The Council Episode 07 | Tumultuous Takeover: Women Edition

In this episode of The Council, Jennifer, Catie, and Holly takeover the podcast. They discuss the Foundational Commitments of The Academy along with the usual banter. After all, Eric is still producing.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:01

On this episode of The Council, I am blindsided by our executive producers when they tell me, one hour before recording time, that the guys will not be here. Instead, I am joined by a council of women. These women both work at the school and are moms of students at the school. We talk the Academy's foundational commitments, grandparents' day technical difficulties, and they make me play Andrew Black's debut hit single, Keeping Coming. It's all coming up on the county. This is not in the room. The guys are here. And it's a funny story. And she said uh the guys aren't coming in. It's gonna be the uh I'd have to come up with a council of I didn't see it like the council of women. Anyway, we have special guests standing in for us. We have Holly Smedstad, who is what is your title?

SPEAKER_03 1:33

That was a great question. I do many things.

SPEAKER_06 1:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

But my primary ones at North Campus are blended coordinator and the meeting specialist.

SPEAKER_06 1:42

Holly is um one of the people that intimidates me for some reason. It's funny. And another next up who also intimidates me is uh Jennifer Stahl, our development director and what else?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

What else do you think Director of Debate and Forensics?

SPEAKER_06 2:02

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_05 2:04

And Katie Forster, who teaches eighth grade omnibus and practicum at South Campus.

SPEAKER_06 2:14

Amazing. They're here. And I just want to point out that as we were getting ready to go, our executive producer Lindy showed up, uh, and she's never showed up before. And she brought gifts. There's chocolates, there's flowers, there's sparkling lime water.

SPEAKER_05 2:38

I know that Josh doesn't believe in precedence. I've heard him say that, so this is not a precedent.

SPEAKER_06 2:45

Uh this is just for us. Clearly, it's not because she's never done it for the guy, so I don't think she's setting a precedent. Anyway, I just thought that was interesting. Um, so I I didn't have a lot of time to kind of like change things around, so we're just gonna do our best to to kind of get into things. One thing that we do at the very beginning is we just kind of talk and banter.

SPEAKER_05 3:14

Do you have any banter ideas or what's like the craziest thing that happened over the course of how many grandparents' days did you attend? Seven.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Seven grandparents' days. Four north, two south, one midtown. The craziest thing that happened. Well, Eric and I could reenact it.

SPEAKER_06 3:37

Ooh. What? What? Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

We had something really crazy happen. Um people kept asking, can we play music while the grandparents sit down, like classical music, elevator music, soft jazz? And Eric. Yeah. Because it was they get there, you know, four to five hours early. Absolutely. There's a lot of sitting. And Eric had said, no, it's hard to play music before and then switch to the video. Like there's some kind of complicating factor that would be triggered by that. So we had been saying no. Well, then on the last day at North, I walked in. This was the big day, the Trad day on Friday. I walked in, and lo and behold, there's beautiful music filling the gym. And Eric said, Well, I just thought it would be fine today. And it was not fine today, was it?

SPEAKER_06 4:28

No. I broke my own rule. Um, I was just trying to level up. And uh so my rule is that introducing a new variable to the process of that you've been doing. And so yeah, I had the music playing, it was lovely. And then when we finished, yeah, turned it off. Or at least I thought. So then when the video uh that V Jennifer worked so long and hard on started to play, it was like this little piano music in the background.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

And Sarah Martin and I automatically recognized this is not the right music. And Eric was like, Yeah, it is, it's it's music. And we said, No, no, no, the music is the up soundtrack, which is a very notable song. Yes. We were like, no, this is not up, and he's like, Yeah, this is fine. And then Sarah said, This is the music from the pre the the pre-show. And the variable, the new variable. The variable. She said, This is the new variable.

SPEAKER_06 5:31

That's exactly what she said.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

And we said, Eric, turn it off. And he said, I can't.

SPEAKER_06 5:37

And he kept saying I didn't want to stop the video because there was it was already like It'd be unprofessional to stop the video. Because there was something else. Like there was there was a a hang up, like like I couldn't start it because of something. Something was a word.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Oh, I don't know. I didn't know there was another variable.

