Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Draw an Oval...That's Not What This Book Is About

00:00:00.000 class is in session hey everybody and welcome to on learn 16 class is in session for those who

00:00:09.780 know me a little bit this is my uncle ray and he's already leading with um some pretty hard

00:00:15.240 shots so this should be uh an interesting the first thing he said was is this going out live

00:00:21.160 can we edit it and i said i'm not going to edit it he goes okay i go what'd you think about my

00:00:24.780 book and you said uh we can talk about it on the video oh okay first and foremost just to give

00:00:33.220 people some background um number one uh raised my mom's youngest brother uh number two very much

00:00:41.740 like a father figure maybe an older brother i mean i don't really know maybe a back and forth

00:00:46.340 in there there's a 13 year 13 year difference 13 year gap 13 year gap so um he was around

00:00:53.560 my whole life like whether he was taking care of me when i were young we lived together as a whole

00:00:58.620 family for a few years in mansfield um and right to this day uh anytime i have a problem i call him

00:01:05.660 and he comes down in about 37 seconds so practiced on you failed miserably and then had my own

00:01:13.040 children he's had his own uh he has three kids apparently he says he's practiced on me that's

00:01:20.240 nice so where what mistakes did we make with me do you think that you like reshaped and then put

00:01:25.320 onto your own obviously perfect children everything i remember being so frustrated by you right your

00:01:32.800 mom would always side with you your mom would always think you were perfect and let's be

00:01:39.260 and it was frustrating who do you know that's more perfect than i you're gonna say rebecca

00:01:45.920 Yeah. And that's just because blood. And Dempsey. Dempsey is my favorite. Good dog.

00:01:53.340 That's a really good grandpa. Oh my gosh. Okay. So needless to say, Ray and I have been through

00:02:01.980 pretty much, I'm going to get into a few stories, but we're going to start with the chapter of the

00:02:05.900 book. So he wanted to wait. So what'd you think about the book? I think he represented my oddities,

00:02:11.420 not my normal normalcy oh so what sticks in yours are what are important no that's what's stuck in

00:02:17.900 your head yeah well can you give me one uh but we'll talk about the circle i never remember that

00:02:25.580 raymond katswarski in front of i'm gonna i'm gonna do it right here i remember no i don't

00:02:31.180 want to go through that again because it was an arm thing yeah right no one yeah it was a

00:02:36.220 holy notes aren't they yeah but do you think that i remember that because you you i understand never

00:02:42.220 ever like go out and dance never dance but do you think it's odd then that you did it in front of

00:02:48.620 me i wasn't that young i would have been between like seven and nine when that because that was

00:02:53.500 at mansfield no you'd be so not judgmental and that's what you like at that age well you're

00:03:01.740 always not judgmental at that age but that's but i wonder if it's because i felt and this is

00:03:10.100 actually kind of cool it's going to make me cry maybe it's because there's not a lot of people

00:03:15.120 you can be real around so the moments where i got to see pieces of you that nobody else that got to

00:03:20.880 see i wonder if subconsciously they resonated or stuck in my head because raven i swear to god i

00:03:26.200 might have been eight right in that moment and i can i remember my mom's dresser i remember where

00:03:32.160 it was like was it your mom's dresser or was it it was in mom's my mom's no it wasn't in grandma's

00:03:38.120 room so i thought it was like the the big area no it was a big mirror on top of it or something

00:03:43.020 like that mom did have a big mirror yeah um do you think that's why i think yeah i've talked to you

00:03:51.040 know every every waking moment is a performance for the most part so every now and then you gleam

00:03:57.120 into who i really am you think every waking moment's a performance for you oh yeah definitely

00:04:01.420 yeah so oh man what's it gonna be it's exhausting yeah i feel tired for you no wonder you just woke

00:04:07.420 up from a nap yeah um so to give people a little bit more context um you're probably let's be

00:04:16.380 honest, the reason why I wanted to become a teacher. I'm pretty good. And humble. You guys

00:04:22.280 wonder why I'm not humble? But you are, you are very good. And I remember watching, again, I don't

00:04:29.660 know what age this was, but I remember watching you teach grade 13 physics. And you jumped off,

00:04:37.400 you did something insane. Like you jumped off a desk and the kids were laughing and they were

00:04:42.160 enthralled and this is grade 13 physics like most kids want to cry in grade 13 physics whereas this

00:04:48.480 group of students you know you had this beautiful ability to teach them really really hard things

00:04:54.320 and important things and then have them laughing in in the next minute and you know maybe that's

00:05:00.160 why they're like okay well this really sucked but wait a joke's coming just just hold on for a

00:05:03.920 second yeah definitely isn't it's the style that i used you have to have a payoff you got kids

00:05:09.600 coming into a physics classroom and it's hard work there's no doubt about it but there's got

00:05:13.680 to be something that you get out of it that makes them want to keep coming back right and and it can

00:05:23.520 just be maybe a a feeling of superiority because you've done something not many people have so i'll

00:05:28.560 play on that but more often than not it's just letting them see my inane sense of humor and

00:05:35.840 teach go off on a tangent about some life story and then bring them back it was very much like

00:05:44.520 they're on a little rubber band where they stretch out and bring them back so that I can teach them

00:05:50.560 do you think like I because it's very much I like to think that's very much how I teach

00:05:56.340 it's not like I watched you teach many many times but is it weird that I teach like that

00:06:03.420 no i think a good teacher knows that teaching is all about performance so you felt like you were

00:06:11.220 you always felt like you were performing but but you brought in a lot of your real life so did you

00:06:16.500 feel like you were really because i know you say you know if you're in this group of people you

00:06:20.720 have to perform if you're at this kind of family function you have to perform whatever um did you

00:06:25.120 think maybe in front of your students it was the more real of you or do you think it's still all

00:06:31.260 performance i go i'm exhausted uh i think it can be brutally real when i'm at school teaching

00:06:38.860 so yeah thank you what is that can you explain that i'm not sure i can

00:06:48.220 in a physics classroom was where i was comfortable right with all the anxiety around my life and

00:06:54.220 and i could go into that room it would be like slipping on a comfy cardigan

00:07:02.360 talk about what i love you know because that's what i think is missing in the education system

00:07:09.780 today it's it's almost verboten to say i love my subject you have to say you love your kids

00:07:18.980 and i'm telling you high school age kids are challenging and they're sometimes not very

00:07:26.360 lovable at all but to be able to go in and talk about something i love and you know and that

00:07:33.920 enthusiasm can be contagious so you know bring that into the mix realize you know that you've

00:07:42.560 got to be a performer or a storyteller well you don't have to let's be honest one of the things

00:07:48.800 about your book is that you are giving your advice on what what it means to be a quality teacher I'm

00:07:56.120 not sure I'd agree with it because there's just so many different ways you can tap into students

00:08:02.380 right so you know and that's the problem problem that's the concern about your book it'll be a

00:08:09.340 hard sell for teachers because teachers don't like they don't like being told what to do yeah yeah

00:08:14.440 that's actually good, but that's actually why I think I'll like it. I would love for it to spark

00:08:19.760 just hard discussions and big discussions about how to do different things and how exactly like

00:08:25.960 you said, like how to tap into that, what you think the most important parts are. But I think

00:08:31.820 it's funny because I think that's actually, and I guess I could have said this in some sense,

00:08:39.100 because I think that's the beauty of it is that there can, can't be, and I think I said it in

