Full Transcript for Dr. Tim Hudson, Founder, Pro Campus Events

00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:15.080 rename it. 34 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:20.000 If it's happening in person, we are making it more accessible, interactive, and memorable 35 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:24.040 for everybody, you know, for most events and meetings. 36 00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:28.760 We assume that being in person's enough, but presence alone can't drive participation. 37 00:02:28.760 --> 00:02:32.600 You know, we've all been in a full room, feeling like a spectator, feeling like we don't 38 00:02:32.600 --> 00:02:36.680 belong, and that's not really a personal failure, it's a design failure. 39 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:42.440 So as a startup founder, I wear all the hats, product development, sales leadership, marketing, 40 00:02:42.440 --> 00:02:46.320 working the booth, talking to customers, training college students on how to use it for 41 00:02:46.320 --> 00:02:48.080 guided tours two nights ago. 42 00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:52.920 I was at an elementary school working with a PTA where they have lots of parents who speak 43 00:02:52.920 --> 00:02:57.760 Spanish and haven't been coming to the PTA meetings because there hasn't been accessibility, 44 00:02:57.760 --> 00:03:01.880 so they're using my technology to provide translation to make that, you know, they're 45 00:03:01.880 --> 00:03:05.240 being intentional about inclusion for all the parents, which is awesome. 46 00:03:05.240 --> 00:03:06.480 So wearing a lot of hats. 47 00:03:06.480 --> 00:03:07.480 Yeah, absolutely. 48 00:03:07.480 --> 00:03:12.080 I mean, it's a phenomenal concept, but I'm curious, what was the seed of the idea? 49 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:15.840 I mean, clearly, there is a vacuum, you're filling it, it's a need, you're meeting it, 50 00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:18.640 but how did the idea kind of come about to begin with? 51 00:03:18.640 --> 00:03:25.640 Yeah, so I've got four kids, two in college, in this second son, we were touring three 52 00:03:25.640 --> 00:03:28.640 colleges and two days outside Boston. 53 00:03:28.640 --> 00:03:33.280 And I realized that the guided tours we were going on, you know, well-meaning eager 54 00:03:33.280 --> 00:03:38.520 earnest students, but is the same tour that I took in the 90s when I was the Recology. 55 00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:39.520 Things hadn't changed. 56 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:44.200 It was a small group, but the guide was walking backwards, talking softly, I couldn't 57 00:03:44.200 --> 00:03:47.760 really hear, and I'm thinking, I can hear just fine. 58 00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:54.480 I have no mobility or vision issues, and yet I can't access this whole event. 59 00:03:54.480 --> 00:03:56.600 Let alone remember it after the fact. 60 00:03:56.600 --> 00:03:58.320 So that was the seed of the idea. 61 00:03:58.320 --> 00:04:00.160 We all have these phones in our pockets. 62 00:04:00.160 --> 00:04:04.000 What if, you know, scan a code and then have all of our phones bringing us together. 63 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:07.200 So if I miss something, I can glance down at the caption. 64 00:04:07.200 --> 00:04:13.560 A lot of colleges have a very difficult time finding and affording interpreters for languages 65 00:04:13.560 --> 00:04:14.880 ASL, whatever. 66 00:04:14.880 --> 00:04:18.720 So this way it's just an on-demand accessibility interactive piece. 67 00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:25.480 It was sort of born out of a painful experience and it wasn't like, it wasn't painful. 68 00:04:25.480 --> 00:04:31.520 It was just normal and sometimes the status quo we stop, we don't really think about, oh, 69 00:04:31.520 --> 00:04:33.080 maybe this could be better. 70 00:04:33.720 --> 00:04:38.000 I wish, honestly, I wish I had access to this or a thought to reach out to you, because 71 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:41.360 I think it was available already, and I've been doing non-stop college tours for the last 72 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:42.360 two years. 73 00:04:42.360 --> 00:04:43.360 Yeah. 74 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:46.680 It's a my two kids of 17 months apart, so it just feels like one succession of college 75 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:49.520 tours after the next, and this would have been fantastic. 76 00:04:49.520 --> 00:04:54.320 Tim, want to hit you up with our first of our regular questions that we have for every 77 00:04:54.320 --> 00:04:58.120 guest, and I'm super curious about this, because I feel like I know you pretty well now 78 00:04:58.120 --> 00:05:01.880 as a person, kind of where you are today, and the last 10 years of your life, sort of 79 00:05:01.880 --> 00:05:06.040 as long as we've known one another, but not quite 10 years, but I don't really know 80 00:05:06.040 --> 00:05:07.360 a whole lot about you. 81 00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:13.160 As a young and so, Tim, share with us what kind of student were you, and tell us about 82 00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:16.200 a teacher who was important in your journey. 83 00:05:16.200 --> 00:05:17.200 Yeah. 84 00:05:17.200 --> 00:05:20.440 I was a pretty, I was a pretty ideal student. 