Latest / Color Commentary / Ep 40 | Overcoming The Literacy Crisis (with Dr. Dr. Shawnta Barnes)

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Ep 40 | Overcoming The Literacy Crisis (with Dr. Dr. Shawnta Barnes) · Color Commentary

• Charles Cole: Hey you guys, welcome to another episode of Color Commentary with Dr. Cole. ⁓ today is another special episode. I just finished up an incredible interview ⁓ with my friend and now becoming somewhat frequent collaborator, ⁓ Dr. Shantae Barnes. ⁓ we just had a good time, man. We talked about everything from literacy to wishbone, the wishbone documentary, ⁓ faux pas and and things that we that that we miss as as as Literacy is taking less and less important in this country. It was just a really interesting talk. It was really fun. I hope you all enjoy it. And if you do, and if you like when she comes on, let us know, man. ⁓ so I can give her that feedback. ⁓ and any thoughts that you might have, let me know. And who knows, maybe you'll end up being a guest on the show if you want to be a part of that. So ⁓ I hope you all enjoy ⁓ the conversation that I had with Dr. Shantae Barnes. All right, peace. We have a very special guest back today. We have the one and only Miss Educator Barnes, ⁓ Miss Shantae. ⁓ I'm just such a fan. and it was such a delight having her last time. You all seem to really like her last time and said we got some really good chemistry and you know, somebody I get to nerd out with and she gets to nerd out with too. So we we tend to appreciate that. So we're gonna do it a little different today because I want her to feel comfortable and confident and every time she I want her to know she is has an open door policy can and can be here anytime she wants. So ⁓ Educator Barnes, Ms. Barnes, Dr. Shantae. What are we discussing today? Well, I really wanted to talk about literacy. ⁓ people who follow the work that I've been doing literally since I stepped into the classroom 20 years ago, which I was just thinking about that the other day. It's been 20 years that I've been in the classroom. ⁓ Literacy is that's that's the thing that's at in my heart. I went to school to be an English education major and I exited Purdue with a reading and English language arts license. So like I love to read, I love to teach other people to read, I love people making connections when they're reading. But we have a literacy crisis ⁓ right now and I would agree. I'm getting concerned because it's almost becoming a joke and it's not funny and ⁓ I was ⁓ telling ⁓ Charles before we got on here about some videos I had saw online and I don't know the whole backstory because I am trying to limit my time consuming content on the internet because there's a lot of echo chambers or the algorithm that shows you what you want to see and you're not really getting a few a a full picture, but it's just of people being asked to read a sentence on an index card and they can't do it. ⁓ not only can they not do it, they don't seem to have any literacy skills at all. And so now people are sharing these videos of people that can't read. And I'm like, so we shared the video. We all got a good laugh. Some of these peop some of them were young people. I don't know how old they were and then some of them were adults. And I'm like this is not funny. None of this is funny. And so I don't know in your work if you come across situations where people are just not taking literacy and the acquirement of those skills seriously and not understanding like the impact to us in society. I agree. I think it's at a I think we're at at an epidemic rate. ⁓ I and I think that the the reason the thing that makes it epidemic level is that People are starting to associate the skill of being able to read with acting white and not being able to read as somehow being blacker or being, you know, down for the cause or whatever the case is. We are becoming literacy is becoming a new class divide, and that is. That's really going backwards. That's that's is it's going backwards at an alarming rate. And and what I always remind people of is like, listen, man, you have to, you gotta understand that like people risk life and limb to be able to know how to read. You have to understand that people could do whatever they wanted to to a slave that they owned, except teach them how to read. They were they were so afraid of us knowing how to read that they would punish white people for teaching black people how to read. And then one of the strongest periods of growth in literacy came. after slavery was made illegal and abolished. Like that was one of the most literate times ⁓ in the country per capita. So to take just a step backwards in the year of our Lord twenty twenty six. It's startling. And I don't I think I feel like I've seen that video, but I got the context. The basic context is a kid puts a regular word on a on a Q card and ⁓ index card and and and people can't read this the the the the the singular word. And it's that's sad. That's incredibly sad to me. So I mean And I know we both watched the wishbone documentary. I know I brought up the rear on that, but I really appreciate that. And I know that'll tie in. But but this concept of literacy and not being able to, it startles me in a lot of different ways. ⁓ I was just in Memphis, and I I know I'm this is a long-winded answer. ⁓ but I was just in Memphis speaking at the Memphis lift because the state wants to come in and take over. Because one, they just misappropriate the hell out of funds there. That tends to happen in school districts, but two. The school board was telling people that they should be grateful because there's been growth. And you know what the growth is? 24% of black kids were reading on grade level. Now the number is 29% of the kids are reading on grade level. Baby, that's not even a full human. That's it was two out of out of 10 were reading on grade level. Now 2.9 out of 10 kids ⁓ are reading on grade level. And and and that's anytime somebody tell you should celebrate that, you should be. You should be you should be weary as hell. ⁓ so ⁓ exc excuse my language. I just told you ⁓ how how how how ⁓ you know how angelic I I feel you are, but but that I do get a little bit. Perturbed when I when I when I look at those numbers and I see that not enough people are upset about them. And it's really ⁓ how we just mess around with data. ⁓ because I think about commercials where it's like nine out of who ten, you know, recommend. But if that is nine thousand out of ten thousand, one thousand people not recommending, I want to know what's happening. It's like if I'm shopping online, I want to go down to the half-star, one-star reviews to figure out what's the worst possible thing that could come or whatever. Part of I'm using, and it's the same with literacy. There's a range of literacy levels because most states is third grade. Can you read? And here in Indiana, we have the I re three test. And what parents many times don't know it's not testing third grade skills, it's actually testing second grade skills. But we take it at the end of third grade in hopes that if your kid gets to third grade a little behind, by the end of third grade, they're caught up to be on grade level. And then after you pass that test, we're kind of like, ⁓ you can read, which produce. As adults who may be able to read, may be literate, but their literacy level is around that of a middle schooler. And so I always tell people you gotta remember if you're arguing with people online or just arguing with people in person, sometimes they can't understand what you're saying because their their comprehension skills, their critical thinking skills is that of a child, ⁓ is that of a you know