Go Where You’re Known: Lessons on Friendship, Teaching, and Community | Garrett Holt

When Garrett Holt graduated from college, he had opportunities to move across the country and pursue adventure.

Instead, a mentor gave him simple advice:

“Go with your friends.”

More than a decade later, that decision shaped his career, his family, his community, and hundreds of students at Atlanta Classical Academy.

In this episode of The Liberty Show, Matthew Kirby sits down with Garrett Holt to discuss teaching, coaching, friendship, fatherhood, and the role community plays in forming meaningful lives. Garrett reflects on his journey from a young teacher fresh out of college to one of the most beloved educators and mentors at Atlanta Classical Academy.

Along the way, they explore classical education, character formation, faculty culture, coaching athletics, digital distraction, and why the relationships we build often matter more than the opportunities we chase.

Topics include:

• Why community matters more than career advancement
• Lessons from teaching fifth grade and high school students
• Building meaningful friendships after college
• Coaching, leadership, and character formation
• The role of history in developing wisdom and judgment
• Why schools should help form virtuous citizens
• The importance of intergenerational relationships
• Fatherhood and finding a slower pace of life
• Fighting distraction in a digital world
• Advice for aspiring teachers

Whether you’re a parent, educator, coach, student, or recent graduate, this conversation offers a thoughtful reflection on what makes a life well-lived.

🎙️ About the Guest

Garrett Holt serves as Dean of Student Life and History Teacher at Atlanta Classical Academy. Since helping launch the school in 2014, he has taught across multiple grade levels, coached championship athletics, mentored students, and helped cultivate a thriving school culture rooted in friendship, virtue, and intellectual formation.  

📚 Learn more about Liberty Classical Schools:
https://libertyclassicalschools.org

Subscribe for more conversations on classical education, character formation, leadership, and human flourishing.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Liberty Show, where we talk about American classical education and invite you to join us in the work of forming knowledgeable, virtuous citizens. My name is Matthew Kirby. I'm the CEO of Liberty Classical Schools, and we exist to launch and operate K-12 American Classical Schools that emphasize virtuous living and traditional learning and civic responsibility. You can learn more about us at Liberty Classical Schools.org. And today I have the opportunity to talk with one of our long-standing teachers, Mr. Garrett Holt. Mr. Garrett Holt is known by many folks in our school communities. He's been a teacher at Atlanta Classical Academy since our very first year. Today he serves as our Dean of Student Life for Boys, and he's teaching history in the 11th grade and also the seventh grade. And Mr. Holt joined, he joined us in 2014, straight out of Hillsdale College, where he was a history professor. He spent nine years as a fifth grade teacher before transitioning into the high school. Mr. Holt grew up in a military as a military brat in Nebraska, and most of his family still lives there. He he enjoys tea, hiking, camping, and Nebraska football. And would say that one of the best parts of his job is that he gets to teach in a school with many of his great friends, also his wife, and also his brother. And uh Mr. Holt is one of those guys that I got to know very early in our initiative. Uh, went to a job fair in the spring before we launched Atlanta Classical back in 2014. And he was one of these gentlemen that folks at this job fair said, you gotta meet Garrett Holt. He's a young man who's gonna bring an incredible amount of energy to your campus, will get involved in virtually everything, and will apply himself to the art and the craft of teaching. And he has absolutely done that. Uh, he has matured and developed as a teacher and as a coach, and has been incredibly inspiring to many of our students, and now to our teachers as well. And uh is a guy, I I I commented about him in our interview that if we had to do a contest of what teacher knew the name of every student who'd ever attended Atlanta Class School, and it's 12 plus years now, I think Mr. Holt would be the guy who probably could name every single student, uh, which I think says a lot about him. He cares a lot about our kids and is an excellent teacher in history. And I know you're gonna enjoy my conversation with Mr. Garrett Holt. Garrett, thank you so much for doing this interview with us. I'm so excited to talk to you. Tell tell me, first of all, what are you teaching right now?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

So, right now I'm doing 11th grade and seventh grade U.S. history. So I do two sections of 11th grade and one section of seventh grade. Yeah. On the on the side, I do uh Dean of Student Life for Boys. So it kind of help out with some of the um both culture building and reactive and proactive culture and in discipline as well as helping run events and kind of helping uh Mr. Nugent create systems for the school.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Yeah. And so pretty huge transition. You taught fifth grade for nine years. Yep. And then moved into the high school or the upper school. Yeah. And what's that been like?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Oh, it's honestly, I I think a lot of people have the idea that they're they come into the lower school and they're maybe waiting for an upper school position. They see it as some like a promotion almost. And and I just I think at ACA, thankfully, we have a lot of people like like Mr. Clausen or um or other people who span a lot of the grades and Dr. KT. And so um I I for me, it was like really I described it as like a net, a net zero gain. It's like I I've really enjoyed both of them. It hasn't felt like one has been more enjoyable than the others. In fact, there's really great things about both of them. I always describe it as fifth grade, is I I love the age of fifth grade. I think just at that age, they're smart enough to start asking really good questions. Um, but they're still really earnest and eager. Like they're excited for school. They're excited to see the teacher, they're excited to talk about the books. Um in high school, it's a little, you know, you're you're you're you're 11th grade, you're you're you're going through a little more emotionally, a little more angst, uh, a little few people are more jaded.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

But you get to have really thinking a lot about what the people around you are thinking about.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

It's probably a 70-30 split between the people around you and the curriculum you're you're going through. Um but you get to have uh a a deeper level of conversations. Um and you're so much closer to sending them out into the world. So it really feels like there's a you're in a critical time there. Um but I've kind of described it to people as as like in the lower school, you're kind of keeping the lid on a boiling pot at all times. There's just kind of something happening, it's like whack-a-mole with problems. It's like this kid can't do it. This kid needs the help of this. You need to be quiet in the halls. Yeah. Whereas in the high school, most kids have it figured out. But then when there is a problem, it's one that you just needs a lot more help and a lot more assistance there. Yeah. Um, so I always tell people it's not necessarily, I think where you fit is not necessarily based on your knowledge of the content as much as it is what's going to drain you at the end of the day. Is it gonna be that constant application of your energy at just keeping everything under control? Or is it gonna be those few students who you're really gonna be thinking about a lot after school, who you're really gonna be pouring a lot of your emotional energy into? Um, but I've really found both of them to be incredibly rewarding in their ways.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

That's really insightful.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Yeah, that's really I I totally understand that. Um so how how do you think you have changed as a teacher? I mean, you've obviously moved to a new grade range and you've mentioned some of the the challenges there. Yeah. But how have you how have you developed? How do you assess that?