85 00:05:20.440 --> 00:05:22.960 I always did my assignments, my parents didn't even have to worry about me. 86 00:05:22.960 --> 00:05:23.960 I know, right? 87 00:05:23.960 --> 00:05:24.960 I know. 88 00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:27.280 I was goody teachers, whatever. 89 00:05:27.280 --> 00:05:30.760 My parents didn't have to worry about me doing my homework or check to make sure I'd 90 00:05:30.760 --> 00:05:31.760 done it. 91 00:05:31.760 --> 00:05:33.280 I was a pretty early reader. 92 00:05:33.280 --> 00:05:36.320 Math came pretty easy to me at a young age. 93 00:05:36.320 --> 00:05:40.120 One thing, in elementary school, I was in the gifted program, and I only mentioned that, 94 00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:44.600 because I don't like that it kind of existed as an exclusive program. 95 00:05:44.600 --> 00:05:48.120 I think the things we did in that program were things that all students are capable of 96 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:52.240 doing, and should have the opportunity to do. 97

00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:59.000 But junior high school and high school, I didn't take the honors math track. 98 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:01.360 I was acing all of my math classes. 99 00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:02.360 It was very easy. 100 00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:05.960 At the end of every year, my teachers were like, hey, you should go up to honors. 101 00:06:05.960 --> 00:06:06.960 And I was like, are you crazy? 102 00:06:06.960 --> 00:06:07.960 This is great. 103 00:06:07.960 --> 00:06:13.120 I don't want to do more work and be less happy. 104 00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:16.880 So that tells you a little bit about me as a student. 105 00:06:16.880 --> 00:06:23.680 I'm not a sweat as the kids say or try hard, but I was always very involved in doing plays 106 00:06:23.680 --> 00:06:28.520 every year in elementary school, student council, president, and had leads in musicals 107 00:06:28.520 --> 00:06:30.800 in high school. 108 00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:35.560 Because of my identities, I do recognize I always felt like I belonged, and that matters 109 00:06:35.560 --> 00:06:37.760 a ton, that sense of belonging. 110 00:06:37.760 --> 00:06:43.000 So Doc Larry Matthews, he was my senior year calculus teacher. 111 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.080 He looked a bit like the actor Hugo Weaving. 112 00:06:45.080 --> 00:06:46.080 The good guy. 113 00:06:46.080 --> 00:06:47.080 Oh, yeah. 114 00:06:47.080 --> 00:06:48.080 He opened Lord of the Rings, right? 115 00:06:48.080 --> 00:06:51.840 Mr. Smith in the Matrix, Doc Matthews was a super funny guy. 116 00:06:51.840 --> 00:06:53.840 He lots of dry humor. 117 00:06:53.840 --> 00:06:58.040 I was in his Calc AB class, not the BC, if you remember I wasn't in the sweat honors, 118 00:06:58.040 --> 00:07:02.080 but the BC teacher was not a funny guy. 119 00:07:02.080 --> 00:07:06.680 So I had been thinking I would be a math teacher, and I was doing a cadet teaching course 120 00:07:06.680 --> 00:07:09.880 for the pre-calculus class of juniors, which was funny because a lot of my friends were 121 00:07:09.880 --> 00:07:10.880 that class. 122 00:07:10.880 --> 00:07:11.880 And Doc knew this. 123 00:07:11.880 --> 00:07:13.680 He knew I wanted to be a teacher. 124 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:18.080 He had this pointer stick for his whiteboard that he used, you know, big as like three feet 125 00:07:18.080 --> 00:07:19.080 long. 126 00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:25.640 And one time when a lot of the class was confused about something, he looked at me and said, 127 00:07:25.640 --> 00:07:27.240 Hudson, do you understand this? 128 00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:28.240 And I was like, yeah. 129 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:31.360 And so he handed me the pointer, which was a moment of great honor. 130 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:33.120 And he's like, well, get after it. 131 00:07:33.120 --> 00:07:34.120 I'm out of ideas. 132 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:35.120 I'm talking. 133 00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:36.120 Done all I can. 134 00:07:36.120 --> 00:07:37.640 And so I went up to the

board. 135 00:07:37.640 --> 00:07:39.040 This was such a formative moment. 136 00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:44.280 And what we were doing in calculus was just a different way, a shorter way to do something 137 00:07:44.280 --> 00:07:46.480 we had done in pre-calculus the year before. 138 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:49.480 First on the left hand of the board, I wrote it out the pre-calculus and I was like, 139 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:51.080 oh, remember this from last year, right? 140 00:07:51.080 --> 00:07:52.080 And I was like, yeah. 141 00:07:52.080 --> 00:07:54.800 And then I went to the right side of the board and did the calculus way. 142 00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:59.400 And right as I wrote down the last answer, knowing that the answer matched what we've done 143 00:07:59.400 --> 00:08:03.080 on the left side of the board, without looking, I just took that pointer and just whipped 144 00:08:03.080 --> 00:08:09.520 it around to the left side of the board, hoping to like come near the answer. 