SPEAKER_06 5:54

It was already like kind of falling apart. And I was like, no, let's just leave it because I thought He kept telling us it's fine. If it just stays like this.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Oh, but also this is on top of the up. So it's like layered music at this point. Right. And then tiny children's voices. And he's like, guys, it's fine, it's fine. This is all happening in front of 500 people. And then right as the the fourth time he said it's fine, I'm not going to sing opera on this podcast. But there was like a rather operatic climax of like the loudest crescendo of symphonic music. And at that point, that's when he pulled the plug and we just started over from the beginning. Right.

SPEAKER_06 6:39

Yeah. And Jennifer and Sarah, and their uh instinctive reaction was a very good thing. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

That was not the instinctive reaction. We were laughing so hard it became unprofessional to be in public. We were laughing so hard at just at the juxtaposition of you saying, it's fine, and then the opera following in the next second.

SPEAKER_06 7:01

You know what? It worked out. It was fine.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

But Eric, wait, you are leaving out the key part of the story, which is that Eric claims he was approached by an elderly man who said, Thanks for not running and hiding.

SPEAKER_06 7:17

Yes, that is true.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

That's not true. No one said that to you.

SPEAKER_06 7:21

Yes. Yes. A man came up to me, the very first man that came up to me as he was walking out, and he that's exactly what he said. I would not make that.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Why are you running and hiding? No, because he's um Eric wants me and Sarah to feel bad that we went into Coach King's office.

SPEAKER_06 7:34

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I get it. It's it it was all on me. It was fine.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Well, he didn't clearly that man didn't know that. Well, he was shaming us.

SPEAKER_06 7:43

I was just no, he was complimenting me on, you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Yeah, and and the process calling Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:51

Fortitude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

I don't think that man exists though. That that's not if you are listening to this podcast and you have a father who said that, we would like to know. I would like to know.

SPEAKER_06 8:03

Um yeah, I can I could point him out if I saw him again. He's very nice. And we appreciate him and all of our grandparents at the Academy.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

I'll give him a shovel and he can continue to do.

SPEAKER_06 8:23

Okay. So one of the things that we do about this point is we have a sponsorship live read. Do we have sponsors for this podcast? Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. Who who's sponsoring this podcast? Well, it's um it's like departments that uh throughout the school.

SPEAKER_05 8:48

Um the school that sponsors the school's podcast?

SPEAKER_06 8:53

Yeah, we've had uh admissions, we've had what else have we had? We've had lots. They're technically, you know, separate departments.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Okay. Okay. That what shall we talk about with these Descartons?

SPEAKER_06 9:08

Okay, so yes, uh part of the live reads is uh we do a stinger, uh which is kind of like a musical like interlude of some kind, or sometimes like uh like, all right. And we're back. Yeah, and we're back, yeah. Or yeah, yeah, something like that. Um so Josh had a problem. He kept thinking we were gonna go to commercial. And I'm like, no, we don't do that. We just kind of keep going. And so I created like a little live read thing. And and we have some pretty talented people uh that reached out to me and submitted things. So here is this week's live read Stinger.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Live reading sponsorship, it's the green and sponsor shit.

SPEAKER_06 10:14

Wow. She did that in concert.

SPEAKER_05 10:19

High energy. Wow. Who was it?

SPEAKER_06 10:20

Yeah, who um yeah, I don't know. She didn't give me permission to say her name. She just wanted to be anonymous because thank you, young lady. Um, if you'd like to submit live read music, uh send an email to podcast at theacademyok.org.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Have a concert.

unknown 10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

If you want to submit something, have a concert.

SPEAKER_06 10:46

Yeah, well, I I'll take any submissions. Okay, so here's our live read. So uh sorry, I wrote this for the guys. So we're just gonna have to do it and you have to read the live read script as it is. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_06 11:04

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Yo, my guy. I'm in need of hanging a TV like right away.

SPEAKER_05 11:11

Really? I'm not great with utilizing tools because I'm a nerdy intellectual. Boy, I wish we had some convenient advisor to show up. The boys' bathroom is clogged yet again, and we need professional plumbing services. Well, hello.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

I couldn't help but hearing your predicament.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Wow, Andrew. You were right. Did you ever come in time to assist us? Yes, Josh. Like I just said, Eric.

SPEAKER_05 11:39

What?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

What is this?

SPEAKER_06 11:41

It's the library.

SPEAKER_05 11:44

What's a convenient advisor?

SPEAKER_06 11:47

Uh well, we we're trying to advertise the need for the um so it it's the facilities department.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 11:57

So is our sponsor, the Academy Facilities Department. They they do all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_05 12:02

Jasmine. I was gonna so is is Jasmine the convenient advisor that I was referring to?

