Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Tell You My Why

00:00:00.000 class is in session what's up everybody in podcast world this is unlearn 16 some people call me

00:00:10.400 joanna joe if you would like and this is my first yes my first podcast slash youtube presentation

00:00:18.960 of unlearn 16 classes in session before i get into it today i want to explain a couple things

00:00:25.320 please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle oh no that's a different speech

00:00:28.720 Okay, so I want to explain one thing. A lot of people ask me, what is up with unlearn? What does that mean? And why the number? Let me do my best to explain it. And then I'm going to give you a little bit of a synopsis of what this podcast is going to include.

00:00:43.000 So the term unlearn is very Socratic. Socrates was a philosopher way back prior to Plato and he

00:00:51.720 believed that a lot of the prejudice and discriminatory thoughts and stereotypes

00:00:57.100 get shoved in our head at a very very young age and as we grow it becomes our job our

00:01:04.760 responsibility to pull those ideas out to deconstruct them dismantle them find out what's

00:01:11.340 flawed, why it's flawed, throw out what's necessary and make room for real learning.

00:01:17.200 I'm a teacher, and it's ironic that I love unlearning so much, but I think we do it constantly.

00:01:23.160 We constantly learn, we unlearn, we relearn, we reshape. All of that is possible, in my opinion,

00:01:32.700 through one way, open, amazing conversation, debates, discussion. Sometimes we have to argue

00:01:42.200 it through. I think it's incredibly important. And I think that's why I fell into TikTok the way I

00:01:50.020 did. And I, and I started being driven by important points in our society. Sometimes I'll do it with

00:01:56.620 sarcasm. Oh, come on. I'm going to always do it with sarcasm. Sometimes I'll be a little bit more

00:02:02.620 serious than others. A lot of people also want to know, okay, what's with the 16? I'll learn's

00:02:08.140 fine. I get it. What's with the 16? Well, 16 was my volleyball number. And as you're going to hear

00:02:14.600 in a little bit, because I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself and why I'm doing what

00:02:18.260 I'm doing. And I guess the why is incredibly important to people. That 16 represents a really

00:02:26.100 sort of integral important time in my life where as a young adult it really shaped who I was going

00:02:34.140 to be and what road I was going to go down and I and I think it's so so true that we have these

00:02:41.000 critical and sometimes we don't even know they're critical moments in which we choose a path we

00:02:46.260 choose a road and we start down we go down whatever road we do to achieve whatever it is we're going

00:02:53.660 to achieve until we meet that person, until that event happens, until COVID hits. And all of a

00:03:00.080 sudden, everything we thought we knew, we don't. And then we have to figure it out all over again.

00:03:06.320 So this podcast is about that. As messy, as complicated, hell, even as confusing as it

00:03:13.860 possibly can be, that's what life is. I am going to tackle every subject I can possibly think of

00:03:20.040 that I find powerful, that I find important. So if you're looking for a niche, I do love Buffy

00:03:25.560 the Vampire Slayer. I will always talk about that. You're not going to find just one topic here,

00:03:31.000 but what I promise you is you will find a range of things that all matter in different ways,

00:03:37.680 at different levels, to different people at different times. That's what I can promise you.

00:03:43.400 And for you to understand a little bit about me, I'm going to do a little Five People You Meet in

00:03:48.700 heaven. Little Mitch album for anyone who's read that book. He wrote this beautiful book about the

00:03:53.780 five people that changed his life. I'm going to give you three stories about me. And I think these

00:03:59.200 three stories are really good indications of moments in my life that mattered, paths that I

00:04:08.140 were directed on, and the way in which my character and identity was developed that I'll carry for for

00:04:17.120 the rest of my life. Well, for the rest of my life until I hit another bump in the road

00:04:22.100 and it changes my direction altogether. So stick around. I hope you enjoy the stories

00:04:28.340 and I hope you enjoy my why. Picture it. No, you can't picture it yet, but don't worry.