145 00:08:09.520 --> 00:08:14.520 And like it went up and the class audibly gassed because I was like nailed it. 146 00:08:14.520 --> 00:08:18.160 Like I hit the pointer exactly on that same number. 147 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:19.960 And I was like, this feels cool. 148 00:08:19.960 --> 00:08:21.720 This, it felt awesome. 149 00:08:21.720 --> 00:08:25.320 I knew it was like, I think I should be a teacher. 150 00:08:25.320 --> 00:08:30.400 Doc Matthews later nominated me for this award that the teachers vote on for outstanding 151 00:08:30.400 --> 00:08:33.520 senior kind of thing, which was really humbling. 152 00:08:33.520 --> 00:08:37.400 He had just retired when I became the math director for the district where he had just retired 153 00:08:37.400 --> 00:08:38.400 from. 154 00:08:38.400 --> 00:08:42.120 And I was like, hey, you used to be a math department chair in this district position. 155 00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:43.360 How can I help you? 156 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:47.280 In that role, even though he's gone, he's like, well, you could start by leaving me alone, 157 00:08:47.280 --> 00:08:53.000 which is sort of, you know, true and, and also funny. 158 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:57.640 And he was also the next door neighbor of the assistant superintendent who hired me for 159 00:08:57.640 --> 00:09:01.760 that role, which I didn't know until many years later, like you do your deep background 160 00:09:01.760 --> 00:09:06.000 check and you go next door and you say, hey, you know this kid? 161 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:10.240 So he was instrumental in ways that I didn't even know until many years later. 162 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:16.480 He sadly passed away at the age of 60, super healthy, but too soon for sure is a great 163 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:17.480 teacher. 164 00:09:17.480 --> 00:09:18.480 Yeah. 165 00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:19.480 Well, that's a great story. 166 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:21.080 That's a great way to honor him. 167 00:09:21.080 --> 00:09:25.920 And it's great to know that he had such a profound impact on your journey subsequently, 168 00:09:25.920 --> 00:09:31.560 which leads me into our second question, Tim, which is, how do you believe public education 169 00:09:31.560 --> 00:09:33.680 has changed your life? 170 00:09:33.680 --> 00:09:37.320 And then how do you believe that you've influenced it for the better? 171 00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:43.800 Yeah, I'm entirely a product of public schools, public university, public K-12, became a 172 00:09:43.800 --> 00:09:47.160 teacher and administrator and spent over 10 years working in public school. 173 00:09:47.160 --> 00:09:52.000 So it's, it's changed me, it's been part of me, it's, it's inseparable. 174 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:58.960 And I grew up attending pretty diverse schools and didn't really realize until much later 175 00:09:58.960 --> 00:10:04.040 how uncommon that was, the diversity in my elementary school, importantly, it was among 176 00:10:04.040 --> 00:10:05.920 the students, not the staff. 177 00:10:05.920 --> 00:10:11.240 Our staff was mostly nearly all women, white women teachers, the principals were white men, 178 00:10:11.240 --> 00:10:14.720 but the student diversity was, was amazing. 179 00:10:14.720 --> 00:10:17.880 It's just like, was your kid, it's just, that's just what you know, it's what's natural. 180 00:10:17.880 --> 00:10:21.000 I had a, in first grade, a student showed up who didn't speak any English. 181 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:22.360 My teacher's like, hey, could you help him? 182 00:10:22.360 --> 00:10:26.840 DeFrenda was like, sure, like it was, is very cool. 183 00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:31.920 My music teacher had instruments from all over the world, had some really great experiences 184 00:10:31.920 --> 00:10:36.320 because our school was like, we, we would win that presidential physical fitness award 185 00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:37.320 every year. 186 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:41.680 So we had Aussie Smith visited Stan Mewsule, Jackie Joyner Cursey, the governor at the 187 00:10:41.680 --> 00:10:46.600 time, John Ashcroft, like, and, you know, we sang songs about Martin Luther King, Jr. 188 00:10:46.600 --> 00:10:51.760 Like, it was shocking to me as I got older to realize there are senators who voted against 189 00:10:51.760 --> 00:10:54.520 having Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, right? 190 00:10:54.520 --> 00:10:56.320 Like, oh my gosh, how could you? 191 00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:03.640 Anyway, so, my, you know, got my doctorate in education leadership, thinking I'd be 192 00:11:03.640 --> 00:11:08.560 a superintendent, applied for assistant principal jobs, and got denied from some of the finest 193 00:11:08.560 --> 00:11:13.120 school districts in the St. Louis area, but it ended up being great because, you know, 194 00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:17.880 then I got that K-12 math curriculum coordinator position in the Parkway School District 195 00:11:17.880 --> 00:11:22.960 here in St. Louis, where I live, and that really changed