SPEAKER_06 12:07

Right. Jasmine, Danny Danny. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

That's they're both convenient advisors. That's on their name tag. Right, right.

SPEAKER_05 12:14

This is just to say convenient advisor.

SPEAKER_06 12:19

Well, it was like Andrew saying it. So that's I feel like that's how he would.

SPEAKER_05 12:23

Is that how Andrew would say facilities person? Maintenance?

SPEAKER_06 12:28

Well, at this point, well, what he's looking for is is uh Nathan to come in and say, well, hello. That's the convenient advisor.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Oh yeah, Nate Car.

SPEAKER_06 12:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:40

Okay. Yeah. Pretty hard active. So so you're the convenient advisor. Or am I still misunderstanding? I I'm an early I'm an early intellectual. I don't know what a convenient advisor is. Dang it. I'm your newest member of the facilities.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

Things they have polos. Facilities have polos. Polos are nice.

SPEAKER_06 13:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

I'm here for them.

SPEAKER_06 13:03

Okay, well, I think that uh live read is ruined. Let me just sign off with the uh tagline. Um facilities department will hang for you. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 13:21

That's a great line. Okay, so now it's time for you guys to shine. I give it all over to you.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

You'll still be chiming in.

SPEAKER_06 13:32

I'll still be here. But I normally don't talk during this time.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Oh yeah. That was a missed opportunity.

SPEAKER_06 13:43

Time for permanent things. Thank you, Andrew. And I also have some other these are just fun. In this moment, speed is our greatest need.

SPEAKER_07 13:55

Sorry, that was like in this moment, speed is our greatest need. All right.

SPEAKER_06 14:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Oh.

SPEAKER_06 14:09

307.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Okay, 307 now. Let's do it. Okay. All right. So we are talking about our foundational commitments. And those are trained in memory, which is meant to correspond not exclusively to grammar, but most in alignment with grammar, practiced in virtue, dialectic, and baptized in imagination, rhetoric. So the three women here, we represent uh really all three, grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, and all three campuses. So we have Holly, Smithstead, North Grammar. I mean, I know you do everything everywhere, but North Grammar, we can assign to you for the purposes of this podcast. Katie Forrester, South Dialectic, and then me for Midtown Rhetoric. So what do we have to say about memory, virtue, and imagination? And where we have seen it this year play out in application.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

I would say that um, as far as the grammar life goes, it's an everyday part of everything that we do, regardless of cantus. Um, you see that in you see it in pre-K, and you can see it in the pre-threeers whenever they are reciting prayers during that's and they are the absolute loudest ones there, and they are leading the whole thing. And it is the cutest thing you ever did see. And you just want to just pick them up, put them in your pocket, put them in your pocket because they just have it and they know it and they can do it, and the scripture that they can memorize and the pieces of literature that they can recite and how they are tying that to virtue each and every day is really a beautiful thing. Um, our fourth grade teachers are doing um liturgies at the beginning of their classes, fourth and fifth grade both, just like they do at the rhetoric level. And they're truly building that foundation from the day they walk into our doors, regardless if they're three, four, five, or ten. They're consistently building that and building that very firm, very strong foundation that will just take over the entire way that they learn through dialectic and through rhetoric. And it's just been beautiful. You know, I could give you lots and lots of examples from the time that my family has spent here. Um, I have a senior this year, I have a junior this year. Um, you know, I can even remember going back to fifth grade and then taking a field trip to the cosmosphere, right? And we're walking through the cosmosphere and they're coming to, you know, the great space race. And I'm kind of doing exit tickets and helping the teacher, you know, kind of move class from one area to another. And they come across a huge poster of JFK's speech. And they just happened to be doing this for recitation um that year, and they all started saying it from memory in the middle of this very public place, and they're all walking around at different places in this space. They're all reciting this for memory. And it was just truly like awe-inspiring to see what that meant to them and those anger moments that you know they may have in their lives. And so, I mean, I've seen that countless times, countless years, every year, and seen how that plays out in every level.