00:04:35.160 I'm going to describe the scene for you. Give me a second. So I'm three years old. So what

00:04:38.980 does that make that? 75, 76, 77, 78. Damn, I'm old. I'm three years old. My mom has to

00:04:46.920 drop me at a Montessori daycare very nice daycare that I go to because my mom's a nurse and my

00:04:52.720 parents are divorced so my mom obviously has to drop me off and she wants to make sure she's

00:04:56.900 dropping me off at a fantastic place filled with great learning and I love school like I absolutely

00:05:03.260 love school never a hesitation in my body I mean I'm a teacher now so that kind of rolls into the

00:05:09.160 same thing never has hesitation in my body and one day we're driving to school we get to the front

00:05:15.400 door. She stops the car and looks at me and says, you know, Joanna, it's time to go to school. Out

00:05:20.440 you go. And I sit there, silently, staring out the window. My mom looks at me again and says,

00:05:26.740 Joanna, I gotta go to work, hon. You gotta go into school. What's the matter? I look at her

00:05:32.840 dead in the face and say, I'm not going to school today. And she says, why? You love school. You

00:05:38.320 always loved school. What, did you have a problem? Is there a teacher problem? Did a kid pick on you?

00:05:42.920 and I sit silently staring at the window gathering my thoughts. She looks at me again she says you

00:05:48.820 have to go to school you're gonna have to tell me what's wrong and I looked at my clothes up and

00:05:53.640 down. Now you gotta understand that even as soon as I could speak I picked out my own outfit

00:05:59.060 and in this very moment I am wearing a killer a killer Bert and Ernie pair of overalls you know

00:06:07.600 with those nice like heavy Bert and Ernie patches on the front of the overalls. I mean it I wish I

00:06:12.880 still had it, because to be honest, I probably would have framed it by now. But I'm wearing my

00:06:17.060 favorite outfit. And I look at my mom, and I've decided that day, this is no longer acceptable.

00:06:24.180 And I say, I can't go in. I am dressed like a baby. I look like a baby. And my mom looks at me

00:06:31.080 and says, but that's your favorite outfit. You always have worn that outfit. I look at her again,

00:06:36.120 I say, I don't like it. I don't like these straps. It holds my pants up. I want normal pants. I look

00:06:43.760 like a baby. I'm not going. And as we're sitting there, kids are going into class and their overalls

00:06:50.480 were very in in 1978, a lot of brown suede. And kids are going into class and they're all wearing

00:06:55.980 overalls. So my mom's trying to figure out, is this because a kid made fun of you? Is this not

00:07:00.760 in style anymore. But she quickly realizes, no, that has nothing to do with it. I have at three

00:07:07.740 years old decided not okay with it. So my mom, because she is an amazing parent, looks at me

00:07:14.280 up and down, realizes I have to go to school. We don't have time to go home and get changed.

00:07:19.460 Unstraps my overalls, pulls it down, pulls off my shirt, does my overalls back up,

00:07:24.460 throws my shirt over top of it so it appears that I am wearing regular grown-up adult jeans

00:07:31.300 and says is that better I look her dead in the face I say it is for today but we're gonna have

00:07:37.920 to get some new jeans later off to school I go and have a great day after that I've never worn

00:07:43.180 overalls again why is this story important I love telling stories and sometimes people get a little

00:07:48.480 bored with them. Why is this story important? I think it's very clear of a, who I am and, and who

00:07:54.580 my mom allowed me to be. I have always been an individual from the moment I could articulate

00:08:00.980 that wanted to wear always what I wanted to wear, whether it was a sideways hat. And I do get take

00:08:07.820 a lot of, let's say criticism for that, whether it's oversized shirts, baggy jeans, t-shirt with,

00:08:14.740 I don't know, whatever cartoon figure on it that I want to wear at 46 years old. But I've always

00:08:21.300 been incredibly comfortable with that. And looking back on that time and that story that my mom tells

00:08:27.760 constantly laughing at me, I realized that I got to be that person. That person that walked into a