my life and helped expand the influence 196 00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:25.080 that I've had. 197 00:11:25.080 --> 00:11:30.520 In that role, I helped detract Algebra 1, work with teachers to invent a whole new grading 198 00:11:30.520 --> 00:11:36.160 system that didn't run percentages, helped our district build a new mission vision strategic 199 00:11:36.160 --> 00:11:37.160 plan. 200 00:11:37.160 --> 00:11:43.760 We, I think we have one of the few, maybe only school districts that has curiosity as a component 201 00:11:43.760 --> 00:11:48.360 of our mission, and when we were, you know, building it and going to community meetings 202 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:52.240 and people would, they always like, would raise their hand and be like, um, curiosity in 203 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:53.240 the mission. 204 00:11:53.240 --> 00:11:56.320 Can you really, can you really tell if somebody's curious? 205 00:11:56.320 --> 00:12:02.480 And I would say, it sounds to me like you're curious. 206 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:06.920 We have a word for it because we can observe it, and, you know, if, let's stop lamenting 207 00:12:06.920 --> 00:12:12.720 that kids aren't curious and start being intentional about cultivating that. 208 00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:18.120 The, I, I got connected with Dreambox by getting a three and a half million dollar federal 209 00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:19.400 mass science partnership grant. 210 00:12:19.400 --> 00:12:23.440 The first one that actually incorporated students in a summer program, like we were getting 211 00:12:23.440 --> 00:12:28.200 water bottles and buses and backpacks and our federal grant coordinator was like, why 212 00:12:28.200 --> 00:12:29.200 are you buying backpacks? 213 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:32.680 And we're like, well, for the kids, and I'm like, we have kids and, well, yeah, how can 214 00:12:32.680 --> 00:12:33.680 you? 215 00:12:33.680 --> 00:12:36.960 It's kind of crazy to have teachers learning how to teach math if there aren't students 216 00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:37.960 there, right? 217 00:12:37.960 --> 00:12:41.960 It's better to practice basketball with people on the opponents on the court rather than 218 00:12:41.960 --> 00:12:43.960 like cones to set up. 219 00:12:43.960 --> 00:12:44.960 Yeah. 220 00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:49.920 And that connected me with Kathy Fauzno, who was an early Dreambox advisor and builder, 221 00:12:49.920 --> 00:12:56.200 and then we needed Dreambox to build K-8 digital math curriculum where I met you, Mark. 222 00:12:56.200 --> 00:13:01.080 And we impacted the achievement of millions of students, including South Carolina, all 223 00:13:01.080 --> 00:13:04.040 fourth and fifth graders had Dreambox. 224 00:13:04.040 --> 00:13:06.960 And we made it three times more likely that they'd achieved their growth targets if they 225 00:13:06.960 --> 00:13:07.960 were below grade level. 226 00:13:07.960 --> 00:13:09.560 And two times more likely if they were above. 227 00:13:09.560 --> 00:13:16.280

I feel like that level of impact, I'm really, I'm really proud of. 228 00:13:16.280 --> 00:13:17.280 Yeah. 229 00:13:17.280 --> 00:13:18.280 No, you absolutely should be. 230 00:13:18.280 --> 00:13:22.960 I mean, you're absolutely at the heart of everything good that we did at Dreambox and 231 00:13:22.960 --> 00:13:26.240 the success that we had there as an organization. 232 00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:31.440 And it's interesting, you talk about that impact and you talk about kids. 233 00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:33.520 That's always the center of the conversations you have. 234 00:13:33.520 --> 00:13:37.720 But in addition to those pieces, I remember as well, you having a really distinct impact 235 00:13:37.720 --> 00:13:43.880 on me and others in the organization by leading talks on a weekly basis around diversity 236 00:13:43.880 --> 00:13:48.880 and around understanding systemic racism and how to really level the playing field and 237 00:13:48.880 --> 00:13:53.040 ensure equity for all students, not just through the use of the resources we were creating, 238 00:13:53.040 --> 00:13:54.040 but society. 239 00:13:54.040 --> 00:13:56.760 Why is that so important to you, Tim? 240 00:13:56.760 --> 00:13:59.960 Why has that been something that's been just such an important part of kind of who 241 00:13:59.960 --> 00:14:00.960 you are? 242 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:01.960 Yeah. 243 00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:07.680 I mean, whoo, might be another podcast, right? 244 00:14:07.680 --> 00:14:12.400 No, well, no, it'll, it'll, it touches on some things I've been thinking about for 245 00:14:12.400 --> 00:14:17.800 the, your next question about waving a magic wand, but like, you know, we, we all need 246 00:14:17.800 --> 00:14:23.160 to be students of history to know where, why we are, where we are in this moment. 247 00:14:23.160 --> 00:14:30.720 So, you know, schools today are less, are more segregated than they were when I was a kid. 248 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:33.200 And then I don't think that's an accident, right? 