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I. For immature audiences only. Hello and welcome
back to Now We Consume. I am your host Gibbs
and along with me is my co -host Pip. Picking
my nose like we're picking up books for today's
topic. Anyways, I never know where you're going
to go with that. I never know where I'm going
to go with that. I shoot from the hip. Like Johnny
Sins. I'm sorry, I had to bring Johnny Sins back
into the rotation. I don't know. You're really
into him lately. I don't know. Whatever you're
into, I'm not here to judge. Like many boys across
this nation, he was one of my idols growing up,
okay? I mean, that man had so many illustrious
careers. I don't know how he could do it. He
had a lot of time. I know. That's why I'm a jack
of most trades. He truly is my favorite astronaut
plumber. But anyways. So. I did want to give
a shout -out and say thank you, everybody, too,
that's been interacting with us on social media,
in the comment sections, watching and everything.
We've been seeing a great uptick lately, and
we really appreciate it. As always, please join
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us, kind of see what's going on when we upload
episodes and whatnot, and kind of get an idea
if we want any sort of topics, any sort of interactions,
stuff like that coming up. We actually have a
couple that have been suggested by viewers. um,
that we're going to be getting into. So that's
a proof, proof in the pudding, just like the
tapioca mix that we, uh, we pay attention to
the listeners. Don't, don't even go there. Don't,
don't do it. I swear to God. You don't want the
tapioca pudding there Gibbs. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Nope. I don't want to be here in the background.
Why is it chunky? It's no chunky gift. But anyways,
so we were having a discussion while ago, and
this topic was kind of spurred on by a few things
that have happened politically. We're not going
to dive into the politics of this as much as
kind of more of like a factual, objective kind
of discussion and our opinions as to what's going
on. But anyways, we want to talk about the truth
about the education system in America. And why
I'm saying truth is... there's a lot of subjective
ideas that people kind of assert as a reality
in the American education system. And we kind
of want to talk about the history, why it is
the way it is, why it's structured the way it
is, and kind of the pros and cons as to the way
it's been operating. The reason why this came
up was because the other day Donald Trump was
talking about getting rid of or defunding the
Department of Education. And there are many people
that feel like that was a department that brought
a lot of good and a lot of standards to the country.
But as somebody that was in the education system
that left, that has actually studied this stuff,
I was very much in the opposing view of looking
at it statistically. The Department of Education
in America, while it was a good idea, did not
fulfill its role, even in the slightest, and
if anything, caused immense, immense harm. And
we'll discuss with that in here as to why. But
there are some pros with it too, so I'm not going
to just say it was all bad. Right. But anyways.
And keep in mind, when he says getting rid of
the Department of Education, he's not closing
the doors on the entire thing. There are parts
of it that will be sticking around. And oddly
enough, it's the parts that are actually working.
People have been screaming, oh, the food. lunch
pro or the school lunch programs are going to
go away and all this other shit no that's the
department of agriculture that handles the school
lunch programs a lot of people didn't know that
so that's a whole separate deal and department
of ag is not going anywhere what he's basically
covering in that defund for the department of
education mostly has to do with curriculums standards
which That's a whole separate discussion on why
that was an issue. But also, really, a lot of
it was just administrative costs. A lot of it
was due to poor standardized testing and even
just a big waste of money on some stuff that
were like studies on different testing methodologies
and whatnot that didn't lead to anything. And
when you're spending billions of dollars or sometimes
even trillions of dollars over the course of
decades and not really getting anything for it,
what's the point? What are you doing? Right.
But... Oh, sorry, I thought you were going to
say something. No, yeah, the sheer volume of
money that was spent over the 40 plus years that
the DOE has existed is staggering. And I'll give
you the total now, but we're going to touch on
a lot of the breakdown later. Two trillion dollars
has been spent on education, public education
in America. what we've gotten out of it. If anyone
has seen the video from Caitlin Bennett, that's
been making the rounds on the web where she interviewed
people on spring break, asking just basic civics
questions that are actually on the exam that
you have to take to become a U S citizen. These
are college kids that she's asking like high
school and college kids. They don't know the
answers to questions like, How many continents
are there? What continent are you on right now?
And they're in like Florida or some shit. Because
they're mentally incontinent. That's the problem.
How many justices are on the Supreme Court? 47.
Name a country that borders America. Blue. Name
a country the Great Wall of China runs through.
I mean, these are stupid -ass questions. As of
Trump Mexico. These kids do not know the answers
to. And it's like, I'm sorry. If this is taxpayer
money, I want a fucking refund. Oh, yeah. It's
going to show for a while that if you talk to
kids, it's weird. I think that high schoolers
are more aware of what certain political parties
are pushing. political candidates rather than
the history of their own country or being knowledgeable
about their own laws how to be a citizen in their
own country and like for instance a quick little
aside how many kids have no idea how to do basic
life skills at all and this includes things like
get a job do taxes you know being able to actually
function yeah it's nothing but thank god i can
do pythagorean theorem like a bastard thank god
Powerhouse of the cell mitochondria. Yes. Like
I think, you know, I use it every single day
for work, working on cars. That's all I think
about is the mitochondria. Did, did you happen
to see the thing I posted in the notes at the
very bottom? Oh, look at that. So I wanted to
make sure that we touched on this and we can,
we can go back over this at the end of the episode.
But I'm going to go ahead and do this early on.
Isn't it strange that after years of government
education, 18 -year -olds cannot grow their own
food, build a house, fix a car. They are economically
and historically illiterate. They are unaware
of proper nutrition, how the human body actually
works and or functions. They struggle with depression.
They have zero money management skills. They
have no idea how to manage, invest, or work their
taxes. Yeah. Crazy, isn't it? But damn it, they
know pronouns. I know. It goes to show it's almost
like they're not for education, but indoctrination.
I have zero issue with people being who or what
they want to be. But keep all that shit out of
the classrooms or have a special class off to
the side after the general curriculum is done.
That kind of stuff needs to be set aside for
something like an elective. If kids are interested
in those types of subjects and issues, make it
an elective course that they can take if they
want and it's not pushed on them. I will be even
harder on this one. I will say that I think teacher
objectivity versus subjectivity should be something
that's heavily enforced and regulated. Yes. My
problem was that the reason why I left the education
system was because I was one of the few that
did not want to push a certain set of values.
And my goal was for the students to never know
how I lean politically because it's not my business
discussing politics with them. If anything, it's
to facilitate an open discussion where at least
in my opinion, as long as your thoughts politically.
are within the confines of the Constitution,
I will never say a word. If it's not, I will
just politely say, by the way, just so you're
aware, that technically goes against kind of
the laws of the country, just so you're aware,
but besides that, have at it, whatever. But no,
so many teachers preach their subjective idea
of what this country should be as objective reality.
And that is one of the problems why so many kids
coming out of high school have no idea what reality
is. And they are encapsulated in this bubble.
Where they are so used to being coddled. They're
so used to getting their way. They're so used
to reality being what they deem it to be. When
in reality, honestly, in the real working world,
nobody cares what you think or speak as long
as you do your job. If you're going to start
a business, great. Start a business. But guess
what? Nobody's hiring a plumber to listen to
their politics. Fix the goddamn pipes. Like it's,
it's that simple. It doesn't matter what job
you do. Unless if you want to talk politics,
Go do a talk show or do a podcast, you know,
or do something to where people come to you for
that. But no, a lot of these kids have missed
the point. And unfortunately, it's every single
person around them, whether it be their parents
or the education system propping up the idea
of saying, oh, yeah, politics is so important
to you that we're not going to teach you history.
We're going to teach you subjective ideas. And
that was my problem. And it still is the problem.
It's becoming less so. But as long as the. teachers
union is allowed to donate to a particular party,
it will never be unbiased. Yeah. And that's,
that's the route of least one of the issues today.
It just, it's ridiculous. Keeping money where
it needs to be spent on education is damn near
impossible, but should be one of the core focuses.
This a little aside to some I thought we're getting
to later, but I feel like we're just on track
with us right now anyway No in order to have
a successful country. You need to create a class
of people that want to run businesses The idea
of this country now granted our tax system is
leveraged very heavily against people without
a ton of money to start businesses So unfortunately
the case of even if you're out of high school
you have a great idea You can't start a business
anyway right now because you don't have the capital
you have to have a ton of capital very good credit
A lot of things lined up in lawyers, legal, stuff
like that. So unfortunately, that system is against
you, but vice versa. If you have no idea how
to do your taxes, how to do payroll, how to deal
with any of this stuff, how to even legally start
a business, you'll never get going without some
significant help. Whereas these things should
be taught in high school, things like being efficient
with math, understanding how to communicate with
people, what's expected and required of you in
a job market. How to have marketable and useful
skills is something I know we've mentioned many
times on this podcast. There's no point in you
going to college or getting a degree in something
that is absolutely fucking worthless. If you
can't market that skill, if it's not an in -demand
skill, congratulations, you're throwing your
money at somebody to keep their useless skill
in demand. It's this weird fucking Ponzi scheme
of like, for example, I'm going to rash on this
because I'm going to. And I have friends that
have this degree, so I apologize if I'm picking
on you, but I'm going to pick on you. If you
go to college for political science, even though
there's almost no job in the world that will
hire you, specifically, because you have a political
science degree, unless that job is speaking about
politics, you're in a Ponzi scheme. You're in
this kind of weird area where you are taking
that degree to justify them teaching it so that
you can go and then teach it somewhere else.
And this happens with actually a lot of degrees.
It's kind of insane. Same thing in the high school
level where they have a lot of classes where
teachers, oh, they have a degree in this. So
they have the classes, but it doesn't actually
do anything to help the kids. These kids are
no better off. And that's one of the problems
we need to as a country. And really, I'm glad
it's going to more of the states to decide for
their curriculums. So that way they can understand
in their region, their idea, what is best for
these kids to learn to be competitive? Because
at the end of the day, You are competing with
the person next to you for your job. And I know
that sucks in a lot of ways, but you have to
be able to offer something of value because vice
versa. If I am a business owner and I'm going
to hire an 18 year old, what's going to separate
your kid from their kid? What's different? If
they, and sometimes the stupidest little thing
of, wow, this kid can at least talk to me. This
other kid, sure, maybe he could do the job, but
he can't talk to me. This one could do the job,
and they could talk to me. We could have a nice
conversation. We could figure stuff out. Great.
At least he had a communications class. Good.
You could speak proper English, and I mean proper
English. Yep. Hold that thought. Ensuring the
children of today are able to effectively communicate
and not mumble at people. Oh, my God. I'm going
to pick on my son for a minute. My oldest. Listen
to him talk. Holy shit. I love him to death.
But even his friends, sometimes I have a hard
time making out what they're saying. So it's
not just him. It's literally the entire like.
25 to maybe 15 sect of kids that I've been listening
to. And I feel like a lot of it started with,
like was just pointed out in chat, the mumble
rappers. It became a thing, and people just started
trying to realize, oh, if I just am a little
bit more lazy, I can get away, and I don't have
to move my mouth as much. I can just kind of
let it go to my, you know, but it reminds me
of idiocracy where language devolved to just
grunts and shit. Yes. So there again, we're devolving
towards idiocracy yet again. It's, I think also
there's a big factor. COVID played a huge factor
for anybody that went to high school recently
or even elementary school, any sort of that.
There was a large portion of it where people
weren't talking to each other. It was all text
-based. And unfortunately, a lot of schools have
made it so. Language skills were lost during
COVID. That there were a lot of kids that their
growth was stunted by years. You're talking the
Baltimore high school system. Some eighth graders
have a fifth or fourth grade reading level, which
is insane. Didn't they anyways? It's way worse.
I'm just saying. It was already bad. Now it's
way worse. The issue I'm seeing is. In almost
every job, unless you are truly going to be somebody
that does a 100 % stay -at -home job, in the
working world, you have to be proficient in speaking
with people. Not just passable, but proficient
and pleasant in order for people to like you.