00:08:34.580 room confidently that knew exactly what I wanted to wear or what I didn't want to wear. And I had

00:08:41.040 this amazing mom who backed me up 100%. I think it gave me a level of confidence, even at the age

00:08:48.440 of three, that I will take on throughout the rest of my life, that I will take on when I teach, that

00:08:55.140 I will take on when I walk into any room I ever walk into, dress the way I want to dress, haircut

00:09:01.600 the way I want to have it cut, tattoos, wherever I want to have them, because that's exactly who I

00:09:09.000 am. And I have an amazing group of people around me who support everything I do and every way I

00:09:14.840 look. All right, here we go. Story two. I'm going to jump forward a few years and I'm in high school.

00:09:23.680 Did I love high school? Absolutely. I was pretty good at academics. I was really good at most

00:09:30.560 sports. Pretty much loved my life. Now, come grade 10, Ontario used to go from grade 9,

00:09:39.100 if you're in Ontario high school. I know this is different for a lot of Americans and all of

00:09:43.720 Canada at this point. If you went to Ontario way back in 89, it would go from grade 9 to grade 13.

00:09:53.460 So, we had a grade 13th year in high school, and it was called your OAC year. So, technically,

00:09:59.980 you would be a senior for two years, right? Grade 12 and grade 13, grade 10 and 11, you'd be a

00:10:06.760 junior, grade nine, you'd be a midget. Those are just delineations for sports. So I was pretty 1.00

00:10:13.340 good at all sports, right? I grew up playing baseball. I love baseball. When I got to elementary

00:10:18.300 school, I played everything. So you got all the requisite days off. And when I got to high school,

00:10:24.200 I started playing volleyball and basketball. I mean, those are the two sports you play in order

00:10:28.580 to cover your year. Grade 9 went well. I played. I was, you know, one of the better players and

00:10:35.660 grade 10 rolled around. And when grade 10 rolled around, I really did love volleyball, but I'm not

00:10:41.720 going to pretend as though I was great. I was average. I was an average player. However, the

00:10:49.140 coach of my grade 10 volleyball year, very lovely woman, I should probably call and apologize for

00:10:56.420 the way I was in grade 10, grade 10's a rough year for a lot of kids, we didn't get along.

00:11:01.760 We constantly butt heads. I wouldn't agree with the way that the team was running or, and I had a,

00:11:08.500 guys, I mean, I had a big mouth. What a shocker, right? I wouldn't agree with the drills or where

00:11:13.460 they put people or who got more playing time or whatever. And her and I really came to a head a

00:11:18.620 lot of times. So by the end of the season, no matter if I was a decent player, guess where I

00:11:24.840 was sitting right on the bench, about three spots from her. So as I'm sitting there, I realize in my

00:11:31.420 head in grade 10, you know what? All I really wanted in life at this point was to play senior

00:11:37.520 girls volleyball at Anderson. Anybody that's from the Durham region knows we were the best in those

00:11:43.300 years. There's no question about it. And all I ever wanted to was play on that senior team. They were

00:11:48.460 the best team. Every single year they went to provincials, which is like state finals in the

00:11:54.760 United States. Every single year they went. They were amazing. They had all of the athletic girls.

00:12:01.140 They had the best coach, Gord Williamson. Shout out. He was fantastic. But he was tough, right?

00:12:07.800 It was this elite group that you just really wanted to be a part of. So come great Ted,

00:12:15.260 I'm sitting on the bench and it's near the finals and in walks Gord Williamson and he's walking

00:12:21.260 around, he's looking at us play, and he's barely noticing me, of course, sitting on the bench. It's

00:12:29.400 the only time he's really looked at us, or I thought he really looked at us, and I'm like,

00:12:33.860 well, that's it. He's checking out the team to see who he wants to pull up to senior, because usually

00:12:39.300 he pulled up some kids early, and I'm, guys, I'm not even going to be close to making this senior

00:12:45.580 team right so I'm dejected sitting on this bench peering over at my coach so so angry that she