SPEAKER_05 17:37

And they don't forget those songs. Um, you know, I'll remind dialectic students if we if I mentioned Socrates and those students who were here in second grade start singing Socrates the thinker. They do. It sticks with them.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

I'm looking up on my phone right now a video uh that I know I have. Okay, I think it's this one. So this is the setting is forensics camp. It's Camp Goodness. I took Team Goodness to um our annual summer camp. So it this is nine seniors and a junior in this is actually they would go on to win the state championship later this year. Shameless plug for Team Goodness. But we were playing cards and this happened. No one told them to do this, but this just started happening. And that just happened all week. They would just recite and sing.

SPEAKER_06 18:55

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Do you all listen or read, listen to or read Jonathan Hayde? Yes, yeah. Okay. I feel like as an academy parent, I just constantly get texts from other parents citing him. And just recently this week, he was on, I guess Hugh Grant has this nonprofit that is like books over screens. It's it's it's something in response to the ed tech movement. And so he had Jonathan Hayte on, uh, or maybe it was a podcast, I'm not sure. I I watched a video of it, and Jonathan Hayde is talking about how memory in the ed tech era, memory has been taken out of the classroom. And then he describes rooted in neuroscience, he describes the reasons why that's a really bad idea. And it was one of those moments. So my kids are still really, really little. And it was one of those moments where I got to feel like I'm ahead of the game. And I don't have those moments often as a parent. I normally feel like I'm doing something wrong. But I was like, oh my gosh, we we're doing something right by putting our kids here from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_05 20:00

Yeah. Memories is things that are true, good, and beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 20:07

Absolutely. And I think that um, you know, having gone through everything since they were little, we've been here since first and second grade. Um, there absolutely is not a better education that I would have wished for my children by any means. I mean, not only due to the technology piece of it, but you know, whenever you have a 16-year-old telling you that their favorite book is, you know, Dante's Inferno, and they're not a whole lot of 16-year-olds telling you that that truly have a love and a joy for learning about something like that and truly love moving forward with those things and memorizing those things and you know, starting to do college tours. And, you know, they go into certain honors colleges and they have, you know, every level, you know, and they're like, oh, these are all the levels. And it's excitement and it's joy, and it's something different than everybody else is doing right now. And so it truly gives them a place in the world to belong that is full of truth, goodness, and beauty that is so present and in the moment.

SPEAKER_05 21:15

And sometimes, you know, I teach eighth-grade Omni, which um, you know, by the end of the year, we have made it to the 20th century. And if you've read any literature from the 20th century, it's pretty heavy and honestly lacking in many ways in virtue, in um, you know, the transcendent. And we just finished reading The Great Gatsby and we had a Harkness discussion about it on Monday. And students said some interesting. I think one student in particular said that she has come to appreciate what we're trying to do for them at this school. Because when she reads The Great Gatsby, she encounters this world that is. Absent of the transcendent, that is absent of those transcendentals. And I think it made her appreciate what we are trying to fill them with, what we are trying to um call them to. And once another student said, you know, because Gatsby, the main character, has this remarkable imagination, but the student described Gatsby's imagination as unbaptized, which I thought was really interesting. And he said, What if his imagination had been baptized? You know, which I think is what we are trying to do to our students at the school is to send them out with imaginations that have been baptized from a very early age. So that those, you know, those um longings, those desires, those are aimed toward things that are good.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

So trained in memory, what about practiced in virtue? Where are we seeing students practicing virtue?

SPEAKER_05 23:08

Well, they have to write a virtue speech in eighth grade practicum. They have to write about a time when they did display a particular virtue. And they also have to write about a time when they didn't and how that situation might have turned out differently if they had. And to me, that that's the most interesting paragraph to read when I'm grading their papers and for them to present, because they have to present it as a speech. And that was really powerful to hear students willing to be honest and reflect on times when they lacked virtue. And to like look back on, you know, there was one student who looked back at a time in elementary school when there was some friend drama in the class, and she acknowledged I could have influenced it in a much more positive way than I did. And I think it was very, it was received very well by the class to hear each other get up and be willing to say, like, here's what this virtue is. I realize I don't always live up to that.