elementary student or middle school student? So you gotta like step back from that. So for me, it's layers to it. ⁓ Because it's not just passing the test, it's also being at a decent level where you can buy a house and understand the terms that you're agreeing to. ⁓ if you take a loan, you're understanding ⁓ what you are signing up for. And I and there's just so many people who don't ⁓ understand that. And so because I ⁓ was nerding out with Charles, ⁓ one of the things we figured out about on was wishbone. And I was like, yeah. A wishbone, we talked about there was like a wishbone documentary coming out, and then I was like, Did you watch that show? And he was Yeah, and I and I watched that show. And so we just both watched the wishbone documentary, which I really enjoyed. It is on Apple, it's about 90 minutes, but it really gave you the whole story about how it came to be. ⁓ And then why it ended. And I thought the the why it ended part was so sad because it was so clear that there was so much intentionality behind drawing kids in, drawing people in to learn how to read. So I don't know if you had any like things that really popped out from that documentary as we're like thinking about literacy. ⁓ I I love I love Wishbone. ⁓ I love Wishbone a lot. it's it's it's it's one of my favorite shows. I th you said you what stood out for me in in it. I think a few things. I think one, I think people underestimate the level of hysteria that came out with that in people's enthusiasm. One, it was just very smart to use a very cute dog the way that they did. ⁓ But two the love that people had for it and like this dog became a rock star. ⁓ and and these stories got to be retold and and and you know, and you had these people just really excited. And these kids wanted to know what these books were, wanted to read them. And even if you hadn't read them, you heard these stories. So I remember watching the show as a kid and then getting into high school and we get assigned one of those books and I already had a familiarity with it. I thought that was incredible because it was the two shows for me was ⁓ Wishbone and Ghostwriter. Ghost Rider made me wanted to write and Wishbone made me wanted to read. And and and they it was just such when you look at the type of program that there was for kids at the time, like that was just such a smart type of program. And now when you look at it now, When kids hear Bluey, like they they build these shows for kids now like it's dope, like it's like it's a drug, like it's supposed to it's bright lights, and every five seconds something has to be moving and changing. It's it's it's already intoxicating your kid to to to be ⁓ just to be overstimulated and to be overstimulated early and that stuff carries out. So when I watched how they made the show, I was impressed too. I did not know how expensive the show was to make. Like when you think about it, you had to run two different crews every single time. You had the dog. The dog was actually doing double work because the dog had to work with both the the real life crew and then the fantasy story crew. ⁓ I didn't know that they had to shoot that many episodes in a year. So I wasn't as surprised when they ended it because the show got really expensive really quickly because they wasn't anticipating that level of of of ⁓ Just that level of of of engagement and people liking it. I I was surprised. I'm like, well, why didn't they just, you know, bring it back as a cartoon or bring it back with a different type of production. I'm just surprised that Wishbone hasn't been reprised in any way. I I'm really shocked by that mostly. Yeah, and I was hop I'm hoping from the documentary it can get, you know, the eighties ⁓ babies, the nineties kids, you know, the people who watched it, 'cause they did show reruns of it for a while as well. That they see this and say, Hey, we really really need to bring this back and it was expensive And I I was listening when they were talking about how expensive it was when they talked about they were making custom hats ⁓ for soccer because soccer is the name of the dog that played wishbone. ⁓ and all these little cute little his whole little wardrobe and he needed he had to get a hat made 'cause it's they don't make dog hats. Yeah, even them going into like what they had to do to get the hat to stay on the dog's head and also him jumping around. So it was I liked all the little details in the background. But the thing I kept thinking about, but isn't something like that worth our investment? And that kind of goes back to the the bigger ⁓ picture of you know we're not putting our our time our resources in the right place when it comes to literacy. And to your point, if that format was too expensive, rework it so you have a format. But in the documentary, they alluded to the fact of, you know, unlike some other show, there wasn't a lot, lots of the the merch wasn't, you know, it wasn't bringing in the income. They needed to You know, supplement what they needed to keep the show going. But that show did a lot of things. It introduced kids to complex text. You're getting introduced to the Odyssey early. You're getting introduced to Frankenstein early or the Count of Monte Cristo. ⁓ while also getting a good little moral lesson because not only did they have to take this complex text and pick pieces of it to show there was always a parallel story happening with like where you know Wishbone lived with him. Human Joe and the other kids. The nosy neighbor. Yeah. Yeah. That all the little girl that he had a crush on, the little black friend, little black boyfriend, you know. ⁓ I I love that show. I didn't know that they built like that whole set, like that whole little city area. They built that that was like on the soundstage. I mean, it I mean but that that but you begging a larger question and I think we have to address it. Why why is that not the investment anymore? Why are we not invested in our kids being literate? You know, like there's a few things that I've seen happen, Shantae, is like One, the first thing was the numeracy going down and when McDonald's and Burger King and fast food places just didn't trust these young people to like give change anymore, to where like they you don't even they can't count change and the change just drops out for the people. That was that should have been red flag number one. And I think two, I think people are thinking that with the in the advent of AI ⁓ and and it being so accessible and somewhat becoming ubiquitous, I think it will be ubiquitous. Fairly soon that you don't need to learn how to read. And I think that that's couldn't be further from the truth. I think that that means you need to know how to read and read critically even better. I I I I think that we might be seeing a death of truth. The depth the death of objective truth is coming during our lifetime. ⁓ maybe this has happened before and it comes back in cycles or whatever the case is. But that's that's what I tend to worry about as somebody who does research this stuff, does read this stuff, and is looking at these numbers. And I'm telling people about literacy and it's just not hitting them. The way that I think it would have a generation or two ago. ⁓ and that that worries me. And there's no all hands-on-deck mentality, because you know, I used to write a whole bunch of articles, many of them were centered on literacy, and I'm also a mom, I'm also a teacher. So sometimes I will write an article about here's what teachers can do. Then sometimes I will write an article about here's what parents can do. And every single time if I wrote an article focused on teachers, ⁓ then the teachers would say, ⁓ It's not us, you collect those