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Um I think so I I've been at ACA since the very beginning and opening up a school, which now you do all the time now with Liberty is is a tiring thing to be there on ground zero or day one and trying to figure out things. Um being there at the opening of ACA, a lot of it was was trial and error figuring things out. So um I think people always talk about like year three of teaching is where you really find your groove. And I feel like so much of those first few years, it was like year five because we were kind of recording things, like, oh, this was great, and I want to add this in. And part of that's my own personality of keeping like recording things and systematizing things. Um, but I feel like for those first few years of uh of lower school, it was just figuring out the rhythms of classroom. I mean, honestly, you really classroom management is one of the biggest ways that you just that just eats up so much of your time. I I just got back from uh a job fair looking for new for new candidates for the school. And it's funny talking to them about like, what do you think about classroom management? Because it's totally an abstract idea. Like they have no idea. They know it's oh, you should be firm with students. Like, what does that mean? Right, right. You don't know what happened, you know, when someone when the craziest things are happening, when someone zips real story, zips their eyelid in it in or zips their eyelid in their jacket, and someone else is yelling throws up because of it, and now you're running across. Like that's classroom management.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Um they don't teach that in school. No. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

And so I think part of it is just you get to the point where I've described it as the first few years, you're so aware of everything happening that it's really hard to enjoy really what's happening in the classroom. Like there's so many beautiful moments, but you're just like, I gotta get to the end of the day. I gotta get to the end of this lecture. Um, that as I think what I've just been able to, I think, as develop as a teacher, lesson plans come together easy. I can plan a little farther in advance. Um, but I think one of the things that I feel like I've developed the most in is you have the ability to you're not thinking about how you're gonna respond to a situation anymore, that you can you have your toolbox is just more full of teaching strategies, of uh, of classroom management strategies. And I think just how I've hopefully evolved as a teacher is more joyful in the classroom because you're not thinking about, am I doing this these checklist lists of things? It just kind of comes naturally. Now when this thing you I go in without having to think about the classroom management element, without having to think about how I'm gonna teach this thing again. So I can just be there and enjoy, like let us sit in the questions, even when it gets awkward, or I can enjoy this answer that's really gonna take us into left field. But I just that's something that I'm not as worried in the background about am I gonna get to where I thought I was gonna get to? And sometimes that comes back to bite me if you go too far a tangent all the time. But I think as a yeah, I think if I had to summarize it, it's been able to enjoy being in the moment with the ch with the students and and see, and that just allows them to participate in the conversation more.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

Yeah. Well, I mean, you yourself went from 22 years old to 32 years old. I mean, and I can imagine that's a huge uh amount of maturity and things kind of slow down and you get your arms around it. Um Well, it's been really joyful to watch you do that. What what is what are the elements of the fifth grade curriculum that were inspiring to you and then you know interesting to the students?

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Yeah. Um I found myself far more interested in so many of the subjects than I had initially thought I would be. I was a history major in college and I knew I was really excited. In fact, when I was applying for the job, I really wanted a history job, but it was already filled. And so the principal at the time said, Well, we have we have this spot for you if you're interested. And at the time, I hadn't I said, sure, like I wanted to be here. I knew, I knew several of the people who were gonna be in Atlanta, including our our principal, our current upper school principal at the time. Um, and so I said, Hey, that sounds like I want to be here with these people, I want to be here with friends. Sure, I'll take it. Um and so coming in, I knew I'd like history, I really enjoyed literature. I think the literature curriculum in the fifth grade is fantastic. Um, but I found myself uh really enjoying math as something that I was that was if I was one of those people, if you asked me what kind of student I was, I would say like very something I tell the students not to say, like, don't say I'm not this disciplined student. And I would always say, I'm not a math guy, this is not who I am. But I had I just found that that was one of the things that I enjoyed so much in in being able to teach it, I think teach it classically, right? There's always the question, the million-dollar question of well, what does it mean to teach like science and math classically? And I I found that at that level in fifth grade it was the most Socratic class I could have. And you would you would do solid shapes on the board. We'd have like some complex, like a rectangle with like a triangle on top. And you'd ask, okay, well, what's what's the volume of this? And then you could ask kids, well, you found it out this way. You broke the triangle and the rectangle and you found the formula. Can you find another way to divide this? What if this distance was actually this distance? Um What if we found the how could you find the negative space here and subtract that? And then you and this is like, you know, one one minor example, but I found so much more joy in the actual give and take of the class through teaching math than I had than than I had been prepared for. And I found myself I I understand math far better after teaching nine years of fifth grade than I ever had before. Yeah. I remember at the beginning of the teaching fifth grade, we we started off with uh we have the Singapore math curriculum, and so much of it's based around word problems. And after you know, the the the the common the common complaint, more lament from parents is this is not the math that I learned, right? This is not because it's too progressive, but just because it's thinking in a way that is so pictorial and abstract. Um and I I I was definitely the teacher in the first few weeks of school where I would look at a question that I'd assigned for homework and say Does anybody who who thinks they got this one? Let's see if you can do it. I'm like, oh, thank you, so and so. I'm just taking notes down here as this fifth graders doing this picture, this question here. But I I got to the point where that was just something that that was just so enlivening to me to be able to think in these different ways and to really understand that a mathematical mind is a is a logical mind. Um and so that was one thing I really that really jumped out to me at the fifth grade curriculum, specifically the math of like the early stages of algebra, geometry I loved. And then and then the um the history curriculum is the width and breadth of human existence there. I mean, we basically would start out when I tell people this, I get halfway through and I'm like, this is just first semester, don't worry, we still have more. It's you know, you start out with uh Mesoamerican civilizations, age of exploration, the Renaissance, feudal Japan, um uh Russia, pre-pre-revolution Russia, and that's first semester. And then you get into um basically 1820 America through the Civil War. And so there's just so much to cover there, and so much, it's so you know, it's so fun doing this, so much fun doing this with fifth graders who have never heard of these events before. By the time you get to high school, they're at least familiar with it, but you're just giving them the boxes for this. Like they they don't know what the they've never heard Renaissance before. And so when they hear it now, it's so it to watch them come into contact with the great conversation, really, these you're now starting to have conversations about what does this mean? What does it mean to what is a humanist? What does this mean? What are they when they talk about the dignity of man? What does that mean? It's no longer, hey, who is the first president, what battle is this? It is asking them the deep questions that are raised by these great moments in history.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Um, and then the literature curriculum is it it's shifted a little bit. When I was doing it, we're doing the narrative life of Frederick Douglass, we were doing the adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Secret Garden, we do a Shakespeare every year, um, Wind in the Willows, one of my personal favorites. This is my my wife always gets me tied at the beginning of the year, and this is a badger tie for Wind in the Willows. Love it. Yeah, that's right. But just the conversations you can have about those things are uh I think some of the best, best collection of of books that you have at any one grade.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Tom Sawyer, is that is that one of the fifth grade.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yes, yeah, Tom Sawyer.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah. Fantastic. Every you read that, and um unlike the Secret Garden, which is a little more heavy-handed and didactic with its lessons, uh, Tom Sawyer just it just it just feels like real life when you're reading about the interaction of the girls and the boys in the schoolyard, and you're reading this, and there's some shot fired at the ridiculousness of a teen of a like a 10-year-old boy, and all the girls crack up, and then it's followed immediately by a shot at the ridiculousness of the girls, and all the boys start losing it. Because it's it's it's real. It's like he was watching us in the playground like this.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

