Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Lose Bert and Ernie...That's Not What This Book Is About

00:00:00.000 class is in session hey everybody and welcome to unlearn 16 class is in session this is like

00:00:09.680 episode i don't know what that connects if you've clicked this and you're on this page

00:00:16.480 or you're watching this this connects to a specific chapter in my book that's coming out

00:00:22.360 on july 1st 2025 so if you're watching it in real time my book's not out yet but if you've

00:00:28.500 got the book, welcome. This episode goes with that particular chapter. So today I'm sitting

00:00:36.080 in front of my shoe wall. I know you guys are listening, some of you are listening to

00:00:39.560 this going, I can't see your shoe wall. Well, get on YouTube. This particular chapter, I

00:00:46.260 talk a little bit at the beginning of the chapter about this pair of Bert and Ernie

00:00:50.020 overalls that I used to have and A, how much I want them back. That's kind of beside the

00:00:56.840 point. But B was this moment in my very young life where I didn't want to wear them anymore.

00:01:03.720 I shed the Bert and Ernie. I thought they were a sign of, you know, a baby, a sign of a little

00:01:10.480 kid. And I was, you know, four. And it was time for me to be older, for me to not be wearing

00:01:18.500 overalls with cartoon characters or puppets on the front of it. And I sort of stood my ground

00:01:24.720 and had my mind change my outfit before I, you know, stormed into daycare. So it was a pretty

00:01:31.400 pivotal moment in my life. But the funny part is this, and the parts I want to talk about

00:01:39.160 as I'm sitting in front of this wall of shoe. Wall of shoes? Wall of shoe? Why would I just

00:01:45.680 put that singular. The interesting part is, how does what we wear inform our identity? Or, pause,

00:01:57.740 how does our identity inform what we wear? And a lot of people will say clothes don't matter.

00:02:05.180 I've done those videos myself where I'm like, you know, it doesn't matter what you wear. It doesn't,

00:02:09.440 You shouldn't have to abide this kind of dress code in life in order to be seen a specific way.

00:02:17.680 And on the whole, I agree to that. I really do. I agree to that.

00:02:22.660 However, I don't know if we can negate the reality that what we wear says something about ourselves.

00:02:34.500 It says something about who we are in that moment, because I think it changes. It says something about how we feel comfortable. It says something about the perception of who we are in that minute and how we think we appear to other people.

00:02:52.640 Sometimes it says something in opposition to what the people that we're surrounded by, right?

00:02:59.720 And I think all of that is incredibly important to talk about when it comes to who you are

00:03:05.560 as a person and obviously as a teacher, who you are as a teacher watching these teeny

00:03:14.560 little humans, whatever age you happen to be teaching or parenting or around, these

00:03:19.400 little tiny humans trying to put on different pieces of who they think they are. I know a lot

00:03:29.380 of the time we want to try to dress those teeny humans. We want to tell them what it is that they 1.00

00:03:35.980 should be wearing because of how they're going to be perceived. Or we get nervous, and maybe this

00:03:43.220 is the case too. We get very nervous as adults when these individuals, whether they're preteen

00:03:49.700 or teenagers, start really trying on completely different looks because we feel as though

00:03:55.900 possibly could they be having an identity crisis. But I've always sat at a very weird middle ground

00:04:03.620 because the things that make us comfortable that we're wearing don't necessarily

00:04:12.960 sometimes they do, but don't necessarily speak to who you think I am. Now, buckle in. I'm going

00:04:21.860 to give you a little bit of a philosophy of life right now. Are you ready? I'm not even going to

00:04:28.080 be able to address it to who said it. The name has completely escaped. I want to say maybe Clooney,

00:04:34.820 not that Clooney. This is a sociologist. The saying goes something like this.

00:04:40.280 I'm not who you think I am

00:04:43.580 I'm not who I think I am

00:04:48.320 I'm who I think you think I am

00:04:54.000 Listen, that's a lot to swallow

00:04:57.880 That's a lot to swallow

00:05:00.440 It's basically talking about how we don't exist in a bubble

00:05:06.640 I'm not who I think I am

00:05:09.880 So, I don't exist outside of everything else.

