Hi, I’m Rée.
Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed. As a student with undiagnosed neurodivergence, learning disabilities, and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned.
In the decades following, I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies. I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy.
Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea, who like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me.
homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale. To speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems to rethink what schools can be. What it should be, when we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources.
In this episode, I speak with Megan—a special education teacher and advocate for the disability community—about her memories of testing gifted at an early age, and her discovery of what giftedness means when she went through her special education credentialing program, over a decade later. We talk about the structural issues with our heavily standardized education system, including how it strips away the creativity of not only our students, but also our teachers, and what the solution this might be. We also talk about neurodivergence, what it is, how it impacts our society at large, and how we can better serve our neurodivergent students going forward.
Here is our edited conversation.
Computer-generated Transcript
Accessibility Disclaimer: Below is a computer generated transcript of our conversation. Please note that there are likely very many errors––including the spelling of our names––and may not make sense, especially when taken out of context.
00:00:03:06 – 00:00:28:18 Unknown Hi, I’m Ray. Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed as a student with undiagnosed neurodivergent learning disabilities and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned. In the decades following. I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies.
00:00:28:19 – 00:00:59:14 Unknown I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assess teacher efficacy. Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea who, like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me. Homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale, to speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems, to rethink what schools can be, what it should be.
00:00:59:14 – 00:01:23:21 Unknown When we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources. In this episode, I speak with Megan, a special education teacher and advocate for the disability community, about her memories of testing gifted at an early age and her discovery of what giftedness actually means.
00:01:23:23 – 00:01:52:18 Unknown When she went through her special education credentialing program over a decade later, we talk about the structural issues with our heavily standardized education system, including how it strips away the creativity of not only our students, but also of our teachers and what the solution might be. We also talk about neurodivergent, what it is, how it impacts our society at large, and how we can better serve our neurodivergent students going forward.
00:01:52:19 – 00:02:28:07 Unknown Here is our edited conversation. I was raised a mixed race. My dad is Mexican and my mom is a mishmash of white. So I was raised in a mixed race household. My father was the actor, the addict, as when I was a small child. So my first bout four years was kind of like being raised by a single mother.
00:02:28:09 – 00:02:59:19 Unknown I have a younger sister. I grew up in LAUSD public schools. I did test gifted. I think I was in first grade at the time. I tested Gifted in Math and that kind of set my mom on the magnet school path and I transitioned into a magnet, a gifted magnet in fifth grade, and I stayed in magnets through graduating high school.
00:02:59:21 – 00:03:31:22 Unknown So I definitely had a little bit of a elevated public school experience, I guess maybe a little higher quality than, you know, the average overall, definitely more higher level critical thinking involved than I think a lot of public school educations provide.
00:03:32:00 – 00:04:13:14 Unknown I was a student who academics always came very easily to me. The school environment was very it fit for me. I think the balance of the controlled environment in a classroom versus the social chaos on the yard was a good balance for me, where I could move in between those spaces. I really enjoyed learning. I have never been afraid to give my $0.02 ever.
00:04:13:16 – 00:04:45:17 Unknown You’re laughing because you know, So I always spoke up in class. I was always part of the conversation. I asked questions that just as what came naturally to me. I know both of us have explored our neurodivergent over the last few years, and I wonder now how that was playing a role in that element. Yeah. You know, actually, I have a question for you.
00:04:45:19 – 00:05:19:13 Unknown So, you know, I did not know that I was neurodivergent when I was younger or in school, and I’m pretty sure now looking back, I had ADHD and I still have it now along with other things. But, you know, you mentioned you talked about being tested, gifted and being in elevated classes and really being, I guess, praised and also challenged for your ability to think critically.
00:05:19:15 – 00:05:54:00 Unknown And, you know, I hear a lot about people who were tested, gifted or were in environments where their giftedness was praised. They grow up to have like perfectionism and like imposter syndrome. And a lot of these, like, isms and syndromes about their abilities. Right. So I’m curious, like, how do you think that, I guess, impacted your short term?
00:05:54:00 – 00:06:20:02 Unknown Like at the time and then also how it impacted you in the long term? Yeah, I think I got really lucky outside of my K through four experience in which the gifted program was a joke. It was an excuse to get out of class for an hour a couple times a week and do mime. That’s all I remember, which was fun.
00:06:20:04 – 00:06:25:11 Unknown But I’m not sure where we’re going with that.
00:06:25:13 – 00:07:03:04 Unknown But then after that, I spent so much time in gifted Magnons in college prep magnets where high achieving was the expectation. And I think that that environment breeds a lot of perfectionism. It breeds a lot of imposter syndrome. Also, one of the things about giftedness is that it is not explained, it’s not explained to parents, it’s not explained to children.
00:07:03:06 – 00:07:40:10 Unknown You hear gifted and you think, they’re really smart. They’re going to be really good in school. But that’s not what gifted is Gifted has to do about the way your brain works, just like any other neurodivergent. It’s that higher what we call higher level thinking, which has its own hierarchy in and of itself. But, you know, the more critical thinking, the questioning, the looking at things from a different perspective, the wanting to figure out how something works, what’s what’s behind that is very consistently seen in people who have been identified as gifted.
00:07:40:10 – 00:08:07:04 Unknown But at no point is that ever explained. Anyone who is gifted. I didn’t even know giftedness was neurodivergent until I went through a special ed credentialing program. After spending my entire life identified as gifted in gifted magnets, working in special education like I could not have had more opportunities for this to be shared with me or to be exposed to it.
00:08:07:04 – 00:08:31:17 Unknown And at no point was it ever explained. And I find that I’m still I have to remind myself to perceive it as a neurodivergent. And once I look at it that way, it really opens up and explains a lot of those things, a lot of those commonalities that we see in people with ADHD and people we see with autism.
00:08:31:17 – 00:08:59:17 Unknown The burnout, you know, struggling with social, emotional, the imposter syndrome, the masking, all of that stuff is present in gifted too. The difference is the societal perspective. The perspective is, you’re going to be great. You have the ability, you’re going to go do this. And that’s why we see the gifted people crashing and burning, because they’ve been pushed so hard to that level.