SPEAKER_04 24:15

Right. And I think that's almost, if not more important than being able to recognize it is recognizing when you don't see it. You know, Dietrich Bonhoeffer always talks about the Church of the Pious versus the fellowship of centers. And when we're able to identify where we lack, we can bond together in that sameness and tend to keep that sin above ground instead of driving it underground. Um, like eighth grade, fifth grade is also doing KRAA, which is very similar. But you know, we really start talking about virtue really as young as kindergarten and pre-K and trying to give not only classroom teachers, but also parents the language that is age and developmentally appropriate for each specific age to really talk and discuss what those things truly do look like. Umce you get a little older into third, fourth, and fifth grade, you're able to really identify all of those virtues and you're able to identify where they're coming from in literature. So, okay, we've got these main characters and um roll of thunder, hear my cry, or you're seeing it in the secret garden, or you're seeing it in Old Yeller, or, you know, you're seeing it in all these really wonderful places. And and what does this character, what are they, what is their, what are they displaying with virtue? And to have students being able to come up to the board and just start writing it down, and this is how they're doing that, and being able to identify where they are and where they're falling short. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:48

Um I think, yeah, I had actually in that same Harkness discussion, you know, we talked a little bit about, well, why do we read books that portray, you know, characters who who lack virtue and the students said in some ways that that is more helpful to see, you know, how a character responds in a moment when they fail. Because, you know, we have Pride and Prejudice, where we have the characters, you know, we have Elizabeth Bennett who has that moment of realization until this moment, I never knew myself. She lacked wisdom and her ability to understand the situation clearly. And then she is able to grow in virtue as a result, I think, because of, you know, the community and the culture surrounding her in a novel like The Great Gatsby, you know, there there isn't that surrounding context, that tradition of virtue. So, you know, I think recognizing those places where characters both do and don't, and then how do they move forward? Do they grow in virtue? Do they not, those make for some really fruitful discussions. And it's almost like they're practicing virtue in what they read, in what we talk about in class, so that when they go into, you know, their their actual lives that they're living, they have models for what that looks like.

SPEAKER_04 27:03

Absolutely. Um, when you talk about something like the hiding place, right? When Corey Tenboom was really talking about she had gratitude for fleas, right? Yeah. And how that really came kind of that that bubble of, you know, that thing kept her safe in a way. And I think when children learn to look at that and be grateful for all the things that God has put in place, it really turns into beauty.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

I was thinking about with respect to this topic, after every major debate or forensics tournament or event, I have my students identify, similar to what you were saying, Katie, I have them identify an example of where they saw virtue being practiced and what that virtue was. And it can be an opponent. It doesn't have to be themselves or a teammate. But a couple recent ones that came to mind were uh this past mock trial season, we had a student who has a really aggressive, successful reputation that precedes him. And he's really good, but he is, I mean, he'll tell you tear you apart. And that's what he's supposed to do because he's one of our attorneys. And there was an opponent on the witness stand who he was cross-examining, and it became clear pretty early on that she was not prepared. She didn't know what she was doing, she was impeaching herself left and right. And there was this moment in the courtroom where everyone saw our attorney stop and like shift gears, flip a switch. And from that moment on, the students recollected this after we got back. They said at that point he was practicing charity because he just completely, I mean, he still won. He still got his points, but he did it in a way that was actually quite loving. And that was a huge step for him. Um, and really just for our whole team to see. So I love, I love identifying moments like that with him after a big win or a big loss. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:05

And that's the goal. I think that what what we're discussing in class will then translate to decisions that they make in their own lives.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Yeah. So I kind of in a weird way get to like reap the benefits and bear the fruit of what you guys are doing at the grammar and dialectic level by the time they get to the rhetoric level. Well, speaking of rhetoric level, uh, we'll talk about that foundational commitment now, baptize and imagination. What do we want to say about that?

SPEAKER_04 29:33

That's a great question. And I think something that is obviously never something that you can look at independently. You have to look at it in the grand scheme. Once they've learned to do all of the things that they know how to do well, and they have had those greats that have come before them, teaching them all of the right ways of thinking of truth, goodness, and beauty, they are free to then go forth and forge their own path in imagining new, wonderful ways to live that are being forgotten in our day-to-day lives with the day-to-day activities, whether it's politics or religion or it's socioeconomic problems, they are able to look at those creatively in a different way that somebody who does not have this background is able to see and imagine it moving forward. So it's not only truth, goodness, and beauty and what they can appreciate in life, but it's how they live their lives that is different than the rest of the population.