00:12:54.460 didn't have me on the court at that particular time and he left and I thought that's it my

00:13:00.780 aspirations all of my goals of volleyball stardom gone evaporated so I moved on to the next sport

00:13:10.040 try to put that in the past move onwards and upwards and for the first year my high school

00:13:16.280 team my sorry my high school had a rugby team very first year I've ever played we had two coaches

00:13:23.340 Mr. I get Mr. Hussey I'm giving them a shout out as well and rugby for those who don't know I know

00:13:29.740 there's a lot of Americans who are like what the heck is rugby football is the way to go it's like

00:13:33.880 football with no pads and no offense or defense. You just played the whole game straight through

00:13:40.720 for 80 minutes. But the beauty of learning this game, and I will do a whole other podcast on

00:13:48.280 rugby because I think it is fantastic. But the beauty of this game was if you played with your

00:13:53.980 heart and soul and you went all out, you were going to do all right. Because it's not necessarily

00:14:01.540 as much about finesse in those early years right so I played and I played with the captain of the

00:14:07.220 volleyball team who I just tried to impress you know every single day again that'll be in another

00:14:12.840 podcast because I didn't understand what was necessarily going on in my head at that point

00:14:16.880 but I played this game like my life depended on it right and I played fantastically like I was

00:14:25.280 a rugby superstar I wasn't huge but I was pretty quick and I wasn't really scared of much

00:14:31.480 because as most athletes know, until you get pretty injured, you don't really have a lot of

00:14:36.020 fear built in. So I played out my, my season did very well. The school year wraps up and in we walk

00:14:43.860 in grade 11 year. And I know basketball season's coming fine. I play basketball. P.S. I absolutely

00:14:51.700 stunk at basketball. Mostly I sat on the bench. I was, I always got called for charging. I never 0.55

00:14:57.760 you ever understood. I just plowed into people. It's horrible. But as volleyball tryouts were

00:15:02.740 coming up, I realized I'm just going to play for the junior team again, right? Hopefully they'll

00:15:07.220 still take me. I'm obviously not getting pulled up to the senior team. And one day, Gord Williamson

00:15:13.280 comes up to me and he said, hey, Joanna, I think you should try out for the senior girls

00:15:19.040 volleyball team. Well, guys, if you could have bottled whatever excitement and just, I was beside

00:15:26.920 myself when he came up to me and asked this and in my head I'm thinking why on God's green earth

00:15:33.880 is he asking me considering I know he hasn't seen me play and I'm pretty sure coaches talk

00:15:38.760 and he knows I'm a pretty big pain in the butt but here's what I didn't know about Gord at the time

00:15:43.620 Gord doesn't pick athletes necessarily based on natural just skill level we all know that there's

00:15:52.260 athletes who have incredible skill and it all just comes easy and they're great at hockey and

00:15:57.940 basketball and volleyball or whatever else they try and then there's other athletes

00:16:03.700 who work incredibly hard with all of their heart you know i often think of the movie rudy but i

00:16:10.660 don't think i was that heartfelt maybe a little less than rudy anyways he says to me okay so i

00:16:19.060 I realize I haven't seen you play a lot of volleyball, but here's what I want you to know.

00:16:24.040 The assistant coach from the rugby team last year, Mr. Hussey and him, were friends.

00:16:30.100 And Hus told him that he really needed to take a look at me.

00:16:33.860 He's like, listen, I don't know how she plays volleyball.

00:16:36.660 I do know this. 0.99

00:16:37.720 She has a lot of athleticism. 1.00

00:16:39.880 She's really quick to learn.