00:08:59:19 – 00:09:31:05 Unknown And it’s impossible to maintain over time. And then on the other end, you have these very low expectations and being sold into this very tiny box. And then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because people who are expected to perform poorly aren’t given the resources to perform well. So yeah, once you start to look at it through a neurodivergent perspective, that makes a lot of sense.
00:09:31:07 – 00:09:54:22 Unknown Yeah, that’s a really good way to articulate it. And you know, like one of the first that kind of reminds me of something. So we went to high school together and one of the memories that I have of being in school with you is that we were in we were studying for a test, I think it was for AP us.
00:09:55:00 – 00:10:37:11 Unknown And I remember you bringing several of us over to your house, and I remember being, you know, in that space and you taking this role of the teacher and not in like a domineering kind of way, but because it was so clear that you knew what was going on and that you were able to organize internally in your mind what was going on, and then being able to articulate what you knew and how you organized, what you knew was so impressive to me.
00:10:37:12 – 00:11:11:13 Unknown Like that was like 50 different levels that of like mental work that I did not have internally built in my mind at that time. And I just remember feeling. So I don’t know if this is the right way to articulate it, but I remember that there was a serious power hierarchy there. Like I knew that I was very inferior and that I had so much to learn from you and that moment.
00:11:11:15 – 00:11:41:15 Unknown And, you know, like as being a peer, right. That kind of sends like the messaging like to me, like, yeah, you don’t know anything. There are people who know a lot more than you. So, you know, I’m not saying that you necessarily made me feel inferior. I just remember being in many situations where, like, you know, I knew that I didn’t know as much as I should.
00:11:41:17 – 00:12:10:07 Unknown And you talking about, like, giftedness and learning about that later on is very interesting to me because I’m curious like, because that does kind of create this dichotomy of there are people who we should not expect, expect anything of, and then there are people who were like, let’s put all of the expectations on them. And, you know, like, I’m sure that doesn’t really, you know, lead to any good health outcomes, you know?
00:12:10:09 – 00:12:36:10 Unknown Yeah, I know. I was laughing to myself when you were saying that before because I have a group chat text with a couple of my close friends from high school. And one of the things that goes back and forth among us very frequently is those memes about like, were you a gifted child in high school? Are you turned out and anxious now?
00:12:36:12 – 00:13:24:06 Unknown Yeah. And so, you know, like I know you went into special education and I really want to know, like, from reading what you have written, you are such an incredibly talented writer, and I hope I’m not perpetuating that anxiety by giving you all these compliments. Maybe I should not, but yeah, okay, I’ll stop. But, you know, I remember like, reading some of the things that you have said about your experience in special education and some of like the conclusions that you’ve made about how we need to restructure education so that we don’t send these damaging expectations to either camps.
00:13:24:07 – 00:13:53:04 Unknown Right. I’d love to kind of talk a little bit about that, but I wanted to hear a little bit about your experience going through special education programs or to become a special education teacher. But I’m also curious about the journey that led you to wanting to pursue special education. Yeah, there were a number of things over the years.
00:13:53:06 – 00:14:26:22 Unknown I thought being a teacher for 15 years with people telling me I should teach because I really like getting in there and getting my hands dirty and building relationships with the kids and all of that. And teaching is so much paperwork, you know, and it takes away from that. And I was willing to be paid less to be able to come in and interact with the kids and go home, you know?
00:14:27:00 – 00:15:03:10 Unknown But I had a number of things. The first thing was my sister dealing with an identified learning disability that she struggled with through all of her education. It wasn’t recognized until middle school. And at that, well, middle school, when she got to our middle and high school, the level of demands became too much. And that’s when it became really problematic.
00:15:03:12 – 00:15:31:10 Unknown And I knew that my at that point I was already in high school and I knew that my sister was every bit as intelligent as I was. But school never came easily for her and school was always easy for me. And that just kind of made me realize there was some kind of disconnect in how intelligence was perceived.
00:15:31:12 – 00:15:58:06 Unknown And so when I got to college, I had the opportunity to take some courses related to education. The first one was sociology of education. I think that perspective in particular, I ended up being a sociology major, so really opened my eyes to all the different types of intelligence. And that really provided something for me to kind of grasp onto.
00:15:58:08 – 00:16:29:09 Unknown That started to explain that dissonance between my sister’s educational experience and mine. We also got to all different schools, you know. So that was the initial around the same time my mom rejoined the work field and the workforce and ended up getting her adult credential and working in a transition program, which is for 18 to 25 year olds.
00:16:29:09 – 00:17:03:13 Unknown So that transition out of high school into adulthood with disabilities at one of the best program school district based programs in the country, as it turned out, and I learned a ton and was able to, you know, got ready and got to go to events and got to really be exposed to the community, the disability community itself. And so my real initial exposure was in the advocacy more of an advocacy realm of things.
00:17:03:13 – 00:17:30:00 Unknown And so I came into special education with a really different perspective than much of the education field. You know, I most people come in with, manages something so nice for these little kids who need all this help and like, you must be so patient. You, you know, that thing. And I was like, No, I’m going in there and getting these kids the support they need.
00:17:30:02 – 00:18:02:16 Unknown I’m going to go knock on doors, you know. So I came in with this advocacy and look, these kids deserve more than they’re getting because that’s where my introduction to the disability community had been. And I came in already knowing with problems with the system or having worked in the system, and then also having the people who had gone through the system with a disability and come out and their critique of it.
00:18:02:18 – 00:18:33:05 Unknown Yeah, I got a little sidetracked there. But yeah, so I kind of took a long road, but I had a lot of familial outside related experiences. And then interestingly enough, the final straw that got me to become a teacher was my own disability journey. I was already identifying as a member of the disability community at that time due to my mental health disabilities.
00:18:33:07 – 00:19:06:17 Unknown But when I was about 28 I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, which is an autoimmune disorder, and at the time I was a behaviorist, which we can have discussion about that later. And I realized very quickly that the physical demands were just not a good idea for me. I was putting myself in a situation that was just setting myself up for more damage sooner.
00:19:06:19 – 00:19:32:21 Unknown And what I settled on, what looked feasible that allowed me to still work with the type of students I like to work with and my preference is I really like the kids. I like working with the kids that everybody else is brushed off. The kids with the out there behavioral stuff, the kids that are going to cuss you out when they walk in the room, the ones that you’ve got to like dig in and find what will open them up.