00:05:14.660 I'm not who you think I am.

00:05:17.480 Well, that's because I can't be in your head.

00:05:22.620 I am what I think, what I think you think I am.

00:05:29.120 Meaning, we run around this world constantly trying to figure out how other people see us.

00:05:37.000 and how other people see us, admit it or not, guys, matters.

00:05:45.000 We are constantly trying to assess, and to no end,

00:05:50.500 we are constantly trying to assess how other people think about us.

00:05:56.920 And our clothing is the first step, is the first method, including a haircut, to our created perception

00:06:15.340 And that's a lot, that's a lot of psychology to take in

00:06:19.900 And I literally, as I'm sitting here, Anna just texted me and said it was a guy named Cooley

00:06:24.280 Not Clooney, Cooley

00:06:27.000 But nonetheless, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because identity and your identity,

00:06:36.700 and it's so important to establish it, doesn't happen in a vacuum. It never has. It doesn't

00:06:43.360 happen in a bubble. It doesn't happen without the interpretation and the expectation and the

00:06:52.240 the interactions you have with the world around you, it just happens that way.

00:06:58.540 You know, if you're going to say, I never care what anybody says you do. And if you truly never

00:07:04.280 care what anybody says, I worry. But if you care only what other people think, I also worry

00:07:11.460 because you're never going to really understand. You're never going to really know what other,

00:07:15.560 what somebody else thinks of you, but the way we dress and the way we present ourselves

00:07:19.520 matters. I think part of education has to be figuring out how young people can embrace who

00:07:31.500 they are in a given time, how they want to present themselves, what they think that says about

00:07:38.460 themselves, what they think that sort of creates in their own sort of worldview and their identity

00:07:46.380 and their surroundings and how that impacts who they are in the moment and who they will be later.

00:07:55.400 So I'm saying all of this because unless we can help in the educational system,

00:08:01.020 and this is the hardest part of the entire thing. It's not the quadratic equation.

00:08:06.700 I understand it's hard and it seems useless. It's not that. The hardest part is trying to

00:08:13.740 to free up space for young people to become, to try on different shirts, metaphorically and

00:08:24.500 literally, to wait to see what that interaction, that interplay is going to be, to wait to see

00:08:31.980 how they change because of it. And here's the kicker, I think, as a teacher and as a parent,

00:08:38.740 probably, to constantly be in conversation about all of those dynamics, to be okay with

00:08:46.860 how you're presenting and what you get from that and why do you like it and all of those

00:08:51.600 kinds of things. Because a lot of who we are is driven subconsciously, right? People will say,

00:08:59.740 Joanna, you dress like an 80s rapper. Of course I do. That's when I grew up.

00:09:08.740 Of course I do. First of all, nobody wants to wear tight pants, please. But second of all,

00:09:15.820 the t-shirts I wear have a nostalgia to it. The baggy pants, the shoes, the varsity jackets,

00:09:25.340 all of those things that I seem to be drawn to, for me at this point, has a nostalgia flavor for

00:09:33.400 me. And it makes me feel good. It makes me feel connected. It makes me feel authentic at 49.

00:09:41.960 Funnily enough, I wasn't dressed like that in the 1980s. Because in the 1980s, there was something

00:09:48.980 else that was driving me, right? As a young woman, a young girl in that time, different things would

00:09:56.720 have been driving you. It wouldn't have been a sense of nostalgia. It would be a sense, and very

00:10:02.140 much important, a sense of who are my friends? What are they wearing? I saw a prom picture,

00:10:07.060 a prom, a graduation picture from grade eight. Guys, there was five of my friends in there. We

00:10:11.560 all wore the exact same dress, the exact same dress. And I'm looking, I'm like, it's just a

00:10:17.280 color variant. And I'm like, okay, obviously that was in. And you guys see it. We see it all the

00:10:23.140 time, right? My mom used to say when I would go to high school, Joanna, I can't, as you're coming

00:10:27.480 out of your school for me to pick you up, I can't tell the difference. You're all dressed the same.