00:16:41.220 and Huss says and there's not a kid I have ever seen that plays with more heart than this girl

00:16:49.460 did so give her a shot so Gord tells me this and he says listen I don't know what your level's like

00:16:56.800 I don't know if you're going to make the team he's like but I want to see that heart so come

00:17:01.360 on out to practice give it a go and we'll we'll see where we go from there well guys I mean you

00:17:07.880 could have even if you could have bottled my excitement I don't think it would have contained

00:17:12.260 it so I get ready and there's a three-day tryout and for three days I do everything I possibly can

00:17:20.280 I'm diving all over the place my knees are shredded my elbows are bruised I mean I could

00:17:27.100 have had a black eye at one point it didn't matter I served as hard as I could hit the ball as hard

00:17:32.800 as I could. Everything I did was at a 10, right? Was I graceful? Absolutely not. Did I make mistakes?

00:17:42.780 Absolutely. And in every mistake, I was terrified that that was the mistake that's going to get me

00:17:48.580 kicked off this team. That was the error that he's going to see, oh my God, like all the heart in the

00:17:53.100 world, this girl's still not good enough for a team that goes to provincials every year of this 0.74

00:17:58.820 caliber. So I busted my butt three days. And then on the Monday, he says, I'm going to put up the 0.98

00:18:07.060 list. But at that point I had co-op. So for those who don't want to know what co-op is, you go to

00:18:13.020 another place, you do a job instead of going to class and, you know, you get a credit that way.

00:18:18.180 So I go to my co-op placement, which is at another, an elementary school. And he, and Gord says,

00:18:24.360 listen, I'm going to call the office. I will leave a message with them. So you know, if you've made

00:18:29.700 the team, cause all the other girls could like, look at the list at school. I said, okay. So

00:18:33.800 the weekend goes by and I'm having a near heart attack and Monday rolls around and I go to my

00:18:40.440 co-op placement. My mind's not on that thinking the whole time there there's really, there's no

00:18:45.240 way, right? There's really no way. And around one o'clock I get called down to the office and the

00:18:52.420 secretary hands me a piece of paper, actually a little yellow post-it, and she said, Gord

00:19:00.120 Williamson left this message for you. Here you go, dear. And I looked at it with my trembling hands,

00:19:06.980 took the post-it from her, and on this tiny little piece of yellow paper, it said Joanna Johnson at

00:19:13.380 the top and all it said, very simply report to senior practice 7.00 AM. That was it. And speaking

00:19:22.100 of, I graduated a long time ago, right? I still have, for those who are listening, you can't see

00:19:28.700 this, but for people watching on YouTube, I don't even know how to say YouTube. I still have this

00:19:35.260 piece of paper I have kept it in every wallet I have ever had why a it meant so much to me at that

00:19:43.820 time it meant that I was able to you know put on the best of me that I could have put on

00:19:51.400 but what it's meant in the years to come is actually even bigger I learned being on that team

00:19:59.360 that athleticism and skill those are important but the way that you work at something the way

00:20:06.420 that you put your heart and soul into something now I know this was just a volleyball team but

00:20:11.040 guys this volleyball team shaped I truly believe my character in high school I never missed a game

00:20:19.700 I never missed a practice I never missed a class because that would have affected everything else

00:20:24.940 and I worked my way up from being and by the way my first year I pretty much sat on the bench I

00:20:31.700 sat on the bench as senior girls who were amazing did what they did on that court and every time I

00:20:37.620 was called off the bench and in the beginning I was a great I had a great serve really nice float

00:20:42.740 if I do say so myself and every time I was called off the bench I made sure I did my job

00:20:47.180 and i did my job the way that i knew how i hit the ball as hard as i could anytime he told me

00:20:55.540 where to serve it i served it to that point and i sat my butt my butt back down on the bench when i 0.90

00:21:00.800 wasn't needed anymore and every practice i still busted my butt i never complained once about being

00:21:06.560 on the bench the whole year um up until the very the finals of that year all of a sudden somebody

00:21:14.480 wasn't having their you know strong enough game and there I was playing a full round

00:21:20.480 doing incredibly well recognizing all of the practicing that I've done actually was paying off

00:21:27.280 and over the next few years I worked my way up to captain I realized not only why that team was

00:21:35.060 important because of what I learned and all of those things but how much how important these

00:21:39.940 these girls and these women were to me, how important Gord was to me and all of the lessons

