone else away. And um there's there's that stupid argument that people make from time to time, like, oh, Shakespeare couldn't have really been Shakespeare because he was he was uh too little of a person. He had to have been one of the elites. And I thought that's that's stupid. You know, you you grab you know laws of probability. Um look at enough peasants, eventually you're gonna find a genius there. So, you know, he was a genius, but he was also not an upper class genius, but he was very good at uh seeing the human condition and really good at conveying human experience, and he also was just a linguistic, you know, prodigy. And you meet people like that. They that's just you know fascinating. But he had a grammar school education, so you know, he learned the basics of the day, which you know, uh we can get into that some other time. But you you look at, you know, somebody like Benjamin Franklin. I don't know if you've ever read the Benjamin Franklin biography, but if you want to like fe have strong feelings about education, here's a great like couple of books to look at. You look at Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, and you see how he taught himself to become a writer, and it was absolutely 100% self-driven, right? And then you look at somebody like uh Frederick Douglass, you know, brilliant, brilliant man who grew up in slavery where you know education was absolutely forbidden, and you know, he grows up being called an object over and over and over again, and you know, he's had all these awful experiences. His biography is amazing, but watching him learn how to read as a path to freedom is unbelievable. It is uh an amazing story. And so he's he's looking at the you know, he's he's um seeing that um if he learns how to read, then one of his slave owners kind of suggested this in a rage against him that if he learns how to read, he'll be useless as a slave. And so uh he was like, I've gotta learn how to read. And so he does all these like things where he's like uh you know, learning how to trace letters off of the shipyards where the people would write like a letter to indicate where the box would go, and then he would go and like try to compose words on the wall, and then he would like trick these kids on the street into teaching them how to write by saying, you know, oh I can write a bigger word than you, and then he would write his three letters that he knew, and they'd be like, No, you can't, and they would go up and they would write a bigger word, and then he would study it. And like that's how he learned how to read, because the guy was so in. And then you would read his writing, it it is some of the most eloquent and poetic and gorgeous writing. He he vacillates between this like beautiful poetic kind of style and this very like cold and straightforward style. It's just genius. So then you go into somebody like um, and I could go all day, but uh you go into somebody um like Booker T. Washington and you read his book, Up From Slavery, and he left slavery as a small child because of um you know emancipation, but then his whole book is about teaching people trying to educate his people because he said the one thing that we need in order to succeed, now that we've all like come up from slavery and we've been treated as like you know, inhuman for a while. So uh, you know, how do we become citizens? How do we become people? We've gotta get an education, we've got to prove ourselves useful, and that comes by working our tails off. And so he's all about hard work and about and everybody who came to his school, he's like, Okay, you know, before I start teaching you Latin, you're gonna help me build some beds, you know, you're gonna help me build this building. We're gonna start working in the brick kiln because learning how to work art is going to make us better people. Man, he's brilliant. And so all of these people, you look back at history and you're like, these guys came from nothing. Now, Benjamin Franklin had a good family, but he still had to learn everything himself because his dad was just gonna print him some off to a job and be like, okay, I'm done with you. You're kind of a I don't right, don't know what to do with you, kid. Um, and so he's like, No, I want to be a writer, so I'm gonna learn how to write on the sly in the middle of the night. You know, and and um, you know, Frederick Douglass learning how to write on the wall, um, you know, Booker D. Washington, you know, going through the his education, which was grueling and extensive, and he had to, you know, give up so much to do it, and he had to prove himself in order to do it. And yet here we are, you know, in this sort of almost communistic way, like everybody gets a free education. You know what they do with a free education? They throw it away. Right. Right? Like, for example, um a few years ago in the public school, there was this organization that wanted to help the poor. And so they um they created these backpacks, they made these backpacks and they stuffed them full of materials, rather nice materials that they thought the students could use, and they're like, we want this to go to the poor kids. And so um they brought them to the counselor and they're like, Can we, you know, give these to all the poor kids? And yeah, there's all that like, you know, there's you there's only so much you can't be like, well, here's a list of poor kids, you know. It's it's that would be inappropriate. So they're like, okay, we'll do we'll hand it for you, we'll hand them out to the kids for you. And they couldn't do it in like an open way because that would, you know, discriminate. And so they call the kids to the office one at a time, and uh kid after kid would take the backpack and chuck it in the trash can. So what's going on there? We could there's a lot there, but there was like a a dignity thing where they were like feeling looked down upon. There was also the I don't want any freebie kind of handout kind of things. And there's also just the general, like, you know, you look at things that are given to you for free are not as valuable as things that you work your days. And so, you know, our education system, I'd say one of the many problems with our education system, but a fundamental one, is that we have uh developed a system where hard work is not a part of the game.
SPEAKER_00That's interesting. Um You know, I and I had to grab my notebook here so I don't lose thoughts, but you know, when you were talking about Frederick Douglass um learning how to read and write, and uh you said something along the lines of like that became basically his pathway to freedom. Yeah, yeah. And I I think about it's something I've thought for years. I used to tell my kids this whenever I would I was uh coaching mock trial. Go pull a copy of the Federalist papers and put it in front of you and start reading it. And the and I would argue that the average student today would look at that and be like, dude, I ain't got no idea what they're talking about. Exactly. Oh man. And then you say, but those were published in newspapers of general circulation. Yeah. This was not some law review coming out of some major institution. This was the everyday person could read this. So it's it's fascinating to me that on the one hand, we can sit here in 2025 and have a conversation about how Frederick Douglass had the ability through through language, yeah, through reading and writing to get himself out of slavery. And I could articulate today how we are going right back into a slave mentality because we can't read and write anymore.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. Uh 100%. And it, you know, there's a can I shake my fist and say John. John Dewey. I mean, a big part of his philosophy, the pragmatism philosophy, and you look up any sort of like if you Google John Dewey, you'll find a million glowing reviews of that evil man. But um, yeah, a big part of his philosophy was let's make all of this, you know, where um our kids are are useful to society. Forget, like, um, you know, they are are you familiar with okay, I'm kind of jumping around, but are you familiar with Catherine Barbelsing? No, I'm in the Michaela School? Okay, this is worth looking up. Um, Catherine Barbelsing is uh um a headmistress at this school in England called the Michaela School. And uh if you want some fascinating insight into how education actually works, uh she's the person to go to because she gets amazing results. If you want to see somebody who actually pulls off really educating kids, there it is. And uh listen to her um And that's that's today. Okay. Um and uh she has a an interview with um Jordan Peterson, which is well worth the listen. Um, but she's she says, you know, the the problem is we have all these people who are like, I don't want to teach kids what to think, I want to teach them how to think. And that sounds really profound, but she's like, no, no, you don't teach kids how to think until they know what they're talking about. Because our problem is today that all these people have all these feelings about things. Like emotes. You know, but we don't actually have any kind of ground knowledge of what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00Well, well, we validate the feeling as though the feeling has some factual basis to it, and we have long abandoned the approach that I think is more rational, which is if you tell me this is how you feel, I go, that's great, but you're wrong. Yeah, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_02And and let me explain to you why, like, like and and so this like the John Dewey kind of pragmatism idea could not produce the kind of writing that those founding fathers wrote. You know, the Declaration of Independence is one of the most beautiful documents. You know, it is so gorgeous. And I have my um American Lit students memorize a big part of it because it's just worth knowing. And he starts by saying, you know, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And then he goes through five different truths. And ultimately he works his way to the point that, you know, government that is trampling on your rights ought to go. You know, we we ought to stand up to this. Right. And all that stems from something that is self-evident. You know what? John Dewey killed any sort of logical, rational thinking that would allow us to look at the world and go, these things are self-evident. Because the ultimate end goal of pragmatism is not to create a his his he he and what everybody quotes him as saying, he's trying to create better citizens. And, you know, oh well, we're creating citizens. Well, the model citizen, the modeled on what?