Because I will tell you right now, I have gotten
jobs that I was not qualified for because they're
like, wow, this guy presents himself well, can
speak really well, really clear communicator.
We'd like to work with him. And I did very well
and it was great. However, I've met people that
are well qualified, but they do not communicate
well or effectively. Nobody ever told them. And
they wonder why nobody hires them. Yep. And unfortunately,
that's what's required in most situations, even
going to college. If you go to do like a college
interview or something like that, or if you go
take these classes, especially if you want to
get into very competitive fields, we have internships
and you have to know people and you have to network.
If you're not somebody that's willing to be social
and get to know these people, you're not going
to go very far or not as far as you could go.
It's unfortunate. We live in a world where it's
dominated by social interactions. And a lot of
these schools do not help these kids because
a lot of it either goes online. And I'm not saying
I'm not saying schools have to force your kids
to spend all day talking to one another because
there are elements of academia to where, sure.
You should be able to study independently, take
tests independently, assess your own knowledge
individually. But you also kind of have to work
with people. Now, I don't think you should be
graded as a group because I hated those fucking
projects. I don't have to rely on someone else
for my work. No. But you should have to talk
to other people, talk about your thoughts on
things. How do you come to these conclusions?
I think that's very important to be able to state
an opinion and stand your ground on it. To be
able to argue, to be able to discuss. To agree
or disagree and be able to have some sort of
point behind it. All of that has been kind of
lost. Yeah. Because going back to the original
point of in a lot of high schools and a lot of
curriculums, there isn't a margin to be able
to discuss things. It's either right or wrong.
It's either you have the correct opinion or the
non -correct opinion. And unfortunately, as somebody
that is a student of history, a lot of that shit
is neither right nor wrong. A lot of it is very
subjective, and you can take things several different
ways. I thought history was just history. Yeah,
history written by the victor, good sir. Written
by the victors, absolutely. That is the problem.
One of the best examples I will have, so I'll
tell you guys this in chat. Because of a history
nerd, I have history books written in England
in 1890. I have a couple written in 1920, 1930.
I have some German. 1910 1920 history books i
have a french one which that one i have to spend
the time and actually like decipher that one
i used to take some french classes but i'm not
good at french i'm barely good in english um
is that from like the 40s uh the french one i
want to say it was from the 20s oh so unfortunately
i was going to ask if it's dented showing signs
of being dropped No, they ripped out all the
pages that were white to surrender. Ah, gotcha.
But it's things like that to where you can really
understand that there's a lot of things in education
that do have some subjective arguments within
them. Now, sure, you can argue math is objective
-based. Yes, absolutely. But that's when you're
going to apply these things and doing some other
stuff. There's some things where you should be
allowed to discuss and debate, and that's really
just not allowed. Since you brought up math and
since we're talking about the education system.
Yes. I recently got into a very heated back and
forth with my youngest son's math teacher. About
what? Because we're both proficient in math.
So I'm curious. Well, yeah, I kind of have to
be given my job. The teacher was upset. That
I was showing Connor how to do math problems.
Okay. And it wasn't being done the way they wanted
it shown. As long as it's consistent, it shouldn't
matter. That was kind of my argument. Yeah. And
the teacher's response was, well, this is how
we're teaching it. And I'm like, that makes no
sense. Like, I had her take me through the steps.
And I'm like, you're adding. 10 additional steps,
complicating it four times more than it needs
to be, all you're doing is confusing these children.
You could have had the answer 10 steps ago. Why
are you adding all this extra shit in? So a lot
of the Common Core math, I can tell you, a lot
of it has to do with they try to have the proofing
for that line within the next line. So the idea
is technically, if you do it their way, it's
very easy to see where you screw up. The problem
is you have to remember how to do it their way.
And if you don't remember how to do it their
way, you will screw up. Okay. So here's the other
question. If you're not showing everybody involved
in that process, how is everybody supposed to
know it? Because they didn't have a class for
the parents to take to learn all this new bullshit.
So you have a child learning one way, a parent
that was taught another way. The two are not
able to dock up and meet. So you can't make any
of that happen and make everything happy. So
for the audience that didn't see the visual,
you'll just have to look that up because I'm
not explaining it. That being said. The thing
you have to understand about the education system,
they have zero intention of having you being
involved with your child's education. This is
my problem with the modern education system.
I think it's very insidious, and a lot of teachers
I don't think are aware of this. They actively
do not want you involved in your child's education.
I could tell you that right now. Why? Oh, because
of the many districts that do sex education,
stuff like that, and basically show pornography
to their children. You might have districts that
will not show what actually is in their curriculums
for these various different classes. There's
a lot of history in English classes that they
will just they'll just not show you. It's like,
oh, yeah, you'll figure it out. They won't involve
you. They won't tell you. They won't have. No,
it's actively. You are not. Unfortunately, you
are not part of your child's education. That's
how they view it. They view it as they are the
educators. They are the teachers. They are the
ones that have the, you know, the. degrees the
masters or the doctorates or whatever so why
would they involve you you're not you're not
in the equation which is terrible because guess
what you are with the kids the other half of
the day but the teachers don't do that they don't
involve you they fail to take in the parents
that actually care the parents that not only
can but will get involved and the parents that
will make the school year a nightmare for the
teachers that try to screw the the kids over
Especially when it comes to issues. Yeah. I'm
one of those parents, especially someone fucks
with my kid. I will rain down hell. Somebody
bullies my kid. I will bully that kid's parents.
And if I have to, I will bully that other kid.
I will make them cry. and piss their pants at
school. We as a podcast do not officially condone
or endorse bullying. I will just have to throw
that out there for... No, we should bring back
bullying. Since we're in the education system,
maybe we should bring back bullying. It'll fix
a lot of fucking problems out there. I'll tell
you that right now. Well, the issue is a lot
of schools don't actually address bullying. They
have this no tolerance policy, but really it's
an excuse for the school to not have to deal
with it. They don't actually have to address
it. Yeah. Which means... It's not so much a zero
tolerance, it's just zero engagement. Yeah. You're
not allowed to interfere, intercept, do any of
that stuff. It's just, no. Yeah. No, my kids
are very well aware and have been taught as much.
Somebody puts a hand on them, they're putting
hands back. Yeah. And they understand. They will
not be getting in trouble with me. No. As long
as they don't throw the first punch. But goddammit,
they will be throwing the rest. But it's just,
it's a part of that system to where you as a
parent are not taken into account. And the teachers
might say you are. I'll be honest. It's all lies.
I hate to say it. I saw it because I helped out
with my family and other people I know. They
just don't. And if you were a teacher that did,
you got yourself into more problems and issues.
Because they're also legal. you know at least
in my state like there's certain things you can't
even ask you can't tell you can't do certain
things you just have to kind of abide by the
official curriculum and that's that god forbid
you want to do something to help kids out no
there's you just know so a lot of these regulations
before had to do with on the federal level so
that's why that's why coming back to the visual
thing i'm hoping that with The removal of some
of these restrictions, it will go to the states
and they'll be able to make smarter decisions
about what these children actually need and what's
best for them. You know, if if they push it more
towards an original foundation of the education
system, it might look a little bit better. But.
Well, let's let's go back and keep keep the religious
stuff out of the school. Well, yeah, I know people
are kind of both ways on that. Let's let's go
ahead and keep religion in the household and
out of the school. Either that or the counterpoint
should be religious taught as an elective where
they teach about all religions that are all the
major ones. And just you touch upon it, be like,
this is what it is. This is what they believe.
All right, next one. And that's it. Yeah. You
know, talk, talk about the values, the beliefs,
the traditions, the. The different ceremonies,
the different holidays, the different rituals
and shit. Well, that'll get fun when you get
to some of those. But that's why I feel like
that kids should be a little older when you discuss
sex and they can really understand. Absolutely.
Because if you explain to like nine -year -olds
some of this stuff, they're going to be like,
why are you sacrificing a goat? None of this
makes sense. But it's the symbolic nature for
a lot of them that. They would have to understand
when they're older. And I feel like that's one
of the problems that they push a lot of concepts
on kids that while kids are smart, they also
need time to be able to understand fully that
the ramifications of meaning for a lot of these
things. So, you know, start with objective reality
when they're younger and then slowly allow them
to explore these topics as they get older. By
the way, the reference for sacrificing the goat
does not necessarily involve any of the religions
that have the pentagram. Food for thought. That
is in so many of them. Sacrificial stuff. It's
in a lot of them. Why were humans so into that?
I don't know. I think it was a way for some of
them to get rid of their girlfriends. I don't
know. If you can confuse your girlfriend with
a goat, I don't have to tell you. Their goat
was the girlfriend. I was trying not to go there.
Oh, I will. But yeah, touching on the original
foundation of the education system. You want
to take the first part there? Yeah, absolutely.
So in America, weird enough, our education system
on its fundamental level really hasn't changed
in like 300 years. Obviously, there's a lot of
stuff now and every year there's more and more
added to the curriculums and more topics, more
stuff. But the base fundamentals haven't changed,
which. in a way is good but a lot of ways really
doesn't reflect the modern needs and requirements
for education but anyways back before the revolution
you know you're talking six 15 16th century when
americans first land here there's a lot going
on with education at this time to where number
one education was very costly in terms of not
only a financial cost but in terms of also material
cost you can't necessarily just get a ton of
parchment a ton of paper you know a ton of ink
anything like that as well as people to actually
teach these topics there were very often a lot
of schools that would you know have a couple
of teachers a couple of instructors but also
they were only located near major cities major
areas you might have a local school in a village
but they're only going to teach things like basic
writing reading math reading right and that's
and that that's basically it you know maybe you'll
learn some things like how to farm and how to
do some other stuff but really you'll go to school
for a couple hours during the day and then go
home and help your family on the farm Or help
your family with whatever profession they had.
And keep in mind that the schoolhouses of those
days were combined. So kindergarten through senior,
essentially. But it was more what eighth or ninth
grade would have been the equivalent, like highest
level. Yeah, something like that. I mean, you
would have some kids that would maybe stay a
little bit later, depending on what their family
does or how close they were or what they needed.
But also back then, it was also seen as a privilege
to go. Like not every kid could go. There were
a lot of kids that they couldn't afford to get
there in terms of time or maybe they didn't have
boots or they didn't have a backpack or they
didn't have any way to move materials or learn
or do whatever or if the kids maybe just couldn't
handle it. It wasn't like every kid in a village
was required to go. It's not like how it is today
where the kid goes, they get schooling. There's
no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Back then it
was an opportunity and many people really tried
to grasp that. But again, it was very simplified
compared to what we see today. Something to consider
is that the Puritans that kind of came to America
that really fled from Europe, one of the things
that they fled from England, one of the things
they did recognize was that education in England
at the time was a very much class -based thing
where the less educated people really couldn't
get an education. There wasn't really anywhere
to start. There wasn't really anywhere to go.
It was very difficult to get something to actually
make something of yourself. That is one of the
fundamental founding, I guess, core principles
that America was started with from this was the
idea in the Puritan idea or the Quaker idea,
whichever way you want to talk about when those
Americans came over, was that they wanted to
give that access to everyone in the community
that could access to it. They're like, hey, if
you vote, I know, right? It's these kids were
allowed to go and get the education that could
be provided to them. Obviously, it wasn't top
class. You know, it wasn't. um you know harvard
but it was good enough to where there were many
people that were able to be educated at least
to be semi or decently literate and understand
basic math and for most any job back then or
anything that you were trying to do that's what
you needed that was all you needed yeah that's
all that was enough that was enough education
to be able to start a business or work a job
oh absolutely more or less And it was really
required because it's not like in America you
were expecting a ton of more people to show up.