00:08:44.480 some context, there can be no objectivity in teaching. Not in the way that you choose to do

00:08:50.340 it, not in the application of it. Sure, there could be objectivity in the, this is wrong,

00:08:56.080 but this is right. There could be some of that more so in physics, maybe than in the courses

00:09:00.580 that I teach. But there can be no objectivity in the right way to teach per se. And if there can't

00:09:08.160 any objectivity in it that's what makes it because i talk about this all the time how do you

00:09:15.520 identify quality great teachers you know we're not making widgets it's not like oh i made 50 000

00:09:22.800 last year i want to make x amount this year and we can't be by their grades because you've had

00:09:29.760 classes that are like 90s yeah and then 50s right same teacher same right but i've watched your

00:09:36.960 video on what is it a hard c i like a hard c you know if if they're working hard and they're not

00:09:45.520 getting that well a mark of 90 means you're exceptional and it would be nice that every

00:09:51.760 student in the world thought they were exceptional intellectual and they were not all there

00:09:58.800 and i don't even know sure i i was there um what do you mean you don't think you were exceptional

00:10:05.440 you got straight 95 through everything because i busted my hump i worked really really hard

00:10:11.680 you don't think that was not a natural exceptional okay you know and that comes from that comes from

00:10:17.680 dad right that whole european work ethic uh and pride in a job well done the major concern i had

00:10:27.440 when i was going to retire yeah where would that pride come from how do you feel raised just

00:10:32.240 retired like what last this this year but you've been doing a lot of supplies i'm not a lot of

00:10:36.960 supply enough for me to realize that i made the right decision to be done yeah um the world

00:10:43.600 changes in education it's cyclical um but eventually enough inane comes your way where

00:10:50.720 you even though you love the job you just say i can't take it anymore what i found when i retired

00:10:57.680 you know my concern was what was i going to be when i retired if not a physics teacher

00:11:02.240 What I found out is what I was going to be was happy.

00:11:09.560 Oh, wow.

00:11:10.580 The stresses just are gone.

00:11:12.980 I don't think you realize it while you're teaching.

00:11:15.060 Slow boil.

00:11:15.560 Yeah, how truly stressful it is dealing with all the things outside of the classroom.

00:11:24.320 And then to just have that removed.

00:11:27.140 Like, I didn't think I was wired for happy.

00:11:28.960 and then all of a sudden i found out what the problem was and i don't mean it in a hugely

00:11:36.460 negative way i loved teaching i love center stage i love entertaining i love sharing my love of

00:11:44.240 physics but that makes me obsolete at the same time too why because of how how like how centered

00:11:54.300 it is around me oh yeah i would go into every pd activity and inevitably it was

00:12:05.980 stop being the center be the facilitator and i'm not interested like uh teaching offered me an

00:12:15.340 opportunity to feel normal i went into physics it was my comfort zone none of my anxieties were there

00:12:24.300 And, and then I got to share stories and have these lovely conversations.

00:12:30.220 And then I go home and turn it all off and, and, and then crawl back into the shell.

00:12:36.640 So I'm not saying what I was doing is good for everybody.

00:12:39.840 I'm not saying it's the best way to teach.

00:12:41.500 I'm just saying it worked really well for me.

00:12:45.500 Wow.

00:12:46.180 So at what point do you think, so do you think a lot of the stress, like a lot of the anxiety

00:12:51.160 came as expectations of teachers shifted, as public pressure shifted. You were obviously

00:12:59.100 teaching during the Mike Harris cuts, and then you're teaching when when forced everybody back.

00:13:05.080 And then probably, I'm going to guess the biggest shift, which I've kind of, I guess,

00:13:10.980 really has been maybe the last, I want to say 10 or 12 years, this push about IEPs and integrating

00:13:18.940 classrooms and de-streaming everything, right? And so having multiple learning styles in the

00:13:24.880 classroom, because a lot of people will say things to me like, oh, well, you know, back in the day,

00:13:30.080 they had 30, 35 kids. I'm like, yeah, but they didn't have 30, they had 30 or 35 kids that could

00:13:35.860 learn or that were expected to learn this way, whatever this way was in your classroom. Their

00:13:41.380 job was to master this whereas today teachers are very much expected to teach if you have 30 kids

00:13:49.620 well you're going to need 30 styles which is the ultimate lie of education yeah because you can't

00:13:55.140 be done it can't be done no no so you can't be done until was that the frustrating part it was

00:14:03.860 a conversation that i had with my administrator now you've gone over the dark side so maybe you

00:14:09.060 can relate no no no that's like you're an administrator now yeah but i'm also still a

00:14:15.620 teacher which i think is makes for the best yeah i i would never i would always want to teach when

00:14:20.900 i started teaching our vp would teach as well administrators shouldn't be best failed teachers

00:14:27.220 best vp i ever had yeah um yeah it was a conversation and it was a student who wanted

00:14:33.620 an indefinite amount of time on a test oh wow and indefinite indefinite yeah and i was expected

00:14:41.780 to sit there for into the wee hours of the evening or morning who knows until they had

00:14:47.460 done everything they could possibly do and uh and so uh i i eventually removed the test from

00:14:56.440 this said person and said that's all the time and then i quickly got a phone call from the mom and

00:15:02.660 quickly got a discussion with the dad. And the next thing you know, I'm talking to the principal

00:15:07.080 and I go, okay, I don't understand. How am I supposed to physically do what you're asking me

00:15:12.560 to do? And how is that going to possibly prepare them for what's coming their way?

00:15:19.740 So in grade 11, I'm preparing them for grade 12 and in grade 12, I'm preparing them for university

00:15:24.060 physics. And the principal said, that's not your job. And I go, I'm sorry, excuse me.

00:15:30.260 it's not your job to prepare the students and i go then what in the world is my job

00:15:37.760 and the response was to give them every opportunity to show that they have an understand

00:15:42.840 at which point that's when i said okay i can't do it when was that conversation

00:15:48.860 i think i went for another probably taught for another semester after that so probably

00:15:55.840 okay year and a half two years ago maybe two and a half years ago well i think yeah you you and i

00:16:02.020 fundamentally agree with that then the notion that it is there but and i joke about how you judge a

00:16:08.400 teacher and the only way in my opinion a high school teacher elementary is different um the

00:16:14.260 only way you judge a high school teacher is by how they then step in the world so at my school

00:16:19.560 it's all academic so the vast majority 99 of my students go to university that's their goal

00:16:25.520 So my job isn't to get them high marks. It's not to, you know, you know, alleviate any time. It's actually the opposite. I would put time management and late marks and all that stuff goes back into their grade.

00:16:40.860 And I do that because I have that option. But the judgment on me is, okay, you were here with me doing politics or history. When you stepped into university and you took those courses, how well prepared did you feel?

00:16:56.940 how how much did I sort of build you up not just for the material but for the the different

00:17:05.340 stressors that are going to be on you when you go there and how well did you succeed because that

00:17:10.260 that can be my only judgment it can't be the 90 if it's the 90 I just hand out 90s and I say I'm

00:17:15.780 a great teacher well we've had those discussions with parents and they never really go very well

00:17:21.620 no no of course not because every parent is looking but look at look at the the catastrophe

00:17:26.640 fee that has built you up you have celebrities going to prison for you know buying their kids

00:17:34.320 Becky oh yeah right for Felicia buying their kids like SAT scores or or pretending they're on the

00:17:42.720 rowing team so they get into USC or whatever school they're trying to get into and you think

00:17:48.680 to yourself when you have people saying university doesn't matter anymore it feels it can feel like

00:17:55.860 Well, that's the reason because people have delegitimized it to a point

00:18:00.760 where they're just buying whatever they can get

00:18:02.720 and they're actually getting nothing out of it, right?