So fantastic literature. I mean, all of the things. Yeah. Fifth grade, very highly recommend to any any potential uh people looking for lower school employment. It's a great age. Yeah. Great grade.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Well, you did such a great job with it. And uh to have your level of energy and passion for what you're doing in the lower school. Um, quite frankly, to have a man in the lower school is a super great thing. Yeah. Um, so I know they were um sad to lose you in that in that area, but then you moved to high school. So maybe a little bit about the 11th grade for those who don't know. What what is the uh crux of the 11th grade history curriculum?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Aaron Powell So 11th grade, we do we do it all. Um we we try to, we try to get off the problem with American history is every year it gets longer and we still have one year to teach.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

But the big theme is American history. Big theme is American history, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

So we start in uh kind of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, kind of paint the picture before the arrival of Europeans, talk briefly about uh the age of exploration. Again, a lot of that, thankfully, be because we have an excellent curriculum that spirals on itself, we kind of just pick up right where they left off in tenth grade, or at least they have talked about the English Civil Wars, they've talked about the Protestant Reformation. So some of those things we can kind of hop right into. Uh but yeah, so you get to go through the whole the whole width and breadth of U.S. history.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

Yeah. And then um also the audience may not know we don't use textbooks. How have you built your your curriculum? I mean, what what tell talk a little bit about the sources that you use?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah. So most of my sources, this is actually a change when I worked on this a l a lot this this uh summer, was we we have a textbook as like background reading to kind of give them like the narrative. Here's what's happening here. Um it's small, it's three pages a night, three pages three times a night, or three times a week. Uh but most of what we do is I have a primary document reader. Um in the past, we've had basically roughly twenty primary documents a semester. So every week you're doing one of the heavy hitters. Um, you're reading all of in the past or parts of uh Up From Slavery, or you're reading uh George Washington's Farewell Address, or you are reading uh the Declaration of Independence. And you some of the papers is that part of the heavy hitters. And some of those actually uh government does. So you get it's it's great to be able to kind of space it out. But you're reading the really seminal works of American history. But this year I really wanted we still do those, but I I created this new primary document reader for the first semester that was actually I don't remember the exact numbers, like 120 documents. And some of them I kept in their entirety, but some of them I shortened. And a lot of it just I wanted to expand the scope of what history was. There's a way that history becomes just these famous speeches. Like it's just, oh, there is this political treatise about this that we remember, or some guy gave this inauguration address. But I wanted them to see that history is the the ledgers from a store to the letter from William Tecumseh Sherman to his brother during the Civil War, to a flyer posted around Boston after the Boston Massacre. Um that yeah, history is not uh I think there's a way that we envision, oh, there's this one true narrative, history is handed down on high to us in this in the form of a textbook that has this exactly how it happened, and trying to get them to understand that we understand history because we are piecing together all of these different pictures and snapshots from the past that come from come from the president as well as from the shop owner, that comes from people from all ranges that we have that it's this intricate, complex web that we can only try to like pick little parts of. Um, and that's where we do a lot of those. So I'll alternate most days having maybe a lecture about uh whatever the event we're doing. But even then I'll try to say, hey, let's start off with this. Let's turn to this page and we're gonna look at this half-page document. What does this show us about the idea of popular sovereignty? How is this received in Kansas? And that is the core of how we do our history.

SPEAKER_03 18:22

Aaron Powell And at that level, uh a whole lot more Socratic discussion, I would assume. Or uh how how how does that come about?

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah. And history is a funny one because you have to find because for so many of them, it's I always uh my my wife used to teach uh literature at our school. We talked to her about how you know you're reading the Iliad, and I would watch her class and on the board is like, what is glory? And it's this very broad range thing that everyone can can contribute in history when you're talking about how did popular sovereignty affect these people? What you have big questions you can ask, but there's a little bit more of I have to tell you what happened here. Yeah. Um and I think that's, and maybe even back to your previous question, that's one way I feel like I've been growing is trying to find those big, those big questions that everyone can really jump into. So what is this, how does the idea of uh popular sovereignty, or how does this idea in in in the gilded age of like this new rise of urban politics is this compatible with the Republican government? Like is this compatible with the way things have are created to work here? Um and that's the way you can really bring them in because you need to do both skills, right? You need to have be able to have the ability to analyze a text and say to actually leave out your own opinion and say, what is this person telling me about this? And I and and trying to get the kids to take them at at face value and say, this person, it might seem weird to us, but this person probably meant what they said. And that is a skill of history I want them to know is try to as as seemingly alien or or even maybe repulsive as a view might be, not asking you to agree with it. I'm asking you to understand it. And that's one of the biggest things I hope they can take away from it. Um and then when we once we do that, then we can have the big questions about what does this mean to live in a society together with this, the instruction of this idea. Um and that's yeah, that's how you really have those bigger Socratic discussions in the history class.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