00:19:32:21 – 00:20:22:02 Unknown You know, And so you don’t wait till then. There are you shared a couple of stories with me about, you know, these experiences that you had with some of the most, I guess, quote unquote, challenging children or students. And I wanted to if you could share some of those. Yeah. Yeah. So interestingly enough, one of the ones I shared with you and talk about actually was while I was teaching as a resource specialist, which was supposed to be students who have lower support needs that are able to be mainstreamed into Asian ed classroom and a non-inclusive school.
00:20:22:04 – 00:20:49:06 Unknown What I walked in on was somebody who had not been doing their job and dumped the all the kids they didn’t want to deal with on me. Yeah. And this one student, he was a first grader. He’d spent all of kindergarten having his mother be present in the classroom because he could not be in the classroom without somebody right there all the time.
00:20:49:06 – 00:21:26:06 Unknown And instead of getting him a one on one in the support that he needed, his mother sat in the class with him, sparring with him every day for a year. So I walked in and I was like, Absolutely not. Mom’s going home to do her stuff and we’re going to do our stuff here. But this kid, he had been witness to extensive amounts of domestic abuse verbally, sexually, physically had been subject to verbal and physical abuse.
00:21:26:08 – 00:22:12:10 Unknown Yeah, very, very difficult situation. Extreme poverty. Mom, not surprisingly, is a mess as a result of the family situation and tried like hell but just was over her head. So this student was and I struggle with this label but emotionally disturbed and hadn’t been identified as such was also autistic, had not been identified as such and would have full on meltdowns in the classroom almost every day.
00:22:12:10 – 00:22:40:18 Unknown And when he would meltdown, he would lash out. And he was a very stocky first grader. So this kid was throwing things, moving desks, throwing chairs, screaming, hitting three pencils. And he ain’t he he’s cognizant enough in the midst of it that he will aim them at people. So this kid very quickly starts spending a lot of time in my room.
00:22:40:19 – 00:23:09:18 Unknown Any time the classroom environment was too much, she came in my room. Any time the cafeteria was too much, she was in my room. He had we got him a one on one aide, but one on one. Aides are not trained, especially in my district. There was no training whatsoever. And this is a child who needs somebody who understands the proper, appropriate, you know, trauma informed approaches for this child.
00:23:09:20 – 00:23:31:21 Unknown And I basically walked in there and took one look at this kid and said, this kid can’t learn. This kid is nowhere near being able to learn. He is literally like you’re actively watching him in flight in flight mode. You know. So I stopped with the academics. I started doing one on one sessions with him. I started building a relationship.
00:23:32:03 – 00:23:59:00 Unknown We talk about the things he’s like. We play games, and then I would slowly, slowly, like literally if we were wrote his name in the course of an hour long session, I was so happy. Like that was an accomplished day. If he didn’t injure anyone, it didn’t have to restrain him. And you know, he did like the tiniest academic task that was a success.
00:23:59:00 – 00:24:21:09 Unknown And that’s where we started. But it very quickly became clear that he needed that emotional connection and that support. He would seek me out. My room became the room where he would come. When he’d elope from his classroom, it’s you’d end up you know, I would not go chase this kid. I’d wait 5 minutes and he’d be in my room.
00:24:21:11 – 00:24:48:06 Unknown You know, everybody else is running all over campus. And I’m like, Help you here in a minute. This is where he’s coming. Yeah. And just the situations where these kids are just so underserved and they’re pushed under the rug, you know, rather than fighting for them. People don’t want to deal with them because they’re a high level support.
00:24:48:07 – 00:25:20:07 Unknown They need a high level support. And I’m curious about this, you know, and in turn, teachers are completely overwhelmed and don’t literally do not have the time to figure out, beat down doors and implement the type of support these kids need. Yeah. And I think teachers just don’t have that. The training, that understanding, Right. Of knowing how to be trauma informed and I wanted to ask you about this.
00:25:20:07 – 00:25:54:12 Unknown Like when you say that there isn’t a lot of support and you could see firsthand that these children were not getting the support that they needed. From your perspective of having that training and having the ability to recognize what is not being met, how would you design things differently or what did you think or what did you see?
00:25:54:14 – 00:26:30:20 Unknown What were the connections that were disconnected or had never been made in the first place? That these young people were not getting the support that they needed, the resources. I think the number one route of the issue is that teachers are not trained to recognize why these behaviors are happening. In some cases, teachers are trained how to respond to behaviors, but nobody’s looking at what is the reason.
00:26:30:20 – 00:26:56:04 Unknown Behavior is communication. All behavior is communication. And so if there’s a behavior, there’s a reason for it. It’s not just happening out of the blue and so often what I see is that the child is blamed for the behavior. And from day one, when a child is blamed because they’re not paying attention, they’re out of their seat, they can’t find their pencil.
00:26:56:06 – 00:27:18:22 Unknown These are things that we would look at if you’re educated and you’re trained in this area, you’re going, okay, these are signs of executive dysfunction and you’re already flagging that. Yeah, you’re flagging that in preschool, you know, because you’ve been trained and you know, the signs of executive dysfunction. And we all have issues. Nobody hasn’t dealt with executive functioning issues.
00:27:18:22 – 00:27:53:16 Unknown It’s something that’s very easy to recognize once you know what it is, you know, because it’s something all of us struggle with at points in time. And if we were able to recognize those things and then know what to do in those tiny moments, it’s not the big stuff we have the big systems and there’s issues there too, but it’s those little interventions in the moment that rather than, you know, snapping it to me because he doesn’t know where his pencil is, you say, okay, here’s a box on your desk.
00:27:53:16 – 00:28:10:17 Unknown This is where all your pencils are going to go. We’re going to just toss them in there, right there, nice and visible. I’m going to attach it to your desk so it doesn’t slide around. That took me 30 seconds. And not only have I solved the problem for myself, I don’t have to go tell him every 10 minutes and drive myself crazy.
00:28:10:19 – 00:28:45:00 Unknown But he has now seen a strategy that he can implement elsewhere for helping to keep things straight. The basket method. It’s like the quintessential ADHD method, you know, because you dump stuff in piles, you put them in bars like categorize baskets. Wow. And it’s just those little tiny things like in that moment that if we had the knowledge and the skill base going in as educators, we would be so much more efficient at addressing these issues.