00:18:05.960 They're just going to get that piece of paper and say,

00:18:07.940 oh, I went to USC, there's my degree. 1.00

00:18:10.980 Well, you know, for me, everything fell apart with the Harish years. 1.00

00:18:15.540 Oh, it was about time.

00:18:16.360 Mr. John Snowballin, who had to invent a, well, how do you phrase it?

00:18:20.020 We need to invent a crisis.

00:18:24.960 I don't even remember what he said.

00:18:25.860 in education so they could change it um and that popularized did i say that word right

00:18:31.780 yes pretend it was popularized um the bashing of teachers so you don't think that's a great point

00:18:38.500 so the the harris years were i i was in high school so like what nine mid 90s onwards right

00:18:48.020 like because when i went to university that's when i remember mom losing her job so harris

00:18:52.420 was cutting all the um health care like the hospitals as well so you don't think you you

00:18:59.940 think that was the first moment where it became sort of a political tool yeah yes and then the

00:19:07.380 inmates started running the asylum asylum right we are at the the mercy of an irate parent over

00:19:18.580 and over again who is confident they know what's best despite my 38 years of experience

00:19:26.520 and that's frustrating um the kids are great i can't criticize the kids high school age kids

00:19:34.160 teenagers are going to be teenagers they're going to try to look for shortcuts and not have to work

00:19:38.420 too hard about it it's just that when the they want to do this much work and they want to get

00:19:46.360 this much mark and that's fine i can deal with that and get them through and but when the parents

00:19:52.820 buy into that they need to do this much work to get that much result then there's not anyways

00:20:00.840 things go badly quickly well yeah but what are we at that point what are you teaching

00:20:05.480 so if you're just because again it goes back to the original they just want the mark for the sake

00:20:10.780 of the mark yes you know um i i just recently interviewed a kid who wants to be a pilot like

00:20:18.560 that's his dream right and i said oh well we're into some physics then right and he's like yeah

00:20:23.700 he's like but i'm gonna tell you that's my dream but math's hard and i went okay and right away i

00:20:30.920 started to sweat because i'm like oh god he's not good at like it's not natural but he wants this

00:20:35.680 and he goes, this is what this kid says to me. He goes, so he's only in grade 10. He says,

00:20:42.360 so I didn't do great in grade 10 math. And I'm here, I'm thinking sitting in this interview

00:20:49.020 because it's a private school, right? That's how he's going to say, but don't worry, you'll do good

00:20:52.100 with him in grade 11, whatever. Not what happened at all. He goes, so what I would like to do

00:20:57.460 is here, redo grade 10 math first semester. So I can feel confident. So I know that basis,

00:21:04.720 because I know it's a hard math. And then the following semester, I'll do a grade 11.

00:21:10.700 And I'll do that until I'm good enough at math. It almost made me cry. Until I'm good enough at

00:21:16.620 math to then do physics. Now I got to do physics a couple times? Okay. Because he wants to,

00:21:23.620 there is something very, you know, beautiful about him wanting to attain it. And in my opinion,

00:21:29.620 whether you know however many chances it takes the kid's going to be a freaking pilot pilot yeah

00:21:35.860 if in grade 10 you don't care about redoing math 10 ah you're going to be good no that's it it

00:21:43.140 makes complete sense and you know if we could just bottle that and have each student consume it i

00:21:48.260 think we're on to something i think for yeah so i think it happened during mike harris and i think

00:21:53.060 what happened during mike harris funnily enough sometimes i wonder what comes first the horse

00:21:58.660 of the cart but he wanted to find a way to get them through quick well it saves money sure is

00:22:04.740 he the one that got rid of 13 i can't remember so that would have been 2002 i don't know it's been

00:22:10.820 a while it's a great question somebody got rid of so in ontario we used to have grade 13 which is

00:22:16.900 obviously different than every other province um but we could also get a degree with three years

00:22:22.020 at university right is that was that only ontario then yeah i think so okay so every other oh that's

00:22:27.700 interesting by the time i started teaching i taught one year of the double cohort year and

00:22:33.340 then it was just grade 12 so they want to get them through quickly because anytime you have

00:22:38.440 to repeat a course in the public system you're costing me money that's why they want the marks

00:22:43.100 they want them out yeah so the government lowers the bar oh definitely lowers the bar lowers the

00:22:49.920 expectation allows students to get more success sells that to the public that they're improving

00:22:57.680 our education system because they've got some stats that say more people are getting their

00:23:02.600 into university they're getting higher marks look at us go and now well now it's a big problem

00:23:09.980 because i'm a lot of students even when rebecca went to university and she would tell me about

00:23:14.100 how they used to take quizzes and she did she ever tell you they're like online online quizzes

00:23:19.260 but they do it as a group and i'm like what do you mean you do it as a group well you couldn't

00:23:24.600 have your computer facing anybody else so they'd sit in a circle so their monitor was facing

00:23:29.380 everyone everywhere and then they would collectively get you know a hundred or whatever

00:23:35.960 marks they got it was a significant chunk of their mark i want to say like 25 there was always that

00:23:41.880 capability though because i remember it in university physics was hard physics was really

00:23:48.100 hard you know first day of class teaching physics to my students I write physics is put a blank

00:23:54.160 there period and I go fill in the blank physics is fun and they write what they think the definition

00:23:59.340 is and I go I collect them all I read all 30 of them and I go you're all wrong and I write the

00:24:05.280 word hard and I go here's our starting point now let's have some fun um but but at university I

00:24:12.440 remember that there was always clicky groups and in math and sciences quite often there was a

00:24:17.940 weekly assignment worth 10%. Right. And so you would bust your hump and these kids would go,

00:24:23.980 okay, I'll do number one, you work on number two, you work on numbers three, four, five, six,

00:24:28.900 and we'll all get back together and we'll share each other's answers. And that's great if you're

00:24:33.140 a social creature, but I was not a social creature. So you kept trying, I kept trying to do it all

00:24:37.920 myself. And so that was really quite stressful. And so as a result, people, I think far less

00:24:44.540 capable had far more success well look at there's so many gifts people have that they can offer and

00:24:50.540 i did not have that gift of but if you're just doing number one i'm doing number two we got

00:24:55.840 somebody else doing number three state the obvious here well it seems like you need to know all of

00:25:00.780 them to do the test do it yeah and so what i just try to memorize your number one which is the

00:25:06.800 most ridiculous first of all physics can't really do that but it's the most ridiculous application

00:25:11.660 of that so that's interesting to know that it was going on way back then with the so i'm assuming

00:25:17.580 they would just do that kind of without it's not like the professor would be like sure go ahead do

00:25:22.600 this in groups or would he assume no one's monitoring what you're doing let's be honest

00:25:27.880 right right you'd maybe have two hours of lectures and then maybe another each week

00:25:33.420 another tutorial do you think though it would become apparent in the tests and exams they bell

00:25:40.240 the marks oh jesus right i what i found how long have they been bell curving marks maybe that's

00:25:47.760 the start of the issue um see university is just a completely different creature

00:25:55.360 today you don't know well no all the time yeah in high school it's uh

00:26:02.560 you don't have in there

00:26:05.120 typically strong communicators these are people who thrived at school never really understood

00:26:18.160 why anyone would have problems and now you put them up yeah and then you put them up the front

00:26:23.400 of a classroom i remember in first year algebras raising my hand in the classroom of 350 students

00:26:33.240 looking at the board and going, okay, I don't understand how you went from

00:26:37.060 lines four to line five. And the professor turned and looked

00:26:41.300 and turned back to me and said, proof is clear. And I went, thank you.