249 00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:42.080 There are systems and structures, there's, there's power dynamics in, in, in any country, 250 00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:47.960 but especially in a democracy and for someone who like, like myself, my identities as a white 251 00:14:47.960 --> 00:14:55.360 man, that's been the majority of the power structure in the history of our country. 252 00:14:55.360 --> 00:15:01.960 And so, anything that I don't like as an outcome, such as equality, such as the racism, 253 00:15:01.960 --> 00:15:06.200 like, people who look like me are the large cause of it. 254 00:15:06.200 --> 00:15:11.520 And so I feel very strongly that people who look like me have to be a key part of the 255 00:15:11.520 --> 00:15:12.520 solution. 256 00:15:12.520 --> 00:15:18.320 So, yeah, leading those proximity and purpose sessions at Dreambox, just a lot of times 257 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:22.800 it's just sharing facts that people don't know, like how elementary

school boundaries are 258 00:15:22.800 --> 00:15:26.600 gerrymandered or how schools are getting more re-segregated. 259 00:15:26.600 --> 00:15:34.000 Yeah, it's, you know, I'm trying, I feel like I'm trying to create the world that I thought 260 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:38.920 I was born into, getting back to what I do in first grade was just natural and normal. 261 00:15:38.920 --> 00:15:42.520 There's plenty of students in my school who don't look like me and we're accepting of 262 00:15:42.520 --> 00:15:43.520 everyone. 263 00:15:43.520 --> 00:15:47.560 And as I've gotten older, I'm realizing that's not normal or the status quo, but it should 264 00:15:47.560 --> 00:15:48.560 be. 265 00:15:48.560 --> 00:15:51.760 So, yeah, that very much motivates my work and education, creating those opportunities 266 00:15:51.760 --> 00:15:55.560 for impact and making the world a better place. 267 00:15:55.560 --> 00:16:01.280 Yeah, that's saying that the arc of justice is long and it bent, the arc of history is 268 00:16:01.280 --> 00:16:02.800 long and it bends toward justice. 269 00:16:02.800 --> 00:16:04.600 It doesn't bend automatically. 270 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:05.600 There's agents. 271 00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:07.600 We have to be the benders. 272 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:08.600 Absolutely. 273 00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:12.680 No, and I want to just say publicly, thank you for holding those sessions. 274 00:16:12.680 --> 00:16:16.960 They really opened up my mind, right? 275 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:19.080 I know American history broadly. 276 00:16:19.080 --> 00:16:24.800 I understand the challenges, but I'd never had it in that kind of a granular and as 277 00:16:24.800 --> 00:16:31.680 consumable way and breaking it down like that enabled me to better engage with it and 278 00:16:31.680 --> 00:16:34.880 try to be part of the solution, right, which is what you're talking about. 279 00:16:34.880 --> 00:16:39.160 So, again, I want to publicly say, thank you for doing that, had an experience, anything 280 00:16:39.160 --> 00:16:43.920 like that in my prior career or since and that was really important. 281 00:16:43.920 --> 00:16:44.920 So thank you. 282 00:16:44.920 --> 00:16:46.440 No, thank you. 283 00:16:46.440 --> 00:16:49.360 All right, magic wand. 284 00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:54.200 I can always see you as a teacher at Hogwarts, actually, I think you fit right in on. 285 00:16:54.200 --> 00:17:01.280 So this is going to be, this may be AI fodder for later, you were the magic wand, but anyway, 286 00:17:01.280 --> 00:17:06.960 as it relates to this podcast, what is one thing you would change about public education 287 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:07.960 and why? 288 00:17:07.960 --> 00:17:11.920 Yeah, lots of folks on your part, I've noticed we've talked about your funding public 289 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:16.000 schools, broader education funding and I very much agree for sure with that, but I would 290 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:20.720 take it a step back further and wave my wand to sort of do something else earlier in 291 00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:24.160 the domino cascading effect that leads to underfunded schools, right? 292 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:25.160 Okay. 293 00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:28.240 When we say schools are underfunded, we're sort of, there's sort of two things that are 294 00:17:28.240 --> 00:17:33.160 telling about that one, we're saying we know what it takes to fund them and there's 295 00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:37.760 a choice being made not to, all right, that's one thing, you say underfunded, that's relative 296 00:17:37.760 --> 00:17:39.240 to what we know we need. 297 00:17:39.240 --> 00:17:43.120 And then second, it's that middle voice, we talked about that with the proximity 298 00:17:43.120 --> 00:17:47.240 of purpose sessions, when you see a headline that's like, man was shot or something like 299 00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:48.240 this. 300 00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:54.400 Well, who did the shoot, who has the agency, so we say schools are underfunded, we need 301 00:17:54.400 --> 00:18:00.720 to start saying who is intentionally underfunding schools. 302 00:18:00.720 --> 00:18:06.680 And it seems clear to me that there are many elected officials and people in power with 303 00:18:06.680 --> 00:18:13.080 influence over public education, who fundamentally don't believe it should exist, right? 