parents. The parents, they're the problem. If I write an article about what the parents can do, then the parents are like, that's not my job. I didn't go to school for that. That's their job to make sure my kid reads. And so nobody wants to take a stake of ownership to say, hey, like this is a problem. ⁓ my dad's brother years ago passed away, and we went to the funeral, and one of my uncle's grandchildren, ⁓ they asked her to read the Like obituary. And she gets up there and it is painful to listen to because she cannot say many other words. And my dad said something that it was interesting that stuck to me to this day. He said, why don't they know that she can't read well? And And and I was, and it was, I thought it was interesting that he said, why don't they know? Because when he said, look around, and when you looked around, it to me seemed like that may be the first time they had heard her read out loud. And so I'm saying to myself, as a parent, even though I may not have the skills to teach my kid how to read, I should have some amount of knowledge of if my kid can read. So that can help me advocate because you're not advocating for your child if you don't know your child hasn't. Issue. So I try to write from both sides, and every time I try to write from both sides, people are just pointing fingers at the other side and not thinking about what I can do in my lane while also saying, Hey, you know, my kid is now in fifth grade, they cannot read. What are you doing? What have you done? Is there anything that you suggest I do? Because a teacher should be able to provide a recommendation to a parent, but a parent also has to come halfway to be willing to. To take the recommendation and use it as well. And I would add in a third, and I think it's the student, it's the child. You have to find things that they're interested in reading. And I think so. When I a lot of my work is around agency and the way I do my agency framework or my A and D framework, which is awareness, navigation, and duty, is that when I'm talking to people, I'm talking to that person. So if I'm doing a ⁓ a seminar for teachers, I'm talking to teachers. If don't nobody else do nothing, this is what you should be doing. When I'm working with parents, I'm talking to parents. If the teacher and kid ain't doing what they need to do, here's what you need to be doing. When I talk to young people as early as second grade, I'm talking to that young person. Like, like you, you know, you regardless if your parents make you or the school or the school makes you, like, this is where you have an obligation to do. And like what interests you, right? Like, I love comic books. I loved, I love those stories. I think one of the best, I've read a lot of books. One of the best books I've ever read is a graphic novel called The Watchmen. The Watchmen, I read that really early on. And it enthralled me in just its storytelling ability. There's been movies and shows and things like that since. But just the complex nature of the text, it grew me in so many different ways. I think the other thing, ⁓ you know, when I when we were younger, you and I around the same age, you know, there was it wasn't just YA books, right? There were YA books, you d but but a lot of the reading is just geared towards girls, right? Like, but we had Sports Illustrated for Kids that got delivered to the school. We had ⁓ there was another one, SI, ⁓ it was SI, and then there was a there was a bunch of things that would directly To the school, there were R.L. Stein books. I love Goosebumps. I used to read Goosebumps, and ⁓ and then they would start having like your Choose Your Adventure books and things like that. And I remember one of the biggest flexes when I was in elementary school was when they would bring in the catalog and you take the catalog home, but you could order books. And from the whole spectrum or gamut of student from bully to nerd and everything in between, they were juiced to put in their orders for their books. And it was like a holiday when the books would come in and get delivered and people would have it, and there'd be book exchanges and things like that. I think that the culture of reading has to has to return. You know, I look at how we do social media, it almost feels like Post don't go viral unless there are typos in it. It almost feels like people are are are intentionally misspelling things and putting typos in there in that way. Like I text people in my family and they text me back, and if everything is just abbreviated, everything is like there's no alliteration, right? And again, it's text messaging. But You s you at some point you got you also are like, hey, do you know how to like do you know what that word is? And I'm not trying to be snooty. I swear this is not about I'm not I don't feel better than anybody. I I'm still somebody, even as a doctor, sometimes I have to read things two, three, four times. It's just part of the process. Like, but even when I was a kid and got in trouble, my parents would be go read, go pick up the encyclopedia, go pick up the dictionary, go read, like it it would, you know, it was something that was relevant in my home and my parents were drug addicts when I was a kid. I'm not trying to bring the show down, but I'm just showing that just be people think that if you're in poverty or a parent is struggling or something like that that you can't learn. And that's just not true. Like my both my parents were in and out of jail. I still had to do my homework before I could go outside, turn on a TV or play a video game, and I had to read something. And so I I just I focus on the person because if everybody does their role, we'll be okay. But in case people don't do it, there's still some insulation and insurance for you to still get what you need or get what your kid needs. Appreciate you being transparent and sharing about your background. I know you talked about it before because sometimes we judge parents. If we know what the parent's backstory is, teachers don't even bother to take the stuff to tell the parent because they're like, ⁓ that parent's been incarcerated. ⁓ that parent is struggling with addiction. I'm not even gonna make a suggestion to them because they're not gonna do it. So you already have written a story for them and forgotten that every most parents, there are very few parents. Out here that that that don't want their kids to get better or you know, at least be as good as them or even better than them. So they may not be perfect, they may not consistently do something, but to even deny them the opportunity to get the recommendation, I find that problematic. Especially people who come out of these programs like Teach for America or they do like a transition to teaching, and I'm not trying to beat up those programs. I used to work for Teach for America for a lot of years. You're you're good. Well, I I wrote an article about ⁓ TFA and let's just say people got really mad. But ⁓ so people feel like I hate TFA. But ⁓ if the evidence is there, the evidence is there. ⁓ But they come into these places where they don't live, they don't know the neighborhood, they don't know the kids, and they just make these assumptions and they're trying to rescue kids. And to your point, kids are not asking to be rescued. They need the skills to have the agency for themselves, and the kids are going to try to figure things out if they can. But I do like that you brought students into the conversation because many times when we're talking about education, we don't even mention students. We mention what the superintendent should do, what the principal should do, what the Teacher should do, but I actually talk about what the student can