00:26:45.780 He had no idea why I would have a problem.

00:26:49.260 Now, I had some wonderful professors, so don't get me wrong.

00:26:53.240 But, you know, isn't that also typical in the teaching profession? We all like to criticize

00:26:56.840 the weak people that we had. Proof is clear.

00:27:00.540 well it's clear but the but the it's not just the week but the if he if he would have said it's not

00:27:08.160 the week that i criticized because i would absolutely criticize that professor a strong

00:27:14.380 professor even if you're not perfect would have said i don't know i don't know how else to explain

00:27:20.000 that step to you that's a strong person with who is intelligent who doesn't know everything 0.96

00:27:27.180 yeah that so i have no problems criticizing the ass who says proof is clear um because he doesn't 0.56

00:27:34.220 know how to explain it any differently now having said that i don't find that most of my professors 0.89

00:27:38.860 were teachers i think there might be a big difference between a teacher and a professor

00:27:43.340 oh yeah even for the social sciences yeah but let's listen what makes you a teacher though

00:27:49.820 is it teachers college no god no that made me less intelligent and what makes a good teacher

00:27:55.500 is it innate or is it something that is like i've sat with teachers and they would turn to me and

00:28:05.020 go what do these students want me to do entertain them and i'm polite inside my head i'm going yes

00:28:11.360 of course that's what they want you to do yeah um and i'll just roll my eyes with them because i

00:28:16.520 didn't want to point out to them that okay you're missing i think a key aspect but see you just don't

00:28:21.100 to be judgmental that's true i don't mind being judgmental i don't i don't mind saying to somebody

00:28:27.420 well yeah because they're children so children are looking and and plus all of the insecurities we

00:28:34.300 feel as adults times them by about 700 that's what they feel so for them to ask a question

00:28:42.060 it's like i i there some years uh it takes me forever to find out who's getting it and who's

00:28:49.980 not getting it because sometimes the kids that present with the most confidence know nothing

00:28:56.700 and go home and are in tears at night because of something that i taught them that they didn't

00:29:00.540 understand it's very very hard um yeah but there isn't a more insecure group than a grade 10

00:29:07.100 student oh that's a great night oh see grade nines at least they're so young i know but they're

00:29:15.420 they come into high school and it's all so new and they're frightened maybe that's different

00:29:21.260 fear is a great motivator there's something that's antiquated as well uh grade 10s of being

00:29:27.100 through one year they're going hey this is no big deal i could work that hard and they can hit with

00:29:30.780 that math class that everybody hates now well it's usually great loving with the club um i thought

00:29:35.980 it kind of shifted down a little bit it's not really functions 11 anymore i thought grade 10

00:29:40.460 math well right now grade nine is de-streamed right so no one's being really pushed at all

00:29:45.820 um but i think yeah i think entertaining is important but i think learning how to do

00:29:52.620 scary things and it's funny that you say that you're right kids that are really good at school

00:29:59.580 right they never learn sometimes like let's say whether it's a physics or a history they're

00:30:05.180 they're getting their 97s pretty easily and they're just moving on with their day maybe

00:30:09.420 Maybe they don't play volleyball or they don't do this or they don't do that.

00:30:12.220 Maybe they do, because I know some kids that do a lot.

00:30:15.320 But what I find funny is we let them choose their path real early, meaning you can drop everything.

00:30:23.680 You're not good at something.

00:30:25.920 Just drop it.

00:30:27.080 Right.

00:30:27.880 And and so what that allows is the kids that are really good in the core courses that we've decided are essential Shakespeare for the eighth time.

00:30:36.500 Those kids get elevated.

00:30:38.440 Right.

00:30:39.340 Whereas the kid that's like, like, I watch kids on the computers now.

00:30:42.640 And I'm like, I wouldn't even, I would have no idea.

00:30:47.420 They don't have fear.

00:30:48.520 Right?

00:30:49.520 But if you put that same kid in a phys ed class,

00:30:52.560 or if you put that same kid sometimes in an English class,

00:30:54.920 or even a history class, you see it differently.

00:30:58.060 Now, the funny part about the way our system is set up

00:31:01.040 is we let everybody really, like, focus on what they want to do

00:31:06.240 because they have such smoke especially without the 13 they have short time to do it to go to

00:31:10.440 university you know what i mean so you're going to do all math and science is cool you go stand

00:31:14.180 in that line you're going to do all history you go stand in that line and then to the negation

00:31:18.320 of everything else so they're only told and encouraged to do what they're already good at

00:31:25.340 and then add to the mix parents encouraging them to

00:31:30.120 avoid challenging courses so that they can pad their average and then get into university 0.98

00:31:38.040 because that's what universities are looking which i think is the stupidest thing a university 0.97

00:31:41.260 am i allowed to shout out to a particular student a hundred percent ryan laplante 0.96

00:31:45.880 i don't thank goodness you were there ryan was a a student who went on um i think if you google

00:31:54.760 him I think he's an actor so I think it's commercials and things of that nature he was

00:32:01.240 going to go on to university so that he could teach drama if things didn't work through so I

00:32:09.020 don't know where you are at this point in time but he took physics with me grade 11 and grade 12

00:32:15.380 and he didn't need them he wanted to go to drama yeah yeah and and I remember we had something

00:32:22.040 called character and education awards and so i nominated him and and then learned that when you

00:32:27.360 nominate the student and they get selected you have to go and speak to them oh or speak for them

00:32:32.700 or speak of them and that's not my company um and uh and i remember getting that that opportunity

00:32:41.280 to speak into a uh a group of parents proud parents and their kids because they're all being

00:32:47.580 highlighted, yes

00:32:49.840 and point out

00:32:52.440 my concern over

00:32:54.700 how parents will discourage kids

00:32:56.960 from taking something challenging like a physics

00:32:58.880 course, especially if they don't need it

00:33:00.900 I can't tell you how many times I hear

00:33:02.340 yeah, I'm going to drop physics, I don't need it

00:33:04.740 once they realize

00:33:06.960 they had to work

00:33:07.660 they say the same thing

00:33:08.520 about physics?