Back then it was, hey, we're founding this place.
We're running it. We're starting this colony.
We're going to need people eventually to be able
to expand and do more. So they did push more
than a lot of other countries to push this education.
Now, here's where we start seeing some changes.
So the Revolutionary War happens. We separate
from England. We become our own country. After
the Articles of Confederation. Exactly. After
the Articles of Confederation and everything,
we become a country. And what happens is our
major cities start to grow. They start becoming
bigger and bigger. So now we start developing
universities. We start copying kind of what England
does and start becoming one of the knowledge
centers of the world. Obviously, we still couldn't
compare at the time to London or Paris or Frankfurt
or any one of the European, but... we had a lot
of people that were interested in the new country
and the new world coming over here. So what basically
happens at this point, we have basically most
of that 19th century leading up until the 1890s
where the American influence on education started
to become a thing to where they're looking at
what we're doing in America. Even in small things,
small inventions, new types of materials, new
types of assemblies. Because we have all this
available land, We start setting the standard
for things. And this is where the 1890s, what's
widely considered in history as the Gilded Age,
the idea that America now starts to become the
leader in certain different areas of manufacturing
and technology. This is where we start pulling
a lot of very well -educated people into the
country because people are trying to start businesses.
They're trying to build more railways. We're
just starting to see automobiles being actually
developed in manufacturing. Not on a big scale,
not until Henry Ford, but these are things that
are all quickly, you know, steam technology.
They're all quickly happening. And America is
at the forefront of it now. So we have this massive
influx of all of these well -off, educated people
from other countries. Now here's where you get
that melting pot idea that really starts to circulate.
We have all these smart people, all these universities
going up. All of this stuff happening. But what
they realize is America does not need more thinkers.
They need more doers. And this is where the education
starts to switch. One of the biggest problems
they are now seeing in the 1890s to early 1900s,
even to like 1910, is, wow, we have all these
people that can think and do stuff, but the problem
is they're not doing what we want them to do.
They are not able to handle being in a factory
for 15, 10 hours a day. A lot of times people
work in 70, 80 -hour work weeks, and that was
considered Monday through Sunday. That's what
they did. You go to work to survive, to pay,
to have some sort of living somewhere. You go
home, you eat, you spend time with your family,
you sleep, and that's it. That is your life.
This is before any sort of working laws and any
before workers' rights. We're not even into the
1950s or 60s yet before that. You are talking
long, hard work days. But what they wanted to
do is get people that could be good factory workers.
And when Henry Ford introduced the assembly line
concept, the idea that you're responsible for
that one little part and you get really good
and really quick at doing that one thing, that
is where people said, oh, if this is going to
be the new standard for factories and manufacturing,
which was by far what the biggest thing America
did up until like the 80s and 70s, then I guess
we should train people for that. So the biggest
schools that received a lot of funding, particularly
from kickbacks and from taxes coming from the
automobile sector, they went into the education
system. They started funding local schools. They
started even doing apprenticeships and other
programs with local universities and colleges.
So now everything gets centered around this manufacturing
concept. Not 100 % of everything, but the vast
majority. So the paradigm switches from before
1900, 1910, before that it was how to make a
functioning citizen that can do the right thing
and do something for the community. Now it's
how do we make an obedient worker that is okay
with doing this? You know, about 150 years ago,
we had a different name for those type of folks.
I'm just observing what has happened. I'm not
going to disagree with you, though. Obedient
workers, huh? Hey. Okay. Not my words. Not my
words. So. Well. Well. You have to realize, too,
indentured slavery was actually legal up until
the 1920s, 30s, even 40s. It was one of the things
that got rid of slavery. But then what they did
is they would pay them down south. But their
payment, their pay would be the exact same that
they would owe in rent. So it was indentured
servitude. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Trying to force people
to come to the country under the guise of, oh,
yeah, we'll cover all your expenses to come here.
No. It was the Nigerian scam of the 1940s is
what it was. Yep. Where do you think they learned
it from? The Nigerians learned it from the Portuguese
after all the slave trade they did. I was going
to say, did somebody else teach the Nigerians
that they just took it and ran? Well, they took
it and ran. Like, hey, if it worked on us, it'll
work on you. My father felt for that. That's
Jamaican. I can't do a Nigerian accent. In my
mind, I thought I could nail it and I butchered
it and I should be ashamed of it. We'll give
you a pass on it. It's fine. I don't have it
in the notes, but Ford was the one that came
up with the 40 -hour work week, didn't he? So
this is where I'm also getting into. He was somebody
that was looking at productivity and efficiency
and what they had found. was the idea of the
40 -hour work week was the most efficient for
their workers. Something else Ford did was interesting
is he also had much higher pay for his factory
workers. So what happens? Now all of a sudden,
you're talking, this is like 1920s, 1930s. Now
all of a sudden people are thinking, wow, I can
go work at Ford, work 40 hours a week, and make
like... 20 30 even 50 percent more than working
at a competitor the entire shift of the manufacturing
in terms of the automotive industry goes straight
towards ford that is why ford made so much during
world war ii because they owned so many factories
and they had so much power industrially because
that massive lines were easily converted to war
materials because everyone just had to get good
at one thing This isn't like, so what people
can understand is back then with automobiles
and really a lot of stuff, the term coach built
today usually means it's like customized. One
person does all the thing, or maybe one person
does all of one type of thing. So one person
does all of the leather work. Somebody does all
the mechanic work. A lot of high end manufacturers
still do this day, like Ferrari, for example.
They'll have one person build the entire engine
and sign off on it. One person does the entire
interior, they sign off on it. That used to be
the way all cars were made before Ford. So the
idea was they hired a small group of people that
were very good at what they did. Because there
are 5 ,000 other people maybe in that city that
can build motors. They might just need a handful.
But vice versa, they can only build a handful
of motors a day. Whereas Ford, you can pump out
thousands. And all those people do one really
good job. So now with that industry switch, you
have tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands
of people saying, I want to work for Ford. I
want to work in this setup. And now everyone
else has to compete. And everyone else is looking
and saying, wow, Ford was able to cut costs and
produce better revenue, but then also give these
people other bonuses. Like Ford was giving them
company vehicles. Sometimes they were giving
them things like, you know, vacations. which
was never freaking heard of until that point.
So by switching all of that, it really did focus
on the U S educational system on, well, clearly
that's going to be the future. Clearly that's
going to be what people are going to need to
be. We don't need people starting businesses.
We need people to be able to work within the
system from a nine to five, sit down, do this
one job. Unfortunately, what that means is we
switched from having a, more organic or what's
considered the Montessori type structure for
education, which is kind of working with the
child to see what they want to do and what they're
interested in to, Hey, this is a very structured,
organized. You come in, you clock in for education,
you work up, you have your designated lunch hour
and that, or lunch in my case, 20 minutes, 15
minutes at school, which is bullshit by the way,
just saying. Um, and then you clock back in,
you work till the rest of the day. And that's,
Worthy enough, where a lot of our modern educational
structure comes from. Which, I don't know about
you, but in most any job I've worked at, because
I've never worked in a factory, but in most other
jobs I've ever worked at, it's never structured
like that. I don't know about you, but I know
you kind of work an interesting job, but for
me it's the case of, it seems like the way the
education system was based on that factory system,
it's not really that prevalent today. So, some
of the jobs I've had, 12 -hour overnights, and
it was eight hours before I could take a lunch,
and my lunch could get interrupted 10 minutes
into it. Working in the freezer, where it was
negative 15. The majority of the time, the warm
side was 34 degrees. Wasn't so bad over there.
It was a little cold. Well, the cooler wasn't
that bad. But the freezer sucked. I was miserable
there. The people I worked with were amazing.
They made that job worth going to. And I mean,
like, everybody. The management, the guys I worked
on the floor with, they made that place. And
even the hour 20 minutes each direction drive,
they made it worth going. I made one of the best
friends in my life working there, and we carpooled.
Lunches there were pretty reassuringly safe.
We tried to keep them to about 20, 25 minutes,
but when you took it, it was maybe hit and miss
sometimes. Since then, it's been pretty strict.
You know, hey, I'm on lunch. Don't bother me.
Yeah. The place I'm at now, it's to the point
where you can kind of go when you want, how you
want, and that's all that I'm going to say on
that. Yeah. At least in my experience with most
any job I've ever had, granted, I've always been
more management type roles and a few other things.
It's kind of whenever you get a chance, whenever
you want. I can get up at any time I want. have
something to eat or do stuff oh yeah like the
the place i'm at now they they say they promote
personal wellness so they encourage you to get
up and kind of take a walk but you know it just
doesn't always happen yeah no which i get but
i feel like there's a lot of jobs now they're
a lot looser with requirements as to compared
to some of the more upbeat, modern, younger person
ran jobs, places like Google. Uh, you know, my,
one of my, my, my best friend, she works at Google.
She talks about how they have entire like chill
rooms with like switches and computers and just
like, relaxing chairs, massage chairs. I think
she said they're in there. It's a very relaxed
space. Those are companies that are hyper -focused
on efficiency. Yes. So that's taking the forward
idea of efficiency to the extreme, where the
idea is if they're a company that needs ideas
and efficient work, they're going to put the
employee comfort as a very high priority. Yeah,
because for some comfortable employee blood flow
does make the ideas flow. Yeah. I agree with
that. Yeah. But here's an important thing for
education that I wanted to point out that I was
kind of building to up until the 1950s after
World War Two. Being an educator wasn't necessarily
something that you went to school for in terms
of at the elementary high school level. A lot
of times there's a poll for people in the community
that were either knowledgeable, that had maybe
some backgrounds and various things, but it wasn't
always people that had a degree in education
necessarily. But post -World War II came the
big push for people to get degrees because coming
out of World War II, the people that were making
big money were things like doctors, lawyers,
people that had to get degrees and be specialized.
and this is where it became the big push for
people to get educated that is when we started
making laws about everyone had to go to school
this is where they started changing fundamentally
that teachers then had to be doing it as a career
where they had to get a degree in education and
this is where things start to shift to where
you start having people that never maybe they
never worked another job in their life other
than in education they might not have those life
skills to contribute or other perspectives to
come from and what happens is looking in the
60s and 70s that's when the first wave of people
you know are brought up in the education system
they go to college to become an educator and
then they start educating other kids and they
start educating kids so the weird thing is this
becomes a cycle of you have people i'm not saying
this for every educator at all but it becomes
a cycle to where It is very much promoted to
go into education, get these degrees, get involved
in academia, but not necessarily have other things
to pull from to then teach children. And then
what happens is they take those ideas and run
with it. They become teachers. It kind of becomes
this revolving door of these same ideas getting
pushed further and further along. What I'm hinting
at here. There are certain political concepts
under the ideas, you know, like socialism, communism,
and a few other things that were spoken about
really as kind of concepts. Because you have
to realize, in the 1950s, you're talking this
post -World War II. America at the time, you're
talking about like the Red Wave and stuff like
that and the Red Scare, where we were persecuting
political opponents and politicians for the idea
of being a communist sympathizer or social sympathizer.
and so a lot of these colleges were having these
this was considered radical at the time to have
a discussion about communism and socialism because
these people have been brought up from this idea
of the oh they're the enemy they're the combatants
they're you know causing a lot of issues you
know they should be dealt with whereas these
colleges are now having these open discussions
and some teachers Who maybe some of them have
maybe served in these wars, you know, between,
you know, World War II or Korea or even Vietnam.