304 00:18:13.080 --> 00:18:18.480 And I feel like they've been actively working to dismantle public education for decades. 305 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:23.600 It's worsened as desegregation, as integration happened, it got even worse. 306 00:18:23.600 --> 00:18:29.960 And as I said a minute ago as a white man, it's mostly been white people who did this. 307 00:18:29.960 --> 00:18:34.640 Even the famous A Nation at Risk report in 1983, right before I even entered school. 308 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:39.640 If the nation really was at risk, we should have immediately seen a massive infusion of 309 00:18:39.640 --> 00:18:44.320 funding, investments in public education, but that didn't happen because it wasn't a 310 00:18:44.320 --> 00:18:46.080 report meant to improve education. 311 00:18:46.080 --> 00:18:50.600 It was a political tool to beat up political, public education and complain about it and 312 00:18:50.600 --> 00:18:51.880 then defund it further. 313 00:18:51.880 --> 00:18:53.680 It's this cycle that's very predictable. 314 00:18:53.680 --> 00:18:57.920 Defund something so that it can't live up to what its potential is and then complain 315 00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:02.120 about it more, defund it more, with the goal of destroying it. 316 00:19:02.120 --> 00:19:09.280 It's like that book by Heather McGee, the sum of us, where there's plenty of examples 317 00:19:09.280 --> 00:19:16.160 in American history where as things got integrated, white people in power would rather kill the 318 00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:22.360 whole public good, whether it's public schools and public education, then have it be integrated

319 00:19:22.360 --> 00:19:28.320 and a pluralistic, multiracial, successful institution that benefits all of us. 320 00:19:28.320 --> 00:19:34.160 So if I were to made my logic one, I would somehow like, you know, maybe only allow you 321 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:41.160 to be in charge of public education decisions if you fundamentally believed in the concept 322 00:19:41.160 --> 00:19:48.000 of a multiracial pluralistic public education system that ensures a multiracial pluralistic 323 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:50.000 functioning democracy. 324 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.000 And if that were the case, well, we wouldn't have underfunded schools. 325 00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:58.160 We wouldn't have people who thought that public education was for an individual good as 326 00:19:58.160 --> 00:20:00.160 opposed to for the public good. 327 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:02.160 And I think that's what I would do with my wine. 328 00:20:02.160 --> 00:20:03.160 There's a long answer. 329 00:20:03.160 --> 00:20:04.160 I hope. 330 00:20:04.160 --> 00:20:07.680 No, it's a great answer. 331 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:12.080 As you're framing that, I have to say, without being a Debbie Downer, I'm thinking, 332 00:20:12.080 --> 00:20:16.600 this is one of the few answers I've gotten so far this season that would actually require 333 00:20:16.600 --> 00:20:17.600 a magic wand. 334 00:20:17.600 --> 00:20:18.600 Yeah. 335 00:20:18.600 --> 00:20:23.080 A lot of them, the other people feel very practical to a degree in their move, you know, 336 00:20:23.080 --> 00:20:28.720 this number from this column to this column was that answer really would require something 337 00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:35.120 supernatural, I think, because you absolutely right, that cycle that you've described of 338 00:20:35.120 --> 00:20:38.840 disparaging something to the point that people say, well, yeah, this isn't working, so 339 00:20:38.840 --> 00:20:43.040 then why are we investing to this degree to support the decision to not invest in that 340 00:20:43.040 --> 00:20:49.520 degree, which then further erodes the ability for the institution to be able to be effective. 341 00:20:49.520 --> 00:20:51.680 And then it is just this vicious cycle. 342 00:20:51.680 --> 00:20:54.640 So I don't know how we go about addressing that. 343 00:20:54.640 --> 00:20:56.840 That's for another podcast as well. 344 00:20:57.560 --> 00:20:59.600 But certainly that would be good use of a magic wand. 345 00:20:59.600 --> 00:21:00.920 So thanks for the answer. 346 00:21:00.920 --> 00:21:01.920 Yeah. 347 00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:04.480 So that's all of my questions, Tim. 348 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:07.960 I now have a question for you from a former guest. 349 00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:10.680 This is a fun one, I think you'll enjoy this. 350 00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:17.400 So if you could only watch one movie for the rest of your life, actually, I'm going to 351 00:21:17.400 --> 00:21:18.400 expand this out. 352 00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:23.480 I'm also going to say a TV show as well, so you can give me an example of both. 353 00:21:23.480 --> 00:21:26.960 If you don't watch them on repeat, you know, this isn't clockwork orange. 354 00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:27.960 Right. 355 00:21:27.960 --> 00:21:28.960 Right. 356 00:21:28.960 --> 00:21:29.960 Right. 