SPEAKER_00The thing is, there is no model anymore. Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_02And that's the problem. We don't actually have a basis to base things on. And so you you have to go back to something bigger than yourself. Yes. Because all the moral relativism, that's what sprang from pragmatism ultimately. And that leads us to be like, well, nothing's right, nothing's wrong. It's all about how you feel. And you know what that is? That's burn that's just burning everything down. Right, right. And it's great.
SPEAKER_00Oh my word, yes. But but you're right. I mean, that okay, if if you're going to argue, hey, this this model, you know, our goal is to make better citizens, okay, we need to define what you mean by better citizen. I mean, because from what I can tell, what you have successfully done is you've you've over decades and decades and decades, you have created people who are well suited to sit on an assembly line and do the same thing over and over and over with very little creativity in their life.
SPEAKER_01And the thought.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and the thing is, I I really believe, I I firmly believe that it is not only the classically educated at the highest levels that can appreciate art and music. I I don't believe it's only those people that have imagination and desire. I think that's inherent in all of it. It's just that we snuff it out pretty early on and just go, hey, dude, you need to sit in that seat and just do this test. Yeah. Just follow the program. Yeah. You know? You know, it's fascinating because uh something you said a while back made me think of this. So my youngest daughter turned 10 in uh last November, and she wanted to have a party, right? And she started at school. So the first year my oldest daughter started, my youngest daughter was like, Well, I might want to do that, but I want to see how it goes with Sissy first, you know? So then the next year she started. So she was like, Well, I want to have a birthday party with all my friends. And um, so we had we had it out at one of my friends' houses, and um, you know, they had little games that they were gonna play and music and the girls were gonna dance, you know, the typical stuff. Well, while all the kids are there, they've kind of got done playing stuff in the barn or whatever, and I said, Hey, who wants to go outside? And they're like, Oh, we'll go. And all I did was I took them out in the woods and I told them these I would find some weird-looking rock, and I'd be like, Oh, hey, let me tell you about this rock. So the guy that owns this property, and I would just make these fantastic things up. We went down and we got in a creek and we caught little crawfish.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00After that, my wife came to me a week or so later and she said, she was laughing and she said, I picked Juliana up from school today, and one of the moms came up to me and said, I don't know what y'all did at that birthday party, but my son has been talking about it nonstop ever since. Yeah. Well, what did we do? We just let them be kids. Yeah, yeah. That's it. 100%. Right? There was no fancy rent this or buy that. It was roll your pants up, we're gonna get in the creek and catch a crawfish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're right, kids have this desire to learn that way, to experience that way. But we're taking that away from them and we're saying, just go with the program.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, um, and this is something I I don't know if you're familiar with Jonathan Height, but he's another one that I recommend for all of his stuff. Uh, absolutely fantastic. But um, one of the things that he's you know a big proponent of is the importance of letting kids play and the danger of safetyism, where we're like, we'll we'll like keep them in this protective bubble so that they don't get hurt. But what we're doing is we are making them incredibly unresilient. Right. We're taking away all of their ability to, you know, explore and experiment and get hurt, but then get back up again and dust their knees off, you know. And um, and yeah, the the the classroom is so safe, you know, and we get we make it safer and safer all the time for good reason. They're you know terrifying the the world is scary, and you know, you think of the dangers of education, you see these school shootings and everything, and that's a a a part of the sickness that is in our culture, you know, outside of just the the world of education. But like you said earlier, there's you know, a lot of this stuff is interrelated and it has to do with family, it has to do with foundations, it has to do with you know the values that we we ought to have, you know, communally, but we don't anymore. And um and so you know, we're trying to protect our kids, but the more we hand them in, the less they are just out there playing. And play is education. Yes. You know what? And I, you know, so I'm a huge fan of homeschooling as well. I think private school is a great route to go. Um public school I don't have a lot of affection for. I and I was there for okay, so I have to say I was there for in public school for 15 years and I felt like it was a mission, and I felt like there was um great opportunities, and I tried my best, um, and eventually it burned me out. Uh but uh, you know, and I have a lot of um you know respect for for a l a lot of for some of the elements of public schools, but I think that there's so many problems that are you know all the way going all the way to the top. But that aside, one of the cool things about um a more non-traditional kind of education is that it opens so much more room for the play, which stimulates thinking, which leads to deeper thought. You know, you've gotta have the the the bricks to build the building, but you also have to, you know, the the experimentation that comes with playing. Um so you you need to teach kids to to read good books, you need to teach kids how to you know do math, those are fundamental stuff. Right. But if they're playing while doing that, boy, are they accomplishing so much more. Yes. And um that's so hard to do in a classroom. Right.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's a different method of learning. Yeah. If I'm in the classroom with, you know, whatever my 15 or 20 or however many kids I've got in my class, you know, I just because of the environment that it's that it's been created, sure, I have to maintain order. And in order to maintain order, it's okay, everybody keep your seats and we're gonna do this, then this. And that's very different than kind of a free form, you know, yeah. You kind of in in you combine play with the concepts that are being learned. Sure, right? And uh, yeah, we just don't do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And when everybody's sort of, you know, you're all trying to be on the same level. Um, it's like Harris and Bergeron, you know, the the story about the the world where everybody's equal, and so they like dumb everything down to the lowest possible common denominator, and so everybody's like absolutely miserable. But um, you know, that that happens sometimes in the classroom. And there are, of course, places where educational systems uh try to, you know, allow one particular