Maybe they saw the atrocities of war. Maybe they
blame the U .S. Maybe they look at, you know,
my country sent me from a capitalist, you know,
democracy, democratic republic. And I blame having
to go over there and they start having negative
views on us. And they start to see the atrocities
that rightfully so we committed and we shouldn't
have. You're talking about all the people that
were massacred in Korea and Vietnam. All the
people that, you know, between the murder of
the women and children in some cases, the Agent
Orange. There's a long list of things that we
did that truly were horrific. But that gave some
credence in a lot of these areas to, wow, you
know, maybe Western society is the problem. Maybe
communism and socialism is a solution. And then
kind of comes this idea in academia. to where
modern Republican Republican sorry Democratic
Republic's are the issue and Socialism communism
could be the solution and then that percolates
down into modern academia to our now I hate to
say it there are so many cases of teachers and
Educators whether it be elementary school middle
school high school college level doesn't matter
being devout communists or socialists and really
denouncing the country that gave them the option
to be able to become an educator. There are many
of them that are so removed from the reality
of even the existence of other countries, what
they have to go through. And the only reason
I bring this up is now we have a problem in this
country of teachers that lack life skills. The
amount of people that I met. Became teachers
because their parents were teachers and their
grandparents were teachers and that's great.
I like that but if all you've ever known is Teaching
other people these skills or things you've been
told or regurgitate without ever having any life
skills or experiences of your own to be able
to kind of pull from and Then also having a teachers
union that tells you how to vote and having curriculums
that inherently are politically biased, it creates
this weird recursive problem of everything you
see, every single book, textbook, questions,
curriculum, everything is all slanted one direction.
And then they wonder why our education system
inherently doesn't work, or it's not very effective.
It's because, well, unfortunately, it's so involved
in pushing politics at a level that it doesn't
understand. There were things that I saw in the
education system, they wouldn't even understand
how biased it is because to them it's considered
a fact. I remember in history trying to talk
about the Reagan presidency in a very objective
fashion. Because in my opinion, he's actually
not a very good conservative president. Because
he uptaxes several of those years. He put in
some... Honestly, not very good gun laws, firearms
laws and anti Second Amendment stuff. And he
didn't really do much in terms of actually affecting
the drug warfare. They made things worse. And
those are kind of things where in talking about
personal liberties and freedoms, he actually
didn't really respect those. He actually decided
more of a collectivist idea, which is a little
bit more of a California Democrat idea, which
didn't he come from California? If I remember
correctly, he kind of took a lot of it. So this
is kind of where I'm going, where he was a. Republican,
conservative, but he's not really in terms of
actual policy. He did it for a couple of things,
but overall his legacy really isn't. But when
I try to discuss this in a very objective way,
they say, well, no, of course he's this, or of
course he's that. It's like, well, but if you
look at it objectively and take all the facts
down and actually understand of it, it's very
different. A lot of people who are so ingrained
in their thought process, are incapable of objective
thought. And also, before I forget it, and Zoidberg's
out of my head, one other point of making all
the kids go to school is they can institute tax
policies to get money out of all the parents.
Well, not only that, but they also have complete
control of what your kids learn. Yeah. And that's
true. They can extort your taxes. They can put
in property tax and say, oh yeah, this has to
go to pay the school. Whether it goes to pay
the school or not is irrelevant because most
parents have no way of knowing. You can't follow
up with your local department. As we're finding
out, the government does not know how to spend
our money. What? No way. I just read that a billion
dollars was spent on a survey that had 10 questions
on it. Yes, it was from SurveyMonkey, by the
way. It was literally like a copy and paste from...
Billion with a B. Yes. Billion dollars was spent
on a 10 -question survey. That was never... The
key for it, for the coding for where the answer
is to go and for what to do with it, was never
done. Yeah. They won a contract to make a questionnaire.
And that's what they did. There was nothing on
about where to take the information or how to
utilize it. Yeah. Which is great. Isn't everybody
here great? That they just basically took a billion
dollars and went, yeah, I'll just throw it in
the toilet right now. I would just love to set
that money on fire. That's exactly what they
do. The sad part is, that's only one. That's
one thing. Do you know what I could do with a
billion dollars for this country, Gibbs? You
know, I feel like 95 % of it is not appropriate
for Twitch. You're not wrong. Oh, don't worry,
Wookie. They're the government. They're here
to help. It's okay. Yeah, no, they're not here
to help. They're not here to help. Uh -huh. So
now we're into the current discussion of how
have we really gotten here with all these other
factors? Now we're seeing that really... Just
because you throw money at education doesn't
mean you get a good education. Because of all
these other things with biased curriculums, biased
teachers, biased education systems on top of
that. And a lot of these teachers, unfortunately,
not understand that what they're teaching is
inherently biased to begin with. Right. And all
of this does not mean they're pushing stuff that's
actually good for your kids. Because at the end
of the day, they're pushing curriculums that
justify your kid going to college. Because maybe
this is my bias. This part is totally my bias
from where the state that I come from. Every
single kid, it was expected of you to go to college.
If you were a kid that said, what if I want to
go to trade school? They would laugh and say,
go to where the stupid kids go at the trade school.
Shun the non -believers. Shun them. But that's
how it was. I will never forget. This was in
May before a couple of kids were graduating.
And I was asking all these kids, hey, now that
all of you are graduating, congratulations, what
do you plan on doing? And I had eight or nine
kids that say, oh, I want to go to school there,
school there, school there. I'm like, that's
great, that's awesome, good for you. And there
was this one shy kid, I was doing a piano class
at the time, because history of music, I was
doing music. This one kid that I got along with
really well, he tried really well, he just wasn't
good at piano, but he really tried, so I gave
him an A. And he was like, I think I'm going
to go learn a trade. And I immediately perk up
and said, you're probably the smartest person
in this room. And he was like, what? I'm like,
yeah, what's Trace? Electrician. I said, dude,
in this state, you'll be making six figures in
five years or everybody else is six figures in
debt. Good for you. I hope you do it. And he
was like, he was awestruck. He's like, somebody,
an educator actually believed. It's like, yeah,
I've done that kind of work. I have done, you
know, let me tell you. It sucks for a little
while, but guess what? Having a marketable skill
like that. Oh, yeah. Way better. 100%. Way fucking
better. Absolutely. So now I want to just kind
of segue in. The stat that I gave at the beginning
of the episode, I want to kind of put this in
a little bit. Two trillion dollars. Trillion
with a T. has been spent on american education
since the department of education's inception
the return on investment pretty abysmal well
especially test scores go ahead i was gonna say
especially when you look at number one what that
money could have been spent on but also number
two when you look at comparing us to other countries
yep I'm going to mushroom stamp on that here
in a second. Test scores for American students
have been consistently at or near the bottom
of ranked testing for the last 30 years among
50 countries. Schools that do not follow the
notion of teach to the test, however, consistently
produce students that test higher on those same
rated tests when asked to perform on those same
tests. So you've got tests like those Montessori
schools like you were talking about. Montessori,
yep. However the fuck you say it. The private
schools, the charter schools that don't follow
the state standards of, well, here's the test
that we have to take at the end of the quarter.
We have to teach what's on here. Don't worry
about that really cool subject you want to look
at. This is what we have to teach. The schools
that let the kids kind of learn the different
stuff. and go about things a different way, they
have the higher test scores. Who would have thought?
I feel like when you actually treat people as
individuals, you might get better solutions and
better response and better education out of them,
rather than thinking everybody's the same. Because
guess what? The kids aren't. You could try and
develop the best education system possible, and
guess what? You're always going to have kids
that flunk out and always have kids that succeed.
The role of an educator should be... To adapt
the curriculum to best reflect on how that child
learns. And they are not allowed to do that.
Because at the end of the day, you have state
testing of the stuff that reflects on you as
a teacher. And unfortunately, how are teachers
graded? It is not by the children of the parents.
It is by the state saying, how many kids pass
that? How do they do this? Are they proficient?
Do they not do that? I actually have a story.
Hold on, hold on. Yep. And that's why they've
been lowering testing standards through the years
so that more students pass and it pads their
numbers. Because those schools get more funding
based off the test scores, not based off those
children's success or how they would rate the
school. It's, hey, if you got all proficient
on that, then you're great. If you got all A's
and B's, great. That's all they care about. Because
at the end of the day, they don't care about
your child individually. They just care about
the number. If your child's 87240. An 87240 does
well, great, they passed. Regardless if they
could ever get a job or have a house or have
a successful marriage or anything else. They
don't care. They don't give a shit about that.
What I was going to say, in my state, they introduced
state testing. It was originally designed back
in the 80s to test the teachers. The first year
they did it, over half the teachers failed. They
immediately changed it to test the students.
The first year was meant to test the teachers
and see what they were teaching, how effective
they were. The teachers union said, yeah, this
sucks. This didn't work very well. We're now
going to have a test of students because we always
did that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Nothing to see here.
No, nobody failed. This is fine. This is not
a reflection on a bad education. No, no, no.
And it's scary because my state's supposed to
have one of the highest education standards in
the country. Yet I see kids that can't read and
write, but they can pass the test. And here's
one of the final problems I have. Knowledge retention
is huge. In any job that you ever work at, the
ability to adapt and quickly learn and to retain
that knowledge is huge. If you're a boss, the
idea is you want to have an employee that you
can teach them something once, and they retain
it, they remember it, and they know how to implement
it. education systems, the way they're done now,
the idea to teach me something, as long as I
remember it for a day or two or the week before
the test, I'm good. After that, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. I could have dumped out my
brain the day I graduated, dumped out 90 % of
all the shit they ever taught me because it was
irrelevant. And every single kid in high school
knows this. Every one of them. They are not tested
on how you retain this information. Can you recall
this information? How can you analyze and use
it? No. It's only about short -term recall, which
is a detriment because in any single, I don't
want to say every other, but basically any other
career you can think of, you build off of years
of experience. You need to remember that shit.
You need to be able to build off of it and learn
and adapt and grow. They do not why they don't
base this education system on the idea of you
can grow and Learn more but have to retain that
other stuff number one is beyond me. I think
it's ridiculous, but it does these kids a disservice
by teaching to these tests they are robbing these
kids of me able to learn stuff long term and
Instead the teachers were simply too afraid of
being called out for not being able to teach
well enough but it's also the flip side of it's
the unfortunate part of if you're trying to teach
all the kids, get a room of 40 kids to understand
a topic at the exact same time, that's usually
not going to happen. Some kids take a while to
process it. Some kids will pick up on it instantly.
Some kids need some time to conceptualize and
figure it out or look up stuff. Everyone's different,
but they don't allow for that because at the
end of the day, the teacher is graded on what
the kids know that that day and either it's pass
fail, basically a century. It's the idea of,
you know, Either they get enough on the state
numbers or they don't. Yeah. So, it's a shame.
But at the end of the day, it goes to show that
the amount of money you throw into the education
system doesn't mean anything. I remember the
study back from 2016 where the average student
in Chicago, they were spending about $15 ,000
a year on them. And they were one of the lowest.
Per student. Yeah, per student per year. They're
one of the lowest ranked schools in the country.
There was a school in Denmark that spent just
shy of five grand a year. And they're one of
the highest rated schools in the world. Wow.
All of it converted to US dollars at the same
time. People wonder why they're spending three
times the amount in Chicago. Why aren't they
doing well? Number one, the curriculum wasn't
doing very well because the curriculum really
didn't make sense. It didn't relate to those
kids. Number two, they were taking a lot of classes
and different things that really they didn't
relate to, that didn't help them to help with
their career or what they wanted to do. And the
other problem is, quite frankly, it also has
to do with a culture problem. If you're not invested
in that child's education or the school's not
invested in that kid doing well, if all they
care about is the numbers, they're not checking
in, they're not going the extra mile. And in
a lot of cases, American school systems... Unfortunately,
they resort to things like just assigning a ton
of homework to make up for the lack of education
time in the school. Because these school systems
are overpacked and they don't have a lot of one
-on -one time, they will just assign homework
purely, purely to make up for the lack of instructional
time in class. Whereas in a lot of other countries,
they don't necessarily assign homework nearly
like America does. Yeah, and a lot of studies
are showing that homework is more detrimental
than it helps. If you're struggling with something,
maybe send something home, instructional shit,
and a couple of reinforcement type of problems.