do. And one of the things I tell students ⁓ when it comes to literacy and reading that you have to find out what you like. And you know, when you say that to a kid, they're like, Okay, Mrs. Barnes, what does that even mean? So I think about what I can do, and many people know I do book talks, but I just recently started doing them consistently and publicly. And what's interesting, some of my former students follow me on social media, and it's like, it's like I get to see you in the classroom all over again. Because they claim I haven't age and I look the same. I have aged. But they are like we can both look young. Stop that. We're the same age, we can both look young. Stop it. We because I I own it. I'll be like, yep, I am. If you if you think I'm 28, I appreciate you. Thank you. I will take it. But that put a higher calling on me to actually read. Because I have worked with English teachers. Who tell me that they don't read what they are using in the classroom. They don't read the novel in advance. They're reading it with the students. Or they just don't read it. They're doing the summary. So you can imagine how they're not doing the figurative language to critical thinking because they haven't even planned out, ⁓ figured out what the misconceptions could be and plan for students to give them those skills. So when I first started doing book talks in my classroom, I had to read every single week something. And I'm teaching middle school, so ⁓ I wouldn't put some picture books in there because I tell ⁓ everybody picture books are for everybody. ⁓ And then I didn't I was not into graphic novels, so I started reading graphic novels. I do not care for the romance genre. I started reading that because I was saying to myself, I have to hit all the pockets and all the corners. And what started to happen, kids were like, Hey, I'm gonna check out that book. And they're like, ⁓ I'm gonna read everything by this author. or like they it wasn't goosebumps, but it was it was some series. ⁓ I'm gonna read every single book in the series. So now you have a kid who has an intrinsic motivation to read, and this just by them practicing reading they're going to get better at that skill so i Think there's a lot of ownership that everyone needs to take, and we need to do less finger pointing at other people and worry about what can I do? What can I control if nobody else does anything else? And I I I so agree with you. I mean, look, we we've had the the kind of dismantling of journalism. Papers are not as prominent as they used to be. ⁓ a lot of people that are good at papers tend to have made a transition into TV and video because they've had to. ⁓ release. And I mean, here's the thing. I had to go to Bible study every week. That you talk about reading complex texts, and we we were not reading NIV. We weren't reading like we were reading like King James. Yeah. And again, I'm not trying to tell people they gotta be Christian like me. I mean, even if you're going to a mosque and you're reading, you know, the Quran or you know, Jewish the Torah, I basically it's old testament, so still the same. But like, but e these religious institutions and Bible studies and Torah studies and and and you know Quran studies like Like they forced you to have to read and not just read but also contend with this old timey kind of you know ⁓ translation of what what was English. ⁓ and it gave you a you know like ⁓ the the Hebrew says this or this or whatever. Like I didn't I I wasn't consciously processing that stuff in the moment, but I was getting introduced to complex text. I was getting introduced to taking a text that's out of time and having to update it and bring it here. There were things that were happening in in in my brain that we were being forced to do that's a part of literacy. And again, and I think when people people probably look at us and and and just for the record, I this is how this is how podcasts work, ⁓ Barnes. I know you know this, but I gotta fix something because I said it ain't much for kids to read now. Somebody's gonna go, well, actually, there There's a ton of stuff there to read. I understand there are things to read. I understand Twilight and there's a bunch of different things. What I'm saying is that it's not as ubiquitous as I feel like it once was. It's not as promoted in schools as I feel like it once was. The culture around reading has shifted. And I think it's gonna continue to shift the more that AI is introduced. And I'm gonna be honest with you. I can't even blame all this on AI because people start reading a long time ago. but it it it It it worries me the same way that I saw that people couldn't calculate things anymore. The same way that, you know, if something, you know, cost six fifty and and and they give you a ten and a dollar fifty and and and and the person is like looking at you like, wait, what is happening? I just read this other thing that I think this is coming on the heels of, and you can tell me if you feel like this is off base, but I do see a dotted line connection. That the world wants to become this cashless, that the United States wants to become a cashless society, that we're moving towards that, that we're taking away legal tender and everything is gonna be kinda automatic or on apps or from the bank or whatever the case is. I think that that happens now because we are a less numeric, literate, like a a less numeracy, a less literacy level bound society. That's why those things can happen because the critical thinking isn't there. Like it does not benefit It does not benefit us if it becomes fully, you know, ⁓ cashless in our society that we are not critically thinking. Well, Charles, what do you mean? Okay, Dr. Barnes has two sons. Let's say those sons wanted to do things around their community like I did. I used to I used to work little odd jobs to raise my own money or do things, or you know, you go help out, you know, go clean, you go sweep at the barbershop. You know, you used to be able to do that stuff because the barber could just give you $10 or $5. It wasn't tracked. It's not a tax thing or whatever the case is. But now, if everything is monitored and everything has like that kind of, you know, tail on it, you just a lot of young people and a lot of people that do odd jobs are gonna lose out on opportunities. But this is this is where this becomes a larger issue. If you can't know numbers and you can't read text, And you only jump out at things that are sensational. Your ability to critically think is dull to the nubs. Like, it's dull to the nubs. There's a study, Shante. People now are not, they don't even understand sarcasm anymore. They don't understand like when somebody is doing satire. And it's like, yo, the levels Backwards that we're taking, we're really stepping into idiocracy. And it it's it's scary. It is really scary because you know there's a lot of debate among teachers about should we use sarcasm in the classroom. And if you people have heard me talk about it, I use sarcasm in the classroom as a middle school teacher. And I know all the other sides of that ⁓ argument, but now in my work with students, I don't ⁓ because of what you just said, because they don't they don't get it, they don't get like the cleverness of It or the joke, and mind you, I'm not using sarcasm when I was teaching middle school English on day one. You know, I get a relationship with a kid, you can feel out the vibe and know where to throw it here or there, but now you just can't because they either think you're like really, really serious or they're confused, or you know, kids' feelings could get really, really hurt now because they just are not comprehending what's happening, and I think