That's great. Um So uh just to congratulate you, I did hear uh that uh that Doug Lamov visited the school, got to visit you and see you teach, and then passed along a really incredible compliment about your teaching.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Yeah. Pretty awesome. I was honored. I I I really I think it was uh That's a guy that's been in a lot of classrooms. I know. It was honored to hear that. It was kind of a terrifying thing to hear that. I was like, oh man, I I think I vaguely remember him being there, but I think it was just weird to me, it was a lesson that we were I think I was just so scared that he was even in there to see this guy who was like, I've read your book, like you're a big deal.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

I'm glad he enjoyed it, but I was honored to hear that.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Yeah, that's really I mean, I think the quote was something to the effect of it's the best or one of the best history uh lessons he'd ever observed. Yeah. So that's really incredible, Garrett. I mean, that's you should be very proud of that. Well, let's shift a little bit to culture. I want to ask you a little bit about um sort of the culture of the faculty, first of all. How would you sort of describe uh what our culture is and what we at least strive for within the school, and then we'll and then we'll kind of talk a little bit about how that impacts our students. But maybe just start with the kind of the faculty culture.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Yeah, I the faculty culture is what is why I I mean, I don't know what would have happened had I been in another school. Maybe I would have just fallen in love with teaching so much. Um but I just think the thing that makes speak for Atlanta Classical is an amazing faculty of friends and an amazing sense of of of of unity that we are in this really important. Important task together. That's one thing that our our our head of school and principals do an amazing job of is we're we're not here. What we're doing is we're shape we're shaping souls and we're all in this work together. We're not just creating um the goal is to create students who are, you know, knowledgeable in in in in uh mind and in spirit, right? To be able to create virtuous souls as well as knowledgeable citizens. Um and I think that extra element of being able to push us toward, right, it's it's important to that we are knowledgeable in content, right? But it's also it's just so much more rewarding to know that through the content that we teach also, what we're doing is we're creating students who hopefully fundamentally will be different for their time at ACA, no matter what background they come from. Some I think materially by going to ACA, their lives will be radically changed. And some maybe, maybe material, maybe they have, maybe because of their family, maybe you know, they could have gone to another school in the area and and done well, gone into a good college. But I like to think that their view on the world and the way they experience others and their own life will be different because of that. And I think that that brings the faculty together. A lot of us, I mean, without with lack of cliche, it's like we we we see each other on the weekends, we do stuff after school, like during the breaks, we find each other to sit on the veranda together and talk. And it's not just gossip or complaining. In fact, that's hardly ever what it is. It's like if there is a student who is causing problems, it's usually like, oh my goodness, this is we love this kid. We know he's capable of so much more. Like that is that is the conversations that we have. And it's just the ability, and I think having that culture where we are all united toward this goal of improving our our. I think Mr. uh our music teacher at the school, Mr. Franklin, does says this so well. He's like, I have been shaped and improved by this education. And I think everyone at ACA, hopefully faculty, can say the same, is that it is an amazing faculty. And and I think that truly bleeds into the student culture, is that they see the way adults behave together. They should that we we we care for each other and that this is the way you interact with each other that is an encouraging. It's not, you know, just the way you interact as a 14-year-old boy is you just make fun of each other, right? And say, hey, maybe at some point you should grow past this, right? Right. Um but I think it's that I I think I can't remember the exact I'll quoting this stat here, and I think it was actually um can't remember where I got it from, but two stories that stick out to me was um like someone said that the number one indicator of I think it was like SAT score, ACT score was does the child have dinner with her family each night? And another one of like in a similar vein of of the passing down information culture was like, I think it was in in in um terms of of religion, like if if the ch if your child will stay in the faith that you grew up in, the number one indicator of that is do they have a um older, an older member or an older family friend that they are close with. And I just think hopefully we can provide those things for our students, both that we're doing life together. We're we're sitting at them with lunch, we are having those meals together with them, we're we're asking about more than just their grades. And we're also those those in a society that is starved of intergenerational connections. Hopefully, we can be that for them to provide a window into something a little bit beyond where they currently are.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's right. So I want to ask you a little bit about kind of going way back. Um I had the pleasure of meeting you when we were hiring initially back, I guess that was like probably spring of 2014.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:44

And uh you and a handful of your classmates from Hillsdale College came to us. Um, and it seems to me there was a high degree of intentionality to build your lives around one another. I'm curious, sort of how conscious were you all of that? You all were all, you know, seniors in college, 22 years old, basically.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

Um Yeah, I mean, were was that was that a thoughtful, calculated maneuver? Or or did it just kind of work out that way? And I mean, maybe give advice to to some college students who are thinking about you know their career selection, maybe they're moving into teaching or maybe not, but yeah, how was that decision sort of paid off for you?