00:33:11.700 about politics

00:33:12.540 oh, that's something

00:33:13.700 anyway so i got to talk and i got to criticize parents and in the room was just great and then

00:33:25.780 i had people afterwards come up to me and go whoa that was really brave and i went well you're going

00:33:30.100 to give me the form i'm going to take it dude you gave them the microphone what are you going to do

00:33:34.260 but i think but it was see because now because it used to be the logo for our education for our

00:33:41.160 county was commit to character and so he had performed all these different characters on

00:33:47.240 stage so i kind of brought that into the speech and then speaking of character here's a person

00:33:52.200 who despite not needing physics busted his hump and did well at it and uh and then it changed to

00:33:59.080 student success so the new logo is everyone has to be successful it just doesn't make sense what

00:34:07.400 would have made and again that's a in my opinion it's all money it isn't about it it has never been

00:34:14.440 and isn't about now you can spin it so you can make it seem like you you care about if you truly

00:34:20.840 care about a person or a student you don't want to hand them something and a pat on the head when

00:34:28.280 they haven't earned it you want to help them earn it and whatever that takes right so if if they

00:34:34.600 they were really serious about education in this province or in many provinces in the whole North

00:34:40.100 America by the sounds of it. They would hire specialized teachers more so. They would have

00:34:46.640 more extra help sessions. They would encourage students to stay in classes that were a little

00:34:53.440 bit more difficult. We'd have more of a clear line rather than having standard like the literacy test

00:34:59.500 for the love of god which by the way has gotten so easy over the court like it's gotten easier

00:35:05.900 yeah yeah of course because they need to keep selling the lie that they're doing a better and

00:35:10.240 better job absolutely asinine but to make somebody a good english student or a better english student

00:35:18.200 right is difficult somebody from dyslexia for example right i have kids that come to me i'm

00:35:24.260 sure you've had you've taught kids with dyslexia and they'll say do you have any strategies i'm like

00:35:29.500 I mean, I have ideas. I go, but really, that's a really hard thing to battle and to live with

00:35:38.400 because what I understand, you don't really ever kind of overcome it. It's always a rewiring in

00:35:42.480 your brain that you always sort of mitigate. I go, you need somebody amazing for that. Why on earth

00:35:48.460 every single school doesn't have that person is beyond me. But what do we do? Oh, just give them

00:35:53.860 the audio book what give them the audio book that's ridiculous but I also think it's true

00:36:02.940 of every course like you are and and people have seen a lot of your art actually at um but yeah

00:36:10.040 on different videos and I always found it interesting that there are courses out there

00:36:16.200 where we just give it for your effort you get a grade for your effort and then other courses you

00:36:21.680 get a grade for the right answer i i'm yeah definitely i found that at university you know

00:36:28.040 one gives a rat's ass excuse my language about how hard you work they just are looking at the

00:36:33.420 results that's what the professors were saying until i took a course in polish how hard was that 0.97

00:36:39.520 oh it was a nightmare i thought somehow maybe genetically i was programmed to speak his dad's

00:36:45.440 Polish. Dad never spoke Polish in the house, right? Because mom ruled the house with her

00:36:51.560 iron fist. That's Grandma Ruby. I didn't find out until I took the Polish course that I had 1.00

00:36:57.000 mispronounced my last name for all my life. It's supposed to be a ska, right? No, that's if you're

00:37:02.280 a female. Oh, so Grandma should have been Kazyorska. No, Konjorski and Konjorska. 0.99

00:37:09.260 We've been saying Kazyorski forever. So I go to the class and it's a small classroom. You can't

00:37:15.420 hide right it was like seven students and i'm going oh no this doesn't look good

00:37:23.180 and we introduce ourselves and i go okay i'm ray katsyorsky and she goes no

00:37:27.980 your name you're so bad at this course you don't have your name right i'm pretty sure that is true

00:37:34.460 and then she explains to me that the a is a french kind of all sound and uh dzi is a j

00:37:42.300 sound and she goes your name's konjorski and i went oh and then phoned dad that night dad how

00:37:50.060 do you really say her name and he goes konjorski and i went well i'm i'm 23. it was oh it's your

00:37:57.100 mom she wanted to pronounce the way it was spelt oh and i went oh there's the dynamic grandma was

00:38:03.340 so powerful that she changed the family's last name at least she took his last name what does

00:38:09.900 you want like really in all fairness he could have been a cooper cooper what a great i could

00:38:16.060 be great cooper raymond cooper that would be sweet okay but getting back on track i took this this uh

00:38:23.500 this polish course and i busted my hump and i got a really good mark and i can't speak any polish

00:38:29.820 whatsoever to this day but she recognized that hard work and i got credit for it um so that was

00:38:37.980 was it delightful to realize that that's that opportunity was still out there because I didn't

00:38:42.000 think it was something that was available at university but you know why I think it should

00:38:45.820 be still out here out there and here's why because as soon as you step out of a of a space that is

00:38:52.240 just marking you on right or wrong yes or no clear structure or not you step out into the real world

00:38:58.680 and the real world um how you struggle and how you choose to struggle and how hard you work

00:39:06.380 is going to be a much bigger test than what the grade is on the final exam right because you're

00:39:13.700 going to get a bunch of wrong answers in real life actually probably more wrong than right

00:39:17.940 that's right and then how you struggle that's the test so as soon as they made and i don't

00:39:22.900 remember what's happened but as soon as they made those like learning skills not a part of the mark

00:39:26.600 and they said well you're not going to take off late marks you're not going to do this i'm like

00:39:29.900 oh whoa whoa whoa it's not memorizing the war of 1812 you know probably like battles that's

00:39:38.900 really essential it's it's actually the time management it's how much how much do you take

00:39:44.220 personal accountability how do all of these things that's what you carry with you the rest of your

00:39:48.680 life it's not going to be it's not going to be newton's third yeah it would be fine fine it's

00:39:55.220 got to be a law on physics that's not all that important the abu law i think they denied gravity

00:40:01.380 on joe rogan the other day oh and the earth is flat um but i think but there it is there it is

00:40:09.740 because then you become very and this is the sort of full circle to how we started because then you

00:40:16.720 become very aware of how subjective education is in in a lot of ways and that's okay

00:40:24.840 I don't think this notion of objectivity of here's your even a test, right? The way that I give you

00:40:33.100 a test is already subjective because I've decided the best way to test your intelligence or your

00:40:39.660 capacity or your application skills or whatever. And I've decided nine times out of 10, it's in

00:40:45.520 this piece of paper that I'm going to give you for two hours. Yeah, but let's not underestimate

00:40:49.980 to make her undervalue that piece of paper i don't have to undervalue it but i would say that there

00:40:55.720 are many other transferable ways to test your knowledge and your capacity that are better in

00:41:02.020 the real world than sitting down and writing a paper for example you know if i can use politics

00:41:09.200 but obviously better than a math course but even in in the realm of physics um because so much of

00:41:16.220 it is um i don't want to say a team effort but there's a lot of that the nature of that the way

00:41:22.960 you can explain yourself the way you can explain yourself in a room the way that you can have a

00:41:29.260 conversation the way that you can take nuance of a of an issue and go okay but here's why

00:41:34.880 the difference is that math teacher that said what did he say the proof is there what did he 0.67

00:41:41.500 ass? What's his name? Let's give him a shout out. Proof is clear. The way that that ass said proof 0.88

00:41:47.460 is clear versus somebody being able to stand at that board and either A, explaining it a different 0.98

00:41:54.640 way, because in my opinion, that is what a teacher is. I think a teacher fundamentally has the

00:42:00.140 capacity to go down many roads to get to the same end, to try to make other people understand that

00:42:06.820 wouldn't believe wouldn't understand it prior but be able to do that or heaven freaking help us

00:42:12.300 i don't know i have no idea other than that's the way i've always done it because that's an

00:42:17.620 interesting conversation too yeah but you speak forgive me with the naivete of somebody who

00:42:23.600 teaches in the private sector to a thousand percent small class sizes yes which is the

00:42:32.100 number one failure of the public system in my opinion well it costs money doesn't it 100 then

00:42:37.460 it comes right back down to that how much money are we willing to spend but i don't think we

00:42:40.980 would disagree in saying smaller class sizes and by the way i think there is a minimum class size

00:42:46.000 too everybody always talks about a maximum definitely i i think sometimes class sizes