00:10:31.980 y'all the same hair, y'all, right? So there's an aspect of that teenage world where conformity

00:10:40.520 is incredibly important. And let me say this, I don't think it's because kids have less of an

00:10:49.460 identity than adults, because by the way, there's tons of adults who have absolutely no idea who

00:10:53.980 there. I think it's because it's in your teen years where the importance of your parents and

00:11:02.660 your family diminishes. It's supposed to, as painful as it is. And the relevance and importance

00:11:09.360 of your peers elevates. And it has to. It has to. Because a healthy identity for an individual,

00:11:21.080 you need to pull away from your parents. You need to individuate. If you do not individuate,

00:11:30.120 if you do not figure out how to push against such a huge, huge sociological, informative figure,

00:11:40.440 you don't ever get to step into little pieces that are going to make you, you. You will just

00:11:46.780 be a carbon cutter. And what I promise you is eventually you will individuate. It'll happen

00:11:52.380 later. I think for me, it didn't happen when I was in high school. It happened when I came out

00:11:56.760 when I was in my twenties. I never felt the need to pull away. There was never a friction because

00:12:01.720 usually there's a friction between parents and kids, right? It's a school thing. It's a friend

00:12:07.840 thing. It's a, whatever it is, there's a friction and they pull away and they, you know, sneak out

00:12:12.800 of the house and they do all of these things that you think are incredibly dangerous behavior,

00:12:16.880 which by the way, kids, they are, cut it out. But you do all of these things because you have to do

00:12:22.000 big, bombastic, insane things in order to make that separation, in order to pull away those

00:12:31.360 bands. And then you look to your friends. And that's why your friends are important. When

00:12:37.960 parents and teachers say your peers matter, of course they do.

00:12:42.800 As they do while you're an adult, by the way.

00:12:46.120 Of course, your peers matter.

00:12:47.740 And you don't necessarily want peers that are going to obviously draw you into harm's way.

00:12:56.840 But the funny part is, I think as kids start to pull away and individuate and put on new attire,

00:13:08.020 is that a teacher's response, a parent's response tends to be fear.

00:13:12.400 tends to be fear that change is never a good thing.

00:13:18.640 That change, that they're not figuring out who they are,

00:13:21.980 that they're just mimicking somebody else.

00:13:23.800 Well, they might be, they might be,

00:13:26.140 but it's in that mimicking

00:13:27.720 that they're gonna try to figure out who they are

00:13:29.980 and talk to them about it.

00:13:31.920 Don't yell at them about their shoe collection. 0.92

00:13:34.380 My mom never yelled at me about my shoe collection.

00:13:36.380 She just told me I couldn't leave

00:13:37.380 all of the pairs of shoes at the front door.

00:13:39.680 Funnily enough, Anna says the same thing.

00:13:42.400 it makes me always fill up this wall. Like sometimes when I pull a pair off, I don't

00:13:46.880 fill up that hole. It's a problem. So you have these teenagers trying on new ideas of who they

00:13:55.340 want to be, and then they wait to see how they are judged. And I sometimes think as a teacher,

00:14:04.260 you know, you try to make space for that. You try to not tell them what to wear.

00:14:09.160 are why are you all wearing the same shoes why are you you know all of that kind of thing but

00:14:15.340 in actuality what you should be doing possibly I don't know the all the answers don't tell that to

00:14:21.640 my students because I tell them I do but maybe the it's not a matter of having answers it's a

00:14:27.340 matter of saying and just having conversations about identity as it connects to how you present

00:14:36.520 yourself in the world. Because I don't think you want to take away a kid's agency and choice.