SPEAKER_00 26:23

To answer the first part of that, it was very, very conscious decision. Um I I think as most 22-year-olds do, when I was looking up, I I didn't know that I wanted to teach until that job fair where I had walked around and started to talk about education and I was and realized this animates me so much. I'd just gone to like a a local uh job fair that was just for local businesses in the area up um the week before. And I had had fun talking to people, but it was like, okay, well, this is the next step in my life. And this just kind of provided a alternative direction that I had not foreseen. I mean, I think in the back of my mind, everyone had always, you know, everyone always says, Oh, you're a history major, probably going to teach. And I'd said, Ah, you know, maybe. We'll see what happens. Um it is what happened. And um yeah, so and I think I was looking around, and I and because it was at that Hillcell job fair, there's schools around the country. And I remember I was looking at some places that would have been out west or in the mountains, and I was like, oh, that would be really cool. And I remember knowing that several of my friends were moving down to Atlanta, and that was not on my radar um as a as a place I wanted to go. I'm from Nebraska originally. And I remember going to talk to one of my professors and who I who I really trusted and respected, and I said, Hey, here's my choice is like, well, what would you do in this? And he goes, I mean, can't tell you to live your life, but go with your friends. Like, mountains are cool, yeah, but they're gonna last you a few years, and you'll you'll go on some hikes and you'll have some fun for a little bit, and then you gotta go home. Right. And then you have to like do life. Right. And why not do that with the people you care about and love? And I I think that conscious decision to do that and and has been one of the best decisions I've ever made. I think to be here and to have a community that has been, I think what I've loved about ACA is that it's it started out as some friends, then it grew into the whole school of ACA, and now it just keeps exp, I feel like that circle just keeps expanding and bringing people into it. And that's something that I like I hope I can send out to our to our students. I uh started along years back. It was one one Sunday before we had the uh uh like a case of the Sunday scary as you're getting ready for the day, and you're like, oh gosh, we have a whole week ahead of us. And my friends and I, we just made a bunch of like we I love instrumental bluegrass music. We just played a bunch of bluegrass music, lit a bunch of candles, sat there with a cup of tea, and just relaxed. And it turned into this big event that we have, uh like a monthly called Tea Time. And we just invite anybody, my my college friend's great aunt, uh former students, like parents of the school, friends, like everybody. And it sometimes you have six people, sometimes you have 30 people. But what ended up happening is one of our students who graduated started doing that with all of her college friends. And that was one of the most beautiful moments of like, this is why we're here doing this. This is why we're creating this community. And that's like when I mean, in so many ways it's paid off and it's been it's been meaningful of why we're here together as a fa as a school and as a community here. But yeah, I think I would recommend to any person looking for it, like go where you have connection. Like experiences are gonna be really fun for a little bit. Um, but what's gonna actually give you meaning and and um really satisfy the a deeper longing is a sense of community and being loved and being known. And that can happen in places that you might not have really thought you would, right? Or thought you'd find it. And so that'd be my recommendation. Like it's cool to see the world and that that's great, but that's gonna make up a lot smaller of your time than the day-to-day lived experience with knowing you have people for you.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Well, and in in your case, uh you found a wife. That was also a bonus. And now you've uh moved into fatherhood.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 30:07

How do you think how's that changed you?

SPEAKER_00 30:09

It's just made me a lot more content and grounded. Um my wife and I always make fun, we we like my wife is a foodie. I, she's an excellent chef. I am a foodie by proxy, I enjoy good food. And so we always joked that we had the classic, I forget which gen generation we are, millennial problem, but of like, oh, we live in Atlanta. Do we go to the what do we do on a Friday night? Do we go to the new Michelin star restaurant? Or this one has a James Beard semifinalist, and we're like, you know, point our hair at this decision. Tough one. And it's like, oh no, it's nice that we we moved in a house up in Marietta, and it's like, oh, it's a lot quieter up here. We have the local Mexican place, the local pizza place, the local burger. And it's just it just quiets you because you want to be here with the family and and and and and your son. And so I think that if anything, it's all these things that were kind of pulling at my attention. Um, I just want to be home. And I just want to be in a slow pace of life, and I want to see him and my wife, and it's just want to sit there and watch him try to eat a bowl of uh oatmeal, which is immensely entertaining right now. So but I think it's just just slowed, slowed me down a lot, which I've for those of you who have known me for a while, that is one thing that I've needed for a long time.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

So well I'm sure you have needed it, but I tell you what, your um the kids at our school and our school has benefited from your energy and has benefited from your um engagement in anything and everything around the school. I think that is probably the you know, that that faculty of friends you mentioned earlier. A lot of y'all were like that. Obviously, um few of you were married right away. Yep. And um your your the freedom of being young and single was a huge advantage to our students. And uh and so maybe it's time to pass that torch a little bit, you know, good thing to kind of bring in some less experienced teachers who can pour themselves into every moment and every event, you know, all that's super positive too. Um so, well, speaking of extracurricular activities, coaching is a big part of your life. Tell us about your your program, your soccer program. How's that going?

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Uh I one of my my uh my wife always has to remind me that I have a stipend to coach and I have a salary to teach because during soccer season I get a little one-track mind.

SPEAKER_03 32:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Um I coaching has become just one of one of I I hate to use the word, I think the word craft, people talking about their craft is is is overused. But that is the thing where I feel like having it, it is really, I don't have many handy skills. I'm not, I don't work on, I don't create things with my hands, but for me it's the opportunity to create something, to create something and watch it play out. Um I uh Yeah, so I've I've coached for, I've been coaching the girls' varsity team. I I'd coached the middle school boys and the boys team previously, uh, but then I took over the girls' varsity team back in 2020 uh first season was COVID season, so we had a short, short little run there. Um and then had the have the absolute joy of being able to coach the team uh to a state championship the next year, as you know, your daughter on the team. An amazing experience. Um and then we've somehow just because we've had, I just the girls at ACA are amazing. Like it is the culture is something that my brother is the assistant coach, has been the assistant coach for the past six years as well. Um and it just has a really familial feel. Um and I think, yeah, that maybe that's the theme of ACA is it's a familial feel. And a lot of these kids are sisters of the girls that I taught. And just a few things I look forward to on a beautiful spring day, then getting to go outside, run around, play the sport. Um, but I it's it's such an amazing I I people um people always talk about like, would you ever want to like coach like the local club team? And I I don't think I would because it's it's not with people that I I know. Like I don't enjoy just coaching in a nutshell, like just in a vacuum. Yeah, in a vacuum, yeah. Like I enjoy coaching the girls that I taught in fifth grade, and then I taught again in 11th grade. And it's the ability to I think part of it, I mean we we I think we live in a in an age where we're kind of scared of ambition and striving. It's like we're here to win. Like I think one of my goals of the program is that we we're perennial contenders for the state title. But that hap- but but that is like at the background of what happens that happens because the girls learn to take what they learn at our school in the classrooms, and now you have to apply what it means to be courteous to the girl you're fighting against on the field who is anything but, and you have to use self-control. You have to be the one to hold your friends accountable, which is probably the hardest people to hold accountable. It's harder, it's easy to hold other people you don't like accountable, but now these are your friends who you know, you've known for 11 years on the field. So I just the opportunity to watch some of these young women grow in in character, in confidence, in leadership. And I think most importantly, I think so much of the generation in high school right now is really afraid to give themselves to something fully, really, really scared to commit to something fully. They have all these options out in front of them. They want to be part of this club and this club and this, and wanna do this and this and this. And right, every decision to do something is a decision not to do something else. And I think we've been blessed to have some amazing leaders on the team who are who are role models for the younger girls and say, this is what it looks like to give yourself to something. This is what it looks like to give yourself to class A, Division II soccer. And it's, you know, why it's important? It's important because we're doing it. It's important because this is our life, right? It's I I think when we think about so many kids like talking in middle school, like quit the sport because they go, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna play in college. Well, why who cares? You're gonna play in high school with your friends. Like, this is important because it's your life. Yeah. And um the memories that we have of just like the memories and the relationships that you have from that. I mean, I um had coffee with two former players over Christmas break, and then that's something that happens. I see like I mean, that that goes across the school from just outside former students to players. But um yeah, I hope that from the soccer team, what I what I enjoy so much of is that I hope that these girls truly are young women who are more sure of themselves, confident, able to handle conflict, able to persevere, and able to love something enough to give yourself something fully toward it, even if you're gonna lose in the end, right? And I think that's sports are a weird thing. Only one team leaves the season happy and everyone else gets sad. It's like, well, why logically, why do we do this? Like, like we're setting ourselves up statistically to be hurt. But it's it's it's worth giving yourself to something, and it's worth having to experience that and teach them at a young age that this is part of this is is just part of the human experience. And you learn this in a in a microcosm around people who love you on the field. And um, yeah, love the program, love being able to coach.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