00:21:44.440 it had taught. And I truly learned that no matter what you want to do, if you want it bad enough,

00:21:53.220 you might not be perfect, but there is potential for being great. All right, here we go. Story

00:22:00.660 number three. I hope you're still with me. If you're driving into work, I hope the traffic's

00:22:04.700 not too bad. Okay, here we go. So I've always been a pretty clear, black and white, right,

00:22:13.640 wrong kind of kid, right? I was decent at school. I did well at science. I did well at English. I 0.91

00:22:22.020 never really understood how to analyze poetry. When I was young, I wasn't a great critical

00:22:27.240 thinker. I didn't have a lot of big questions, you know, like, what happened after we die? I

00:22:33.400 I don't care what happens like how did the universe start or how did I found myself very

00:22:40.080 much the kid that just did what they needed to do to get good marks go play that volleyball game

00:22:45.540 that was really important to me and have a good time I didn't question a lot and I didn't struggle

00:22:50.760 a lot I know in volleyball I worked hard but that was that was different it wasn't something I was

00:22:56.700 bad at, you know? And I got a lot of support about that. But we're in grade nine, all of us,

00:23:03.980 right? What do we do? We take art. You have to take art. You have to take art or drama. And trust me,

00:23:08.700 I was not secure enough to be taking drama in grade nine. And so you have to take art. Now,

00:23:14.400 before I stepped into this art class, you need to know a little bit about my history, okay? I have

00:23:19.960 this uncle, his name's Ray, an amazing person, a physics teacher, probably the reason I became a

00:23:27.060 teacher because I watched him teach physics with such passion and joy and sarcasm and wit. I thought,

00:23:33.300 holy crap, if he can make physics that interesting, maybe I got a shot. Maybe I got a shot at doing

00:23:40.240 this kind of job. And I watched the kids just holding to his every single word. Now, he was also

00:23:48.520 an amazing artist he would say he's not a good artist it's absolutely ridiculous he's done and

00:23:53.640 and he would do a lot of comic book stuff right he was amazing and when i was young i would ask

00:23:59.480 him to teach me how to draw because i was you know everything he did i wanted to do so he would sit

00:24:05.000 me down and he would say okay we're going to start with the figure like you know spider-man whatever

00:24:11.180 artist what sorry whatever superhero we want to start with and here's how you draw every figure

00:24:16.880 you draw them with ovals, right? He's like, so we're just going to start by drawing a simple

00:24:22.560 oval. And he would quickly sketch off an oval. I would look at it with all of the focus in the

00:24:30.280 world. And he would hand me the pencil and give me the piece of paper and right beside his oval

00:24:35.840 that looked like pure perfection to me. And he didn't make a minute. He didn't hesitate for a

00:24:41.440 minute scribbled that right out I would sit down with my pencil in hand and try to replicate that

00:24:48.800 and I would press hard and with all of my focus and all of my direction I would try to make that

00:24:56.740 oval and the harder I would press and the more energy I put into perfecting that oval guys

00:25:02.480 the more ridiculous it became I mean it looked like I had I am right-handed it looked like I

00:25:09.920 did it with my left hand and I might have been that three-year-old wearing you know the the 0.85

00:25:16.140 overalls I didn't want to wear that day and I would look at it and he and I'd be like why is that so

00:25:21.900 horrible I did everything I needed to do to make that oval perfect and Ray would laugh at me

00:25:28.620 basically he was an uncle like a big brother right and he'd be like can you just relax just

00:25:33.200 draw an oval like don't you don't have to take so much time to do it just take a breath and just

00:25:38.320 draw. It doesn't need to be perfect, Joe. Give me the pencil again. I do it again. And it would

00:25:43.160 look probably worse than the first one. Throw the paper down, throw the pencil down. That's it. I'm

00:25:49.200 not doing it off to my room or doing whatever it was. Come to grade nine. I give it a go.

00:25:55.220 I pretty much equally suck at it. Um, and, and I, but I'm still drawn to it, right? I'm still

00:26:02.760 drawn to it, no pun intended, but I realize I'm not good at it. So after grade nine, guess what?