00:28:45:02 – 00:29:15:12 Unknown And I think in a lot of cases, kids wouldn’t get to a point where they need services If these little everyday things are being implemented on the fly in real time as they’re needed. Yeah, you know, because so many so many kids, by the time they’ve been put in special education, particularly when it would neurodivergent by the time they’ve been identified and put in special education, they are checked out.
00:29:15:14 – 00:29:42:13 Unknown Teachers have been on their case, their grades suck, their parents have been on their case. Maybe, you know, they’re getting chastised. They’re the class clown because they’re compensating for, you know, their inability to get things done, you know, And they they’re done. They have no investment in education because education hasn’t invested in that, you know, And then you’re fighting.
00:29:42:15 – 00:30:03:09 Unknown I spent so much time with my middle school students. In fact, I spent most of my time with my middle school students fighting through the walls they had built around their education to protect themselves. You know, so many of my students were so shut down, they would flat out tell me, no, I’m not going to try. I don’t know how to do that.
00:30:03:09 – 00:30:28:03 Unknown I can’t do this. And just not they’re just not going to try. And I get it. If I’d been swabbed my entire life, you can’t do this. It’s your own fault. You’re not able to do this. Yeah, I’m going to stop trying to. my gosh. Yeah. And I want to know a little bit more about this piece with your experience.
00:30:28:05 – 00:30:58:06 Unknown I know about, like, we were talking about expectations, right? Having high expectations. Not good. Having low expectations. Expectations not good. Right. What is the right level of expectation that we should have of our of our young people? But also, I’m curious about the Neurodivergent piece, because I’m realizing that I wanted and maybe this is not this is just an intuitive number.
00:30:58:06 – 00:31:24:23 Unknown And so for you, you probably have a better gauge of it, but I just feel like everybody is neurodivergent and only like 10% are really neurotypical, right? So I’m curious again. So these two pieces is how much of the population is neurodivergent and also how do we arrive at the right level of expectation to have of our young people?
00:31:25:01 – 00:32:07:19 Unknown The first question I can answer the second one is this I honestly think that and I’ve felt this for a long time, but now I’m seeing with honestly, social media. Social media has opened up the neurodivergent world so much in terms of particularly late diagnosed and undiagnosed neurodivergent women because we didn’t fit the I like trains mold, you know, the very stereotypical autistic boy picture.
00:32:07:21 – 00:32:42:17 Unknown And so I think there’s a huge explosion right now where people are realizing, I am Metro Divergent. That’s what’s going on. And I think were suddenly racing towards getting to the point where we understand that it is a difference, not a disorder. I read something and I couldn’t tell you where it came from. It was a study a few months back about neurodivergent and what its evolutionary function is.
00:32:42:19 – 00:33:25:05 Unknown Because if it is an intentional difference then it must be there must have served a function at some point in order for us to develop it. And that what they’re seeing is they see increased levels of genetic markers from neuro divergence in migrant populations. So populations that were in the transition from one place to another. And so it’s being theorized is that the Neurodivergent brain provided advantages in a situation where you’re an unfamiliar surroundings, hyper vigilant.
00:33:25:07 – 00:34:04:06 Unknown We tend to be up more at night when other people are people tend to sleep. So you’ve got alternating groups of people to keep watch, the ability to pattern recognition, all things that are really, really valuable in unfamiliar environments. And I think looking at that and looking at the where we’re starting to near the point where we’re starting to look at like 40, 50% of the population is probably neurodivergent that at that point when it becomes a large chunk of the population, it’s no, that’s not a disorder, that’s just a type of person.
00:34:04:06 – 00:34:53:15 Unknown It’s a difference and it serves a function. Unfortunately, our society works against a lot of the advantages of Neurodivergent. And what you are saying here reminds me, or so right now I’m reading The body keeps the Score and list. Yeah. And he he basically is making this argument or he basically is saying that our biography is our biology and he talks a lot about trauma and a lot of what you just said here about hyper vigilance of staying up at night and being able to recognize patterns.
00:34:53:15 – 00:35:27:20 Unknown Right. For survival. Like there’s so much overlap in trauma and, you know, I’m in that sort of like Bermuda Triangle of trying to figure out, like, am I autistic? Am I do I have ADHD? Do I have anxiety? Do I see PTSD? Like, what is it? Right? And the thing that I’m realizing and connecting with a lot of people on is that there is a lot of trauma that we have experienced, a lot of trauma, of social disconnection and being told that we don’t belong somewhere.
00:35:28:01 – 00:36:00:02 Unknown And so when you just brought up that study of like there’s a lot of markers, genetic markers in like migrant populations, that makes total sense of being like socially disconnected and being told that we don’t belong. Go ahead. Yeah. No, I had never thought about that connection. Absolutely. Yeah. And so I’m just thinking, like when we think about neuro divergence and we think about trauma, it’s because we are traumatized so.
00:36:00:08 – 00:36:29:08 Unknown Well, you know, when I think about neurodiversity, like a coping mechanism. Traumatized. Exactly. Yeah. And I don’t know what you think about that. It makes it sound horrible when we label it that. But then also, like, if you look at evolution, evolution happens out of a need and if you don’t have what you need, then you’re going to experience trauma.
00:36:29:10 – 00:36:57:20 Unknown I mean, it’s kind of the human condition in that sense. Yeah, you know, I mean that like innovation is the birth child of what is I can’t need or whatever the phrase is, you know what I’m getting at. Yes. And, you know, I was listening to and reading some of the stuff that Temple Grandin had written about the way that her brain works and some of the things that she has talked about.
00:36:57:20 – 00:37:30:05 Unknown And she loves to reference people who are dead and say, yup, that person with Neurodivergent or that person was autistic. And she was like, she was like, Steve Jobs. I’m not going to say it, but you know where I’m going with this, you know, And a lot of and I hear about this like a lot of engineers, a lot of entrepreneurs are neurodivergent and they’re always trying to meet the needs of, you know, things that we don’t have that he’s like, wait, why has nobody invented this already?
00:37:30:07 – 00:37:59:09 Unknown And Temple Grandin talks about how, like she says, we would not we would not have any innovations in life if we did not have autistic people. Right. And so creativity, fact check. Go ahead. Yeah. The creativity factor with Neurodivergent and the ability to think outside of the box, the abstract thought I think are really foundational to invention and progress.