00:14:43.360 I think you want to be able to have a conversation about how it changes, about why it changes,

00:14:51.320 about what they're getting out of it. Maybe I always start, and I usually start being very

00:14:57.040 sort of introspective, right? You start with kids and you say, well, these are the, you know,

00:15:02.380 I showed them my prom pic, my grad picture and say, look at this dress that we all wore.

00:15:06.520 that's an interesting conversation. When you talk about fashion over the years,

00:15:11.740 as a history lesson, people think, oh, it's just a history lesson. No, no, no, no, no,

00:15:15.480 this is brilliant. Because you talk about fashion over the years and it starts kids talking about,

00:15:20.760 because I guarantee they've replicated, it starts kids talking about what they like,

00:15:25.240 why they like it, when they used to wear it or that they've started to wear it or whatever the

00:15:30.000 case may be. And then you can lean into, what does that say about you? Why does that matter to you?

00:15:38.820 You know, are you trying to impress somebody you have a crush on? Are you just trying to fit in?

00:15:43.720 Are you just comfortable in those clothes? Are you uncomfortable wearing certain clothes so you

00:15:48.820 avoid it? All of those kinds of conversations become incredibly important. But the only way

00:15:55.680 we get to have them, I think, is by allowing kids to decide when their Bert and Ernie overalls

00:16:03.080 don't work out for them anymore. And I think society gets in their way a lot. I think we

00:16:10.160 really do. And the idea that these kids can really form an individual identity with blinders on,

00:16:21.620 separate from all of the sociological and socialization sort of, um, weight that's been

00:16:31.700 placed on them by their family, by their culture, by their, you know, TV shows, by the media,

00:16:38.040 by their school, by their friends, all of these things that are weighing on them as they're trying

00:16:44.460 to figure it out. And, and we are constantly trying to tell them what they should do and

00:16:49.280 shouldn't do and how they should act and how they should be. And they're just trying to sift through

00:16:53.580 it. So the question isn't, are you going to get rid of all of those influences? Of course you're

00:17:00.340 not, but maybe possibly one of the most important things you can do is talk about them and is to

00:17:10.880 talk about who do you want to be? Who do you think you are? What do you think people think

00:17:17.260 about you when you walk into the room, you want to have a good conversation, sit some grade nines

00:17:22.440 and have this conversation. Now you have to make sure it's in a super, super, you know,

00:17:27.680 good group of kids that are going to feel safe answering it. Not every kid's going to feel safe

00:17:32.220 answering it. Some of them are going to be, you know, they're going to take the opportunities to

00:17:35.420 be a smart ass, but if they can sit there and start talking about those things and start

00:17:42.160 individually acknowledging something that they're already thinking 0.97

00:17:48.600 and they've never really shared, I think you would be astounded at what kind of strength

00:17:58.420 and confidence and then like revelation that brings to a young adult. And if you start bringing

00:18:06.320 those revelations to young adults and you start making them understand that what they wear does

00:18:13.600 say something about them cool what do you want it to say that what they wear is an expression

00:18:19.840 of who they are and if they want to change it cool what are we changing into next that

00:18:26.800 they should have the confidence or start trying to gain the confidence to have these conversations

00:18:34.400 with each other, or even if it's in their own head or with their best friend or whoever they

00:18:39.300 feel good with, have these conversations because I think it matters. I really do think it matters.

00:18:48.820 What you wear matters. Not because you have to wear something specific. That's not what I'm saying.

00:18:57.760 Because you also have to understand that the guy wearing or the woman wearing a $3,000 suit

00:19:02.840 shouldn't get your respect, your attention, your subservience any quicker than somebody

00:19:09.320 dressed in baggy jeans and a backwards hat. Because the stereotype of both is problematic

00:19:16.380 and is wasteful and is useless. So if you can start breaking down stereotype or start breaking

00:19:22.820 down the ideas that kids have in their head about what that stereotype is, what they think of that

00:19:30.300 kid or that kid or celebrities. You can always start there, right? Something very external.