You don't need to send 50 fucking problems doing
the same thing over and over with no instruction,
no guidance, no support. It's just do the work.
There's no support there. It's just repetition.
And not all kids learn repetition. Guidance and
support are better structures to learn from.
The money aspect that you were talking about,
kids who are homeschooled, if they have active
parents or um instructor type people because
i know there's like group homeschool projects
that are out there um if that's done right and
done well some of those kids come out so far
ahead than other even like high -end high schools
yep dude it is crazy how well off some of these
homeschool kids are being Back in my day, we
used to make fun of the homeschool kids. And
now, homeschool kids are pretty fucking smart.
It's almost because there's no substitute. Not
all. True. Not all the homeschool kids are pretty
fucking smart. But a lot of them. A lot of them
are. I do have to say, the proms probably get
kind of weird. Yeah. That's a little weird. Dating
would probably be kind of, yeah. Unless you're
in Alabama, that's acceptable. We get that, it's
fine. Game's a game. But it is true that one
of the things with education with most kids,
it's really just instructional time that's devoted
to teaching these concepts. Because almost everything
in education is a conceptual idea. And a lot
of things for kids, it's either they understand
it or they don't. to where you have to kind of
figure out what the best methodology is, how
to explain to them, how to get them to understand
it. So without that instructional time that's
like one -on -one, for a lot of kids, they're
just going to kind of yeah, yeah, yeah you, and
they'll take the test, but they're not going
to retain it or care about it. For a lot of homeschool
kids, especially the U .S. federal, that's one
of the few things that they actually did, right?
They did require, if you want to homeschool your
kids, like get to upload your curriculum to kind
of keep them updated to show exactly what you're
teaching. and when you actually make people be
transparent about what they're teaching people
it's crazy how good they can be when you're like
holding them i don't know accountable to teach
things that actually are useful but he also goes
to show that there are communities i saw they'll
get together like five or ten families and they'll
rotate who teaches that way some you know one
week they're teaching math because this parent
comes in then they have science and english or
whatever It's like the way we used to do it,
but now with higher standards and all these different
extra aids that we have nowadays. And some of
those kids are seriously advanced. It's crazy,
but it's more. Can you, can you, I'm sorry to
step on you. Can you imagine if our schools were
structured so that they spent a week at a time
on a subject with a teacher that was not just
engaging, but awesome at that subject. I mean,
that's what the Montessori schools do. Wow. So
that's what my aunt did. So what she did, she
was actually a teacher at Montessori school where
she had kids for two to three years at a time.
Well, the idea is she was their educator from
like fourth, fifth and sixth grade or like five,
six, seven. She'd have that same group of kids.
So the idea is they would get to know what those
kids are into. If they found a topic that all
the kids were engaged at, they'd stay at it for
days because as long as we get to these topics
by the end of the year. it doesn't matter when
we learn them as long as they learn them and
retain it and understand it one of the fundamental
problems we have that i don't know why we're
not using if we want to use the internet for
all this stuff why not make the curriculums 100
on the internet for any high school all right
middle school elementary school all that and
let the kids be able to walk between classes
and say all right cool i'd like to just do this
today we're doing this today we do this today
be able to learn at your own pace as long as
you get it done by this time frame I'm obviously
not saying they could do willy -nilly, do whatever,
but you get my point. With a little bit less
structure, but a little bit more of being upfront
about this stuff, you get some kids that I bet
you, hell, they'd be done with high school by
the time they're 14. Probably. Because they're
just into it. And for some of them, that might
be really good. But then for some people, there
would be no shame. Maybe if some people aren't
ready to be done with high school until 19 or
20. Because I'm not doing that to shame people.
It's just everyone's different. But we have a
system where we force people. At this date, you're
done. You're now an adult, whether you're ready
for it or not. And that's not necessarily fair
to some people. I have met people in my life
who were not ready to be adults until they were
30. Yeah, we can't keep them in the system that
long. But I agree with you, though. Yeah. And
also, alternative types of classes, even... Like
using games to teach theories. Yeah. And concepts,
rather. Take a game like Magic the Gathering.
That is a game that can teach social constructs,
strategy, math, reading, comprehension. Because
good God. Well, that's the thing. There's a lot
of things you can use that can focus on knowledge
retainment. And so one of the things they say,
knowledge and wisdom is where knowledge is the
ability to retain something, but wisdom is to
be able to actually utilize that information
effectively, to be able to sort through it and
actually use it. So it's one of those things
where there's a lot of other games, but also
various different things you can use to reinforce
this education. Uh -huh. Sorry, I just adjusted
something one second. But at the same point,
there's a lot of other interests that kids can
get into. For example, like, unfortunately, at
my high school, they introduced a robotics class
the year I graduated. I would have loved robotics
or coding. They never had a coding class until
two years after I graduated, even though I was
pushing for stuff like that. I was pushing for
computer classes. My computer class, you know
what they taught me how to do? Type. Google SketchUp.
How to do a cylinder. How to do a square. Oh,
chapter three, how to do a rectangle. It was
crazy. You can make the square longer. But the
sad part is this is stuff that you can fucking
figure out. This is nothing easy. This is nothing
simple. This is stupid. But there are things
that they can teach these kids that not only
can align with what their interests are, but
also give them marketable, useful skills. At
the same point, Why don't more high schools partner
with community colleges? This is the part that
really gets me. I spent all that time doing advanced
placement courses in order for colleges to say,
yeah, but we don't recognize those credits. I
spent all that time in high school taking what's
supposed to be a college -level course for them
to say, no, we don't recognize it. We don't want
to do it. Yeah, no good. I could have just taken
a fucking college course and actually gotten
college credit for it and been less effort. I
think there needs to be more of a blurred line
when it comes to when you're done with high school,
when you start like community college and doing
stuff like that, that needs to be something that's
way more fluid because there are some kids that
should be able to do some of that stuff. Like
if I had the option to do, if I could take in
the sound engineering and music classes that
I took in college back in high school, I would
have probably taken a completely different trajectory
in life. but I didn't get access to that information
until I was older and had to pay for it. And
then I was like, Oh, this is going to go a different
way, which good and bad. Don't get me wrong.
Yeah. But I feel like there's a lot where these
kids are missing because they're so focused on
these academic things. Like, you know, you have
to remember all the dates that happened for this
thing in history, but they don't understand history
thematically. I don't know if you know where
I'm going with that. So there's a bit of a bit
of an aside. This could take me one, like, like
literally 30 seconds to say this. Okay. I'm sick
of history classes that they focus on dates and
when things happen and not understand history
in a thematic manner. The idea of these themes
that keep repeating. Like the idea of empires
rising and falling. Why do they rise? Why do
they fall? What happens? Look at the rise and
fall of the Roman Empire, the Greeks, the Egyptians,
even the Eastern and Western Roman Empire, Germany.
Look at what America's going through right now.
Yeesh, that sounds very fucking familiar. But...
History always repeats itself. If you were to
ask kids nowadays who went to high school, how
is American politics and history similar to Roman
history in like 300 to 400 AD? They'd be like,
I have no fucking clue. But if you look through
history, rather than less on the dates when things
happen, because that's an easy cop -out, but
more the themes of how did this empire rise and
fall? Give me two paragraphs each. You'd be able
to look and say... Some of those kids can't even
spell empire. yeah and that's it kills me because
they're not looking at things for how it relates
to what you do on a daily basis or what you might
think about you know like for example i was lucky
in high school i was able to take a um a physics
class where we did a whole section on electricity
so like i understood what ohm's law was i don't
know volts and amps everything else and how all
that kind of works And that actually changed
it for me because I was able to do like some
wiring on my car and do some things around the
house and around the farm and do some stuff.
I got more mileage out of that physics class,
like applied physics, than I did out of any English
class. Oh, absolutely. You know what was required
for me for my senior year for English class,
which is the most bullshit thing, and I will
never not be pissed about this? Do you want to
know what I took an entire year of my 18 -year
-old life? Fucking poetry. My entire senior year
was analyzing Shakespearean poetry. You know
what I have never done a fucking day of my adult
life? Poetry. Shakespearean poetry. It wasn't
even modern poetry. No. She said that's the only
poetry that's worth looking at. Because she subjectively
has a degree in, oh yeah, Shakespearean poetry.
So she's like, I run the English department,
so that's what we're going to do. And let me
tell you something. It's never once helped me.
I never once learned anything from that that
I can actually use in daily life. And sure, I
bet you there's somebody out there that learned
one thing from that class. But I will tell you
right now, she wasted hundreds of hours of my
life and I will never forgive you. I go out of
my way to not forgive her because that is a waste
of time. And I think I look at kids where you
only have so much time to teach them everything.
Every minute matters. So make the most of it.
I think with kids, especially kids that show
aptitude and ability, if they're given access
to some of the higher level courses and even
college level courses early enough in high school,
if they're able to complete them, they should
100 % get college credit for those. Oh, yeah,
100%. None of this, oh, well, that's cool that
you took the class, but sorry, it doesn't count.
No, I'm sorry. It really should. It should. That
should 100 % be a... With this restructuring
of the DOE, that should be a thing. They should
do more to promote kids to be able to push these
things that they're into. I would love to see...
Out in your way, do they have a lot of trade
schools for high school kids to go to? My way,
because I'm in an academia center, they look
down upon them. Not surprised. The part that
always pissed me off was that if I went to a
regular high school, I couldn't take classes
in like automotive stuff or welding or like we
have a separate agricultural high school around
here. So if you want to do anything with like
farm animals, farming, raising animals, stuff
like that, they wouldn't even touch it. You couldn't
even step on. You couldn't even grow plants at
the high school I went to. We have a whole college
that's basically like for trades and. agriculture
more or less yeah because it but it's a whole
college yeah it takes a lot it actually farming
is actually surprisingly involved yeah you know
it used to be something that was taught down
from person to person because it was so freaking
involved around here it was so distant that like
they would kind of push you away from going down
those roads so so sorry if i'm a little biased
on some of this stuff i know there's a lot of
areas of the country where it's a lot more balanced
and i appreciate y 'all but you know unfortunately
not around here Schools that have FFA programs
are great, but they're few and far between in
the ones where they're able to go and do a lot
of the activities where the FFA would matter.
Because, yeah, it's important. FFA, 4 -H, all
those kind of programs. Because, yes, without
farmers, we don't eat. How am I supposed to keep
this bodacious bod in check? I like to eat. What?
I have a fuel tank that needs supplied. To quote
Patrick Starr, but I'm gonna starve. Is mayonnaise
an instrument? Is mayonnaise an instrument? I
love that one. Yeah. I will be... quoting Patrick
star and SpongeBob until the day I die. And I'm
okay with this. I'll probably some kind of a
quote on my deathbed. No, I know. I know. Damn
it. Damn it. You there. Show me them titties
before I go. Give me one last yank. Would you?
I love the chat. Oh, the fact that's my son is
even better. You know, the fact that your son
has that name in chat. I know. Is that something?
I'm not going to bring it up, but I apologize
to the people listening on audio. So just so
you guys know, we do have, we live stream these
when we do them now. So we do have a chat box.
People get to see us on Twitch. God, not that
chat. Don't say that about my son, Osai. Anyways,
so that's why sometimes you'll hear us laugh
at the stuff going on in the background. We stream
this whenever we do the episode live, so that
way we get more conversation. Today is the day
Osai ends up on the list. Wee -woo. Wee -woo.