group of students to be educated at the rate that they're learning, and then another, you know, and so we've had all kinds of experiments in American education with um individual classes and programs where they're getting a more rigorous track, whereas another class is getting a less rigorous track. And then we have things like special education, and yeah, you know, there's lots of overlap there. And then we had some sort of um integration kind of systems where we tried to, well, because um this student over here will work better if he's close rubbing shoulders with this better student over here, then maybe everybody will benefit from us putting it all together. And you know, there's a maybe in certain environments, but not necessarily in the classroom. And the more I experienced that, um, the less I felt that was actually effective. Uh, because all I did was everybody had to dumb down the lowest level. It was very Harrison Tregeron effect. Right. But um, you know, over the last few years we've seen programs where you had one particular school um that had a particular grouping where they're like these kids get the more advanced classes and you the the higher um uh you know advanced honors kind of classes or advanced kind of uh systems. And um a lot of those were killed over the last few years by um programs that are like it's unfair to the kids who don't have those opportunities. So let's kill it all and make everyone dumber. And you know, yeah, I read an article, I can't remember what, it was probably the Atlantic or something ridiculous like that, where the the article was like, you know, uh kids who grow up in in wealthy families get lots of books when they're kids, and that's just not fair. We should stop that. And you're like, how about we just give books to poor kids? Right, right.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, so we yeah, we we oh my goodness. You can go all over the place with that. Yeah, we can. That's that's for sure. But that's but that's true, and we're seeing that in multiple areas of society right now, yeah, where instead of adopting a philosophy that I think we've had in this country for a long time, where if you are disadvantaged for one reason or another, I don't care what it is, yeah. My goal should be I want to help elevate you. Sure. It should not be let me let me dumb myself down so that you'll feel good about where you are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But we've lost the ability to look and say, well, where you are is kind of a crappy place.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you really don't have to settle for that.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, so here, let's let's change that. Yeah, right. But we don't do that anymore because now that hurts somebody's feelings or or whatever.
SPEAKER_02But you lose, I mean, you lose that Frederick Douglass effect, right? You lose that Booker D. Washington effect where you come from. Nothing. But you lift yourself up by your bootstraps. That was such an American idea. And you go back and look at some of those early writers and you're like, wow. And you know, again, Frederick Douglass loved the Constitution. I mean, he thought that this was this was the the sort of writing that you know elevates everybody. And um, you know, he people who are like it was it's racist or whatever, you're not really looking at some of these people who actually, you know, a lot of that's the emotional talk rather than the actually thinking. Things through. But um, one of our other problems today is that you know we don't offer the kids who are having a hard time the rigor that will give them an opportunity to elevate themselves. Another great writer on this, Thomas Sowell. Oh, yeah, absolutely. 100%. Yeah, he's the antidote to stupidity. But he had this great talk at the beginning of, I think it was his uh conflict of visions book. Um, and you can find it. There's uh even an animated version of it on YouTube, which is really good. And I show it to my students when we're right in the middle of Frederick Douglass and stuff. But he talks about how, you know, he had this mean teacher in elementary school who every time he misspelled a word would make him go back and write 30 times. And um, she was not cutting him any slack. And he's this poor, you know, black kid in the hood with like no real like broken family. Right. He's raised by his aunt who he can't stand, and he's got all these problems. And yet, because he had some educators who just were like, nope, you're gonna man up and take care of this, he grows up and he becomes incredibly successful. And he credits a lot of his success to teachers like that. I think it's his fifth grade teacher, yeah, who are willing to like just be like, No, I'm sorry, this is gonna be really hard. Yeah, and I'm sorry that it's really hard, but you're gonna do it. So get up and start working.
SPEAKER_00An absolutely brilliant man. Oh, yeah. Who who you read his writing is what my dad would call uh the kind of writing where you have to stand on your tiptoes to read. Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03But you're right.
SPEAKER_00Well, well, let me ask you this. So uh that's kind of I think where we've talked about a lot so far is kind of within the system, right? If we think about education in the same way that we might think of anything else, uh certainly maybe in a capitalist society, um my my my gut feeling would be, okay, well but if but if the parents outside demanded listen, my kid is going to be educated, then the system would have to change to it to accommodate that. And so and so it makes me think that that's not what's out there. There there is no demand upon the system to be better than it is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's true. Well, I think that part of that was, you know, there's been a lot of wool pulled over pulled over people's eyes for years, too. You know, you've got the the the teachers union that has had a lot of control over, you know, the the edu the world of education, obviously, because that's part of where they're they're in, but they also have control over so many other like governmental kind of things. And um, you know, and you you could just go down all kinds of rabbit holes and try to ferret out corruption here and there. But um, yeah, like we said, like uh loads of money have been poured into education, and every few years more money gets poured into education, but it all comes with all of these um you know earmarks and you know stipulations and all these other kinds of things, and also it goes to bloating out um you know administrative kind of things. Okay so you see that a lot in the universities, but it happens in the high schools too, and you can see like how people are like teachers don't get paid enough. And I'm like, uh I don't have an argument with that, I'd be loved to be getting paid more. But um, but then you also have um every time money gets bored into an education system, it goes to a whole bunch more specialists being added to the system. Oh, you know, and it goes into other things that don't seem to go anywhere or benefit.
SPEAKER_00So we're funding the system. Yeah, we're not funding the the the things that are necessary to effectuate the outcome that we desire, at least that we vocalize that we desire.