That's awesome. All right, I want to ask you to pan out a little bit and speak generally about um the mission of an American classical school. If you had to address a group of parents who were evaluating uh one of the Atlanta classical or Northwest classical or Cherokee classical or one of Liberty Schools and our American classical mission, how would you describe uh what it is we're attempting to do and what sets the school apart?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Yeah, I think um uh the the the title of my reader is is is Ben Franklin's famous quote, A Republic If You Can Keep It. Um And I try to hit on and I do say especially with the seventh grade curriculum, is really really trying to zero in on this of what maintains the civilization, society we have, is is not the big acts and legislation of government per se. It is the individual virtue and responsibility of every single person in this room. And um I think today it's so important because it gives them it it shows them that there are like when so many of the intermediary institutions of of like various clubs or or uh faiths that people used to have to kind of provide like meaning in their lives, with those gone. People just skip that that step that's supposed to be like the local community step of your local social club, your garden club, your bowling league, and it just goes, Well, all my folks is now going to national politics. And we miss something really important there. And I and I hope one thing they get from that is that this is a disordered love to have this as like this is important. We need to pay attention to that. But what really matters is how you keep your whatever community you find yourself a part of, how do you give yourself to that and and practice small our Republican ideals of self-government, of of um of community, of giving uh of of helping the people around you who need it. We you know, we just talked about um the Gilded Age and how the rise of urbanization, how before people have little walking cities where you'd have to, you knew everyone in the town. You'd walk the the the poor and the rich would live right next to each other. So you the person who is the beggar on the street, it was the person you walked by and you knew them, and that these other, these charitable organizations helped take that over and now take over things like orphanages and hospitals. And now we live in a time where that's not the case, where it's separated and that kind of refocusing the kids who are told you need to care about like just the culture, care about these big idea things that you really can't care do anything about other than repost or retweet, care about that. It's like, no, that's what can we actually care about? It's it is the local things in each other. I think um uh I had a professor, I can't remember, I'm sure this is a common image, but of like your mind is like it's a room. And what are you furnishing the walls of your mind with? Um and you are being shaped by what you do, right? You are being your your life is creating habits and rhythms, whether you are choosing them or not. And I I I think that what we do at a classical school is is we tell the kids that you you you have like these are beautiful pictures we want hanging on. These are the speeches from Abraham Abraham Lincoln. I want to be just a part of the fabric of your being. And these are things that you're not going like a picture on the wall, you're not thinking about all the time, but it's there and it's a part of your imagination. And in weird moments, it's gonna pop up and you're gonna remember this thing. Um and I also think just historically, one of one of my favorite lessons that I get to do is um it's over the Boston Massacre. And it's not because I really Boston Massacre is like it's it's it's maybe and has an outsized place in American history. Um but what I love to get to teach them is they all come in with the idea of like, oh yes, of course, we know this, the the dirty British shot at the innocent Americans and the rest is history. And what I do is I give them I give them uh seven different accounts from the trial and say, here's this very obviously pro-B-British person, here's this pro-American, and we look at the different literature that's passed around the town, and we get to realize that, oh, wait a minute, like there's a lot more going on here. Maybe these weren't just regular snowballs that are being thrown by young boys, maybe this might have been a mob. And and you get this idea that, oh, there's a lot more to this than I had known. And one of the kids always at the end of each class asks, wait, so Mr. What really did happen in the Boston Massacre? And you could tell them, you know just as well as anyone who's ever studied it, because you have all the sources here. And they're like, Wait, so if like this, like what other things do we not are like, oh, this is all history. This is all history. It's like you guys have to do the work of being thoughtful. And you have to, you can't just take what's given to you that every event today, 300 years ago, is like this. It's made up of other people's account. There's no one true story that was passed down to the Wikipedia page that we now can just go look on and figure it out. And so yeah, I just want-I hope there's a lot of things there, but I think the ideas of being able to recognize there's a lot of viewpoints and history is nuanced, being able to recognize that your personal individual, individual contributions to your community is what really sustains America. And I think even to give them a sense that it's it's it's beautiful. History's beautiful. There's um Chesterton says uh something along the lines of like a madman isn't someone who's lost all reason. It's they've lost everything but reason. And I think in our world today, everything just becomes this dry, dissected, atomized, analytical mindset, and it just becomes the only lens we view things. Um and like everything, so many decisions are made by this is logical, this is rational. It's like, well, that's that's one that's that's a lens to view the world. There's also the lens of experience, and there's also uh what I think classical education and and does is it is it it holds in tension the empirical and the transcendent, and both of these things are true and come together, and and and to ignore one of them is to not be fully human, and want to be to actually to ignore one of them is to have an incomplete view of the world. Um and I want them to look at what history is made up of these moments that they come together where this thing seems really logical, but something doesn't sit right with me. And maybe that's okay. Maybe we should, maybe we can't just ignore that. Maybe we should say, yeah, this this thing doesn't make sense. Like how it doesn't maybe make sense that. I love going to the Kennesaw Battlefield to the Illinois monument. And you see the point where I think it was Colonel McCook stands up before he charges his fatal his final charge and says, you know, to every man upon this earth, death cometh sooner or late. How can man die better than facing fearful odds, you know, for the atlas of his father and the temple of his gods? That doesn't make sense. And he charges in and he dies. And like, how do we create young men and women like that can do that, that that have that that have this these images in their mind that this is important and this is going to possibly end like obviously we don't in their lives like that, but right Lord willing, but to to create children with these moral imaginations that have these poems ringing in their back of their head at these moments that require true virtue. Um and I think just hopefully that with the curriculum we have at ACA in any of these classical schools, it spirals, it builds, it unconsciously adds a painting here and there. And then when they're adults in ways they don't even recognize they have been shaped to be something, someone that is that is more than they thought they were.