00:26:08.680 I stopped taking art. I stopped doing anything artistic. I've never been musical. Heaven help

00:26:15.100 us all. Although I do a solid lip sync. If you go check out my TikTok, I've never been able to do

00:26:21.960 anything like that. And at that moment, I decided I'm just not artistic. I'm not creative. I don't

00:26:29.220 have that. Whatever that is, I don't have it and I let it go. Guys, I let it go for the better part

00:26:37.560 of, oh, I don't know, 15 years. I go through university. I get my master's degree in political

00:26:46.360 science. I get my teacher's college certificate. You know, I roll into my first job, pretty

00:26:52.500 confident in most things that I've done. And a few years into my first job, as I'm getting more

00:26:58.800 confident as a teacher, I think, you know what? I'm just going to give it another go.

00:27:05.880 Now I'm going to approach it differently. So I really wanted to learn how to draw a comic book.

00:27:11.480 So what do I do? I take a comic book, I photocopy it, and I section it off. You all know what I'm

00:27:17.520 talking about. You create a grid system for that whole page. You replicate the grid,

00:27:22.100 and then you do this piece of art section by section by section now is that art I don't know

00:27:30.380 of course not I mean I'm copying somebody else's right and when I first started to do it I would

00:27:36.760 do it section by section and I would have flashes to that little kid who spent every piece of energy

00:27:44.300 trying to perfect that oval and I would tear up paper I'd throw it out I had this beautiful book

00:27:51.700 that my mom had bought. Of course, my mom bought it for me because, you know, she supports me like

00:27:55.640 that. I chuck it out. And a few days later, I'd say, you know, I'm going to give it another go.

00:28:00.940 This is also the joys of being a teacher, I think. You see kids struggle and work through it.

00:28:06.760 And as an adult, sometimes you need to see that in somebody else to recognize you might need to

00:28:13.140 struggle to learn to get through something that matters to you. So I'd buy a new book,

00:28:20.080 pick up a new pencil, I draw out the grid again, and I do it again. And I don't know, maybe the

00:28:25.600 first 10 times I tried to draw Wonder Woman, it was horrible. But eventually, eventually,

00:28:32.360 I learned a few things. I learned, number one, it's really okay to suck. It's really okay to be 0.99

00:28:40.740 absolutely horrible at something if it is still bringing you joy. And it did. It relaxed me. It

00:28:49.680 calmed me. And I also started to realize, and this is probably the most important lesson,

00:28:56.140 it didn't need to be perfect. In fact, not only didn't it need to be perfect, there's no such

00:29:01.460 thing. And I don't think anybody understands that fully. You know, students don't, adults don't.

00:29:11.040 Perfection is unattainable. And when we set the bar for perfection, we immediately set ourselves

00:29:18.180 up for failure and to feel badly about the things that we cannot do. And in the world of art,

00:29:26.120 which I have done a lot more of as I've gotten older, in the world of art, I realize that most

00:29:33.820 art, there's a lot of art, that the beauty of the art, the interesting part of the art,

00:29:39.720 you talk to artists, isn't the thing they meant to do. It's the thing they did by accident and

00:29:46.960 now is a part of that painting. Um, and I don't think it's funny cause you want to teach kids

00:29:53.580 this, right? As a teacher, I want to teach this to kids. I want to impart. I don't know if you

00:29:58.760 can give that to kids. I think it comes with age. I think it comes with true confidence. Cause as

00:30:06.860 kids, you, you can't have true, true confidence until you build that experience, you know? And I,

00:30:13.220 and I think we get a different perspective of the world around us as we get older, as long as we're

00:30:19.020 pulling lessons that we need to pull and actually listening to people along the way. So I realized

00:30:25.360 I didn't need to be perfect. And the more that I recognize that, the more that I can let go,

00:30:30.680 the more fun I had doing it, the more copies I did. I know one year I had a whole class of

00:30:37.240 students who love the show Heroes. So I drew each one of them a frame from the Heroes sort of

00:30:44.700 episode so they could all take it off to university with them. I had a student just tell me recently

00:30:50.440 that she has it still up in her room to this day. She now has a job and kids and yes, I'm that old.