SPEAKER_02And I mean, I it's not a perfect analogy, but you can look at, like, for example, the way California dealt with homelessness, right? They had a program to end homelessness like 40 years ago and it was supposed to end in 20 years, and they keep pouring more and more and more money into it, and homelessness has grown like crazy because they have poured money into it. So, you know, when you have a problem that stirs a response to people like, oh no, we have a problem, let's deal with this by pouring money into it. And so then, like I said, the sharks come and they're like, oh, okay, money is here, you know. Let me let me find ways to siphon it off for my own benefit. And so, you know, I think that there's a lot of that. And I'm not gonna say that definitely I'm not calling out like individual throughout, there's loads of really dedicated people um in the world of education, and there's a lot of people who are doing it wholeheartedly, um, yeah, you know, up and down the the you know, the from the teacher all the way up. Yeah, but um, but it is, and I think that sometimes even the specialists think that they're doing something to benefit, but we've got issues with that too. And um, you know, Abigail Schreier, I'm not sure if you're familiar with her, but she has a phenomenal book that just came out last year called Bad Therapy, which is about um all the ways that we've um overly focused on mental health, and mental health is a really big deal and is a you know something that we ought to be handling well, but you know, all this talk about mental health, and does it look like we're getting any better?
SPEAKER_00No, I mean you look at the it looks like we're going the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_02It looks like the the you know, the sane asylum is like running us, you know. So you you you're like, okay, so why is this happening? And why are these kids who are then also locked in these bubbles and not going out and looking at the rocks and making up cool stories about them? Why are they not thriving? You know, so you've got you've got uh multiple layers there. That's a book worth looking at. Um, but but yeah, then a lot of the the healthcare specialists who come in, you know, we've got a lot of all kinds of people who are like, let me see if I can help these poor kids who are dealing with the stress uh and the the anxiety that comes from their cell phones and their you know social media accounts and just being a teenager, you know, that's super hard. You you've got kids, you know exactly what it's it's hard, and there's angst everywhere, but that's normal, you know, that's part of the experience. And but it's hard right now. And um, and then the you know, the all this this desire to help you, but right, the world we live in, the helps that we're offering kids are often horrific. Not all always, but a lot of them. And um, we can see the effects of that all around us. But a lot of education siphons off its energy and its money to those kinds of of things. Not to mention that, you know, we talked about the the education um uh the the academia leading us into education, the the schools of education, and um a lot of those are you know have become, like I said earlier, kind of propaganda factories where you know there's a lot of really incorrect thinking that Thomas Sowell could poke a hole in immediately and deflate if anyone would read him. But the you know, um a lot of that is is fed into these young, idealized teachers who are gonna save the world and and yet they don't know enough actually about the world, and they're trying to teach these kids, and they're not teaching them actual knowledge, they're just teaching them ideology, and you know, then that's surrounded by all of these specialists who are trying to help the kids. And I think we're creating I mean we've created a monster, I really do believe that.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, it it it feels to me when I look at education as a whole that maybe at the administrative level there's there's kind of what is verbalized and then there's what can be observed. And what's verbalized is you know, we want you know, a high quality education with opportunities for your children, etc. etc. But oftentimes I feel like what I'm observing is kind of a more of a mindset of it's good enough. You know, it's good enough. And and hey, it could be worse, right? It's that that whole thing. Um and you know, when you talk about the money, this is a pet peeve of mine. I get kind of I'm only allowed to be passionate about this at home. Um but I am some of those too. But I am passionate about it. And this is not here's my caveat before everybody gets mad about it. I'm not I'm not saying that this is not important, it's not valuable, it's not you know something that we should have. But when I can look at a school and I can say we have basically zero funding for things that are going to push our students in English and literature, in mathematics, in science, but I can walk on any Friday night in the fall and I can see you know a caggle of dudes wearing headsets to call a high school football game. I just look at that and I go, We got we got our priorities all screwed up. And again, that's not to say don't play football. Like, okay, I get it, that's fine. But it man, it seems so lopsided that we we can find the money when it comes time to funding certain sports. And don't get me on the girl sports. I know, because that one that one's gonna fire me up really really bad there. Um but we can find the money for that. But uh these other things though that's like we we just can't. We can't do that.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I can't I I don't understand that, and I think it it it feeds into this narrative that I think we would do well to recognize it. Doesn't take a couple of dudes sitting here to to contemplate our kids see this. Yeah. Kids are kids are more observant than we give them credit for being a lot of times. And if they see what we value, then they're going to adopt the oh go that must that must be what's important. It's important, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Oh, I know. Like um, whenever I'm talking about any sort of academic skill in my classroom, I will frequently associate it back to sports and athletics. And be like, you know what? You run drills like this. If you want to learn how to write a sentence, you would just have to drill the way you do in football, and you'd get it. You know, if you want to learn how to read Shakespeare, you just have to do it like you do football. You know, you it it's it's not any harder. It's just that your entire priority is there. And it's it's not, you know, I I don't know. This is this is something that I um I don't know that I have as much of a I I don't know if I completely can wrap my mind around why it is. But I think it's not I I see your point, but I I don't I don't entirely think it's the fault of the individual school, although it's it may be like sort of um an echo chamber kind of thing where like it's wanted and so it's increased, it's increased, so it's wanted more kind of thing. Sure, sure. Um and uh, you know, I don't I even like so and I've been around a lot of good football game teams. Um the uh the public high school that I went to um had an excellent football team, was very successful, won some championships. The private school that I'm in had an excellent football team, yeah, very successful. I've taught a lot of those football players. Um I'm actually totally a soccer guy. I I football is so boring to me. And I try to like like it for my students' sake, but I can't. So soccer's cool though. Um so uh but yeah, the um, but yeah, and uh yeah, I in it it never felt although I've I've heard um complaints like yours before, it never felt particularly malicious to me, but more like just um it's almost like a a thing that just keeps growing on its own kind of thing. Right, right. And uh and that's uh so there's you know, there's there's malice and then there's um negligence. Yes. You know, and y you know that. And so I think that we've got so many issues in education, you know, and where do you