SPEAKER_03 45:08

Yeah. Beautifully stated. That was really awesome. Thank you. All right, you ready to finish with a little uh short answer round? Sure. Lightning rounds. Doesn't have to be super lightning, but but maybe shorter. Um so a teacher that's had a really profound impact on you personally.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Um that jumps to mind is uh uh Dr. Gaetano, my history professor at Hillsdale just uh was so excited about everything that he would teach. He would cry when he read certain things, he'd ask you really thoughtful questions that made you like reading through as I think going into going into Hillsdale, I had perceived a really good public education. Like I wasn't do not want to frown upon in any way, but it was just it was it's it's it was aiming at something different. Um and I think coming to Hillsdale um and recognizing, oh, this isn't just harder, this is a categorically different way I'm supposed to use my mind to ask, I'm asking really big questions and thinking about my role in the world on a on a cosmic level in ways I hadn't before. And and I think Dr. Gaetano is one who I who I loved, who uh I think really made a big impact there just by how much the the types of questions he asked about the Reformation history uh class that I took and loved and just even remembered him reading a he was Catholic himself, but crying as he read a Luther Christmas sermon. Yeah. Like, oh wow, like this is really important to you. This should really be important to me, too.

SPEAKER_03 46:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

So awesome.

SPEAKER_03 46:44

Okay, great. Um know you're busy these days, especially with a young family, but a favorite hobby outside of outside of school?

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Aaron Powell When I have time, um I really enjoy gardening. Uh we're just getting we just moved into a house in September, so we didn't have time to get stuff in, but we're just starting to get that up. Um I really love hiking. Getting into the mountains is just one of my favorite things. It's just every day in the every every weekend in the spring or fall, I'm just kind of like checking my to-do list like, can I get up to can just go for a little bit of a hike? Um those are the two that that that jump out the most. That's where I like to do that.

SPEAKER_03 47:20

Um let's say um classical or historical figure that that has meant a lot to you.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

That's a great question. And by classical, do you mean just you know even literary or am going to say I The Lord of the Rings are my favorite books of all time and have been since I was a a little kid. Um and I don't even know if I can pick one. I mean the movies do Frodo dirty. Frodo is a noble character in the books, and in the movie, he's kind of the whiny one, and Sam's the Craigman, but yeah, I think in in terms of uh I I I I have to there's an easy answer to pick the main character of that book, but I love Lord of the Rings, read them every year. I I recently unearthed my old uh Lord of the Encyclopedia that I made when I was 12 years old with all the maps and everything in it that Han drew. So I was into it. Really deep in, yes.

SPEAKER_03 48:28

Okay, awesome. I didn't know that about you. That's awesome. Okay, in this age of distraction where we've got digital messaging coming at us from every which direction, screens and so forth. How are you managing that?

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Trying, not not not exactly succeeding on all levels. Um I there's several things. Actually, we're working, uh we just had the February freeze at ACA. So I was actually working with the soccer team. Like, what are the things we can do to limit this? Um what's the February freeze? Oh, so um every February actually started by Mrs. Boyd, um, our school counselor, and she has got this big movement together, has had a speaker come in where we just try to limit screen time, where we have different challenges the students can partake in, uh, whether it can be deleting social media for the whole month, um, or it can be limiting screen time. And there's several different ways they can do that, or they can do all three of them, preferably. But the idea is that I think Jonathan Heid talks about the fact that it's hard to do by yourself, but if you have everybody doing it and pushing you, and now you're not as worried about your miss you're the only one in the group not receiving these texts, it's a little easier to do that. So we do that as a school community. So this is fresh in my mind right now. But uh little things like uh I try to put all of my apps into like just one giant box, so I just can't scroll through and check them. I don't have social media. Um one of the things, one of the most helpful things I've actually found is that the phone just kind of opens when you turn it over, it just turns on, or if you touch the screen. I somehow uh I can't remember exactly how to do it, but you change so you have to click the side button to light up the screen. Oh yeah. And I find there's so many ways where I just it's sitting there, I'll just tap it. I don't even need to. I'm just like just there. Just compulsively do that. So that's been one that has been really helpful. Just it makes me think about it. It's no longer just lighting up the second I look at it or walk by.

SPEAKER_03 50:13

I have to think through. So okay. That's awesome. Yeah. Um a word perhaps to aspiring teachers. How can an aspiring teacher make the most out of their college or university experience to get ready?