SPEAKER_05 30:43

I was looking at the list of capstone presentations that were emailed out earlier this week. And I think those are a great representation of what baptized imaginations look like once they have had that um training in memory and then opportunities to talk um and think and live into virtue and dialectic. Um I'm always so intrigued by the titles of these presentations.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

I learn a lot by the presentations. I attended Samantha Lynn's, she was class of 21, and her capstone was it was about Disney princesses. And it I I learned so much from her capstone that I'm not kidding, I think about it every time my kids watch a Disney movie. And I I could say that about various capstones I've watched over the years. They the whenever we chose the foundational commitments, trained in memory is so easy to interpret, but practice and virtue as well. Baptize and Imagination was the one that took a little bit more explaining. And I think it was Andrew who described it as they're having to reimagine the world as they step into it. And that's what these capstones are. So I think that's a great example, Katie.

SPEAKER_06 32:06

Yeah, capstone coming up.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Well, well, by the time this year's they'll have already had one. Yeah. And then May 9th is the other one.

SPEAKER_06 32:15

Right. So if you missed the last one, go to the other one. What are you what are you what else are you going to do on Saturday?

SPEAKER_05 32:23

In May. Nothing. There's nothing else to do. Saturday is in May.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Well, one thing that Lindy, our executive producer, is that her title?

SPEAKER_06 32:36

Yes, she's uh Carmen and Lindy are the one who brings us treats.

SPEAKER_04 32:40

The one's the one who loves us more.

SPEAKER_05 32:42

Right.

SPEAKER_06 32:42

Yes. Clearly they do. I usually get um talkings too. Oh behind closed doors.

SPEAKER_05 32:49

Well, we're a little more, you know, on the like we're we're we're not quite so unruly.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

There's probably gonna be less editing for you, Eric.

SPEAKER_04 32:59

Truth.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

We'll share. Maybe.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Well, Lindy pointed out that this episode will air before Mother's Day, and the three of us are Academy Moms whose kids range from pre-K to senior in a and everywhere in between.

SPEAKER_06 33:18

So do you want to be known as the Council of Academy Moms? Did you guys decide?

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Wow, I'd thought about that. Council of that sounds almost like we're a group that's gonna go before the town, the city council and speak at a town hall. Yeah. And like we've organized around the cause that we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_06 33:40

And maybe you've written a song.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

No, I have not written a song. I don't know about these other two.

SPEAKER_06 33:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

No. I no.

SPEAKER_06 33:50

Can if I write a song for you, will you please go to a city council then?

SPEAKER_02 33:54

And sing it? Are people singing songs at City Council? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:58

Oh yeah. Really? Yes. So in the previous iteration of the podcast, I found this. There's a lady in Seattle who goes to lots of things.

SPEAKER_05 34:08

Oh I remember yeah, I listened.

SPEAKER_06 34:10

There's a hole in the sky where a tree once stood. Somebody's making money. And it's it's ridiculous, yes. But it's like it's not bad.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

Like the laurels. Do you know that? Um we have never done this, but there are other schools who sing their debate cases. Why? Just for fun? I mean, I think it's an attention-getting device. Or they they sing their opening statements in court. Like musical theater style? Um well, I sat, I was a spectator, and this was a worlds school. So this was at Worlds in Houston. Another team opened it up by singing Elvis Presley, I Can't Help Falling in Love With You.

SPEAKER_05 34:57

It's a great song.

unknown 34:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:59

I wouldn't have thought of it in that particular context.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

Finished. And then Oh, Elvis is here.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

Elvis is in the building, has not left left yet.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Elvis is not.

SPEAKER_05 35:11

Elvis is not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_06 35:13

Elvis is crumpled, by the way. My cardboard cutout of Elvis is uh yeah, he's been destroyed.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

He's like in a straight jump. That was a gift. Wow. I don't need to know any details about it.

SPEAKER_06 35:25

An anonymous donor uh donated that and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

We've seen better days. Yes. Well, yeah. So then they transitioned out of the song and connected it, like segued into their debate case. The motion, to be clear, just gonna say was it thematically. Yeah, the motion. Well my guess. The motion was um this house would value platonic love the same as romantic love. So at least it had love in the title. It okay. But still, it was a reason. And I had not prepared my students, so I had to watch them all collectively not laugh for three to five minutes. Now I do prepare them. Like, okay, somebody might sing.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

It might be all this. Can one join if one feels the urge?

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Probably. I don't know that there are any rules about it.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

Yeah, yeah. Why not? Yeah. Let's all sing. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

Let's sing right now. Oh. Led by Eric. There's not only Eric. Um sing us an outro.

SPEAKER_06 36:29

Um Well, yeah. Uh there's a hole in the sky where a tree once stood. Somebody's making money.

SPEAKER_05 36:37

Yeah, it's coming back to me.