00:19:36.920 Then you get to have bigger and deeper discussions about who they are and what they want the world

00:19:44.940 to see. And those are important conversations. You know, we constantly, well, your looks don't

00:19:52.160 matter. We'll say that to kids, right? What you look like doesn't matter. Well, 0.96

00:19:55.920 saying that to a teenager couldn't be more dismissive of everything they know to be true.

00:20:07.140 And as an adult, your looks, of course, your look matters. Now, here's the key.

00:20:15.840 What you need to talk about and what you need to impress upon them and through example prove time

00:20:22.440 and time again, is it's not a specific look that matters. It's an authentic look

00:20:30.460 that will matter. That finding out who you are, and more importantly, not who you are,

00:20:39.620 but why you are, and walking in that confidently, and still caring about what other people think,

00:20:46.440 because that's just the nature of what humans are.

00:20:50.120 But caring less because you can walk

00:20:52.780 and you can exist in that kind of strength

00:20:55.340 and that kind of idea

00:20:56.780 when you go from place to place to place.

00:21:02.460 You know, a lot of people on my TikToks

00:21:06.840 or Instagram or wherever they're watching,

00:21:09.420 you know, lots of people will talk about

00:21:12.360 the way that I look and what I wear.

00:21:14.500 A huge percentage of it.

00:21:16.440 very complimentary. You know, I joke all the time. You can call me whatever you want,

00:21:21.180 just as long as you compliment my hair. Usually very complimentary. I have the other people over

00:21:26.480 here who can't spell things right, who aren't. But the funny part is, make no mistake,

00:21:34.580 they're drawn in by the way I look. So to deny that human reality, to deny that as an idea to

00:21:48.280 our high school students and pretend as though it doesn't matter, pretend as though it's all 0.98

00:21:53.160 in their heads, is silly. Is absolutely silly. And all you're doing is negating actual thought 1.00

00:22:02.660 an emotion that comes from a place of living in this real world. My grandma, love her to death, 0.94

00:22:13.540 would always comment, always, how skinny I was. Always. And, you know, in this culture,

00:22:24.900 in sort of Canadian culture, in this time period, me being whatever my grandma thinks

00:22:32.400 is skinny and tiny. And so it was always a compliment. And I always took it as such,

00:22:38.280 right? Well, to my grandma, I always looked skinny. I never thought for a minute what it

00:22:44.540 would feel like if maybe I put on a couple pounds and my grandma made an other comment,

00:22:52.740 you know, because I've had that pointed out by other people in my world. You know, they'll be

00:22:58.340 like wow she really just talks about you being skinny i'm like yeah well she you know she

00:23:04.980 likes the way i look or whatever that's always and they're like but do you think that's made you

00:23:11.460 very much like focus on well that's there's a positive in there there's a there's a value

00:23:18.420 in that and in an opposition there wouldn't be a value if my body type was different

00:23:28.340 You know, it's really hard to step outside of that and understand what that would be. But funnily enough, if any, you know, buddy out here plays sports, I used to play rugby. And I played for, I don't know, five years or so. And I went away from rugby and I came back and I was kind of the size I am now.

00:23:46.780 when I came back and I had all these women who were like jacked, like, you know, just 0.97

00:23:54.780 physical specimens of the rugby world, shoulders that go on for days, who looked at me, I swear 0.99

00:24:01.700 to God. And this was their face. What happened to you? Why are you so skinny? And all of a sudden,

00:24:10.940 And I'm like, oh, being skinny here in this group of women, they actually think I was sick.

00:24:19.380 They actually thought something happened whereby I wasn't allowed to go work out at the gym or be physically active.

00:24:25.660 Meanwhile, I just got old and stopped playing sports.

00:24:28.600 And I'm like, really depends on where you are and what the perception is going to be of that.

00:24:36.880 And all of that to deny that that world and grown men and women, you know this, you know

00:24:44.700 that what you wear dictates a lot of the time, the way that you're treated.

00:24:49.880 You know that to be true.