00:37:59:11 – 00:38:38:13 Unknown So I think, yeah, I, I, I truly, truly think we as an entire society, I mean, obviously we as society are disadvantaged by it is among other people, you know, but we’re missing out on honing the advantages of Neurodivergent. There are so many strengths, you know, the creativity, the not being defined by societal, you know, boxes and the pattern recognition.
00:38:38:15 – 00:39:28:23 Unknown That’s the ability to recognize the need right there. Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, I think when we were talking about, like your upbringing and you having had already that like ability to recognize patterns and the ability to organize where things need to go in your mind, like the fact that you had that advantage from such a young age, You know, I guess we could talk about, you know, whether the pros and the cons of that, but I’m like, with your experience having gone into learning about special education and meeting people’s needs and being trauma informed and understanding that, you know, like at least half of the population is probably experiencing neuro divergence.
00:39:29:00 – 00:39:58:04 Unknown How do you think we can organize or reorganize or rebuild a mass public schooling system that can better meet their needs, but also kind of orient it in a way where we are taking the benefits of neuro divergence, Right? I don’t know if I need to flesh this question out any more. If you know where I’m going with.
00:39:58:04 – 00:40:35:19 Unknown No, I know where you’re going. I think project based learning is the foundation here is the applicable learning, and that’s where you get one of the biggest issues I see with our society overall. And I think it became dramatically more apparent with the pandemic is how disconnected we are interpersonally and how much of a breakdown of community there has been in it really since the technological revolution.
00:40:35:19 – 00:41:00:13 Unknown How much of a huge breakdown of community there is? And I think the pandemic was kind of a nail in the coffin for us in that sense. And I think a lot of us settled into a situation comfortably with community. You know, I certainly did. I’m very community resistant while still feeling a very strong need for the benefits.
00:41:00:15 – 00:41:25:22 Unknown Yes, 100%. I don’t want to talk to other people and help other people and see other people. But also I need those things. Yeah. And I think, you know, the idea of getting in a room and solving a problem together, what doesn’t that teach? You know, it teaches the problem solving. It teaches asking questions, it teaches inquiry, it teaches trial and error.
00:41:25:22 – 00:42:01:18 Unknown It teaches you how to receive feedback, you know, and then you’re using you’ve got all those different brains in a mishmash coming up with ideas. They’re bouncing off of each other and other people straight at one person’s strengths are building off of another person’s strength. You know, we can’t do it alone. And particularly the Western I’m just not that familiar with non-Western education systems are extremely individualized, individualistic.
00:42:01:20 – 00:42:27:19 Unknown It is. How are you doing? What is your grade and a competition between everybody else. You got to one up everyone else. You know, it teaches you to pit yourself against others rather than to work collectively for the greater good. And I think project based learning is moving away from that and back in to the collaborative collective good.
00:42:27:19 – 00:42:52:20 Unknown And it just it’s such a more functional way of teaching. You know, you’re not compartmentalizing everything. You’re teaching so many different things together. It’s applicable so the kids are more interested. They can see the function of it, they see the outcome, you know, I think all the way around and there’s a big push for project based learning right now.
00:42:52:22 – 00:43:22:18 Unknown But the problem is like with every initiative we have is that we want to implement these things without changing the root issues. And so you can throw all the project based learning in the world into the current education system. But project based learning takes a whole different kind of planning. Yeah, it’s not like writing a standard lesson plan and it doesn’t work with the standard curriculums.
00:43:22:20 – 00:43:49:19 Unknown You know, the curriculums would need to be restructured where things art, math, science, history, it’s all, you know, integrated. Yeah. And I think that’s there’s, there’s no connections. We don’t see the connections. And so it’s like, well, why do I need to know how to solve for X? Well, let’s see, let’s go to the grocery store. Here’s the function.
00:43:49:19 – 00:44:12:12 Unknown You know, like you make it, you give it a reason. Like, why do I need this information? because I need to know how much I need or how much I can get with this amount of money. Now it makes sense. Now I have a motivation to learn it, but we have disconnected everything so far from its function that kids don’t understand why they’re learning.
00:44:12:12 – 00:44:41:01 Unknown And if you don’t understand why, why are you going to do it? Especially Neurodivergent. We won’t do anything unless we have an explanation. And then we’ve decided it’s the right explanation, you know? Yes, 100%. And I think one of the reason, you know, that I really struggled in school was I had zero executive functioning, I mean, in comparison to all of our peers.
00:44:41:03 – 00:45:34:07 Unknown But I had a very strong moral compass and, you know, a very, very rich internal world as far as my intuition was concerned. And so it was very creative. And it the most things in the physical world didn’t make sense to me because it didn’t it didn’t translate. I could interpret it to meet my internal mind. And so what you’re saying here, is it also really parallels my own like findings from like my own experience as an educator and also the things that I’m learning from people on this podcast, That project based learning is going to really solve a lot of things like you mentioned.
00:45:34:07 – 00:45:55:13 Unknown And also I want to add about the intrinsic motivation, right? Not just tying the the the need and the incentive, right? Because it’s all built into the function of why, you know, if you need to know that, you’re going to need to know how to go to the grocery store, of course you’re going to have to learn these skills.
00:45:55:15 – 00:46:23:14 Unknown And so that’s like the intrinsic motivation of this is going to help you survive when we’re no longer here to help you and that you can go on and be an adult and a contributing member of society. And so I’m I want to piggyback off of this piece that you mentioned about like social connection and collaboration versus competition.
00:46:23:14 – 00:47:11:14 Unknown It’s like so individualistic. How do we move towards collaborative mindset, project based mindset, you know, like meeting social good, right? And I don’t know, for bias, you were a sociology major and I mean, anyway, I won’t even get into that. But I’m curious, from your experience and all of the things that you’ve written so well, how can we go towards a future where we’re designing a system for these, for these threads of collaboration and also in what was this other piece?
00:47:11:16 – 00:47:49:11 Unknown I think, you know, I’m going with this, but I’m curious like systematically what needs to change? What kind of training do we need to give the teachers? What kind of projects do we actually create or what kind of like how do we get rid of standardized testing? You know, like, what do we what do we substitute for what already exists about, you know, measuring people against their peers and giving them a standardized curriculum to meet or else?