All right, so degradation of quality in the education
system. Some of the concerns that we've had to
endure are declining test scores, achievement
gaps, lack of global competitiveness. So consider
what a lot of Asian countries are doing, where
they're focusing on two different avenues. Either
one, they're focusing on having their kids be
really good academically. and being very strict
about it, or option two, being very good business
-minded and oriented, which neither one of them
is the ideal way of doing it, but, and we'll
give them credit, at least they're making them
being really good at math and science, whereas
our kids, not for nothing. They suck at a lot
of stuff. It's because, unfortunately, this Common
Core stuff is crap, I'll just say it. It's not
worth it. 100 % it is. But also, our tests don't
really enforce anything. It's not anything of
matter. They focus so much. And our kids have
way too much time off from school. I never in
my life thought that I would say that. A restructure
that's been kind of getting floated around is
doing three weeks on one week off all year long.
I'm not against it. I don't think. Well, I would
agree with you. I feel like kids having that
summer off, it just totally tunes off their brain.
Because you're spending the first month or two
reiterating what they learned throughout some
of the year before. And they're not going to
remember. That's two months down the drain. Well,
think about this, right? So for an adult human,
going on vacation for a couple of weeks is not
a big portion of your life. But for a 10 -year
-old, To go on vacation for three months. That's
like you or I. That's a chunk. That's like imagine
if you or I walked off the job for six months
to a year. And I expect to go right back in running.
Yeah. I'll be honest with you. I'm going to be
like, this chair feels weird. I don't even know
where to fucking come in. What do we have to
be in at eight o 'clock? No. I don't even remember
my login. Like after being there for a couple
of weeks, let alone six months to a year. People
forget that time is relative to the proportion
of time that you've been alive. So for those
kids. I remember going back to school at great
that I'm like, like I was good at academics.
Even I was like, fuck this coming back in after
the summer. I was like, no, this is ridiculous.
This is insane. They should be having, they should
have more vacations, but spread out. Yeah. You
know, three weeks on one week off, you know,
I'd be okay with that. And it's continual. So
no more summer break. Yeah. Cause you don't get
a break when you go to a job. You work unless
you're a school teacher, but. Yeah. Which most
of them have jobs over the summer anyway, like
I did. It's got its pros, it's got its cons,
but I mean, it's something that could be debated
on. And yeah, that's how a lot of private schools
do it. It's how a lot of the charter schools
run. I don't even know why colleges do that.
Daycare schools, colleges, they run. through
the summer too but i don't know why a lot of
colleges don't run through the summer as well
like i feel like we should get rid of that whole
like two semester idea yeah i think that's pretty
dumb back to quarters i don't know why they got
away from that um because they're academics they
know better that's right they're smarter than
us yeah uh the impact of socioeconomic factors
on educational outcomes the fact that uh the
higher tax areas produce better Grades for the
students. We're showing that that's not always
the case. It's not a factor of money. It's a
factor of time. Yeah. In more areas that have
more money, more often there's going to be a
one breadwinner household to where there's another
parent home and more involved with the child's
education process. And that's the key. The problem
I have seen more often is the fact of parents
being so busy working or doing other things.
that they're not actively involved in their child's
education. Whereas with a two -parent household
where one of them is not working, it pretty much
guarantees that one of them is at least half
-assed, at least trying somewhat, or at least
there. If there is a parent that is engaged with
the kids in their school work, the outcome is
vastly different than a kid that's just left
to their own devices to... Try because most kids
are not going to regulate themselves going to
school. And like most won't some one out of a
hundred might. Yeah. You know, you probably get
honestly 5%. Yeah. Realistically. The rise of
for -profit education and the effects of that
on the quality of education. Oh, a hundred percent.
When they start to focus on profits over outcome.
Yeah. The kids lose every time. And that's the
current high school standards for 90 % of the
schools in the country is because their profit
is based off of the bonuses the teachers get
and the school gets for how proficient they are
with state and or federal testing. So it's a
money game. I hate to say it. Yep. And off of
that, the ever increasing cost of higher education
and its effects on the population. Yeah, it's
great. If you want to go be an engineer, a doctor,
a lawyer. you're going to come out with damn
near 200 grand worth of student debt. Isn't that
great? Actually, that's a low number for doctor
or lawyer. A lot of doctors, you know, veterinarians
in my area are over half a million dollars in
debt typically. Yep. But veterinarians in my
area, they charge a couple hundred dollars an
hour for basic stuff. I mean, like, that's basic.
Well, now we know why they have to. Well, everyone
wonders why the cost of things have gone up.
It is correlative. There's your word of the day.
These doctors and lawyers have to charge high
rates to pay off the student loans that they
have accrued. Well, it's because those colleges
are just allowed to put whatever price tag they
want on it, which is fine, but there's no incentive
to start another college to compete with them.
And those colleges keep getting money from donors.
And those donors are able to give them money
so they have even more money. It's this revolving
door of every year it will cost more whether
you do anything about it or not. But it also
comes back down to the Department of Education.
They don't set standards. They don't set limits
on what can be charged for tuition. So it's a
combination. So one of the problems we had is
back in the 80s, we started giving out Pell Grants
to kids that did state testing and federal testing
and stuff like that. And the problem is, a lot
of kids were just getting not only grants, but
also FAFSA and federal funding that was automatically
approved. Which meant basically any kid could
go to college, but they never worried about paying
it back. Well, back when they first started the
program, you could have colleges where you could
just work at McDonald's and then pay off your
college and still have an apartment and you were
fine. Nowadays? When the average kid in college
makes probably 15 an hour 16 an hour and that
college costs 30 grand a year For like an average
State College 20 30 grand something that probably
probably more like 20 Good fucking luck You're
not doing that. There's no way No, it's one of
those things where every year unfortunately that
value of education becomes lower because more
people have that degree So therefore you have
to push higher to get the equivalent value. You're
always chasing behind the ball And unfortunately,
not always, but for a lot of these systems, for
a lot of these degrees, there are more people
entering those than there are leaving. Because
in an academic world, people can work until their
70s. Sometimes even I've seen professors in their
80s. So here's the problem. He wasn't a professor,
but we just had a guy retire 84 years old. That's
what I'm talking about. And he worked there for
60. God, 62 or 64 years? So here's the other
problem with the economy. When it comes to non
-labor jobs, because they can work so late, that
means that job isn't open until 20 years after
that job would normally be open. So that means
for the last 20 years, somebody that could have
gotten that job and got up the economic ladder
can't. So we have this really weird problem of
there will always be more people entering these
highly academic jobs than there will be retiring
or leaving. So therefore their value goes down
over time. And when the value goes down over
time and the cost keeps going up, people wonder
why they're upside down on their loans and they'll
never be able to go anywhere. You know, so it's
just something to consider to where for a lot
of people, make sure if you're going to go to
college, make sure it's actually a marketable
skill that you're going to be able to get hired
at. And also, don't go into debt for $200 ,000
or $300 ,000, $400 ,000. I'm just going to be
making a boatload of money. Yeah. Because I'm
very fortunate that I haven't accrued any college
debt because I was smart. I will tell you right
now, I have friends that are lawyers. I make
more money than them working on cars because
I don't have debt. That's insane. Just saying.
The role of technology in education. Let's touch
on our lovely friend, AI. The use of AI for and
in education, I think will probably change the
outcome of education. A lot of people are starting
to kind of get the idea that it could replace
education altogether in some facet. It's just
going to be a matter of we just need to teach
humans how to use devices to a certain extent.
And then they'll get all the information they
need. And oh, God, it's WALL -E all over. That's
kind of the problem. It's a good and bad. I feel
like AI as a reinforcement tool, if it pulls
from the curriculum and the books and everything
that's being taught by the teacher. I'm for it.
The problem I have with AI is it can get unbiased
or it could be very biased out of control very
quickly. Or the other issue is it can lead to
a scenario where it confuses one word for another
word and then completely ruins, you know, a lot
of education, a lot of standards. It's one of
those things where as an aid, however, it could
be amazing. Because for example, using it instead
of a tutor. 100 % agree with that. So I actually
watched somebody. They were using, I think, Grok
with a text -to -speech. They were recording
a professor's lecture, and they would record
it to text, and then they'd ask Grok to make
an overview, and it would do like a summary overview,
and then they would ask Grok to make note cards,
like flashcards. So then they would literally
just take a nap during it, go home, look at it,
figure it out, listen to it, and then it'd be
all set, and it'd be way more productive than
just being there. Trying to listen, which I believe
has options. That is awesome. I wish I had that.
That'd be great. Because especially as dumbass
me, first semester college was like, I'll take
an English class at six in the morning. You know
what I did at six in the morning during a college
class? You were trying to sleep. Seriously, I
got yelled at like a couple of times for falling
asleep. I'm like, sorry, it's six in the morning.
They're like, why did you take a six a .m. college
class? And I was like, I. Thought an 18 -year
-old me would be way more energized than I am.
Right? No. My 18 -year -old can barely get out
of bed at 6 o 'clock in the morning, let alone
10 in the morning some days. You know what, though?
People forget that humans are naturally that
way. Yeah, I know. Some humans can fire off right
in the morning. Other humans are designed to
be up late at night. If you wake me up early
in the morning, I'm dangerous. I have not processed
who I am yet or what's going on. You might be
a threat. Like, if you wake me up in the middle
of the night, I am not pleasant. So, everyone's
got their own thing. That's why I really think...
Now, if I get woken up certain ways in the morning,
that I am quite pleasant. Hell yeah, brother.
And I'm very nice to be around. Yes. But that's...
That's, you know, that's not for the podcast
after show, but yes, but no, it's more the case
of that's what I really feel like for. I hate
to say it. I do think that because a curriculum
should be all online. I do feel like if the kids
want to stay home and just do the work. If you're
like, yeah, I don't feel like going in today.
I'd rather do it at home. Catch up. That is one
thing that the fucking COVID started to show
that. the the online options are there so sick
days snow days doesn't matter all that shit can
kind of go away especially with the ai and intervention
well this is what i'm getting at i so if i if
i was president i would introduce a bill where
the idea is all high school middle school and
high school classes are to be recorded and posted
online on the school website all reading materials,
homework, tests, quizzes, everything is posted
online as well. That way you have the choice.
Either you can stay home and watch it either
live or as a recording, or you can go in and
take it in person. I'm the kind of person I would
prefer in person personally. Yeah. Cause that's
just how I am. But there were days where like
when I had family members that died and when
I had shit going on, Or, like, I'll never forget,
like, my cat passed away. I had him for 21 years.
He grew up with me. He grew up with me. He was
my buddy. And when he passed away, I was like,
I'm not going to school today. Like, fuck that.
I had to go out back and bury him. It was an
emotional day. I would have loved to be able
to be like, all right, at least I can do it online.
I can let my teachers know, hey, this happened.
I won't be in. Because, honestly, at least in
my experience in college, do you know how many
professors, as long as you do the tests on time,
They don't give a flying fuck. They're like,
yeah, things happen. Cool, whatever. Let me know
later on. You know, we'll figure it out. That
way, I also feel like that's where the parents
can also keep the kids in line. To say, like,
I know you have a test today. I know what's being
taught in that class. Maybe it's because if I
was a parent, I'd be really fucking nosy, too.
And want to know, be like, what are you actually
teaching my kid? Because I don't trust them.
After the shit I've seen with sex ed classes
and other stuff. That's just atrocious. I still
can't wait to see you become a parent. That terrifies
me. Don't you fucking dare. No, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Put that away. Put
that back or so. Help me. So help me. Put that
away. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no. Maybe someday, but not, not, not anytime
soon. My problem is I will say this if and when
I ever become a father I am so sorry to whatever
school system has my kid Because I would be that
parent that would be up your ass Thanks, I'm
sorry. I will I will say that in advance Yeah,
but no I don't know why they don't use these
resources though for these kids Because imagine...