00:24:51.880 I know that to be true.

00:24:54.860 So when teenagers are trying it on, when teenagers are, you know, seeing how they fit in this

00:25:03.680 world and the statement they want to make. I just don't think it's a good idea to negate.

00:25:09.500 Don't deny that the way they look is going to have impact. Talk about, talk about it. That's

00:25:15.540 it. Put it on the table. We spend an awful lot of time, you know, in the teaching world or wherever

00:25:23.160 we happen to be trying to negate or trying to ignore and push aside conversations that have

00:25:32.060 real incredible value. And I think while kids, especially at that age, are trying to figure out

00:25:41.840 or toe the line of identity confusion and identity formation, we have to have good conversations

00:25:51.240 about how you can form your own identity, that it doesn't need to be put upon you,

00:25:58.180 that you can try it on and at the same time we got to have conversations about

00:26:03.920 what character looks like and what being a good person looks like and what making you know being

00:26:09.480 being safe and being respected and respecting others looks like you can have all those

00:26:14.040 conversations at the same time while the kid chooses whatever t-shirt they're going to wear

00:26:17.800 and I think this follows through through so many aspects and I don't find it necessarily easy

00:26:28.880 I don't I don't necessarily find it easy because in my head you know there'll be oh well I wish

00:26:37.260 they just dress like this or what about like this or you would look so much you have all of those

00:26:42.380 preconceptions and what those preconceptions are, are mine. My biases, my stereotype.

00:26:50.920 That's the unlearning that I need to do. And I think it's also equally important that I have

00:26:58.980 conversations about my bias, about what and why I think the way I do, rather than putting it on

00:27:07.680 a pedestal and assuming this is the way that we should all act and interact, questioning it and

00:27:13.740 letting kids question all of those aspects that I've just discussed. And I understand that these

00:27:24.260 kinds of conversations somehow, to some people, I guess in education, they seem frivolous or they

00:27:32.780 seem, you know, they're not academic, they're not important, they're not this, they're not that,

00:27:38.460 they have no business in a history classroom or a politics classroom or whatever. But

00:27:42.800 in essence, that individual's identity and identities within all of those social sciences,

00:27:51.720 that's the foundation of everything that happens in this world. Who do you want to be?

00:27:56.700 who do you think people think you are and how does that inform the next step

00:28:04.440 I think it's also incredibly important that we allow for and we encourage and we support

00:28:12.720 no matter how uncomfortable change change in adults change in the our students in the teens

00:28:24.420 in our world is that all of that is going to change and you as a parent as an adult you want

00:28:33.380 to kind of pave a road right you want everything perfect i see a lot of the times a lot of parents

00:28:40.820 and i get it want to make sure that the you know the the yellow brick road is clearly laid out

00:28:47.060 and, you know, they defend against, you know, the poppies that put them to sleep and the Wicked

00:28:54.580 Witch of the West. But I mean, given the new movie, I'm going to have to question that entire

00:28:59.640 analogy in all fairness. The point of the matter is you want to protect them against things that

00:29:04.300 could harm them, things that could make their travels more difficult. When in actuality,

00:29:11.320 First of all, you can't. Nobody can protect anybody from hard things in this world. They will happen.

00:29:21.520 The key is, how do you talk about them when they do?

00:29:27.500 If you can't shelter them, and I'm going to go one step further.

00:29:31.500 I don't think you want to shelter them because I think going through hard things,

00:29:37.020 um hard things with a classmate hard things with school hard things with family hard things

00:29:43.200 going through hard things is what makes you learn is what makes you respect the world around you

00:29:51.900 it's what makes you understand you know uh important life-changing moments you you don't

00:30:01.220 know what good feels like unless you feel bad. It is very Taoist. It's very, you need both the light

00:30:07.780 and the dark, because if you don't have both, you can't understand either. So the key isn't negating

00:30:15.040 the bad things. The key is how do we talk about them? How do we face them? How do we overcome them?