00:47:49:12 – 00:48:20:12 Unknown Right. So what is that alternative that we’re looking for and how can we get closer to it? I think we can take a page from the idea in IEPs and individualized learning plans. That’s exactly the difference, is on an individualized learning plan. In theory, you are focused on meeting your goals. That’s your entire focus is your goal, and your goal is set for you.
00:48:20:14 – 00:48:45:00 Unknown It’s not. The entire class has to master X, Y, and Z. It’s you are working towards this. And then there’s benchmarks, there’s your steps. You know, So you factor in the executive functioning right there and go, okay, this is our goal. And then here’s like our steps to get there. Where are we at? Okay, let’s do the next one.
00:48:45:00 – 00:49:29:08 Unknown Let’s do the next one. And encouraging and looking at your progress in your goals, you know, and kind of moving more away from I mean, I still there’s definitely a need for qualitative data and, you know, creating some kind of percentage based situation for measurement, but moving away from like a grading a punitive grading system into more of an evaluation system where there’s more feedback and continued growth, where you’re kind of playing into that growth mindset.
00:49:29:08 – 00:50:00:15 Unknown Okay, well, there’s some issues with this. What can we do? Let’s go back and work at something that I really, really see disappear out of education in our lifetimes. Is when we were in elementary school and middle school. You would do a paragraph, an essay, whatever, you turn it in, your teacher would edit it for you or you do a pure edit and then you come back and you’d rewrite it and then you turn it in and you get, you know, you went through the whole writing process.
00:50:00:15 – 00:50:27:07 Unknown I have not seen that in a curriculum in 15 years. I don’t see it. So there’s no, it’s either you do it or you don’t rather than like, well what progress did you make, What did you accomplish or what did you learn and how we use that next time or what can we take that and do with it, you know, rather than this very black and white Like, you got it.
00:50:27:07 – 00:51:01:15 Unknown You didn’t get it. You’re good, you’re bad, you’re smart, you’re dumb, you know, And there’s we just have these boxes and it’s not it’s you know, it’s a whole spectrum and there’s value to every error. And there’s value to not understanding and asking questions. And something I see so many students in special education because of how much they’ve been brushed off is they don’t ask questions, they do not have the confidence, they don’t believe their questions are valuable.
00:51:01:17 – 00:51:41:00 Unknown They think that asking questions makes them dumb is a sign that they’re not intelligent when in reality asking questions is how we learn. And that is that higher level thinking, right? They’re like, that’s what we want to be building. You know, is that back and forth in the conversations and the breaking things down, you know, So we seem to have gotten back to like the 1940s, fifties rote stuff in a really strong capacity somehow Common Core Bartels factor.
00:51:41:00 – 00:52:14:09 Unknown I’m not clear on how that was what led us there, but you know, like where like I remember in elementary school and actually one of my early education, you know, experiences that kind of drove me was that same sociology of education. Of course, we had an interview, an educator, and I chose to hunt down my third, second and third grade teacher who was the one that had that the blended class.
00:52:14:11 – 00:52:42:02 Unknown And she had been an educator for like 20 years at the time and was still teaching when I interviewed her. So she’d been through the evolution of it and the thing that she said that has always stuck with me is how much Common Core destroyed the creativity of teaching. yeah, yeah, yeah. It still hits me like a gut punch.
00:52:42:04 – 00:53:00:22 Unknown I just got goosebumps. She was like, before that, like, you know, I thought all these and she was one of those teachers who always had, like, the best creative projects and stuff. And she loved doing that. And she would put her time and her energy into creating all these cool, fun, memorable experiences for us that were extremely beneficial.
00:53:01:00 – 00:53:56:08 Unknown And that was what she was feeling. So this was in like 2003, so early Common Core transition actually, we might have an open court. So at that time. But yeah, just it’s taken all of the creativity and all the wiggle room. It’s so standardized, even the differentiation is standardized. It’s, you know, it’s yeah. And I think also part of it is like, you know, the standardization is really like, okay, very top and it’s very like, okay, we know all of the things that are going to make our children great, docile economic products and we need you to meet all of these benchmarks so that they can be employable in any corporation that’s still standing 20
00:53:56:08 – 00:54:29:21 Unknown years from now. Right. But I feel like in the way that we’re headed and, you know, the patterns that I’m recognizing in all the different moving parts of society and saying that’s not going to work with all the access to AI that we have, all the exponentially improving technology that we have, the way that, you know, entrepreneurship and and, you know, these small circles of influence that are popping up everywhere, that is not what we need.
00:54:29:21 – 00:55:05:03 Unknown We do not need a centralized system. And we’re definitely going to decentralize. And I think, yeah, a lot of things are going to be needed to change. And so I guess like, you know, the last things that I kind of wanted to ask you about are when we when we think about Common Core and all this, like top down, this is what we need you to do.
00:55:05:05 – 00:55:45:00 Unknown And we kind of disconnect from allowing our our young people to have their own agency in their own locus of control and agency over their own curiosity. What do you think is one really big impactful step in the right direction? What is one step that we need to take to to go in that direction? I guess I think the obvious and doable thing is to eliminate standardized testing.
00:55:45:02 – 00:56:17:23 Unknown That’s the most like, you know, standardization over the board, across the board and everything, all the science debunks the function of scenario test anyways, like we’ve known for decades, that they’re really not valuable. You know, a new study just came out that the SAT and A.C.T. don’t measure how a student will perform in college. What they measure is what their parent’s income is.
00:56:18:01 – 00:56:48:09 Unknown Yeah. Which I mean, we all could have told you that, right? Like we knew this. And as is the case for all other standardized tests, they will tell you what economic range you are in. And that’s about it. You know, it’s a waste of money. It’s a waste of time. It’s destroying our education system. It’s destroying teachers, because all we do is teach to a test of stuff that it’s not what’s relevant and what’s most important.