I think it's mostly because the teachers don't
know how to use them, and they're not being shown
how to use them. But most of the teachers now
at this point are like 40 and under. At least
that I'm seeing around here. Like, just fucking
learn. It's not hard. You don't even have to
do anything. Most of the teachers use the same
test from like five or ten years in a row. The
last 20 years. Yeah, but they never change them,
which is kind of fucking lazy. Like, not for
nothing, but come on. Yeah. I saw the best trivial
pursuit question. on facebook yesterday oh it
was from 2008 it said which actor has not been
batman ben affleck christian bale val kilmer
george clooney and um who was the other one i
think that was it uh buddy but it's like This
is historically inaccurate now. All they're missing
is what's his name that was just Robert Pattinson.
Oh, yeah. The one they're missing. Adam West.
That's true. I forgot about Adam West. Adam West.
That was the other one. That was the other one.
Yes. Oh, Adam West. Yes. Is it sad that I know
Adam West better from Family Guy? Thank you.
Right. Because the Adam West Batmans, they're
so funny. They're stupid, but they're funny.
Yeah. They're terrible. God. But they set the
stage. Quick aside, because I want to have this
discussion. Okay. I still vote Christian Bale
is the best Batman ever. I have to agree. He
was my favorite one. As long as we're on the
same page. I'm happy with this. Oh, shit. Did
the stream end? Let me check. Oh, God. Oh, nope.
I think it might have. No, it is not. I'm sorry.
What happened? Oops. Sorry about that, guys.
Yep. Sorry. I hit something. Well, what did you
hit? I don't know. Well, hit the not that. I
will hit the not that next time. I don't know.
Can't have a show without a pippage. A pippening.
Don't push the buttons, Pip. Say no to the buttons.
Historical inequities shaped the current education
system. How have historical inequalities, I think
you meant to say there, shaped the current education
system? There is a bit of a problem there because,
okay, I will give some credence to the fact that
there have been issues with underfunded areas
not getting basic resources. Because I have seen
points like, look at a town like Flint, Michigan,
for example, to where I remember there were issues
not only with the water system, but also not
having enough tax revenue to have actual textbooks
to be able to have working chalkboards or dry
erase boards, stuff like that. there are many
areas that up until a few years ago they really
struggled to have basic supplies for those teachers
and i find it very very very very wrong that
teachers have to pay out of their own pocket
for those supplies for the classroom when i'm
already paying taxes to have that stuff in there
anyway right i always found that to be incredibly
rude and wrong that shouldn't be the case so
there were has some historical inequities in
terms or inequalities in terms of the resources
available for those schools. But I do have to
place some credence to at the end of the day,
having a good teacher is far more about that
person's capability as a teacher rather than
them just going to a good school. Some of the
best teachers I ever had were not actually teachers.
They were just good people that wanted to help
other people that volunteered and that did stuff.
And some of the worst teachers I ever had were
some of the ones that were most highly educated.
Because quite frankly, they had to put their
ass. And maybe it's because I come from, like,
a farming background. I'm very, like, practical,
you know, real. And I just can't stand, like,
higher academia. I tried to. Didn't work out
for me. Yeah. But that's just... Pros and cons.
Pros and cons of federal involvement in education.
I think we've spent the last hour and a half
talking about that, so... No. There are no pros.
To be real, I really don't think there are any
pros because before outside of. Outside of possibly
no child left behind was a crock of shit. Yeah,
it did not work. No, but they meant to say was
absolutely every child was left behind. That's
what it was supposed to be. No child left behind
was a joke. And by the way, I will always blame
Michelle Obama for my shitty lunches. Fuck you.
Yeah, she screwed the lunch program. When so
many kids depended on those lunches every day
as their only real food for the day, I'm sorry,
but no. So a fun fact, this actually really pisses
me off. Not a single school lunch that I could
find around here when I was in high school was
actually nutritionally at all based on what kids
need. Because you know what they always had a
lacking of? Protein. You know what they always
had overabundance of? Carbs. You know what they
didn't? Carbs and sugar. Yes. So you'd get home
and crash. You know what we used to have for
lunch? It was like at least once a week. Fucking
French toast sticks in a shit ton of maple syrup.
Yeah. God. You know what that does not do well
with? Oh, yeah. Most kids. Because the serving
size was like four or five of the French toast
sticks that were like huge and a bunch of maple
syrup. Yeah, you'd be good for an hour and then
you would fucking crash at like one o 'clock.
The amount of times I took a nap in history class
because I was like, I'm out, buddy. We're done.
I'm going night -night. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then,
like, the wheat pizza. I remember reading about
that. Whoever. Michael Obama did some terrible
things. Careful. Careful. Careful. Careful. We're
not. Get a knock on my door. It's going to be
killing. We are not touching that topic with
a 10 -foot pole in this podcast. No, because
they have a pole that touches back. The only
thing we could touch on is Michelle Macron possibly
not being a woman, but that's a different thing.
Not Michelle Macron, whatever her name is. I
forget her first name, but that's a whole different
thing. But no, we're not touching the Michelle
Obama one. I like my life. No, thanks. I choose
life. Right? Yes. What's the most promising solution
for improving educational outcome? Power back
to the people, I think. Yeah. What I would say
is definitely let high schools compete with one
another for the opportunity to educate your kid.
Definitely let them specialize as well. Let these
high schools become good at certain things. Kind
of put their money towards what they feel like
is best. And vote with where you live. If you
like that school system, live there. If you don't,
don't. But I guess the biggest thing, and this
is kind of easy for me to say as an on -parent,
be involved with your kid's education. If you
give a shit, be involved. Be on the school board.
Show up to meetings. Show up to PTO meetings.
Do stuff. Be there. Because as I learned, Some
of those parents can be very, very, very persuasive
in certain things and make things happen that
you wouldn't even realize as a teacher. Things
go down. So be involved. That's the biggest thing
I would say. And also, not for nothing, your
child's education outside of the school is just
as important as inside the school. Have them
take hobbies and other stuff outside of school.
That was my biggest thing, too, is I took multiple
instrument lessons. I took karate. I learned
how to ski and snowboard. By the skin flu? No.
I did not go to Catholic school, thank you. It's
the case of I took a lot of things outside of
school, and I learned stuff around the farm,
learned how to weld, work on cars, things like
that. So for me, I was very well -rounded. I'm
just going to ignore you laughing in the background.
So it's one of those things where it's easy to
get wrapped up in. and high school education
or middle school being their source of education
the things that these kids will remember outside
of school are going to be as equally if not more
important now i know what my girl felt like over
the weekend i almost choked almost i'm sorry
buddy sorry little one so what's that ralphie
mayskit every kiss begins with oh man I love
that skit. So how has the rise of technology
affected the education system positively and
negatively? And a caveat to that, how would you
feel if your child or how would the children
feel potentially if their teachers were replaced
by AI -controlled robots? Ah! Touch in the last
couple episodes. So. I feel like you can't replace
a person in an educational system. You can have
them with a really, really, really good AGI.
I think there's... Okay, okay. Hear me out. If
you did a system where the robot was teaching
to the class as a whole, and the person was identifying
the kids that needed the separate instructional
help, that had some questions, comments, concerns,
I think there's a way to do it where you could
blend both. but I feel like an education setting
in a traditional classroom, you're always going
to need a person to kind of read the room, talk
to people, see what's up. Maybe there's a day
where AI becomes good enough to replace people
with that, but I find that hard to believe, but
it's possible. Would I feel comfortable with
that? Really, I don't care how it's done as long
as the quality of the education is good and my
kid retains the information and gets something
from it. But yeah, with AI, I'd rather see AI
programs be used in text -based to where instead
of getting textbooks, they get an iPad and it
has all the textbooks on it and they have an
AI program built into it that helps them with
their homework and study and tests and everything.
That's a different story. I will say giving the
kids tablets and whatnot with PDFs of all their
books on it, I very much support that. My lower
back supports that because I remember essentially
lugging a military rucksack full of books and
shit through my high school, carrying all of
my books around. That had to be a good 40 pounds
back in the day. I mean, yeah, I was, you know,
swole as fuck back then, but shit. So some of
these kids. Can't do that. So I'm learning as
I'm getting older. I actually have a possible
rotator cuff injury. Yay. Welcome to the club.
Ever since I turned 30, it's all fucking downhill.
It sucks. But yeah, I used to carry like, like
a male best, like a male bag, kind of like the
male, you know, mailman bag. And I would have,
because of all the extra classes I took and all
the extra stuff and equipment I would carry.
My bag was sometimes 60 pounds, if not more.
I also had a bag. I did stuff my friend in it.
It was made for a mail carrier. So my friend
Derek literally got into the bag and I closed
the flap up top and I walked into class and just
set it down on the counter and just ran away
from the class. He just popped up and was like,
hi. It was great. You know what the crazy thing
is? I still have that bag. The guy that made
it was a local guy. He was a mail carrier that
got sick of all the bags getting destroyed. He
made this indestructible mail carrier bag. I
love it. One of the best purchases ever. But
anyways. Very nice. I literally have a rotator
cuff injury because of all the bullshit I used
to carry. And I had a teacher. I apologize to
Mr. Ninos. I have to message him because he's
one of my favorite teachers ever. He told me,
that's going to hurt you when you get older.
And I said, nah, I'll be fine. Son of a bitch.
He was right. Yeah, no. And something that my
son just pointed out in chat that the schools
won't allow AI. When AI is everywhere, they won't
have a choice. There's going to become a day
where they won't be able to check for AI. Give
it six months to a year. I bet you money once
Grok. Fun little fact. Did you know that Twitter,
which is X, just got absorbed by Elon's AI division?
So that's going to be training the new version
of Grok, which will be out in a few months. I'll
tell you this right now. Give it six months to
a year. You will not be able to tell the difference
between AI and a person and text -based like
that. Six months to a year. Within a year. What
else is supposed to happen within a year, Gibbs?
2026. The singularity. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and then
after that, our podcast could be just AI episodes
at this point. Yeah, it'll be AI versions of
us generating new episodes. So, yeah, good night,
everyone. It was good while it lasted. We'll
just have a massive budget upgrade for free.
Because imagine AI generating these entire episodes.
I try to imagine AI trying to mimic my sense
of humor. I think it's going to cause a core
meltdown. My fucked up sense of humor could be
the saving grace of humanity. Gibbs, you realize
that? Here's the best part. I'm not hearing a
no. Saving grace is a little, little, little.
By the way, Wookie, I appreciate that comment
and I will be your emperor. I appreciate it.
So anyways, but your sense, the problem is if
everyone had your sense of humor. then the largest
department on earth would be the HR department.
We'd all be in jail. That's the problem. Just
imagine if it got copied and all the AI developed
my warped sense of humor. Well, the problem is
it would just be an R -rated AI. I'd open up
Grok and be like, sup, fucker, what are you doing?
I'd ask it a question and be like, fucking blow
me a bitch. Oh, God. You could tell AI -generated
items much easier. I know, right? It's going
to be wild. Yeah. So let's go back over the picture
that we talked about at the beginning, now that
we've kind of touched tips on a lot of the points
from the episode. To reiterate, $2 trillion have
been spent on education in America. And adults
coming out of high school cannot grow their own
food, build a house, fix a car. They are economically
and historically illiterate. They are unaware
of proper nutrition, how the human body actually
functions. They struggle with depression. They
have zero skills on money management. They don't
know how to invest. They don't know how to use
tax strategy. Let that sink in. It's insane.
Two trillion dollars. That's pretty gross. What's
crazy to think about is that's what we spend
basically a year. For our entire military industrial
complex. No, that's our entire GDP. Wait, really?
Don't we have like a $2 trillion budget last
year for military? Hold on. I'm going to look
this up live. Yeah. I looked it up for the UBI
episode that we're potentially planning. Fiscal
year of 2024, October 1st, 2023 to September
30th. U .S. federal government spent $6 .75 trillion.