begin? Um and uh and there are some there's a lot that just stem from the fact that um yeah, we've we've you know, I can run back down the the road all the way back down, you know, a hundred years to look at some of the roots of the problems. And I can look at the the mentalities that have led us to where we are, to where we just create a a system where everybody's dumb and everybody is um, you know, nobody knows how to learn anymore, nobody cares to learn anymore. There's no you know and that's a you know a blanket statement. But um and then there's that like struggling upstream that a lot of schools are doing. You know, here I am, I'm trying to create the best thing I can for my students. And you you mentioned there's you know comparative kind of things. Um and I talk, I get on to my oldest son, he's 16. I get on to him from time to time. Um he's really good at arguing, so I have to like have all my you know have all my ducks in a row when I come to argue with him. Um he's a great kid, great kid. But um, but uh he'll be he'll talk about things in a comparative sense and be like, well, but I know it way better than you know this whole cohort. I'm like, but that's a that's a really lame place to start. Why don't you try to see if you can know it better than like somebody, you know, right, you know. James Madison or something. Can you can you write it like James Madison? When you can like write like yep, you can come talk to me. Right. But you know, it's and I think that like there's a lot of that. There's a there's a we're fighting upstream, and we're like, okay, how many fires can I put out? Me personally, you know, I would love for my individual classroom to be the most amazing place of learning where every student who comes in there just like, you know, they walk in and they may feel a little apathetic on the first day, but by the time they walk out, they're like, I love learning. Give me Dante or give me that. You know, that doesn't happen at all, at all. Um, you know, and I try to inspire and I try to shore things up, but you've got, you know, the it's it's you know, everything you take, you put energy into, you're taking that energy from somewhere else. Yes. You know, that's a Thomas Sowell kind of idea, too. Basic economics, you know, anything that you put in, it comes from somewhere else. And I think that whole the whole systems of schools, one are run by humans. So there's gonna be loads of flaws. And we're gonna have a lot of, you know, just like any field, you're gonna have a lot of people who are mediocre. Yes. You're gonna have, you know, the the average amount of people are gonna be average, right? Yes, and then you're gonna have some bums and you're gonna have some good ones, you know, bright lights. And so that's how it is in every field on earth. And um, you know, we want everyone to be the brightest light, but it doesn't happen. And so, you know, we're we're running in a system where there's some good and some bad and some mediocrity. And you are fighting an uphill battle that has been um with severe injuries that have happened a hundred years ago. A long time ago. And you know, you're you're struggling as this. So I have I'm I'm um you know, I have a lot of empathy for for people randomly. I I I have a personality type where I see too many sides to things, but um, you know, I also have very strong opinions. And the older I get, the more cragety I get. But but um but I I feel a lot of empathy for um these especially these principals, these administrators who are trying to create a system where they're trying to get their kids to reach a level where the kids um you know have been stuck in this uh you know, the system which has killed all of their learning and made their education valueless to them.
SPEAKER_00So okay.
SPEAKER_02And and you know, the all their their teachers are again surviving or you know, going along or you know, doing their thing, and some of them are trying to to you know elevate, but not everyone, not every day. And you know, even me, I'm I have my my days where I'm like this is I I'm not really doing it right today. Um and so, and I'm yeah I really do try. I mean this isn't something where I'm like I I don't I I take my job with great passion, you know, and great uh desire to be successful, and I get discouraged and I I I run down too. And so, you know, when I'm trying to run a whole system where, you know, I don't I don't know.
SPEAKER_00But let me ask you this though, and maybe this is too simplistic, um but I I feel like if we if we looked at any other uh facet of our individual lives and you know, whatever, if if my wife and I are dealing with a particular issue and you know that whatever that thing is, it is continually subpar. It's just not like we're not elevating where we want it this to go. At some point, I think you have to back out of the whole thing and go, okay, let's reevaluate everything. Because if I keep doing it the same way, I mean, sure, we might be able to get a little bit better by making the system a little more efficient or tweaking this part of the system. But as long as it's in the system, right, you're still you're still unnaturally kind of capped at where why does nobody come in and say, hey, I understand that the model is let's pack a bunch of kids in this building, let's have them sit down in chairs for 30 or 45 minutes at a pop and then rotate. But what if we just rethought the whole thing?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, I think that there uh have been some people who've done that, but they are fighting a huge battle and they've got a lot of enemies because um, you know, it's the law of thermodynamics. You just it's easier to sit there and just do what you've always done than it is to change, and you only change when um it it hurts enough to you know to do it. So um, you know, for a lot of people it's not hurting enough, and it's been a slow decline, and you get to the point where you're so far gone and you're like I'm working in a corpse at this point. You know, the education system is dead. And no, I agree. I would say that you know, there are people like uh Catherine Barblesing, like I said, she's she is one a person who is um completely going against the system, and she's doing a phenomenal job of it.
SPEAKER_00So let's let me ask you about that. Sure. Going against the system, and this might not technically fit, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. Um you teach English and literature? Uh yes. Okay. So okay, and and you're a Shakespeare guy. I'll pick that up. Okay. So let's just say that.
SPEAKER_02You know what Shakespeare said about lawyers.
SPEAKER_00I think Shakespeare's quote about lawyers is oftentimes uh not contextually asked.
SPEAKER_01No, no, not a quote. It's a it's an illiterate guy who's trying to kill all the elites of the words like, well, let's go on. Yeah, yeah, but he's he's just he's he's a he's a thug and they they take care of him in sort of it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um but but okay, so so Mr. Nance decides, whatever, you know, next year that okay, you know, I've I'm I've been in this educational system for 20 plus years. Uh, you know, I see what's happening, and I shall now take my stand, right? And if you decided, okay, whatever, project number one for the this particular group of students, you know, we've read whatever, we've read Hamlet, okay? You're going to write a 10-page essay on X, okay? Um obviously, if you don't do it, you fail. Like there should be zero question about that. Okay. But then everyone else, my goal, I'm talking as though I'm you, my my goal is not to kind of pick the best and let that set the standard. I am the standard. Sure. And if every paper that comes into me is subpar mediocre drivel that I know you can do better, then everyone's gonna fail. What happens to you in the in the normal school setting? Is there pressure that comes down from on high that goes, hey Nance, listen, we got a few phone calls from the parents, you know. Sally's not real happy that you know Junior got an F. You know, he's wanting to go to he's wanting to go to whatever college. And does that kind of stuff happen?
