Stunt Brothers Missing In Action

In Episode 65 of After The Bell, the Stunt Brothers are missing in action. Roy and Martin are half a country apart as they face a possible end to their perfect podcast attendance, a spotless record that spans over 15 unbroken months. This absence sets the stage for a future episode where they delve into the attendance crisis in education. Episode 66 will explore how student absenteeism is impacting learning and engagement across schools. The Stunt Brothers will reveal innovative strategies being tested to encourage attendance, including Ontario's controversial policy of linking grades to attendance. Listeners will gain insights into the challenges teachers face when students skip class and how this affects classroom dynamics. Roy and Martin will discuss the role of mental health, screen time, and school culture in shaping attendance patterns.  Stay tuned as they uncover stories from educators and students on the front lines of this pressing issue. For now, enjoy this bite sized episode that leaves the Stunt Brothers record of 100% attendance unblemished. 

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Transcript

Speaker 2 0:05

Good afternoon, podcast listeners everywhere. Welcome to After the Bell, a Stunt Brothers production.

Speaker 1 0:11

I'm Martin Stuible. And I'm Roy Hunt, and we share your pain, having taught a combined 70 years. Seventy years. I know. Wow. So get out your marking, organize your supplies, or just pour yourself a coffee. I think I need something stronger. That's okay. Okay. And listen, engage, and interact with After the Bell, a podcast for you, the hardworking, dedicated teacher who wants free lesson plans, free advice, and a free meal. Oh, I always show up for a free meal. Hey, there you are. What do you mean, there I am? Well, you're supposed to be here with me. We're supposed to be recording. Well, actually, yes. We're actually supposed to be together in North Vancouver, but I'm in St. Thomas, Ontario, and I I have no idea where you are.

Speaker 2 0:57

I'm in the dead center of British Columbia in Fort St. James right now. All right. And uh we're not attending our own podcast. Well, I know it's the our attendance record is perfect. It's 100% since January 2025. We've been 100% on.

Speaker 1 1:15

Well, that's better than my regular school record. When I was a student.

Speaker 2 1:21

And for a while we were going, maybe we can't. We have Monday's episode coming up. We're in two separate parts of the country. Yeah. But I couldn't handle the thought of actually not keeping this record going and being six. This is episode sixty-five. Okay. Yeah. I did not want to let our listeners down, or myself down, or you down. So this would be season two, episode thirty-five. That's correct, right?

Speaker 1 1:44

There you go. See, even though I'm far away and I'm not in the same room as you, I still know I still know.

Speaker 2 1:52

Glad to hear it. It's just going to be a short episode. I think we'll kind of, you know, because we we're we're busy with things right now, but we want to make sure episode 65 comes out. Maybe attendance is kind of the issue because we're missing an action. We're not really attending the positive podcast. And that's been in the news a lot lately.

Speaker 1 2:09

Yes, it has. The big discussion is uh chronic absenteeism, and based on the idea that students are missing at least 10% of the year, and that's classed as chronic. So I believe there's about a what 180 days in a school year?

Speaker 2 2:29

Right, yeah, on average.

Speaker 1 2:30

On average. So then you take you know 10% of that, that's um averages out to about what two days a month.

Speaker 2 2:38

Yeah, and I think but I think about 40% of students in Canada are having more than 10% absences. Right. And you're in the you're in the province where they're testing something out, right? There's some new law, I believe.

Speaker 1 2:52

Well, yes, in in Ontario, according to the the Ministry uh of Education, uh teachers were wanted to have solved the problem with chronic absenteeism. And so they've come up with uh a plan for for high school students where from I believe it's from uh grades uh nine to ten, fifteen percent of your uh not to grade twelve. Well, starting in grade nine and ten. Starting grade nine, ten, fifteen percent of of your grade will be your uh attendance, and then up from eleven to twelve, it'll be ten percent of your mark will be made up from from attendance and then for your report. So I'm thinking there's all kinds of opinions on this, right? There are a lot of opinions.

Speaker 2 3:42

I mean, yeah.

Speaker 1 3:43

Uh and and I know that the big discussion is well, it's not that simple. It's not just hey, what we'll do is we'll incentivize coming to school by giving students uh marks for attendance. In the real world, when they go to work, they would lose, they'd get fired.

Speaker 2 4:00

I bet that's that opinion is probably out there, right?