SPEAKER_06 36:38

There's a hole in the sky where a tree once stood. Yeah. And so I made a s I did like a hardcore distortion guitar. And that used to be our intro music.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

That song?

SPEAKER_06 36:48

Yeah. With m yeah. Not no words, just the guitar.

SPEAKER_04 36:54

No words, just guitar.

SPEAKER_06 36:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

So do you remember the lyrics and or tune to the song you wrote about Connor McQuay?

SPEAKER_06 37:01

Yes. Oh, we'll sing that one. Yeah, that's a good one. I haven't finished it yet, but this uh we I was inspired because we were filming and uh Jennifer and I and we were waiting for Connor. He was nowhere to be seen. He was he was off doing something. Right, right, right. Alex Burge and Connor together is like, what are they doing? It's not then serious, you know. So we're waiting for him. He has a piano in his classroom.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

In his classroom.

SPEAKER_06 37:28

So I went over and started it just kind of came to me, but it w something like no sense of urgency. He's always late. But that's just the way of Connor McQuay. That's a song as far as I got, but it yeah, I got some chords too.

SPEAKER_05 37:47

I understand he's he's not the only staff member who has a time related song that concerns him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:57

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The uh hit tune um keeping time. Yes, it's in my top ten playlist.

SPEAKER_05 38:03

I haven't I haven't officially heard it. Have you really? I have not. Well, cue it up. I mean, indeed. I don't can we we do that? I'm here for it. That's the outro.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

That is that should be every podcast outro and intro.

SPEAKER_06 38:19

I don't know. Let me see if I can find it real quick.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

I if you can't, I can.

SPEAKER_04 38:23

There you go. It should be like a quick button. You just press number one and it finds.

SPEAKER_06 38:27

I know. Well, I I have to put it on the button.

SPEAKER_05 38:31

Eric, I appreciated the humor of your fax outage email. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:41

Yeah. Fax S-I-S-L or I had to go back and uh temper what I was saying because it came across I don't I I can't yeah, I don't want to come across like I was that I hate fax.

SPEAKER_02 38:59

Trevor Burrus Well, you know, if if we were going to form a group and surround a cause, the cause would be the two-factor authentication that we now have to do on facts. I would join that cause and I would go to the town. From every time. From here on out. Unless we petition Eric to change it. I can't change it. Eric has that power.

SPEAKER_06 39:22

But you it's changed facts.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

I can't change it. It's facts. Facts was like, how could we get worse?

SPEAKER_06 39:30

Right. I know.

SPEAKER_04 39:31

We make some people big man again.

SPEAKER_06 39:42

Rhetoric mixed.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

We played this at spring formal Tuesday.

SPEAKER_05 41:00

I'm not disappointed that it's not almost as good as I thought it was. Pretty good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:04

So that's yeah, keeping time.

SPEAKER_04 41:06

Tell me again where his sound bites came from. Cause a podcast, right? Was it a podcast? Or was it a speech?

SPEAKER_06 41:14

So he was doing conversation starters, and he would do these short segments. And this one was on time. And I was sitting there like editing it and sitting in Jennifer's office. It was like par I don't know. And I was like, oh, Jennifer, listen to this. I put it to techno. Just just to joke around. Because I wanted to juxtapose Andrew being philosophical and intellectual with techno. And then Jennifer she encouraged me to really take it through the fruition. Yeah. It was really a good move. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:48

If we could just get him, you know, in some techno gear, and then he could come to rhetoric, and it would just be so great. He would love that. It sounds right up his alley. Give him a little black eyeshadow and some Doc Martins.

SPEAKER_06 42:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:03

Some eyeliner, and he's just right in there.

SPEAKER_06 42:05

DJ Drew.

SPEAKER_04 42:06

There you go.

SPEAKER_06 42:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

All right.

SPEAKER_06 42:08

Well, I think we've got to wrap it up. This is just it's out of control. It's way more out of control than a normal.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

Keeping time in. There's nowhere to go from there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:16

There's nowhere to go. So to all those out there, thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

To our sponsors. Yeah. Thanks for having me. What will we do without you?

SPEAKER_06 42:24

Danny Galdemez, Jasmine. You know, yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of We hope you enjoyed hearing from Jennifer Katie and Clay. It was a lot of fun to have them all. We want to hear what you think. Email us at podcast at theAcademyOK. You can listen to us on Apple Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

Until next time.