357 00:21:29.960 --> 00:21:32.560 But if every time you turn on the TV, the only movie that was available to you was X and 358 00:21:32.560 --> 00:21:36.520 the other TV show was Y, but you could watch them on repeat for the rest of your life 359 00:21:36.520 --> 00:21:40.160 as long as you wanted, what would those selections be? 360 00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:43.720 Yeah, the movie is a harder one, but the TV show I know instantly, it would be the good 361 00:21:43.720 --> 00:21:44.720 place. 362 00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:47.640 Oh, that's such a good pick. 363 00:21:47.640 --> 00:21:50.800 Yeah, it's good on every single level. 364 00:21:50.800 --> 00:21:52.960 I have four seasons. 365 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:53.960 It's amazing. 366 00:21:53.960 --> 00:21:55.880 It finishes amazingly strong. 367 00:21:55.880 --> 00:21:56.880 It sticks to the end. 368 00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:00.760 Yeah, it's, it's, it's all the goodness. 369 00:22:00.760 --> 00:22:05.120 So good place and easily movie, movie's a little harder. 370 00:22:05.120 --> 00:22:06.600 They're just a little too shorter. 371 00:22:06.600 --> 00:22:12.120 I used to work a blockbuster video and I had like a Tim's picks shelf, some of the, some 372 00:22:12.120 --> 00:22:16.280 of the movies I had on there had Shawshake Redemption on there searching for Bobby Fisher, 373 00:22:16.280 --> 00:22:18.680 the Burbs, the great B comedy. 374 00:22:18.680 --> 00:22:25.200 I don't know if any of those are like forever and ever, ever watch on repeat, but certainly 375 00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:26.200 the good place. 376 00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:27.200 He has done it. 377 00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:28.200 Okay. 378 00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:29.200 I watched, it's funny. 379 00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:31.920 Actually, this question came up because last night, so I've been trying to take my son 380 00:22:31.920 --> 00:22:36.960 through the back catalog of, I still have a DVD collection, which a lot of my friends 381 00:22:36.960 --> 00:22:37.960 give me a hard time about. 382 00:22:37.960 --> 00:22:38.960 I'm like, I don't care. 383 00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:39.960 I like the physical. 384 00:22:39.960 --> 00:22:42.480 I like having the thing, the ownership of it. 385 00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:46.600 And also, it's kind of like putting your colors to the mask saying, this is good enough 386 00:22:46.600 --> 00:22:51.320 that I'm going to invest my money to have this thing be in my home in perpetuity. 387 00:22:51.320 --> 00:22:55.840 So, anyway, I've been going through the collection and yesterday, one of my absolute 388 00:22:55.840 --> 00:23:03.120 all-time favourites, we was aired, Dead Poets Society, which is

just such an incredible 389 00:23:03.120 --> 00:23:04.120 film. 390 00:23:04.120 --> 00:23:07.640 I'm watching my 19-year-old watch that and knowing that he's wrestling with some of the 391 00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:12.680 same things that some of those characters, you know, struggling with in their adolescence. 392 00:23:12.680 --> 00:23:15.120 It was actually a beautiful thing to watch him watch that. 393 00:23:15.120 --> 00:23:16.120 Nice. 394 00:23:17.120 --> 00:23:18.120 That's good. 395 00:23:18.120 --> 00:23:19.120 Yeah. 396 00:23:19.120 --> 00:23:22.200 All right, Tim, do you have a question for us for a future guest? 397 00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:24.200 I do. 398 00:23:24.200 --> 00:23:29.920 What is a piece of advice or wisdom that you learned that you received early in your life 399 00:23:29.920 --> 00:23:33.200 or career that you still rely on often? 400 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:34.200 Oh, okay. 401 00:23:34.200 --> 00:23:38.600 It doesn't need to be professional in nature, necessarily. 402 00:23:38.600 --> 00:23:39.600 No, not at all. 403 00:23:39.600 --> 00:23:43.120 I mean, I can answer it real quick, because this is something I think everybody should 404 00:23:43.120 --> 00:23:45.120 know when I first started teaching. 405 00:23:45.120 --> 00:23:50.320 I was married and my faculty advisor, she said, remember, you are a husband with a job, 406 00:23:50.320 --> 00:23:53.240 not a math teacher with a wife. 407 00:23:53.240 --> 00:23:54.240 Wow. 408 00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:57.560 So, simple. 409 00:23:57.560 --> 00:24:00.640 And it's all about perspective and priorities. 410 00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:01.640 Yeah. 411 00:24:01.640 --> 00:24:02.640 Absolutely. 412 00:24:02.640 --> 00:24:08.080 So, in the last minute or two that we have, Tim, I want to, by way of a thank you, give 413 00:24:08.080 --> 00:24:12.640 you the opportunity to promote anything that's going on in your professional life that's 414 00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:15.240 important to you that you want to bring voice to. 415 00:24:15.240 --> 00:24:16.240 So, floor jewels. 416 00:24:16.240 --> 00:24:17.240 Yeah. 417 00:24:17.240 --> 00:24:18.240 Thanks. 418 00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:19.880 So, I mentioned Kathy Fauzno earlier. 419 00:24:19.880 --> 00:24:24.120 She was a key friend and colleague who got me connected with Dreambox without her. 420 00:24:24.120 --> 00:24:27.920 I don't think I actually would have ever found Dreambox, getting me a son on it, joined 421 00:24:27.920 --> 00:24:28.920 it. 422 00:24:28.920 --> 00:24:29.920 So, she's been instrumental. 