there's so much focus on just one aspect of it. So, you know, you got the science reading and everything. Everyone's talking about we gotta, you know, ⁓ you have the Soul the Story podcast ⁓ that was put out by ⁓ Hanford. I can't think of her first name right now. And I listened to that podcast, great journalistic work. However, it's more than just reading, it's listening, is writing, is speaking, it's critical thinking, and it's the merriment of that with other skills, such as with math skills. Like those two things should be coming together, and if you don't Don't have one or the other, they're not coming together. Because, like, to me, critical thinking would say, because this is like a real thing. I've gone to places where you know they used to have a cash register, now they have a POS, which is a point of sale system. So I tap my little card, and now you want a tip. But last month Came in here at the cash register, but now everything's asking for a tip. And my critical thinking skill says I'm not gonna give you a tip because nothing changed but your machine. Why am I tipping you? But People don't even take the time to think and s and use those critical things skills to be like, whoa who and then I then I think, let's say I do tip you. Does this go to you? Because I'm not at a table, you didn't bring food food to me, so I don't even know if this is just going in the owner's pocket. So those are questions I ask, but they're also taking advantage of people inability because I'm like, I will stand in your face and say no tip. Like ⁓ that whole awkwardness of h hitting the no-tip button. But people don't even think of ⁓ about that or the fact of what happens if everything is digital and you get a virus or someone's hacking something. ⁓ because there's been many times when ⁓ Zoom is down, you can't do your Zoom meetings. ⁓ Microsoft is down, you can't do this, and it shuts down jobs. ⁓ people can't work. They can't move things. They can't do things. So ⁓ the way I was raised, ⁓ my dad said you always have something on hand. But you know, it are we gonna become the the ⁓ a society where that won't even matter because I was out somewhere and I said, ⁓ there's a penny and I Still that person, like, ⁓ let me get that penny. You know what my children said to me? They said the penny is extinct, mom. You don't need that. That's what my kids said to me. The penny is extinct. ⁓ because you know they're not making any more new pennies. It costs more to make a penny than the value of a penny. This is what happened. Yeah. Well, but I that was something else that that this this lingered with me because that could be what happens to the nickel and the dime and the quarter and this physical cash. It ⁓ would mean it'll just be a cherished. I mean, and I agree with you. I think, I mean, again, all these things work together in concert, right? Math skills, literacy skills, because anything you want to do, if you want to be a scientist, you want to be a botanist, you want to be like you need these skills and you need to be able to utilize them. And again, you know, you one, you can't stop with sarcasm, ⁓ and which is a big basis of satire. Satire is a literary tool. Right. Like I remember reading Candeed in my AP English class when I was younger. And this is how I knew I wasn't ready for AP. I was, I was, I went I transferred schools and I was glad I was in there. But but what that book did with satire, like I got a whole lesson on, ⁓ the person that wrote this was being very critical in a time when you couldn't really be critical, and all they could, that's this is what they had, this is what they would use. This is how, you know, and and it survived the test of time, right? And you know, I I I've read that book again older and I have a different appreciation for it. And the the the larger point is this though, man. It's like, well, actually, one more example. I know I've been long-winded, but I'm giving you, I'm giving you all the intimate stories now. I was I was cleaning out something from a long time ago, and I found a letter from high school that a girl had wrote me. And I just remember being like, one, it was a very romantic, sweet letter, right? Like, ⁓ you know, young, young love and all that stuff. But I'm just like. I don't know if people have this skill set anymore. I don't know if, and even with like the penmanship, the pen penmanship has shifted, right? Like you could tell this person, and I used to take pride in my penmanship too. Cursive straight, lean, slant it backwards, slant it forward. But she put so much care into this letter, into her penmanship, into the words and things of that nature. Like, and I'm just like, damn, could a 15-year-old, like, 16-year-old, like actually do this now? Like, I'm really about to order my own stationery. I'm I'm I'm taking it back and doing more handwritten notes to say thank you and handwritten cards and having things because it's just a lost art. And and then you think about all the important text over time. They came from people's journals. They came from letters. They came from husbands writing their families back from from the war. I told you my parents were in and out of jail. My both my my dad used to An economy in jail. Here you go. Didn't know you was getting this, did you? But an economy in jail was there's somebody in the jail that when you write a letter, they can they'll draw or they'll do things for it so you can send it back home, right? So my mom and my family, we have all these letters for my dad was in jail with these beautiful this beautiful like writing and all that stuff and these and these images. The point that I'm making is that literacy. just 10, 20, 30 years ago was not about who's rich and who's poor. Literacy was a bare minimum. It was a bare minimum. I'm talking about convicted criminals that are like utilizing literacy to convey love and hope and like I'm coming back and even parent from behind a cell. We're in 20 years, even probably earlier than that, you're gonna be considered snooty and uppity if you can read without stumbling. I worked in a school district. I I went to school. I went to I worked under the superintendent. We had to close schools and you and people come and advocate for their schools. So they had this long line of like ninth graders come and try and read to the board. None of the kids could read, man. They couldn't read the letters asking us to save their schools. And again, I wasn't, I don't, we don't take pride in having to close the school. It a financial, fiscal thing. But the irony, which again is gonna be something that dies if literacy dies, irony. Right. But the irony of it is like that school is failing you. You are in the ninth grade, and this letter. That somebody wrote for you and had you come read, which is very basic, very second, third, fourth grade level, you can't read it. And nobody here is like, like none of us are pausing and just being like, let's take a beat. Everybody, let's take a beat. We gotta get this right. We we used to teach this in in silence. We used to teach this in secret. There used to be one person after slavery that could read. And then they had a one school, a one-room s church house school and taught everybody how to read. I'm sorry. I I I I'm getting a little I'm getting a little too amped up, but this is why I need you because it gives me license to do this stuff. But it makes me think about ⁓ the book Cultivating Genius by ⁓ Dr. ⁓ Goldie Muhammad because she gives you some some black history in there, and I think sometimes we forget that we don't need a new fangle thing. We don't need a new, ⁓ use this new strategy based on science or reading. We need to go back to what we've been