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Um, yeah, so my experience, um, I try to be a likable guy. I I I feel like I have a generally likable personality. I think you and I are the opposite on that. That's great. Uh, but I tend to get along really well with my um bosses, usually. I've always had a very cordial relationship with with uh people who are in charge of me. Um because I really respect the the job that they're doing, and it's a tough job. So, you know, I think that you know the respect is usually very mutual, and I've always had very positive things. Um and um and so you know, developing that rapport on the front end would be the start to having that conversation. You know, if if I'm a teacher who's you know been messing around and doing nothing all the time anyway, they're gonna they're not gonna respect me when that sort of thing happens. Um, you know, if I have uh sort of showed myself as caring deeply about education for years, then I can have a better impact on that. So that does that sort of situation doesn't happen in isolation, is basically what I'm saying. Sure. Um and uh, you know, the repercussions will vary entirely depending on which teacher's doing it and who their administrator is, etc. So I've had some administrators who will totally go to bat for their teachers in a situation of that sort of extreme. Um but um they'll also be like they would want to know that the teacher was doing it completely in good faith to start. Okay, yeah, sure, sure. And so it would very much any sort of situation where um you know them something's gonna kind of have a dramatic effect, um, then usually if the teacher has any sense, he'll Go to the administrator before any of it goes down and say, Hey, I just created the stack of papers. They are all failing. And the administrator will be like, So why are they all failing? And then we have a conversation, you know?
SPEAKER_00And so I think that's the point that you shake your fist in the head and goes, I'm doing it.
SPEAKER_02I send them books all the time. I'm like, you should read this book, it's great. Um so you know, that that sort of thing happens. Um, but um then again, okay, so considering am I a teacher who suddenly is trying to um derail the way things have been going because I don't believe in the system anymore? You know, then I also have to like consider whether my ambition is a little bit audacious too, you know, and it'd be like, am I wrecking okay, I know that that the education system seriously needs reform. Is my classroom the most effective place to start? Sure. Or or do I need to like actually go somewhere else? And so, you know, I think that I um That makes a lot of sense to me, actually.
SPEAKER_00I can relate to it. And think about the kids and the parents, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Am I wrecking it on them? They're they're in a system that has these expectations for them. They have learned that these are the expectations, right? And then I'm gonna blow it up. Blow it up. Yeah. And there's a little bit of you know, overweening pride to that. Yes, I think, you know, potentially.
SPEAKER_00Um I can I can totally relate to that on a different level because um doing what I do professionally, I I say the uh the curvature of my life has been uh early on, it's this uh excited passion, this deep belief in the criminal justice system or this is you know the best system on earth and blah, blah, blah. And then you get 20 years in and you're like, this whole thing is dead gum corrupt.
SPEAKER_02I think I recall it with the American Bar Association. Didn't they just support a fake amendment? Oh, I wouldn't doubt it. I wouldn't doubt it.
SPEAKER_00I I'm literally a member of no associations because they're all nuts. But but you know, it would be like if when a client comes to me, my duty is I've got to get this client through the system. Yeah, and I might think the system is corrupt and broken and inept, and you know, all those things. But I can't, I can't I can't use my client to become the platform for me to say the system should be revamped, right? Because they lose in that scenario. Yeah, it's what you want to do though.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, yeah, and I also really love my kids. And and you know, I I'm talking, I've been talking about this in a completely academic way, but um, I love my kids. And um, I love learning and I love um great books, and I love you know teaching things that I love. But, you know, a huge part of it for a teacher has to be that I deeply care about these kids. And that deep care goes for you know their well-being in the long term as well as in the short term. And um, you know, sometimes you have to have that like hard moment so that they can have a better opportunity, like you know, the the cheater who you have, you know, you caught him cheating, and you're this is gonna be miserable for everyone involved, but um, maybe it'll help them grow, you know, if we we have consequences for that action. Um, but then um, you know, and and the the kid who has failed, um and we have to have that conversation and have to talk with their parents and we we work through that. And yeah, that's that's a those are normal experiences that are painful and hard, um, but hopefully for their ultimate good. But there's also, you know, yeah, I I would never throw a whole class under the bus to make a political statement or to make a like um you know, an activist kind of like, I need to change things, let me destroy these this group of students. I would never never uh do that.
SPEAKER_00But I could see um I've always enjoyed when I did mock trial or I've taught other things, um, I've always enjoyed working with younger people um because I do feel like it's a place that they can see a passion in something that they might not see other places. Um you have a unique ability um beyond the parent, which I think is oftentimes very important to convey to a young person how worthy they are, how capable they are. And I know you know, raising kids, you get to see that firsthand that there's uh there's oftentimes, regardless of what mom and dad are doing to build them up and support them, there's there's oftentimes a lot of doubt, a lot of uh, you know, questioning of ability. So having a teacher that that's out there that's that has the desire to say, hey, look, you can do this. Yeah, yeah, you know, that's huge.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's huge. And sometimes that does wake them up out of the stupor that they've been in from the education system. You know, and I think that there are you know, in my classroom, in the realm of my classroom, and I and I hope for better. And I, you know, if there were if an opportunity presented itself where I could do something to help the larger system, I certainly would. Um and I, you know, I think that's uh potentially that could happen, but you know, who knows? Um but in my own classroom, um, you know, I'm trying to pull the pull the lever and try to pull the the direction of things and you know um edge up the rigor and you know, uh and maybe not like suddenly shoot it to the top of Mount Everest, but you know, right. Let's see what we can do from where we are and kind of push it up. Let's push up the expectations and let's try to to make this a little bit tougher. And you know, I think that I do have students who complain about the rigor of my classroom sometimes, and I have students who complain about you know the amount of writing that they did that day, or they complain about this, you know, students love to whine. Right. Well that that age group likes to whine. It's it's you know, music to my ears, honestly. Uh but uh I those moments which don't happen every single day, but those moments when I have a student who comes into my classroom and then leaves my classroom at the end of the year and is like, you know what, I actually like poetry now. I think poetry's cool. Yeah, I didn't think so before. You know, and I I thought I hated it. And that's that's great, that's great. You're like, oh yes, you know, or you know, just even um, you know, you uh I've gotten letters from students sometimes years down the road and they're in college and they're like, you know what, I just explained to my friend the the the levels of the inferno and I used that knowledge. Like that's right, you'll need it forever. That's really important.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome, though. You know, I and I wish um one of the things I'm really passionate about is um talking with other men about being what we're supposed to be. Yeah. Uh what we're called to be, and in today's society, my opinion at least, uh what what men are supposed to be literally flies in the face of what society is telling us to be. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Um we're not weak. Uh we're not supposed to be simply a a male version of our female counterpart. Um but one of the things I've always I've always is has always been appealing to me, and I think it came from my dad was this reality that there can be a combination of strength and masculinity and fierceness with the poetic.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um you know, it I think oftentimes we have a tendency in society to go, you're one or the other. You're either the poet or the warrior, right? Yeah. Uh when in fact you you can be both. Sure. And I'm I I agree with you on so many levels. I I wish, especially men, I wish more men would pick up the books that are the poetry books. Yeah. Um you know, just a different type of reading. Now, my my dad, when I was growing up, of course, I'm sure I don't know, maybe he never did actually, but um when I would read, my dad would always say, What are you reading now? Or even when I would left home and we would talk on the phone, what are you reading now, son? And I'd be well, I'm I'm reading this John Grisham book, and he'd be like, fiction. You know, you know, and he has this thing like there's other things that you could read, you know, that kind of thing. But but I also remember um, I mean, one of my favorite authors of all time, and I think came from my dad was Mark Twain. I love reading Mark. Mark Twain is one of the only writers. Uh David Sederis is another who's more contemporary, obviously. But I I can sit down and read Mark Twain and I will laugh so hard while reading that I'm crying and I can't keep reading. But when you find things like that, um, and then the poetry, yeah, uh, there's there's certain certain poems that you read and you're just like, man, this is we need more of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think, you know, you you think about like um you know, masculinity and poetry, and yeah, a lot of the kids are like, you know, poetry is wimpy or whatever, you know, a little stupid and stuff. Um, and they, you know, I also think they should listen to opera when they're kids, you know what I mean? Yeah, but um, but a lot of the old poems, you got like Iliad and the Odyssey, you know, uh Beowulf, you got um, you know, Dante and um, you know, the Virgil and all these great, great old classics, they are manuals for living, yes, and they are manuals for thriving in a masculine way. Beowulf is one of the greatest handbooks for how to be a good leader, and it shows you the masculine leadership and the feminine leadership, and on the surface, it's a book about a guy who arm wrestles monsters, and yet it keeps going in like the the the refrain over and over again, it keeps saying that was a good king. That was a good king. In the middle, my favorite part of Beowulf is not when Beowulf rips the arm off the monster, it's not when he stabs the dragon, it's not when he, you know, dives into the lair of the you know Grendel's mom or whatever, but it's the sermon that Hrothgar the King gives right smack dab in the middle, and he's giving a sermon to this guy who just saved his bacon twice. And um he's he he's a he was a good king, but he he failed in one way because he wasn't ready for the problem that arose. And he gives this sermon to Beowulf, who he sees as this up-and-coming king. Beowulf's gonna be amazing someday. He already is amazing, but oh my goodness, look at where he's going. And so he gives him this sermon on leadership and on the the importance of leadership, and you've got all these examples that you find throughout the book that show you okay, if you want to be a real man, this is how you do it. And this is how you deal with the problems that life throws at you that you didn't see coming. Because those are the ones that are getting you need you, and this is how you avoid the pride, and this is how you, you know, you don't get you don't get caught up in the your possessions, but you're constantly taking care of others. You're the protector. And it goes into this great lessons, and you're like, you know what? If um I had government officials who just followed these rules, I would be so great. I would be totally fine with that being their whole manual, you know. Forget Machiavelli's the prince or whatever's going on these days. But but this is like good stuff, and then it goes into female leadership too, because there's a lot of queens in the book, and it goes into, you know, their role is a little different, and they've got to be the ones who have more finesse and they've got to learn how to like soften the edges of everything. Uh, and so you've got Wealthi Al, the Queen, you know, by the way, when I was naming my kids, I was like, I want to name my kids after these you know literary characters. All my kids have a Shakespeare reference on their names.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um, and so, you know, um, I I I sort of stunned my wife when she just first found out that we were, you know, we were gonna have a child, and I was like, I want to name him. And so she gave me permission, but then she got veto power. So I was like, I was like, if it's a girl, wealthial is a great name. She's like, no, no, it's not happening. But yeah, you have these these queens who um know how to, you know, you have to be able to know who to trust, right? Which protector to lean on, and you also have to know um how to soften the edges and keep people, you know, keep these manly men from going at each other's throats. And so they have that role there, and there's that danger of vanity, and there's that danger of like getting caught up. It's great stuff, yeah. And it's this Anglo-Saxon poem, you know, like written over a thousand years ago, and it's right awesome stuff.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's um one of my favorite movies of all time, I think touches on a lot of that. Uh, The Dead Poet Society. Oh, yeah, yeah. And you know, you it it's it's I love that movie because you you start and you've got this group of private school boys and they're going into this lit class, and they're like, oh, you know, whatever. And um, but you got Robin Williams' character at one point talking about the purpose of poetry, you know, and he has them rip out all the front front of the book or whatever, and he goes, The purpose of poetry is to woo women. But but you know, he connects with them and and and he you know it he I also it's it's fascinating because he also, if you remember, he takes them outside. Yeah, like they walk and they read poetry, and it's it's um but yeah, poetry. I just so much of life is it's literally poetry in motion, that's what it is. But I think that's another place where I think society at at large, uh the educational system maybe to some degree is played into it, but I think society at large has convinced especially men that poetry is weak, poetry is feminine, poetry is uh no, no, that's not you know we're we need to be over here, cigars, whiskey, and guns, you know. But the the the ability to communicate and and you know it's um words are something very I think very similar to brute strength. Words can make you cry. Yeah. Just the words themselves. And I I was recently talking to a men's group that we meet every Tuesday morning, and my wife and I have talked about it as well. Um, especially when you put words to song, oh yeah, which is in essence poetry. Yeah, yeah. Um there's a song that we sing at church and it comes on the radio sometimes as well. Um, but in in part of the chorus it says, When I fight, I'll fight on my knees. Yep with my hands lifted high. I can't sing that. Like I will literally I I become emotional. And you think why? It's just though that's just a series of words put together with rhyme and meter and music and what because it evokes something in you. It it awakens something in you that it it it's almost like if you take poetry, poetry has the ability to pierce you in a way that just normal conversation doesn't do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. One of my favorite essays on poetry is uh by Christian Wyman. He's a poet, but he was also the editor of uh Poetry Magazine a while back. And um on its hundredth anniversary, it put out this book called Um You know An Open Door, and it was full of poems from the past hundred years. Pretty cool. Um but the the introduction was long and very poetic. But there's this one passage in it um where Christian Wyman's talking about um he talks about how life seems to go faster the older you get. And uh there's a lot of theories about