00:56:48:11 – 00:57:47:08 Unknown Yes. And, you know, like, okay, so that really makes me think about some of the thoughts that you had written about, about some of like the big structural changes that actually we need to make in order to move away from this really top down, stifling, suffocating, I guess, understanding of what education is moving towards, what it can be, which I think I don’t know if I’m assuming here, but just from the things that we’ve talked about and things that you’ve said and written about, it kind of sounds like your vision of education is to really be about giving young people the ability to become and live up to their full potential and to give them
00:57:47:08 – 00:58:23:02 Unknown the tools as to explore their curiosity, to be contributing members of society in a way that works for them and with their own talents and, you know, I feel like we kind of share in that mission. Wait, am I assuming or you’re good today? Absolutely. Yes. And so I wanted to ask you, because you’ve written some really great things about some of the structural changes that really need to be substituted or be changed or to really be addressed for these things to happen.
00:58:23:04 – 00:58:50:11 Unknown And I wanted to share some of these things with you and see to to see if if you have things to share with our audience. But I know some of the things that you wrote here are about teachers and their their responsibility and also their training. And I wonder if you wanted to talk about that a little bit.
00:58:50:11 – 00:59:26:13 Unknown Yeah, I mean, I think we all know that there is an issue with the position of teaching, particularly in the United States, where our we are under compensated, under respected, undervalued, under heard, overworked, you know, and just pounded on with responsibilities and micromanaged all over the place to a degree that you don’t really see in any other career of this stature.
00:59:26:15 – 01:00:03:07 Unknown You know, the fact that I have a credential that proves that I know how to plan a lesson should tell you enough that I do not need to provide you with a written lesson plan for everything I’m going to teach on a standardized curriculum that I’m basically regurgitating out of a book. You know, just the amount of work that is put on teachers under the guise of accountability.
01:00:03:07 – 01:00:37:08 Unknown That’s really just micromanagement. And most of it goes nowhere. Most of it’s data and paperwork that nobody does anything with. It’s literal busywork. Teachers are. Yeah, it’s a little bigger picture. I know I talked about the one stop shop factor of schools which in theory is an amazing concept that a child can walk into a community space, a public space, and they can access all the resources that they could possibly need in one location.
01:00:37:12 – 01:01:26:04 Unknown That’s brilliant. Right. Good call, guys. Except that we want all these services. But they’re afterthoughts, they’re poorly funded, they’re poorly managed, they’re pushed to the back. You know, they’re given very little time. Support staff are given closets to work in, you know, So things like mental health, social, emotional learning, food access to food, access to basic health care are, you know, all of that has become the responsibility of the teachers on top of the continually increasing demands of teaching.
01:01:26:09 – 01:01:53:01 Unknown So the actual teaching part, you know, Janette, teachers are scheduled to the minute all day to the minute they have to have 16 minutes of this and 38 minutes of this and 25 minutes of this every week. And they’re literally down to the minute and they will get slapped up if they’re not doing it. But the thing is, you can’t schedule 30 children down to the minute.
01:01:53:03 – 01:02:15:04 Unknown One of the things I love most about working with kids is the unpredictability of it. I absolutely love that you walk in and no two days are ever the same, but that also means you can’t plan down to the minute because it will not work that way. So you’re just constantly playing catch up, you’re constantly underwater, and then there’s no support.
01:02:15:04 – 01:02:55:04 Unknown Nobody believes you, nobody wants to listen to you. Everybody wants to blame you. Nobody wants to address the issues. Nobody wants to fund education. So it becomes compounding. And the people who I mean, yes, the teachers suffer, but the people who really suffer, the students, you know, if we don’t have the time and the resources to be the teachers that we can be, all of our education, all of our skills, all the money in the world is not going to make a difference if you’re not giving me the time and the support in order to do those things.
01:02:55:06 – 01:03:23:16 Unknown Absolutely. And, you know, I think that kind of blends in to another point that you talked about, about participation from like the community members and from parents and from, you know, people who can participate. I was wondering if you wanted to share something. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s was talking about like the little things that we can do that everybody can do rather than these because, yeah, there’s these huge systemic changes that need to happen.
01:03:23:16 – 01:04:03:02 Unknown But that’s and big picture, one of the little things we can do as people who are value education is to get involved. Schools, districts, school boards need support. There’s massive staffing shortages. We’re underfunded, we’re undersupplied, were overwhelmed kids coming back from the pandemic seem to have lost all understanding of what it’s like to function in a community environment, which is understandable.
01:04:03:02 – 01:04:33:23 Unknown I’m not blaming children in the least, but teachers are completely just done. They’re just done with the behaviors. Right now it’s too much and nobody knows what to do and they’re not getting any support. So one of the biggest things I think individuals can do is to get involved. There’s a massive movement across our country right now where extreme, extreme anti-education activists basically are infiltrating school boards.
01:04:34:01 – 01:05:01:05 Unknown And this is why we’re seeing these insane book bans, LGBT, anti LGBTQ anti-trans stuff getting passed and constantly encroaching on curriculum and education and teachers ability to teach. These are people, by and large have zero stake in the communities that are participating in these school boards in. So get involved, show up at a meeting, get on the board.
01:05:01:07 – 01:05:28:14 Unknown A lot of school boards are uncontested. You can pretty much walk on. That’s a really valuable place to be. That is where things get done on a district level. That is where changes need support. Unions. The teachers unions are incredibly powerful. That’s another generally big new initiatives in education are pushed by the teachers unions.
01:05:28:16 – 01:05:55:22 Unknown Got a couple hours. Got a skill that might be valuable, volunteer like it’s good for everyone. They’ll spend an hour with kids, you know it’ll up your endorphins and your dopamine and, you know, teach them something that is valuable, that has been pushed out of the curriculum. you know, or just going in the copies, you know, that makes a huge difference.
01:05:55:22 – 01:06:24:21 Unknown We, we don’t have that. That’s the choice between copying or peeing in most cases, you know. So that’s huge. yeah. I remember not just only from my memory, but from seeing the teachers around me and, you know, I guess like this last piece that I think you wrote about is about being a parent and being a guardian and fostering learning at home.
01:06:24:21 – 01:07:24:21 Unknown And I wanted to ask you, particularly for the parents, for the single parents who are maybe immigrants and, you know, have basically outsourced their education, that the education for their children, external schools and are sort of like hands off both because they don’t have the language skills or like the social skills or any lack of skills. Right. How can we sort of get the parents to be involved, The caregivers to be involved, but also somehow equip each young person with the ability to drive their own self direction and have that intrinsic motivation that isn’t shame based or fear based?