00:30:57.580 But what an incredible important lesson. And to be honest, if I hadn't learned that lesson then

00:31:06.040 And I realize we're going back about 20 years now, maybe about 15 years.

00:31:11.720 I wouldn't even be anywhere close to doing this.

00:31:16.640 So when I started this podcast, you know, is it scary?

00:31:22.220 Absolutely.

00:31:23.860 Am I excited to have different people on?

00:31:26.560 Absolutely.

00:31:27.820 Is it something that I've ever tackled before?

00:31:30.940 Oh God, no.

00:31:32.260 Is it going to be perfect?

00:31:34.020 I hope not.

00:31:36.040 all right so guys you've heard these three stories i don't i don't even know i can't

00:31:41.560 tell if they made perfect sense look these are the things i draw on um and as we go through the next

00:31:49.480 semester and yes my podcast will be based on a fall semester a winter semester and there will

00:31:55.240 be summer school we're going to find out more about those stories more about applications of

00:32:02.040 those stories i plan on having amazing guests on this podcast i'm not having guests per se to do

00:32:09.880 a straight up interview i think i would find that boring i want to have discussion i want to have

00:32:16.360 debate i want to talk about things that matter to me to them to the world around us i want to talk

00:32:22.760 about their stories and how they have grown and and progressed through their lives i think that

00:32:31.400 my my interests are pretty clear and for those who are coming over from tick tock you guys already

00:32:36.680 know obviously i have a love of politics history those are my passions i have a fixation with

00:32:45.800 society and gender norms and racially driven stereotypes and class structures and all of

00:32:52.440 these things that have built into our foundations of our society and i feel like having those

00:32:57.880 discussions and dismantling that's incredibly important i also love pop culture i don't know

00:33:04.440 if you'll find somebody that watches more movies and television shows than i do and i watch them

00:33:10.600 for fun of course but i watch them because i think they're an incredible reflection of our culture

00:33:16.520 and who we are and where we've been and where we're going i think all of those conversations

00:33:21.960 or conversations are important ones to have and I plan on having them with guests so we can have

00:33:27.980 a banter I will do podcasts sitting here all by my lonesome and those podcasts will be based on

00:33:36.420 the stories I find important that have meaning that have depth and that hopefully hopefully you

00:33:43.840 can find some sort of commonality too or you can take away some tiny little piece saying okay

00:33:51.720 that's the thing. That's the thing that I needed for today or that I need for tomorrow or that I

00:33:57.040 can explain to my kid or my partner or my mom or whatever. I definitely want to have fun. I am

00:34:04.240 sarcastic. I am all of those things. And I've come from TikTok. I mean, I stumbled into such an

00:34:11.600 amazing platform at TikTok and such an amazing group of people. And I managed to have the

00:34:19.380 support system that literally has pushed me right here. I won't lip sync here only because, well,

00:34:27.240 let's be honest, most of you listening on a podcast, you're not watching me. So that's

00:34:30.780 unenjoyable, but everything else I will tackle. So I hope that you'll stick around. I hope that

00:34:38.140 you'll share. I hope that you'll follow and subscribe so that you could see, you know,

00:34:44.060 what next week brings and how good, bad, or the ugly this thing gets. And let's be honest,

00:34:52.600 prepare for it to not be perfect. I'm okay with that. I'm okay stumbling around for words. I am

00:34:59.640 not going to cut this podcast. It's just going to roll how it's going to roll. Again, the good,

00:35:06.040 the bad, and the ugly. Not to quote, you know, Clint Eastwood or anything like that. So stick

00:35:11.180 around. I hope you have fun. I hope you get something from it and I hope you subscribe. Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - September 15, 2021

The One Where I Tell You My Why

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