why that happens, but his theory was the the neatest I I think I've seen, and it's that um we put more and more of our life on autopilot, right? Like what did I eat for breakfast? I have no idea. I was I was just doing it, you know. And I I got here before I even like woke up, you know, kind of thing. You know you sometimes experience that where you're going through half your day and you haven't even really turned on your brain yet, you know. And um schools definitely like that. And I think that that is a big part of what we're talking about. There's there's that uh, you know, I've I've gotten into this rut that I've been stuck in for years and years and years. So it goes faster and faster because I'm not actually living it, I'm just flying through it. And so my brain isn't awake, I'm not noticing it. Whereas when you're a kid, you know, a very small child, they notice everything and um and they look at everything. And like the rocks, you're out in the you know, the woods, and you're like picking up the bug, and you're like, Oh, this look at this bug, you know, and like, yeah, cool. And then like two steps later, this is another bug, you know. And you have that experience when you have a very small child that you're taking a walk with or something, where they see everything and everything is fresh and everything is new. My youngest points out every green car we pass, and he's like, I'm a green car we've got in this game now, where like, I saw it first, you know. But there's that that uh everything feels new, and you have a large capacity for surprise, right? But as you get older, your capacity for surprise gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and so you're living everything on autopilot. Well, um, he says one of the beautiful things about poetry is that it reawakens your capacity for surprise. And there's these moments where you're reading something that you experience every day, right? And you're you're you're talking about this song where you're talking about the strength that you gain from prayer, right? And so, you know, that's something that you probably experience every day, and yet when the song opens that to your heart and your mind, all of a sudden you're like, that is so true. Yes, that is what that and and so there's a something about true poetry, like good poetry, that it it it reawakens your capacity for surprise and it points out to you not only things that you've never experienced before, right? And I've never been um a Greek warrior on the battlefield. I don't know what that's like, except for that I do, because I've you know lived with Achilles and Agamemnon and all that. Right. But um, but I also know my own life richer and better because I've seen it through the lens of poetry, which opened my eyes back to the experience I was already having. There's this wonderful poem um about eating an orange or a grapefruit, excuse me. Um and uh and that's all it's about. It's about eating a grapefruit, but it's like this powerful poem about the importance of each little tiny moment in your life. Right. And you like the description of eating the grapefruit makes every grapefruit you eat from now on so much more different. Yeah, it's it's it's what you're saying. It's it's like you you really truly experience things richer and more fully when you are um, you know, when when through music, through poetry, and you know, try to convey some of that to the kids. And it's wonderful when their eyes are open to that. And again, that capacity for surprise thing when they're they've gotten into the rut where all they're thinking about is how quickly they can access their phone again and get on the social media and re post this picture of their face again to all their friends and check and see how many of them liked it. You know, that's that's life all of a sudden. Well, you know, let me pause, let me breathe, let me experience something else.
SPEAKER_00All right, so since we're talking about poetry, I'm gonna read you my favorite poem. Yay. Okay. I love it. Uh Alfred Lord Tennyson, charge of the light brigade. Ah, yes. Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, all in the valley of death, rode to six hundred. Forward to light brigade, charge for the guns, he said, into the valley of death rode the six hundred. Forward to light brigade was there a man dispaid? Not though the soldier knew, someone had blundered, theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of death rode the six hundred, cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front of them, volleyed and thundered, stormed it with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well, into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell rode the six hundred. Flashed all their sabers bare, flashed as they turned in air, sabering the gunners there, charging an army, while all the world wondered, plunged in the battery smoke, right through the line they broke, Cossack and Russian reeled from the saber stroke, shattered and sundered, then they rode back, but not to six hundred. Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon behind them, volleyed and thundered, stormed at with shot and shell, while horse and hero fell. They that fought so well came through the jaws of death, back from the mouth of hell, all that was left of them, left of the six hundred. When can their glory fade? Oh the wild charge they made. All the world wondered, honor the charge they made, honor the light brigade, noble six hundred. How can you read that as a man? How can you read that and not just be like, that's gotta open your mind and your imagination and you can see it.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, yeah. And uh it taps into the things that we all feel as as men where we want to be heroic. Yeah, you wanna you wanna rush in there and be heroic, but it also taps into the thing that s the brokenness of systems, right? That's right. These guys are rush rushing into a pointless fight. That's right, but they're doing their duty and they're doing it a hundred percent, and they are gonna die in that line of duty and they're gonna show themselves true heroes, right? While the buffoons up there who called the shots and called this made this terrible call um look like fools. And that you like you're saying before, you know, you you we live in a world where the system's broken. All we can do is stand up and be heroes as best we can where God has placed us, you know, in in that place. And we have to put some faith into the fact that we we're here for a reason. Absolutely. Uh I'm in this classroom. And you know, you talked about like wanting to change the whole system. I wish I could. I wish I could snap my fingers and change it. And I think that, you know, I I have some hope for some some things in the future, but um but I can do what I can do right where I am.
SPEAKER_00And I think the reality is well, I know the reality is, and I think maybe sometimes people in your position need to hear it more, is um I think you make a huge difference. You don't always see it. Um because the kids that you teach come home to the parents like me. Um and so we are the ones that get to hear about Mr. Nance at the dinner table. Um but I can tell you from my family that uh you had a tremendous impact on my daughter. Thank you. And um she was already a person who loved to read, who loved to express herself with words and with songs, with poems, and then uh meeting someone y like you who kind of embodies that and uh there's a cool factor to it as well, you know, all of those things is very beneficial. So it very well may be uh that though you uh maybe aren't, I guess, in dead poet fashion, standing on the desk shaking your fist at Dewey, okay? Um yeah, you probably are making a huge difference in a lot of people's lives. So uh what does the future hold for Tim Nance?
SPEAKER_02Uh you know, uh well for now I'm enjoying where I am and um definitely enjoying I'll definitely keep teaching as long as I am able. Um I'm really thankful for for where God's placed me and what God's doing. But again, you know, whatever God holds, um you gotta have that trust. Um I've got an awesome family and and great kids and um I look forward to continuing to to raise them up and and um push them out into the world to do things too, and you know, I have I have a lot of hope for the future.
SPEAKER_00But um yeah, so just just keeping at it, I guess. Well I'm glad you are where you are. Um no doubt in my mind that you're an asset to the institution that has you now. Um so I I wish you all the luck and I thank you so much for coming in and having this fun discussion with me.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much.