00:42:51.760 can get too small and the dynamic doesn't work anymore because kids teens and i'm mostly speaking

00:42:58.400 about teens, um, they, they can't always have, they don't, they shouldn't always have adult

00:43:04.700 conversations about stuff, right? Like they should make a stupid joke about history or they should 0.99

00:43:09.100 make a pass a note here, try to use their phone or whatever, because that social dynamic is about 0.99

00:43:14.080 their development. So I think sometimes there's, you know, I work at a small school. There's not

00:43:18.960 like, you know, in, when I went to high school, there's like tables of clicks, you know, and we

00:43:24.060 talk about the negative implications of that but then there's also a problem when there's no

00:43:28.620 tables of clicks and you're either you either feel in the school or outside of the school

00:43:33.500 that's that's a different issue yeah yeah right but you know if you want to get insight into your

00:43:41.440 students and what they've picked up and what they understand nothing wrong with the test

00:43:46.680 oh no no no no and uh um so many other opportunities would require

00:43:54.240 smaller class sizes that's right and you know and there's nothing wrong with memory

00:44:02.720 and memorizing if you're going to teach or learn physics you need to memorize

00:44:08.160 certain components yeah certain things so that they're at your beck and call when you need to

00:44:14.440 now apply it to the problem that's placed in front of you without that memory work and and this is

00:44:20.380 how how things have changed over my career they would not even memorize the key formulas they

00:44:26.200 would try and reteach themselves during the test and that's why they could never finish the test

00:44:33.560 right so it wasn't uh how long do you take it was you didn't do it you didn't study properly

00:44:38.960 prepare properly therefore you're not yeah and that's hard then you're up again well i always

00:44:44.400 thought it funny because I can't really compare it to all the formulas, but even something as

00:44:48.640 simple as timetables, the amount of kids that don't have to memorize a timetable. No wonder

00:44:54.200 it's taking them a crap load of time to do a, let's say a factoring, just something as simple

00:44:59.380 as factoring. If you don't know your times tables and you're having to either sit down and like,

00:45:03.980 just test it out on a calculator 317 times, it's taking you way longer to do because foundationally

00:45:10.960 you don't have what it means to sort of skip that step of playing around and then move on to

00:45:16.520 something else well yes and it has to do with number sense too the story i would tell my

00:45:22.880 students about rebecca you know which i love that girl she she uh when she was a baby you get that

00:45:30.820 puzzle that original puzzles you know the wooden ones with the little pegs you know there's five

00:45:35.660 things to put in there circus themed or something like that and for the lifer she couldn't do it

00:45:40.440 and I went oh no she has no spatial ability and then I would take a puzzle and there'd be 20 0.99

00:45:47.020 pieces and I'd leave one piece out and I go okay put that last piece in and it would take her 20 0.52

00:45:51.380 temps to orient it she could just not look at it oriented and place it in and I went oh god she's

00:45:56.180 going to be terrible at math I've always everybody's always says spatial intelligence is math I get it

00:46:05.120 i get i i get the theoretically but in my head i'm like does that mean you see math in like groupings

00:46:14.080 or distribution or heaven help me graphs i never understood any of the graphs i've ever done

00:46:21.200 spatial ability helps you to go beyond just blindly memorizing and following that's how i did it

00:46:26.240 yeah that's what i did that's why i was only good till first year university and being good at math

00:46:31.040 is being good at seeing patterns and we're not all programmed to see patterns quickly that's why in

00:46:37.840 math they give you 32 questions that are basically the same question over and over again it alienates

00:46:44.080 some people the good students will do 10 well the good students will do five of them and go this is

00:46:50.000 all the same and then they'll probably do another five just on the calculators not writing it down

00:46:55.520 and checking to see if they're right and they go i've got it but they're the ones who see the

00:47:01.600 patterns quickly the ones who don't see the patterns have to do all 32 questions the problem

00:47:06.080 is they don't want to they don't they give up before they see the pattern so at age 23 beck

00:47:12.320 is working at could have been a different chapter could have been a canadian tire she's working at

00:47:16.640 canadian tire and she phones me dad i can make change and i went awesome honey and in my head

00:47:21.360 I'm going you're 23 this is a good thing but a little late yes Rebecca is incredibly successful

00:47:28.960 executive at a major company she's pretty remarkable she is but all of those skills that

00:47:35.440 they don't ask her to count anything no but the takeaway from that is at the till

00:47:40.640 she had to keep doing it and doing it and doing it she could not give up and eventually she saw

00:47:46.560 the pattern and it clicked yeah so you know that math is hard for for a lot of students and not

00:47:54.240 everyone is willing to put in the time to see that pattern and to master it do you think math

00:47:59.400 more so than english is difficult oh god no people english was a nightmare for me because i don't

00:48:05.700 yeah because now you're saying it it's like you know but here's what i do think math you really

00:48:11.300 get hit over the head with you're right you're wrong whereas english you're like oh such a good

00:48:16.480 try that's a nice poem i could never understand how to get better at english do you see what i'm

00:48:22.280 because you never saw the pattern i guarantee there's still a pattern there you just aren't

00:48:27.260 aware of what it is no i'm dead serious no no that makes sense yeah so it's like and again this is why

00:48:33.700 the sciences and maths because they seem they are more so objective right where everything else has

00:48:40.940 this different aspect to it where it's, there's an effort base. There's, I can see what you were

00:48:46.840 getting at. I can, right. So I can give that to you. I actually think, and this is hysterical

00:48:52.940 because most kids, most kids hate, you know, they grow up and they hate math. And it usually it's

00:48:56.980 around grade 10. And I usually, when I listen to them and I say, why do you hate math so much?

00:49:02.980 Like you haven't even started really. When I was in grade three, swear to God, whatever goes on in

00:49:08.000 grade three it ain't good whatever happens in grade three i've heard more stories but it's

00:49:13.200 something that happened that told them that they're never ever going to see the pattern or

00:49:16.660 they're never ever and they know they just was it their first test i don't know what happens in

00:49:21.220 grade three because i know in grade four i wrote my very first test in my entire career of you know

00:49:27.600 never had a test at school we'd go in and we do stuff but we'd never get a test where you had to

00:49:33.920 sit by yourself answer questions hand it in and get it marked and it was it was math and the teacher

00:49:40.740 used my answers to take it up and that's all it took for me to invest the rest of my existence

00:49:47.300 into school this whole world it was it was i felt so special when you were in grade four i don't

00:49:54.440 have much memory of myself at that age but maybe you don't because i know that you've talked a lot

00:49:59.000 about social anxiety and different kinds of anxieties that you have you know i've already

00:50:02.560 spoken about it in this podcast did you have that in grade four no when did that happen puberty

00:50:09.740 maybe like you know all the stuff i like to collect it's all stuff from i could probably

00:50:16.080 grab some of it right now that's okay i don't really have anything down here oh yeah stuff

00:50:20.180 that i had when you're a kid when i was a kid wonder why during a time where i wasn't constantly

00:50:25.240 in a state of fear and so i get that comfort and then i also found out that nostalgia like

00:50:31.160 nostalgic songs i live in the 70s in my music they trigger the same

00:50:35.160 my apologies to my biology people out there hormone same chemical response as when a woman

00:50:45.720 breastfeeds and it's a soothing experience so so i think when i walk into my room with all of my

00:50:53.640 stuff from if a time when i remember not being friends it is soothing so you think you think