SPEAKER_00 50:32

I think number one is uh genuinely care about your subject. I think we we talk all the time, we want content experts at at these schools. Like we want you to know what you're talking about. Nothing is going to enliven the mind of a student, like someone who knows the subject, who can answer their questions, who can take it a step further than where they even thought they were going with it. Um that being said, also find a way to get involved in some teaching. I I I think um I I don't know how it works at every college, but I know at at Hillsdale where I went, they have an apprenticeship where you can go sit in in classrooms. But I think there's I think there's two types of people, people who think they like the idea of teaching and they want to talk about books and they love, you know, they really love the Iliad. But then they get somewhere and they're like, I don't actually like being in front of students. Like this is actually, you know, this isn't just I sit with this is a Dead Poet Society where I sit up and read a book and everyone is magically moved. This is a lot of other things that go on in a classroom that you have to take care of. Um and also on the flip side of that is you might know every pedagogical tool there is, but if you don't know the content, you're gonna find out pretty quickly you will be bored just sitting there reading through uh just the step-by-step thing if that's all you have, a step-by-step curriculum if that's all you have. But you need to know it. And that's going to it it goes both ways. Like you have to find life in it too. And when you find life in it, the students find life in it. So you need to be able to know it, but you also need to know like teaching is more than just the transmission of knowledge. It is, it is, it is, as we've talked about so much, it is the truth giving yourself to the students in a way that you like in the in the true sense of the term, love them. You desire their good. Like you desire their good at the end of the day, no matter sometimes it looks hard or something, whatever, but you desire that you're not just gonna give up on you're gonna keep pushing through with them. And that is sometimes hard for people who just think, I get to talk about my favorite subject all day.

SPEAKER_03 52:30

Yeah.

unknown 52:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:31

Well, Garrett, thank you for doing this interview with me. I think our audience is gonna love hearing from you. And I just want to thank you for your service to our schools after all these years. I I very distinctly remember being at that job fair in 2014 um and just sort of asking around of, you know, who should we be talking up here? And and almost to a person, they were like, you gotta meet Garrett Hall. You want him at your school. That's a young man who's gonna pour himself into this thing a thousand percent. And you've absolutely did that. It's been really a uh part of the joy of my professional life to kind of watch you develop and and watch you uh come to maturity as you have. I don't mean that in a uh, you know, any kind of uh patronizing way. I mean you you have really come into your own here and are having an incredible impact on kids and and families and other teachers, and and at this point you're a teacher of teachers, and uh it's just it's an awesome thing to watch. And then you do it with such humility and such fun. I we didn't quite get into it, and and maybe I'll ask you a question in a second that we'll try to capture if you're willing to tell the story. Um, but you know, you yeah, you you um you've had a great time doing it, and you've brought levity and laughs and fun and joy. I I was thinking about you. I bet you that if we had a contest of who could name every student who has ever attended Atlanta Classical Academy, my bet would be on you that you could name every single one of them or maybe get close, or maybe really, really close. And at this point, that would be thousands of kids. Um, but I just think that speaks to um, you know, your your love of kids and your your love of this mission. And I just want to thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Yeah, thank you so much. It's been so much fun.

SPEAKER_03 54:12

Yeah. All right. The thing I want to ask you to tell, perhaps, if you're willing, tell us a story of a VHS player.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

Um so wow, this is uh this is again what I think makes ACA great is like we are we are very classical, but also in a very informal way. It's not not your stuffy, like uh absolute rigor is the only thing that matters. Um I I don't know how we stumbled across this, but Mr. Sheps was uh the current upper school principal, was a good friend of mine in college, and he was teaching, I think, eighth grade literature. And I don't even know, I we had some had some joke with each other, and I'd kind of been short with him in some conversation. It was it was something between totally a joke. Um but some of the kids picked up on this and they said, Mr. Sheps, you and Mr. Holt growing apart. And he was like about to say, Yeah, yeah, obviously not. And then he goes, we could run with this. He goes, I don't really want to talk about it. And so it's like, okay, wow, yeah. So eighth grade, so the eighth grade boys, yeah, you know, he's like, I don't want to talk about it with you. And so we'd we we we we played the long game here. So for the course of the next like four or five weeks, every interaction we had just got a little bit more tense. It was very public, like be walking through the hall, saying hi to the students, we'd just see each other, and I'd just kind of like peel off to the left and ignore him. He'd be sitting at lunch, I'd go sit down at the table, or he he would be there with a bunch of students, I'd sit down, he'd just get up and leave. Um and somehow we came upon the idea of this VHS player. And so it's I don't know how this started, but this is 15 years after VHS players had a lot of people. They didn't know what a VHS player was. They didn't know what VHS players were, um and not a clue. And so I think I asked him, uh Mr. He kept saying, Mr. Holt, when are you getting green back my Remember the Titans VHS tape? And I said, I I told you I just need a little more time. I haven't got a chance to watch yet. I got halfway through. Uh and this was the story that I had this VHS tape. So either way, builds up and builds, the kids are getting really concerned at this point because we've who are seemingly good friends, have now really grown apart. So it got to the point after weeks of this. This is back before we even had really any any locker room. We still don't have locker rooms, we've still had less of a plan for like the boys all go into one room, get changed for P. And I was walking by there, they're about to get changed. And Mr. Sheps yells at me and he goes, Hey, Holt, you got my V you got my VHS player? And I said, You want you want your VHS player? Fine, I'll go get your VHS player. And so I run down to the room. Um, I bring up this $5 VHS that I bought a good one. I walk into the middle of it, and I go, You want your VHS player? Here it is. And I just I screwed, unscrewed all the bolts that I could and just threw it on the ground and smashed it. And just the kids were just dead silent. And I just storm out and uh and all the kids like fight, fight! And then you ran and ships goes, No, we're gonna be the bigger man here. And then later that day, a killed couple kids found me, and he didn't tell them anything. And then the next day, or later that day, some of the kids found me and they're like, Hey, it was that thing email the ships, that was a joke. And I was like, Don't you dare talk to me about Mr. Shepps. And I walked off. Um and so our principal, we get an email from our principal the next day, and he calls us down and he goes what the heck happened in that classroom? And we're sitting there next to each other, just kind of chilling out, and he goes, Oh, it was a joke. We just make it like this audible sigh and moan from some parents. Multiple parent emails who had said, Dear Mr. Lambert, uh, we should please please make sure teachers keep their personal problems out of the classroom. Um and then we had bought uh matching ties at Goodwill the name right found a pair, so we got pictures of each other in these matching ties, like still friends. Posting around school and that's awesome. That was it, so I love it.

SPEAKER_03 57:53

Well, it's it's kind of cliche to say that we take our work seriously, but don't take ourselves too seriously. But truly, that is uh that is what you guys do. Yep, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you, Scurby. This has been great. Thanks for doing it.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

Yeah, happy to.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

Okay, yeah. See ya.