doing. And in her book, she talked about belief. Black literary spaces, which were spaces where people would come together, they may read something, they may critically talk about it, go write about it, come back. And so there was like a space where we would gather, talk, and you are learning, critically thinking, comprehending together. And a lot of those spaces they don't exist because people are distancing themselves from organized religion. And with all these scandals, I understand why people are distancing themselves, but when I think about I mean, I always tell people I lived at ⁓ church because I was at church all the time. I was at church every day of week. Like, I was at every my grandmother was the organist for the church. ⁓ my great uncle used to be a minister at the church, started his own church somewhere else. So I bake age and Bible school in there. I'm on the Usher Board, I'm on the praise dance, all this stuff. Revival. ⁓ visit a revival. Were you there until one in the morning, two in the morning? Come on now. But in all Those spaces you had to read and you had to speak. You didn't get to be a child like, ⁓ I'm not doing my Easter speech this year. You're gonna drag your behind up in front of the church, and you're gonna say that Easter speech. And there's some expectations from the parent that we gave your kid this Easter speech or this script for the play, they better learn it, be able to read it. Or you're gonna be embarrassed in front of your whole town, or you'll be embarrassed. And I'm not saying that we need to shame people, but I got a hot take. Go ahead. Go ahead. I got a hot take. I do. I'm about to do my Chris Stewart, my best Chris Stewart impression. I think we gotta bring Shane serves a very valuable purpose. I think that it does. It does. Listen, you can disavow this. You don't have to agree with none of this. Look, you don't yeah, I I don't agree with the TFA take, and I actually like science and reading. You okay. You are you are not on the hook for what I say. That's why I say it's a hot take. I don't think you need to just go out and bully people. People and shame to shame. But what I'm saying is that shame serves a purpose. When I played basketball and we all had a quota that we had to meet around our athleticism or our weight, and somebody did took d let themselves go. It was gonna be a rough set of practices until you got it back where you needed to get to. I'm not saying that. Now somebody outside of that context, that's your business. But if y'all here and doing this thing, we're we're working on it. It's like, again, like if you're you don't want, hey, my mom used to say, don't embarrass this family name, okay? You're gonna take your ass in front of this church. Again, another irony that you're cursing me about telling me what I'm about to do in this church. And you're gonna make this family proud, damn it. Like you're gonna have this thing memorized. I I I get, again, I I understand where you're coming from. And you I and I know even in the recesses, you like, yeah, they gotta. Let's not even say shame. Let's say a standard. Like the standard. Like they're there standards have shifted and changed, and they are gone. And like I have been in a book club since I was n eight, twenty years old, eight, nineteen years old from college. An iteration of that book club still exists. It's a black man's book club. We I'm there every single Saturday. We're all over the country now. But we get on Zoom for two hours, and whatever this person picked, that's what you're reading. And you gotta go into it. We you can hate the book, but talk about why you hate it. Talk about this style. And again, it keeps us so sharp, and it is something that we bond over and we connect over. I run a program with kids, man, and they can't and older people, high high school, college, and they I give them simple text and they struggle with it. And and and these are kids with straight A's, by the way. That's the other thing. These are kids that have like 383 GPAs and 4.0s and 4.2s. The standard is becoming non-existent. And and and we gotta call it out. We gotta and I'm not saying that we You shouldn't be ashamed. Like a look, a lot of these parents can't read. And it's is it it happens. It's the it's the truth of the thing. ⁓ I I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. What I do think though is that you can change it. I think that we all have these magical devices in our pocket that can unlock the world, but we're choosing to not do that. And we gotta be on top of that stuff. Yeah, I think for me there's a nuance in shame, and probably because I ⁓ feel Christian, but I have some very strong views about how that whole absolute organized system ⁓ works. And there is a lot in the bigger system of like shaming and condemning people. However With you feeling some type of anxiety or feeling shame due to the consequences of your own actions. If you were given something to memorize, ⁓ because memorization, which we have done away with ⁓ in large part, is beneficial because it forces you to re-read a text. ⁓ and people forget. I remember when ⁓ we read Julius Caesar, I was a sophomore in ⁓ high school. And we had too brute, and we had to memorize a soliloquy. Well, I will tell. You after you know reading through that multiple times, I had a deeper understanding of that soliloquy that I had to end up memorizing and doing in front of my class. And were some of my classmates embarrassed? Yes, they were embarrassed because they didn't practice, they didn't prepare. So I'm okay with that. And I also think we need to be okay with honesty. ⁓ my very first literacy coach job, I went from middle school down to elementary school, interestingly enough, and I was an elementary literacy coach, and I was And I came and I left a school that was considered an A school. To a school that was an F school. And I'm gonna tell you, I wouldn't have sent my kids to the A school. So I always tell people those letters and ratings, I'm not gonna say they mean nothing. But an A at one school is not an A at another school. Those a lot of those grades are inflated. ⁓ but that's a whole nother conversation. I got a whole thing that I wrote on grade inflation. I'll share it, I'll share the report with you. It's a huge report that I did in Oakland a few months ago. But ⁓ you know. Trying to help them, and there was a looming cloud of our school could close and we don't get these scores up. So I said, We got to share this information with the kids and the parents. And I had teachers who are adamant we can't tell the kids that their reading level is low because it's gonna hurt their feelings. And I said, You think they don't know? You think they don't know they can't read? Well, we're trying to do is inform you of where you're at and tell you where you should be at and what you need to do to do your part to close the gap. And so they were just so scared to share that. information, but I'm not surprised because before that I was a middle school English teacher. And I would have, and I for quite some time I would teach kids on a two-year cycle. So I have them with seventh grade, they wanted to eighth grade. And I just remember having students in the seventh or eighth grade, that first parent-teacher conference, and I would ask kids to read in front of their parents. Because younger me, you know, would try to tell a parent that your kid can't read and they were just like, ⁓ then you just you just saying that because how are they in eighth grade? This won't be Black mama, she got all over my face. How's my son in eighth grade? And he can't read. So t answer that, answer that, answer that. And then she was like, so that pair, I had her son