00:51:01.740 that that was disrupted when you hit puberty when i remember do you think because i didn't know what

00:51:08.420 the hell was going on until yeah you just look back on it now oh that's probably around yeah

00:51:14.040 but do you or or do you think it's because you're putting so much because like you gotta know ray

00:51:19.940 got 95 or he was a failure so do you think it was because because you always put that on yourself

00:51:26.180 I can't imagine grandma or grandma no pressure from my parents at all so you always put such

00:51:31.380 high pressure and then if you put that high pressure and then going through you know puberty

00:51:35.920 and all the awkwardness and everything everybody else goes through do you think those two were

00:51:40.440 coupled and then what made you you're always chasing your grade four teacher showing your

00:51:45.000 paper i don't know i never chased my grade four teacher she used my no you have the memory of

00:51:51.660 okay that's the thing you're trying to replicate for the rest of your life

00:51:55.960 because i find this interesting because kids talk about anxiety all the time now right

00:52:03.600 you got you never would have named it i i would have no i would never be never named it back then

00:52:08.720 but it made me productive when something was assigned i didn't procrastinate i needed to get

00:52:17.320 that monk monkey off my back as quickly as possible i needed i sat down i worked on it and

00:52:22.700 if so if i got an essay like i walk into english class ball of anxiety god don't like grade nine

00:52:29.140 yeah don't hate english are you feeling that way grade seven well great what happened in grade eight

00:52:34.620 english was they didn't use they streamed us right bluebirds blackbirds canaries i don't know what

00:52:43.180 the terminology was you different birds they gave me a bird and i wasn't an idiot i knew that

00:52:51.260 not the best so what did i do i busted my hump and i moved up to the better bird group

00:52:58.540 anna talk about her school it was like purple orange yellow she's like my mom called the fight

00:53:03.980 to get me into the higher color and they put me in the higher color and by two months in I was

00:53:08.260 back down to the lower color but that's hysterical again so with the anxiety something was assigned

00:53:15.020 I'd start working on it right away uh if I had that 10 days to do the essay I would spend each

00:53:21.160 and every day doing it and of course I got really good marks as a result so I took that

00:53:26.280 chemical imbalance and made it work for me but I don't even know if that's what it was Ray

00:53:33.780 because you're saying there was a moment you were in grade seven english you were fine grade eight

00:53:39.380 english they made you a canary and all of a sudden everything went off now this is the interesting

00:53:45.300 conversation to have because i know you and i don't it's not like we're nice and soft and

00:53:50.580 cuddly about telling kids okay well you're you're here or you're here but but streaming a kid in

00:53:57.220 in grade eight gave you a level of anxiety and stress and a level of anxiety too but yeah but

00:54:06.240 when you describe when you just described you're a big ball of stress you shouldn't feel that way

00:54:10.880 entering into any sort of thing without a significant cause and your cause was simply

00:54:18.640 being categorized by birds no no my cause was chemical well after puberty there was something

00:54:26.960 going on there hey in grade seven i was with the social group i was so in the group and then grade

00:54:33.760 eight yeah that's when things separated by the time i got to high school i was very much keep to

00:54:39.040 myself concentrate on the school didn't enjoy high school it was a lot of hard work university even

00:54:46.480 more so hated that stuff what i found was interesting um you know i have the two step

00:54:54.680 sons right so and uh linda was getting child support that's my wife and and so when they

00:55:01.620 became 18 i guess there was no longer that and so all of a sudden things became more expensive

00:55:08.920 and as i'm sitting there playing civilization on the computer linda walks in and goes there

00:55:12.800 going to be something you could be doing with your time better than this well and i turned her 1.00

00:55:17.140 and i went damn you the hell um because that's what i don't think that was your thing that was 1.00

00:55:23.340 your i only had three years of university because oh right right so then i went back 0.98

00:55:29.580 and i did my fourth year fourth year and remember all your post-its and and it was a wonderful

00:55:36.120 experience because at university there's just too much work coming your way and you just can't

00:55:42.040 master it and that left me that's constantly anxious but when i did these other courses

00:55:50.200 i could start and i could finish any time i wanted and so i can invest as much time as i wanted and

00:55:55.800 mastered it got the marks that i remember getting and just reaffirming that yeah i'm pretty good at

00:56:00.440 this i'm about to make a comparison you're not gonna like oh no you just described why that kid

00:56:07.160 wants all the time in the world to write that test that's the same thing now do i understand

00:56:13.400 objectively it doesn't work the same way yes but what you're saying is you want to be able to

00:56:19.800 master it and until you can master it whether or not that's healthy which is a whole different

00:56:23.880 podcast i don't know but you want to be able to master it and if given enough time you had the

00:56:29.800 capacity to do so and pot maybe not that kid no i cut you off because i invest that time up front

00:56:37.480 and then i walk in and i do the test yeah but you're still i knew the test was fun yeah but

00:56:41.880 preparing for the test was a nightmare you still think and we do disagree on this because you still

00:56:46.760 think the sit down be quiet and take that test for two hours is the be all and end all and i just

00:56:52.040 don't again for math it's a little bit different because it's a lot of it yeah it's not but even in

00:56:58.120 in a course like physics right to be a real physicist you're you're up making mistake after

00:57:03.900 mistake after mistake after mistake there is no end there was a guy on tiktok who when he teaches

00:57:09.580 about quantum mechanics or whatever which is like i guess so incredibly hard is that am i getting

00:57:14.640 that word right yeah it's the first thing he says is okay it goes listen um everybody nobody knows

00:57:21.440 what they're doing in this field nobody we're all stupid so i'm going to give you information so you 0.97

00:57:26.600 can feel equally stupid to me so you can know this much that would have been liberating to hear 0.98

00:57:30.680 those words but and he was so good and the whole class lapsed he goes so just so you know you're 0.55

00:57:36.540 never going to understand it but also so you know i've been teaching for 45 years and i still don't

00:57:44.260 so we're all in that kind of same boat because that's not playing to a test there will be tests

00:57:51.260 i'm assuming in his class but what he's saying is that that kind of theoretical that act of of not

00:57:58.140 not replicating what's been done but trying to decide what needs to still be done is totally

00:58:04.200 different but i think you're misinterpreting how how the tests work like in physics you write a

00:58:09.920 question or solve a problem it's not worth one oh yeah yeah yeah no it's worth several marks right

00:58:15.520 and if you don't get the right answer yeah that's a chore for the teacher because now we got to go

00:58:19.160 through and find out what logic was accurate in there so they're getting marks for that so it's

00:58:23.300 not like like they mark that way in physics in university though that you get a scantron sheet

00:58:27.900 maybe when you get old like later on there's no way first year physics there is i think what they

00:58:33.500 do is if you get the right answer they assume everything is perfect and they don't look at it

00:58:38.680 oh i don't think that's right no i agree completely oh my god because my first test

00:58:46.900 physics test 10 multiple choice questions two hours i think i scored worse than a chimpanzee

00:58:54.160 would have and i got scholarships it was the most demoralizing experience of my life if you get the

00:59:00.100 right answer they assume all guys that might be the worst metaphor for life if you get the right

00:59:08.720 answer we're assuming your logic is sound i feel physically uncomfortable is that that it's how

00:59:17.240 they do those uh you know how they do uh math competitions there's a physics competition i

00:59:24.640 don't want to specifically say what it is but i'm confident that's the way it's done

00:59:28.820 but they will only look at your written responses if you're in the elitist group that got enough