00:30:23.820 How do we help you overcome them? What do you need in order to do that?

00:30:30.160 I had a friend I had dinner with a while ago, and she had a young kid. I was like three, maybe.

00:30:38.020 And we're eating breakfast. It was actually a former student, obviously. I've been a teacher

00:30:42.400 for so long. My students are now like 40, but whatever. So we're having breakfast, and she was

00:30:49.260 sitting across from me and her daughter was sitting next to her. And this three-year-old

00:30:54.340 stood on the chair and was kind of reaching over the chair. And I instinctually said,

00:31:01.980 oh my God, be careful. Be careful. You're going to fall. And Jamie goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, Joanna.

00:31:10.460 I don't raise her like that. I said, what the heck do you mean you don't raise her like that?

00:31:14.720 I go, she's going to fall. She goes, I know. She goes, okay, but I was watching her. 0.60

00:31:18.000 she goes I if I think she's in a dangerous position I like to say to her I know some of

00:31:25.320 you're gonna be like oh it's so new agey but think about it for a second and apply it just outside

00:31:30.180 of this one thing she says when she's doing something that may be dangerous to her I ask her

00:31:38.620 I watch takes a lot of focus and then I ask do you feel safe and sometimes this little three-year-old

00:31:46.920 says, I'm fine. She goes about her day. Could she fall? Absolutely. Do I try to catch her? Sure.

00:31:53.080 Sometimes does she get a scratch knee? Of course. Other times she'll say, I don't. Can you help me?

00:32:02.060 And it was this lesson. Sometimes I'm so taken aback by things that I don't know and people

00:32:08.640 teach me. And it was this lesson, not just of little kids standing on the edge of the chair,

00:32:15.120 teetering, you know, but it's this lesson of how do we empower the next generation

00:32:25.060 to do things maybe that are scary emotionally or physically or mentally.

00:32:34.880 Encourage them to do it. Understand that if you fall, that's okay. Put a bandaid on it,

00:32:42.780 Metaphorically or literally, you'll move on.

00:32:46.320 And feel comfortable enough that if they're in a position where they feel too much fear,

00:32:52.340 they are willing and capable of asking for help from the people around them that they trust.

00:33:00.240 Guys, it was like I learned a world philosophy over bacon and eggs.

00:33:07.260 And she never fell.

00:33:09.580 And eventually she sat down on her own.

00:33:12.780 And I thought, that's a real skill. That's a powerful lesson. And as a teacher,

00:33:23.540 you know, clothing is this symbolic idea of how to teach that.

00:33:29.440 But everything that we should want to teach that next generation isn't so much about

00:33:36.560 do it my way because my way is best, although I am prone to want to do that. It's

00:33:42.780 Do things that scare you.

00:33:46.400 Try them.

00:33:47.640 If you get to a point where you're too afraid, ask people around you that you trust for help.

00:33:54.780 And I'm just going to wait until you need me.

00:33:58.100 But if you need to fall first, then I'll help you get up afterwards.

00:34:03.700 i don't know how you make that an ethos of a school or of an educational philosophy

00:34:13.100 but i swear to god that's what it should be that's what it should be we should you know

00:34:21.340 stop with the bubble wrapping and the protecting and the shielding and the umbrella

00:34:26.120 start with knowing that you are strong, you are powerful, you are brave. Give it a go.

00:34:38.380 And when you need me, I'll be right behind you.

00:34:45.360 And on that note, guys, thank you so much for hanging out with me. Go check out my book coming

00:34:50.340 out on July 1st, 2025. You can get it on unlearn16.com. And this will go with a chapter in

00:34:58.040 the book that will come with this cute little QR code. So you'll be able to place them together,

00:35:03.380 watch them back to back. Thank you so much for hanging out with me guys.

00:35:07.200 And until next time, I'll see you on the same bat time, same bat channel. Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - June 26, 2025

The One Where I Lose Bert and Ernie...That's Not What This Book Is About

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