read, ⁓ you picked the hardest thing. So I said, okay, bet. So-and-so, go back to the bookshelf, cause I had all these books in my classroom. Get any book you want. After about the fifth book, and her son is not reading, though I'm just trying to say like I'm not trying to shame your child, but I need you to understand. And she's trying to say something to me, she starts crying. And she's like, You're the first person that has ever said to me, now Greg, I don't know if this is true or not, because you know sometimes painters aren't are as forthcoming who have really made me understand that my kid can't read. So once I got her the acknowledged that there's an issue, ⁓ then we can get to the solution. But we can't like hide and be like, ⁓ their feelings are gonna be hurt. ⁓ they're gonna be embarrassed. ⁓ because there is there are some purposes of embarrassment and shame. Yeah. It's a it's a part of life. I'm not talking about the scarlet letter, right? And that that's the wrong kind of shame. Another book that people should read ⁓ very early on in life. It's a great book ⁓ that kind of teaches you this huge moral mor morality lesson that I think we all have lost the plot to ⁓ in 2026. But I think let me tell you the the type of appropriate shame I'm talking about. Your son, one let's let's let's pick one of your sons, and he has a science test, and he knows the science test is coming. But he's lollygagging. Y'all ask him and check in if he if he if he's ready for it. He's lying and telling you he is, he hasn't done it, he's gotten A's on everything else and A's and every other and every other thing. And then he gets a D. And then he has to come home and be like, and you gotta, and you ask him, well, what happened? You said you was doing this, and you gotta come. That level of shame leads to growth. Well, what should you have done? What are we gonna do about this? How do you feel about getting this le di this grade, right? Like there, listen, honri kids become Henri adults. Lazy kids become lazy adults. You need those shame. You need that shame and those those scrapes and scraps early when the consequences are very low. Because later on in life, when it's like, yo, now you at this job, somebody gave you this job, you got an opportunity to have a really good career, and there's a presentation that you in charge of and is doing a month, and you lollygag and you wait, and then you get up there and and and you bomb. And now there are real life consequences because these things have happened. And and And there's no do over. ⁓ what I'm saying. Like that this is in school we can we can talk to a teacher and and figure something out or whatever. But at at this, you trying to grow your career and and now you've made a a grave mistake. And again, I'm just saying, I'm I'm not I'm not When we talk about shame, this this this is why literacy and critical thinking is so important. Because even in what we're talking about, there's levels and there are degrees and it is implied in our conversation. There are context clues around what we're talking about. In a few years, the people that we're talking about won't be able to cipher The the ifs and ands from what we're discussing right now, and that's what I'm talking about, right? They're gonna take it to the most extreme level of what they think that to mean. And and and again, I saw this. Now I'm gonna be funny. It really bothers me, but it's funny. So you can laugh at me. Because I this is when I knew society was about to rip at the seams. I hate, I hate, I hate. And you may do this, it's okay. I have people that I love that do this. I hate when people misuse the term literally. I I hate it so much. I hate it so much. I will be, I will leave the conversation. I am literally starving. You are not literally starving right now. That is not what's happening. You're figuratively starving. You you you're you know, you just say this for a fact, for affect, and when I and I'm okay with people making a mistake, you know when I just knew it was over? When the damn dictionary succumbed to these people. When they succumb, y'all are supposed to be the gatekeepers of literacy. What? First of all, if you're on social media, follow the Merriam Webster dictionary. That's who I was following. I love their social media accounts because they use memes, gifs to explain stuff, and I recommend it to students. But tell students especially when I'm teaching people that's gonna become teachers or teachers or people who are already teachers I already tell them that language is alive and the dictionary's job is to capture how language is being used not necessarily tell us how to use the words which is why like I remember dumpster fire became ended up getting a another definition actually getting added to the dictionary because it was being used so much ⁓ which is different Than what an actual dumpster on fire is, you know. ⁓ so Yeah, but we know that's similar. But we know that's similar. You but you know that that's simile. You know that that's like to describe. There are people today that do not know what literally means. Like this is what I'm saying. Like they do not know. And listen, I hear you. You are the librarian. This is your thing. I'm just telling you, this is my gripe. I will stand on it alone. Then you know who? I want the zealot. Give me the z give me the Marion Webster zealot, okay? Give me, give me the the the person at Reading Rainbow that's just like, this has to stop, okay? This has to sti these if if this don't mean nothing, nothing means nothing. I listen, I know it's crazy. And I'm having fun with it. It really does bother me though. It i it it truly does. I think everybody has their language ⁓ things that bothers me. ⁓ what bothers me is what people decide to not use the Oxford comma. Like I just think you I love the Oxford comma. Use the Oxford comma. ⁓ There was a dude on LinkedIn, his little bio, he rec he came up with a recommendation, but his bio said, Defender of the Oxford comma. I didn't even read the rest of this dude's bio, and I was like, request. So I am, I am, I am a d I am absolutely a defender of the Oxford comma. And the other thing, because you and I both have advanced degrees. Now that Chat G, now that now that AI is here, the M-dash is under attack. And I don't like it. Listen, I do academic writing. You don't understand how much work an M-dash does. And now people just dismiss things. I have something, I have a manuscript that I just turned in for blind copy, and I use the M-dash. And I know people are gonna be like, this is. I love the M-Dash, okay? It was my secret weapon when I was doing academic writing, okay? Like the run-on, first off, the run-on sentences that we need in academic precise writing, you don't get to you don't get to take that from me, AI. Y'all don't get to just give it to AI. ⁓ but no, this is Shantae, you you are one of my I I I You're one of my favorite people. I I I've loved this. I love doing this. I know we're winding down. Let's give some solutions because I know we had a lot on this. From your expertise, from you as a literacy coach, from you as a librarian, from you as a lover of just books and knowledge and just your demeanor, what are some things? How do we solve this problem? What are some things you want to leave people with? What can they do? I want to clarify and answer that question at the same time. I'm not against the value of research that is known as the science of reading. I just feel like that has to be coupled with the joy of reading. And I think the pendulum has swung too far. So that leads into my very first recommendation. We have to cultivate joy for reading ⁓ and cultivate stamina for reading. Because many kids they're