00:59:38.440 of the right answers i just hate all of that and is that just lazy because it numbers wise is that

00:59:48.160 what we're doing we're just quickly just differentiating well that and the fact that it

00:59:53.240 is the kind of black and white nature of uh science you know there is a right and wrongness

01:00:00.760 hilarious because what you're stipulating is it's not the black and white it's actually quite the

01:00:07.020 opposite there's so many flipping shades so many shades of gray okay what do you hate about the way

01:00:13.560 that in my book the most about when i talk about teaching because by the way i think we just i

01:00:18.320 think we just agreed on the fundamentals of education and of teaching what do you mean

01:00:23.900 sports you can't disagree with sports that's important i think you gave the impression that

01:00:28.600 sports somehow makes one makes me not one makes people

01:00:38.560 somehow acquire a work ethic or drive and i think it's just another opportunity to show

01:00:48.240 and showcase people who have work ethic ethic and drive i don't think it promotes it i think it

01:00:54.060 just gives people another opportunity so i think it's put on a pedestal

01:00:57.600 me yeah well it did but it did for me no gave you an opportunity to take your drive and focus it on

01:01:04.100 something but i didn't have the drive till i was given the opportunity not in sport not in not in

01:01:09.140 volleyball i'm telling you right now there was something about being on that team in that time

01:01:14.000 that that made me that made me say and not nothing leading up to that because here's the problem it

01:01:20.260 all athletics came kind of naturally i was a good baseball player i i was a good skier right so all

01:01:25.820 of that came naturally I was not very good at basketball but you know you bully through um and

01:01:30.760 volleyball in the younger years I was decent enough to be on the starting six right and so

01:01:36.580 when I didn't think I was going to make the team that I saw as being sort of the pinnacle of

01:01:42.060 something and maybe in that moment it would have been popularity or it would have been you know

01:01:46.960 some sort of stardom in high school um I thought I was never going to be there and the where I had

01:01:53.520 work ethic wasn't volleyball it was rugby and the only reason i had it in rugby was because everybody

01:01:59.440 sucked because we didn't know the game it was the first year that we had rugby at anderson

01:02:04.640 and so what i understood of it is go really hard go really fast hold on to the ball and there was

01:02:12.720 something pure about that and so that's what i did before i got hurt you know when you get hurt

01:02:17.440 you're like man maybe i'll go too hard next time but so i learned and somebody watched me do that

01:02:22.480 and then said give her a go over here so I don't think I think I had elements of

01:02:29.440 that you were a blackbird and you wanted to become a bluebird was that higher I

01:02:33.460 think that's the bluebirds are the highest I find it but that's and the

01:02:43.980 thing about that team is I was never till the day I was done the best player

01:02:50.720 team. Never, never. But I do think I was a great leader. And I think that's something I, when,

01:02:57.980 so when I say people should do sports, I'm not saying do team sports all the time,

01:03:02.380 but I do think there's an element, there's a socialization, you, you didn't do it,

01:03:09.040 but I think there's a socialized element or socialization element of, of relying on other

01:03:15.680 people in a instant way meaning whatever sport i'm playing for the most part sometimes baseball

01:03:23.040 you get in your head but rugby and ball it's like you're either in it or you're getting hit

01:03:28.160 by something so you don't have all that anxiety all that overthinking all that stuff that maybe

01:03:33.600 could have plagued somebody you know any given sunday now all of a sudden can't because you

01:03:38.640 don't have space for it and i would probably argue the same is true if you're into music

01:03:43.360 which i've never been able to do right but if you're writing music or if you're playing an

01:03:49.520 instrument or if you know whatever you're doing i have a feeling that when that part of your brain

01:03:55.420 is tuned in that's it yeah that's what you're doing and so i think we do kids a real injustice

01:04:02.560 like incredible injustice when we say oh you only have to take grade nine gym you never have to take

01:04:07.420 music again oh you can't draw don't ever take art again because you're losing pieces yes you need

01:04:12.580 all those opportunities so that you can find that drive yeah and once you've done it with something

01:04:18.540 you can apply it to everything yeah what yeah that's true and that's why i've always thought

01:04:23.940 that the best teachers and again generalization but i think i'm pretty right we're always the best

01:04:31.820 natural students oh no no yeah no if you've struggled you can understand where your students

01:04:38.200 And you can, and the same with athletics, the best coaches are not like Wayne Gretzky.

01:04:42.980 He's not, I don't think he's a good hockey coach.

01:04:44.620 I think he's proven he's not.

01:04:45.880 Why?

01:04:46.400 Because he could just do it.

01:04:47.900 You know, Beethoven couldn't have taught.

01:04:49.400 He just played.

01:04:50.780 You don't, you don't, you can't teach that kind of innate genius, whether it's, you know,

01:04:56.240 in physics or on the basketball court or, you know, doing whatever kind of endeavor.

01:05:02.760 You don't, you can't teach that.

01:05:04.180 I think you just are.

01:05:05.060 so i think we all need something to excel at and and if your thing is sports great i just think

01:05:12.660 it's weighted heavily like a hundred percent people in school get that elevated by we call

01:05:19.220 it buy-ins as opposed to buyouts yeah yeah for sure and everyone comes and they cheer you on

01:05:24.140 and then there's those announcements in the morning where they talk about all the individual

01:05:28.240 accomplishments for everybody on the team which just gets my goat because it's a team so you

01:05:33.640 shouldn't be talking individual and I want to go in there and say okay yeah well in physics class

01:05:38.600 we had an awesome exam test but don't you think yeah Billy down there came in hard at the end

01:05:43.660 there we go Brian we're gonna give a second shout out um but you just said something quite

01:05:53.260 intelligent because it's like you don't take away the the accolades of the athletes you

01:05:58.520 elevate the accolades of every other student in every capacity somebody that can paint i've had

01:06:05.220 students that have sat down and drawn like a face off off like a random picture i'm like what are

01:06:11.620 you doing they're like oh well i was done my thing so i'm just i'm like what have you created here

01:06:16.900 right we need to figure out how to elevate all of those things because you're right maybe that's

01:06:23.960 the thing that's the moment they go holy crap I am special I have something special because I know

01:06:30.020 this sounds cheesy but I still believe most if everybody has something beautiful and special

01:06:34.780 that they can do if we can elevate that then maybe you can give enough confidence to say okay cool

01:06:41.080 but can you try a little harder to do my politics paper and that makes sense as opposed to the if

01:06:45.980 you work hard enough you can do anything no if you work sorry there's a lot of things I like this

01:06:52.160 if you work hard enough, you will get better at things. That's it. That's all I can promise.

01:06:58.260 You're going to suck a little less than you did yesterday. I like it. Well, thank you so much, 0.99

01:07:03.760 Ray. Is there any words of wisdom that you want to leave our viewers? We didn't even talk about

01:07:07.440 the circle, but you don't even remember teaching me how to draw. It was an oval. It was an oval,

01:07:12.320 whatever. You said I said something intelligent. I say a lot of intelligent things. I don't like

01:07:18.460 the fact that you singled it out. I was just pointing it out, Kazyorski. I'm not demoting

01:07:23.760 your bird or anything. All right. Okay. Thank you guys for hanging out. I will see you next

01:07:28.960 Tuesday. Same bat time, same bat channel. Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - June 20, 2025

The One Where I Draw an Oval...That's Not What This Book Is About

Episode Stats

Transcript