Speaker 1 4:03

Right. Well, and then you you get different i ideas. There are are a lot of mental health challenges that are surfacing in in schools, and there there aren't a lot of resources in supporting those students. So, how does giving them a percentage for their grade help them because they're still suffering from mental health issues? And then I'm reading articles from parents who say, like, I have no problem with my child missing school. And a lot of these parents are saying, my child does very well in schools. There's a like this, you know, they'll say a straight A student or exceeding expectations. So it's easy for them in school, so I have no problem with them taking time off school.

Speaker 2 4:48

I think um this is a bit of an experiment in Ontario where maybe we'll see. Maybe we'll maybe it will result in what we want, right? Maybe we'll get kids back, or maybe it's just gonna make the problem worse. Like those that already have good reasons why they're not going, well, they're not gonna suddenly go. That's kind of the question with this. Yeah, right. And I know CBC has talked about it, it's been in the news. It's certainly a North American problem. It was a COVID problem, yes. That's why it's worthy of our further study. And it would be great since the episode will come out in episode 66, where we'll fine-tune this in the stunt brothers' way. Yes. Maybe we can get some opinion from teachers in terms of what they're seeing.

Speaker 1 5:25

Love to hear from our our listeners so that we can use their comments for making this uh podcast more connected to the views of our listeners. I'd really like to know what are the biggest challenges for teachers in the classroom when they have inconsistent attendance with their students. What what kind of a challenge is that? How how do you how do you work through that? Have you you had to change your style of teaching?

Speaker 2 5:50

I think people do because if if if 10 to 20 percent are always away, you're always catching kids up. And that is a challenge, I guess, for the teacher, right? I know it was for me for sure. And then you know, do you teach just general stuff because you have somehow you know somewhere missing? It's not easy, but I think we need to understand really why this is happening and is this is this the real way to kind of make it go away. And it might not be, it might work. See, Ontario, how you do?

Speaker 1 6:17

It would be interesting. And what are some other solutions? I mean, I even read uh some comments where a parent said, Well, it's because school's boring, and so you need to make it more interesting.

Speaker 2 6:27

But it's that attention thing we've talked about. I think a lot of the things we've talked about in this podcast are kind of rooted in this, right? Is it screen time? Is it the analog classroom we're looking for? What is it? So we in a future episode are going to have students on, high school students on, a panel of high school students. This will be a great thing to ask them. Like, how do they feel about it? And we have a lot of other guests coming on. We have the the very well-known author, David A. Robertson, right? He's an award-winning player. We've got many other people coming, so exciting times ahead for future episodes that we will attend as the Stun Brothers and not miss, we will not be missing an action. We will not be absent.

Speaker 1 7:12

Well, because we did this episode, we still have perfect attendance, and that for me is really important. And so so if we two retired teachers could find that perfect attendance is important, maybe we can just encourage and help students out there to want to have perfect attendance.

Speaker 2 7:34

If nothing else, maybe we're failing in everything else, but if we're getting that 10% mark, 15% mark, you know, it's a I'm I'm gonna start with that and be happy with that.

Speaker 1 7:42

I'll take 15% just for showing up. Yeah, the product quality doesn't matter. I showed up. That's right. I'm I'm here and I'm breathing.

Speaker 2 7:50

Yeah. Well, I look forward to seeing you again back in our box in the studio where we record. Hopefully, we'll be there for next week. And then we have another special guest, like I said, David A. Robertson coming in the following week. And uh, we'll be planning more episodes. So I'm glad we still connected. Episode 65 happened. It's a short one, but it's it's done. It's checked off that box. It checked it off. We did well. So yep, I got my I got my 15%. There you go. Good to see you, man. Good to see you. Thanks, listeners. Stay in touch and and let us know. Go to our Facebook page on After the Bell, go to stuntbrothers.ca and give us your comments on this topic. We'll do some videos as well, where TikTok videos where hopefully you can contribute your thoughts about attendance. Is it a problem at your school? Are you a student and you think this is a good idea? Are you a student and you think this is not a good idea? Parents, what do you think? We want to hear from everyone. That would be great. There you go. See everyone, stay healthy, stay happy, stay fit. We'll see you next time. I ask with the bell. Show up. Yeah. If nothing else, at least show up. This podcast is organic, taking shape with each episode. Hmm. Building resiliency for teachers everywhere.

Speaker 9:03

That sounds great.

Speaker 2 9:04

And our website is stuntbrothers.ca.

Speaker 9:06

That's stuntbrothers.ca.

Speaker 2 9:09

We will chat again after the bell.