423 00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:32.280 And I've been helping her company. 424 00:24:32.280 --> 00:24:35.480 It's called New Perspectives on Learning over the past few months. 425 00:24:35.480 --> 00:24:41.800 And we've built a truly unique AI tool. 426 00:24:41.800 --> 00:24:48.280 She has decades of math education research and we built an AI tool that draws specifically 427 00:24:48.280 --> 00:24:50.640 from that and nothing else. 428 00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:57.200 So, it's called Studio Adelaide where ad has ADD, like a math, like Adelaide, so next 429 00:24:57.200 --> 00:25:01.120 to D, you go studioadelaide.com and it gives teachers more confidence. 430 00:25:01.120 --> 00:25:06.400 You tell it what students are, hey, my students are having this kind of math issue and it 431 00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:10.200 provides teachers with professional learning as well as next steps for what to do based 432 00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:11.360 on student thinking. 433 00:25:11.360 --> 00:25:16.880 All without student data, all without AI that's scraping the internet for garbage. 434 00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:20.800 It's like, you can trust it, it's reliable and it works with any core program, so that's 435 00:25:20.800 --> 00:25:22.520 kind of cool. 436 00:25:22.520 --> 00:25:25.680 And all the early feedback from teachers has been like, this is genius, this is amazing. 437 00:25:25.680 --> 00:25:30.760 So, StudioAdelaide.com, it's a really exciting tool and it's been great to partner with 438 00:25:30.760 --> 00:25:31.760 her on that again. 439 00:25:31.760 --> 00:25:36.760 We were the Dreambox stuff and it's been a while, but yeah, that's awesome. 440 00:25:36.760 --> 00:25:39.800 That sounds very Kathy Fauzno, sounds awesome. 441 00:25:40.520 --> 00:25:44.840 That's a lady I need to get on this podcast, actually, you know, I think about it, so 442 00:25:44.840 --> 00:25:49.240 and it's very, it's very tin for me to give you the floor and say, hey, promote something 443 00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:51.400 and for you to immediately promote somebody else. 444 00:25:51.400 --> 00:25:55.080 So I appreciate you doing that, but I'm not going to let you go without telling our 445 00:25:55.080 --> 00:25:58.840 listeners where they can find out more information about campus pro events. 446 00:25:58.840 --> 00:25:59.840 Oh, sure. 447 00:25:59.840 --> 00:26:02.040 Yeah, campusprovents.com. 448 00:26:02.040 --> 00:26:07.640 If you have, you know, yeah, graduations, IEP meetings, if your college is guided 449 00:26:07.720 --> 00:26:11.480 tours, anything, yeah, go to website, check it out. 450 00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:15.720 You can email info at campusprovents.com. 451 00:26:15.720 --> 00:26:21.040 You know, for, I'm just, when this gets, when this airs, there's just going to have been 452 00:26:21.040 --> 00:26:23.640 more high schools that use it for graduation. 453 00:26:23.640 --> 00:26:25.480 We have some middle schools using graduation too. 454 00:26:25.480 --> 00:26:27.160 Graduation brings us all together. 455 00:26:27.160 --> 00:26:30.720 And if you've got family members who don't speak English and schools can't provide 456 00:26:30.720 --> 00:26:34.000 and afford interpreters for every single language, you don't even know. 457 00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:38.280 So I'm just honored that schools are using it. 458 00:26:38.280 --> 00:26:43.720 It's highly cost effective for scalable translation and it, life events should bring 459 00:26:43.720 --> 00:26:47.840 us more together rather than have family members sit there. 460 00:26:47.840 --> 00:26:52.320 For three hours and only here, their grandchild's name or child's name, like, no, we need to 461 00:26:52.320 --> 00:26:53.320 do better. 462 00:26:53.320 --> 00:26:56.040 We can't have accessibility be an afterthought. 463 00:26:56.040 --> 00:27:00.560 So campusprovents, check it out and I would love to help your school with any kind of 464 00:27:00.560 --> 00:27:02.560 engagement needs you have. 465 00:27:02.560 --> 00:27:03.560 Fantastic. 466 00:27:03.720 --> 00:27:08.040 Well, of all of my guests, you're the one who deserves to double-dip on the promoting 467 00:27:08.040 --> 00:27:09.040 things. 468 00:27:09.040 --> 00:27:10.040 You are one of my favourite humans. 469 00:27:10.040 --> 00:27:11.040 You really are. 470 00:27:11.040 --> 00:27:14.800 I'm sure our listeners have gotten in this episode, just as smart you are, how strong 471 00:27:14.800 --> 00:27:19.760 on an educational leader you are, and how aware you are, not just the needs of our students 472 00:27:19.760 --> 00:27:23.240 educationally, but also how that, that's the size or lens as well. 473 00:27:23.240 --> 00:27:25.360 And so you are one of my favourite humans. 474 00:27:25.360 --> 00:27:26.760 I'm so glad to have you on the show today. 475 00:27:26.760 --> 00:27:28.000 So thanks for joining us. 476 00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:29.000 Oh, NARCA. 477 00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:30.000 Same, same, same writing. 478 00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:31.000 Thank you so much for having me. 479 00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:32.000 It's great to have you.