so used to being on phones and devices where you swipe, swipe, swipe. You got YouTube shorts. They're less than three minutes. And so you have kids who can't even read for three minutes at a time. And so kids need ⁓ stamina ability. So, how do you do this? Whether you're in the classroom or at home, you can say, Hey, I want you to get this book. I'm putting on the timer for this amount of time. ⁓ maybe it's five minutes. That whole week you maybe do five minutes, and then the next week you may increase it up. Okay, we're gonna move it to eight minutes or ten minutes because you need to build stamina to give yourself enough time to grapple and get through the text. And then we have to create book joy. And one of the ways we could create book joy is that we gotta read. ⁓ there's a lot of people. Who are out who talk about literacy, and I'll ask like, what is one of your favorite books? What's a book that you recommend? They can't recommend a book, they don't have a favorite book because they're not reading, but they're out here fighting on the battlefield for everybody else to read. ⁓ when you read, ⁓ you get exposed to other ideas and concepts that may make you want to read something else. I just watched a show, a Turkish show on Netflix, and I use dubs, which my kids they they are they are subs. I am dubs. ⁓ but they mention a book in here. By a Lebanese writer that I'm now getting in English because I'm interested in what that book said. So getting out there and being exposed, and then us talking about literacy. You had so many organizations like the Book It, ⁓ you had book fairs that were focused on books. Now I'm not gonna name the company, but they come and they bring all this just junk. ⁓ Erasers that that look like a calculator but smell like a calculator. They bring books and and toys and junk. And so you have kids going to. I don't say their name. I don't, you know. Cause they used to be great when I was a kid. I have I have fond memories of the scholastic. Well, it was like a holiday when the damn scholastic catalog came to our classroom. Well, when I was a librarian, the controversial thing I did is I didn't put out the junk. So the only thing I put out were were the books. The posters and the pencils. Because teachers get really pissed off because they're like, Why did you let my student come and buy that sticky hand from the book fair? Now they're slapping it around or getting that little thing that has the little light on it. They were supposed to come to the library, go to the scholastic book fair, and get a book. Not this junk. But schools try to push that because ⁓ y you get a kickback. ⁓ based on how many books you sell, you get scholastic dollars, which you can use for something else. So again, we're sacrificing kids literacy to get over getting a kickback. And that should not be the case. So I really Why I harp so much about book joy? If kids do not enjoy what they're reading, they're not going to sit down and read. And you need them to enjoy what they're reading so they can practice the skills that you're giving them. do that phonemic awareness, smash the and chunk the words and be able to say the words, and then you can introduce them with other things because it's not one or the other. I'm not saying no Shakespeare, no Dickens, ⁓ Just whatever you want. It has to be both. But if we never let them read things that they want, ⁓ And the other thing I will say is book dates. I recommend book dates. I do them with my family. I recommend them to ⁓ actually some of my students who have kids now, which is crazy to me. ⁓ you just you go somewhere and you read. And I do this with friends. You I know you talked about letter writing. I love to I write letters to people. ⁓ so that's the thing that I do. ⁓ I've been doing it for a while. Also follow the post office online because they have some nice little things about writing. but But I just you know I just want people to understand that we have to practice we have to practice these skills. We have to open it up so people want to do the things that we all have to do it. Book dates. I lost my train of thought. Well book dates you know you pick somewhere and you just go and read. So I do it with friends sometimes. You you want to go here and just sit and read and and and we determine the terms. It could be we're going to read the same book and talk about it. It could be we're just reading different books and we're just in the same space and sharing what we're reading in each of our books. And sometimes it's reading I don't even have the the mind space to actually talk about what I'm reading. I just want to be near you or around you and you Can do that with your family. We're all come together, you know. TGIF, you know, Friday, we're all come together. ⁓ maybe for 30 minutes, we're all gonna sit down and read. Everybody grab a book. ⁓ when you're doing that as a parent, you are sending the message ⁓ to your family that reading is important because you're doing it. Because it's really hard, as I know, to get kids to do things if you don't do them. I listen, I understand that. I I I I ⁓ you just took me back when when the scholastic folks would come, I would I would try to get a a R. L. Stein book. and I would try to get like the cool mechanical pencils that you could only get from their thing. ⁓ like that was like the thing, right? And then we're also the trapper keeper. ⁓ like, you know, trapper keeper. If you had a trap, it was like having a super soaker, like you were like kind of the big kahuna if you had those things. ⁓ what was the other thing? And then the book covers, the homemade, you know, p brown paper bag book covers and and and used to design them and stuff like that, man. They don't do none of that stuff no more. ⁓ you know, I Dr. Barnes, this is all this is so much fun. I I'm so grateful for you. Please come back again soon. Maybe we gonna have to talk I don't know we can talk about those ⁓ grading practices. ⁓ maybe we can. Because I just did a whole thing on grade inflation. ⁓ great grade inflation is a is a huge thing, and I I'll just give you the skinny of it. The skinny was is that we we looked at across more than 500 students in Oakland that were high performing students, so like honor roll and above. And eight out of ten of them, we asked, you know, we eight out of ten of them thought that they were were proficient. In their gra in their classes that they got these A's in, and then we went into the data, and three out of ten of them were. And those kids were pissed, and those kids are leading that charge to change this grade inflation thing. And one of the things that they were demanding was next to my grade, ⁓ there's also what grade level I'm reading on. Because we had to reteach their parents and these students that a grade sadly does not automatically equal proficiency. ⁓ and and maybe there should be A better, you know, there there's a proficiency grading system that some people are fighting for, and guess what? They get a lot of resistance and it doesn't look like it's gonna pass in a lot of places. So that just lets you know the state of affairs that we're in right now. But Dr. Barnes, as always, you have been amazing. ⁓ and we hope that you come back to color commentary. And I don't know, man, maybe we gotta start our own little virtual, you know, offshoot of a book club or something like that. ⁓ and you know, read some things that I don't normally read. But ⁓ But thank you so much. Did you enjoy yourself? I did. Okay, that's all that matters. ⁓ thank you all for watching and listening to color commentary for Dr. Barnes. I'm Charles Cole III, and we will see you all next week. ⁓ same bad time, same bad station. Peace out.