Which, by the way, that's fucking terrifying,
just saying. Maybe I had old numbers. What was
it for? It was $850 billion. So that's actually,
that's about three times. Yes, that's what I
thought. I was going to say, I knew it was under
a trillion. For the military budget, at least.
That's insane. Now, granted, that's over the
course of, we spent that money over the course
of decades. However, that means at the federal
level we spent all this money. We ain't got shit
to show for it. No. Our kids are very well educated
on what? TikTok? TikTok, yeah. TikTok is where
the vast majority of the Gen Z and upcoming Gen
Alpha get their news. Which, you know what though,
I hate to say it, it's probably the least biased
platform when it comes to news, because I use
it for news. And I get a lot of stuff instantly.
A lot of stuff that gets banned on like Instagram.
I hate TikTok. You know what, I feel like if
they just made it so you could kind of select
things a little better, I feel like a lot of
people would actually use it, but because it's
biased to push a certain type of stuff. Has it
been sold? Is it under new management now? I
don't even remember. Because that was the thing
with the Chinese algorithm. It pushed the idiocy
towards Americans and it pushed the tech and
innovations toward the Chinese people. See, what
you do is you actually, on TikTok, the way you
change your algorithm is you flag things that
you don't want to see and then like and save
the things you do and eventually it fixes itself.
The only problem I have... So for a while, my
algorithm was really great because it was all
just politics, news, gaming, music, guitar stuff.
But Molly sends me one fucking thing about, like,
women's, like, leggings. And now I'm just getting
women trying to sell leggings with butt photos
all day long. And I'm like, I swear to God, I'm
not looking this stuff up. And she knows, like,
I'm not. But it's like, TikTok, could you not
do that, please? Leave me alone? Yeah. It's funny
how algorithms work with things like Facebook.
Like some of my recent stuff. Yeah. Lots of mushy
woo -woo shit has been popping up on my reels.
And I thought it was hilarious because just like
the timing of it. But yeah, anything else you
wanted to add into this? No, I just... It's one
of those things I feel like people just need
to start being more involved with their kids
and local education and understand that there
are better solutions out there. You just have
to do some research, figure it out, and really
understand that until we make some fundamental
shifts, unfortunately, this is going to stay
this way for a while. And really, to bring it
back to the original topic, Trump defunding a
large part of the DOE is not going to make a
negative difference to really anybody out there
that has kids in the educational system right
now. Anything that they were overseeing literally
has nothing to do with what your child does from
a day -to -day basis. I think initially there
will be fear, but it should probably be a net
positive. Yes. If it's allowed to propagate.
Oh, yeah. I'd agree with you 100%. Because it's
one of those things where we might see a short
-term loss of a couple of things, but long -term
getting these things established by the states
and letting people be able to be involved with
it. I think that's the biggest problem. When
you establish something like the Department of
Education federally, that means that every kid
in America has to learn the same shit. Does every
kid in America need to learn the same thing?
No. If we're going to be a melting pot, let's
let these kids learn different things and then
bring all that stuff together. That's kind of
the point. You know, someone that lives in Maine
doesn't need to deal with the same climate that
someone in Arizona does. So like, why not have
that different education? Because honestly, the
amount of high schools I know that don't teach
about things particular to your climate, your
environment, your topography, different information,
how to grow crops in your area, how to do all
this other stuff. So many people just, it's ignored.
Yeah. If. If the federal government is allowed
to control it, you end up with potato soup. If
you leave it to the states, well, then you get
wonderful things like vegetable soup or some
kind of like wonderful Thanksgiving dinner eventually.
And that way you can actually participate in
it. You can vote on it. Yeah. And I think that's
the biggest part of it. Yeah. I don't feel like
kids in LA are going to worry too much about
farming. Like the, like the kids in, kansas you
know it's just every everywhere people forget
we are a country of 50 little countries all working
together so let's treat it as such you know that
was the idea of the articles of confederation
which then became the united states the idea
that you know we technically per our government
how the republic is supposed to work it's 50
separate states or 50 separate countries that
all work together and we allow the federal government
to have some power over limited things so yes
let's work with such yeah but yeah i feel like
um that kind of covers most of our at least these
my my discussion on that topic is this is this
is a topic that i'm very into and there's more
i could talk about but we're running up to two
hours so yeah and it's getting late it's almost
10 and it's a work night so i'll be up a little
bit late editing but that's fine yeah so this
is an interesting week um things are going to
be a little off kilter for our schedule life
happened to gibbs and i have plans this weekend
so we're going to do the next episode on saturday
yes so just a heads up this will be a compressed
week basically how it works it's always either
a saturday a sunday or monday basically we try
to shoot for sundays but sometimes i get held
up sometimes you get held up It's how it goes.
Well, Saturday we've been trying to shoot for.
Yeah. Just because it works out better for us
sometimes. But we try to do what works for y
'all because, you know, you guys have been showing
love and we're trying to show back. We appreciate
you guys in chat and everything. Everyone's showing
up. Yeah. Turn out the lights. I think I think
this week I do want to say this for everybody.
I want to try to get that account for the AI
editing thing. for us for this. I want to do
that this week. Oh, I see what it does. Get the
AI involved. Yeah, why not? We'll Eiffel Tower
that AI. Make it work for us. I don't know what
that means, but I don't like it. I don't know
what that means. I'm scared to know what that
means. I need an adult here. Adult, help me.
Jesus. I guess I was going to go. Before we end,
I was just quickly going to go to chat and see
if anyone had any comments, concerns, thoughts.
I think everyone's concerned about me. I do want
to give a teaser, though. Just a little tickle
teaser. Next week's episode is going to be very
fun. I'm not even sure if we can have it on Twitch,
but we're going to try. You know? I didn't consider
that until just now. That one might have to be
an upload only. We'll see. We'll have to see
about that. I'll have to look into it. Next week,
or this weekend, whatever, our next episode,
we are going to delve into the ever murky topic.
Of American gun culture. Oh, yeah. That should
be a very fun one. Oh, yeah. The history of freedom
as told by the freedom seed dispenser. Precisely.
Yes. So it might be an upload only, but we're
going to look into Twitch's terms and see what
we can get away with. We may try to use some
props for that one. I don't know. That's probably
why we won't be allowed to use Twitch. Oh, yeah,
because I don't even know if we can use fake
ones. Yeah. But we're going to try to work on
a nice intro for that one. Trying to work up
something flashy for you guys. Yeah, that'd be.
Let's see. We got a question here. Would it be
worth it to get in trouble for using AI to write
your useless ELA essays? Kind of like should,
should not teens be able to go pro? So I do have
a thought on that. Okay. So the problem I see
with that is if you let AI write it for you,
that that takes away your ability from thinking
about it and your ability to analyze, conceptualize,
figure out exactly what the discussion is. But
I do understand English language arts, ELA. A
lot of the times those classes, I get it. They're
boring. They're not great. What I would say is
I wouldn't allow AI to write it. But I would
allow AI to summarize and give you like a bullet
point list about what you're talking about. Because
I look at AI where I think in a lot of schools
for younger grades, it should be allowed as an
organizer. So if you're having problems like
trying to organize things and get things straightened
out, I have no problem with that. But I think
you should still have to write it in your own
words. You know what I mean? Bring those words
like from you, from what you know. Sure, you
might use AI to help you say, hey, give me a
synonym for this word or help me explain this,
help me do that. But I feel like you should have
to put those words, you know, together yourself.
But that's just me. You know, because I don't
know if I don't know if I if I was a teacher,
I would just tell those kids that be like, you
know, just don't don't freaking go on a rock
or chat GPT and just be like, write me this.
Yeah, so if I was going to use AI, I would say
maybe have it do a couple of comparisons. And
then you take the time to read over them and
do some of your own comparison. See which one
you like. Maybe do a couple of rewrites and some
edits. Feed it back through. Definitely use it
for maybe like language, punctuation, grammar.
That kind of stuff, I'm definitely on board for
using AI. But if you're going to use it, make
sure you're putting in bare minimum 50 % of the
input to it. You've got to use critical thinking
and suggestion to get it there. That way it's
not just, hey, Grok, I need this information
on this topic, this many words, this many lines,
whatever. Boom. That's cheating. Oh, yeah, exactly.
Just make sure it's your own words. But if you're
putting in a prompt that takes you 10 minutes
to write, I feel like that's a little bit more
effort. And then if you submit the prompt as
your part, maybe that goes and counts for something.
I don't know. I think that the whole point of
doing those assignments is to make sure that
you are using your brain to figure it out. And
that's the part that matters the most. If you
use these other stuff to help you. reorganize
or reword that's one thing just make sure the
concept and that is coming from you that's really
the part that's with any part of education no
matter what it is make sure it's coming from
you you know if you use it to spell check or
double check a few things grammar wise or whatever
organize i don't think anyone's gonna ever say
anything just make sure your thoughts are your
own because then the thing is when you get out
in the real world and have a job I'll tell you
this right now, you can't go chat GPT or Grok
and say, hey, what should I do? That's not how
this works. Yeah. That's not how that works.
But what you can do is check out our socials.
Yes. Join us on the Discord. That'd be great.
Join us for the live streams when we have them.
Oh, yeah. These are getting good. Yeah, I'm really
enjoying having a live stream, honestly. Right.
Yeah. Twitch .tv slash now underscore we underscore
consume underscore podcast. Because I'm a bastard,
like, speak, type. Yeah, we definitely have those
links as well on the Discord. That's our hub
for anything and everything to do with this podcast.
As well as, you know, Facebook, Instagram. Join
us. Exactly. One of us. One of us. One of us.
I think besides that, I think we're probably
ready to wrap this one up, huh? Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Cool. As always, I want to appreciate everybody
that, you know, came here in the live chat as
well as everyone that's listening at home. Definitely
feel free to check us out on any of the socials
or anything else that we've recommended, you
know, just to get in touch with us if you have
any questions, comments, concerns, or thoughts.
And I want to give a special shout out to my
co -host here, Pip, for joining tonight and being
here as always. Making the question reality itself.
Dude, I fucked up earlier. I fucked up. Well.
I didn't do noodles and nipples earlier. Well.
My whole world and reality have fallen out of
place if you want you could do them Before I
can even get the words out of my mouth you bastard
I Was saying well if you want to do it through
the out in that you you just you would have you
just went See see Wookiee chat, so what did I
just witness and unfortunately You witness...
How can I make this a Twitch appropriate? Part
of my warm -up routine. Yeah. It's usually what
he does before, so... I don't know. That's how
you fluff yourself for the episode? I don't know.
Well, I can't fluff on stream. Hopefully not.
We don't stream on the hub. I know. Maybe we
should stream on the hub. That would be terrifying.
Oh, my God. The comments there would be bad.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, God.
Oh, no. I am so sorry to chat. Yes, with my son
in the chat. This is what you have to look forward
to becoming, son. Get ready for it. It's okay
to cry. It's okay. It's okay to feel sad sometimes.
I don't think we get that much money streaming
on Pornhub because we have to hire like some
some bimbo trick just to stand there with their
boobs out just like just to get views right because
that would be the thumbnail that you just thumbnail
that they click on like oh man it's you guys
on a fucking podcast what the fuck it'd be a
rage bait on that's how that works right the
comments be wow this was a tough wake like that
this is tough but still got it done you know
I don't know Maybe that's how we reach the LGBT
population. Talk about the ultimate edge. Oh,
Jesus Christ. All righty. I think I need to go
shower now. I'm a dirty boy. I have no comment.
You know what's going to be great when the AI
picks up that last segment to put up online for
no context? Oh, man. Oh, shit. All right. Oh,
okay. I'm going to go breathe and get some water.
All right. Sounds good. Well, thank you all for
watching. We really appreciate it as always.
I love you guys. Thanks for hanging out. And
we will catch you on the next one. See you then.