01:07:24:23 – 01:07:45:08 Unknown I think and when I talk about parental role in education, I’m talking about education on the big, big picture, everything is education. Education. Like, I don’t need you to sit down and do a worksheet with your kids. I don’t want you to sit down and do a worksheet with their kids. You dated too many of those in class today.
01:07:45:08 – 01:08:07:13 Unknown Okay? I want you to take them outside and go look at the leaves. You know, that’s education and that’s education that will translate in any language. You know, they may come back to school, having talked about the shapes and the textures and the leaves and maybe don’t they don’t have the English words for those because you’ve spoken your your home language, but they have the concept and they have that conversation.
01:08:07:19 – 01:08:47:08 Unknown And as soon as that topic comes up in class, they’re going to identify the English terms. And now they’ve got those technical terms in two languages, you know, And just looking like I see. And I don’t I don’t know if it’s my own biased perspective from my own experience with a mom who incorporated learning into everything or if there is a generational shift in this, like learning happens in the walls of the school, you know, and that’s it.
01:08:47:08 – 01:09:41:01 Unknown And then you come home and we’re dealing with family stuff, but like, cooking is science. Cooking is math. You know, cleaning is executive functioning all over the place. Most of us struggle with that as adults, you know, in responsibility and time management. You know, like it doesn’t need to be structured learning and like, there is a huge problem with the language barrier and the fact that schools do not do enough to facilitate communication when language barriers are present particularly having grown up and taught in Southern California, you’re dealing with no less than four or five languages, like a good population of three or four languages at any school, and then, you know, a handful of
01:09:41:01 – 01:10:29:06 Unknown other ones as well. So you’re constantly dealing with language barriers. And, you know, the district I worked for had two translators in the entire district to what for a district of 35,000 students. Yeah. So then I’m relying on my aide, who is a native Spanish speaker, which is great, but they’re not trained, trained in translating. So I’m not getting word word when when you’re talking about the situation that happened at school or explaining to me why they’re going to be off when they get to school today or talking about IEPs, which is just rife with legal stuff, like you need that specific translation and language.
01:10:29:08 – 01:11:02:03 Unknown And so often it’s just not available. I think that’s something I would really like to see. Schools everywhere, but particularly in metropolitan areas where you have the highest diversity in terms of language staffing, you know, or doing, you know, even where they have a number you call and there’s always a translator available or something like that. That makes sense because, yeah, I mean, there was a huge huge distinction between the relationships I built with parents.
01:11:02:03 – 01:11:31:01 Unknown I could communicate directly with parents. I needed to use somebody. I had to go find somebody to communicate with them. You know, that is so crazy. And I think when we’re in like, yeah, I think it’s because we have so much standardization and so much top down management of what is needed and what is allowable that a lot of these allotments are pre prioritized and determined.
01:11:31:01 – 01:12:24:00 Unknown And that really takes away from the needs of a teacher or a community or the young people within, a community on a day to day basis. Yeah. And so yeah, like I don’t even, I don’t think we can talk about funding right now or like allotment of resources here, maybe a future conversation, but I do want to kind of because visually I still don’t have an understanding of like the fundamental changes that need to really be made to kind of head in this new paradigm of serving our young people on an individualized level of I think you mentioned taking like inspiration from the idea and also the IEP, you know, like how to actually make
01:12:24:00 – 01:12:54:06 Unknown those changes in a very meaningful way. And I love what you say about project based learning and giving the creativity back to the communities that actually interact with young people on a daily basis, such as the teachers, and then giving the resources to the schools. And I know you also talked about like standardized testing and how we need to remove that from the equation, because I know that’s a large part of how schools get funded.
01:12:54:07 – 01:13:30:08 Unknown Right. And so I guess my big question to you is how do we rethink funding? And if we take away standardized testing and also, I guess, take out the largely standardized curriculum and replace it with project based learning, how do we need to rethink about funding if if we can’t get that data to, you know, the authorities who make those decisions?
01:13:30:09 – 01:14:01:19 Unknown Yeah, I think the authorities are going to need to get a lot more comfortable with qualitative data because that’s where the reality of project based learning and looking at where somebody like what they truly grasp, what they’re walking away from something with is not a multiple choice questionnaire. It’s a conversation you know, or it’s a demonstration or a model or something.
01:14:01:19 – 01:14:28:06 Unknown You know, it’s you sharing that knowledge, not regurgitating it. Regurgitation is not a measure of knowledge or understanding by any means. You know, we can all recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Could any of us sit there and fully explain it? Probably not. You know, and that’s what we’re asking the students right now is just to spit it back out.
01:14:28:06 – 01:15:09:03 Unknown But that’s not understanding. That’s not determining are they going to be able to take this information and use it in the real world. So looking at along with project based learning, looking at more qualitative, objective, subjective evaluation, and I think changing to like what are the overall arching goals, what does everybody absolutely need to know? What does somebody who, you know, shows strengths in this area and weaknesses in this area should maybe like we should put a little extra energy in this area because they turn that might be a good spot for them.
01:15:09:03 – 01:15:42:18 Unknown You know, they may excel at that rather than just being like everyone needs to know everything because so much of what we learn beyond elementary school and the first couple years of middle school is not stuff that most that we will all use in our future. Most of the stuff I learned in high school, my history classes, my English classes, my art classes, I use those.
01:15:42:20 – 01:16:09:08 Unknown But my three years of college level math I took and I still I have not needed calculus once in my life, you know, like, you know, there’s a difference between like what is really needed. And we’re also still we’re still based in need and like, what’s valuable knowledge off of the education system that came out of the industrial Revolution?
01:16:09:10 – 01:16:35:00 Unknown It doesn’t pertain to today’s world. Even what we needed to know 30 years ago is different than what the students in school today are. And it’s good. And this is a really tricky piece and I have trouble wrapping my head around it a lot is how do we adjust in a way that keeps up with the rate of technological change?
01:16:35:02 – 01:17:01:19 Unknown Because now that technology is advancing so fast, our society is changing is a faster rate, which means education’s got to change in that it can’t be a static change, it has to be a constant evolution. Thank you so much for listening. If any part of this episode resonated with you, please connect with us on social media at the links in the show notes until next time.