Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Redefining Education and Building Character Through Chess and Challenges with Kevin Cripe

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Redefining Education and Building Character Through Chess and Challenges with Kevin Cripe · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Kevin Crime. Welcome to the podcast.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, thank you for having me appreciate it.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Man, this is gonna be a little bit different to
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: our normal podcast. Normally it's around health and well being,
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: but there is a link and it's through education. So
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: you are you're clearly very passionate about education and very
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: passionate about kids. Twenty seven years as a teacher, you
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: created a chess program for kids in poverty, You've written
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: three books about kids' moral development. You actually adopted three
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: kids from Guatemala, so you know clearly you're.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: You're so passionate about this area.
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: Can I just ask, just at a high level before
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: we jump in to any detail, how have you seen
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: that teaching has changed over the twenty seven years.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: That you've been involved in, for both good and bad.
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: I think a couple of things. One real quickly, there's
• 1:03
  Speaker 5: far more test in the US. I can speak to
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: the US, I don't know about the internationally, but there's
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: just way more testing. When I started teaching, we had
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: one week of testing a year in May, and then
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: then we get the results back at the beginning of
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: next year. We have June July and some bogust off
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: by the time I got done teaching. It was almost
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: a fourth of the school year was related to some
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: testing of some kind, so you're not getting as many
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: instructional days.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Like. The other big change I.
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: Saw was just in what what was parenting like? Like
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: it was a certain thing when I started, and then
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: there's this sort of shift and it like I had
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: a student fell asleep in the classroom. Second grader brought
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: the dad in. I think your son needs more sleep.
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: He goes, yeah, he staying up till two in the morning.
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: And I go, well, can you stop them, because yeah,
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: but he'll get mad at me. It won't be my
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: friend anymore. Oh I'm like, ah, that kid and it
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: isn't the kid is Kids are kids, right, they come
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: to school, they want to learn something. But if you
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: don't have structure, if you don't have rules, if you
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: don't if you're not the captain of the ship, that
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: kid's got no chance. And so that's the big shift,
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: and it wasn't all parents, but you saw a kind
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: of flavor of that. Well, I just want my kid
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: to like me, and I don't really want to have
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: structure or rules, and that that shift you saw in
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: a lot of places, and it's not.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: A good thing.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look I agree.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: I always say to you you're not You're not their friend,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: you're their parent. You're there to have the guardrails and
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: be unpopular at times, and I would agree. I have
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: noticed that thinging, Oh, you know, they'll work it out
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: for themselves. Bullshit, twelve year old doesn't work it art
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: for themselves.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just ridiculous, isn't it right?
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: No, it was.
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: It's a sad trend and hopefully it's just a trend
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: that goes away at some point.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: People go, it's a bad idea.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: But yes, what about the increased assessments? Because you say
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: exactly the same thing in Australia. I'm pretty sure I've
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: got friends in the UK. I'm pretty sure it's exactly
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: to see them. Is this a good thing or is
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: it a well intentioned thing with a lot of unintended
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: negative consequences.
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: I can say that some amount of testing is necessary.
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: We want to know are the children making progress? So
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: there's nothing wrong with that. The amount of testing is
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: absurd and indefensible. You need teachers to be able to teach,
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: and they shouldn't be teaching to a test the entire
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: They should be worried about, Okay, how they going to
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: do a test? How are you going to do it
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: on a test? It creates a really bad thing. I
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: read somewhere gun named Geer Gross said they did a
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: study of kids somewhere and they said why do you
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: go school? And the kids said because we have? Eighty
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: percent of them said because we have to. And when
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: you all you're doing is testing kids, and it's everything's
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: about the test and them being successful. The kids who
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: can be successful kind of get into it, but that's
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: about fifteen twenty percent of the kids.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: The rest of the kids.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: If all you're doing is looking at test result of
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: all that, all we see is all we value a
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: kid is their result. The rest check out. And that's
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: not a good that's not a good thing. We need
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: kids to every kid to show up to school and
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  Speaker 5: feel valued and that they can do something meaningful to
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: school that we will recognize.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: What what about?
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  Speaker 3: And the other thing I think that has changed dramatically
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: in teaching is the respect for teachers. And I don't
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: know if it's to seem in the United States, but
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: here in Australia, and I know in the UK is
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: probably even worse. Is that now a lot of kids
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: been particularly around the teenage, are just going to teachers,
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: fuck you, what can you do? You know, what are
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: you going to do? Because they know that the consequences
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: are not the way that they used to be. Is
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: that something that you've noticed in the United States as
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: well as a trend?
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: I would pull it back to say respect for adults
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: and that kids are growing up without looking at adults
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: and adults a lot of times aren't doing things that
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: you would want to respect. And so it is a
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: kind of two edged sword. But if they're not respecting
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: teachers and not respecting police, are not respecting firefighters and
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: not respecting scientists, A teachers see it sometimes, I think
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: to a large extent. In elementary school, you have control
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: over your classroom and you set the tone for children,
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: and you can earn their respect by just being There's
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: a lot of things you can do. But I do
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: think that as a societal trend, the lack of respect
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: for adults in general, but it comes from a culture
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: that says don't respect anything or anybody. I mean, it's
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: it's just not a good it's not a healthy thing.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: I guess probably teachers see a lot more of it
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: than because they've got kids, you know, the best parts
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: of the day.
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: Twenty four to thirty of them all day long. So
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: you know, it's it's what you do. And I always felt,
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: you know, when we were doing a project, success was important.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: We wanted to value success, but I also felt you
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: had to value effort and you had to value improvement equally.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: So if all you do is all you do is
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: reward the successful, again, twenty percent of them engage, eighty
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: percent of them check out, and they might be nice,
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: they might sit there and not talk or be a bother,
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: but you're losing eighty percent of your class. And so
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: when we were doing projects and doing different things in
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: my classroom, they knew all I have to do is
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: show up and give my best effort. Whatever that is,
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: mister Crap's gonna care about and value it, just like
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: the best kid in the classroom. And I'm not going
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: to be compared to the clap student. I'm going to
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: be compared to myself and what did I do yesterday?
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: And did I do better today? Am I trying? And
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: that's what mattered to me.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, I love the quote Jordan Peterson. Lots of
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: people hate him. Lots of people love him. But I
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: remember one thing I heard him say, don't compare yourself
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: to anybody else. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: And I would add to that, who you were yesterday,
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: last week, last month, last year, right. And I remember, actually,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: probably the biggest influence on our parenting, I did a
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: half day workshop with Carol Dweck, who you imagine you're
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: familiar with, and this was fifteen years ago, and how
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: I came out of that workshop completely changed in terms
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: of my attitude with parenting and in terms of how
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: we praised and not praising results, but praising.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Effort and dedication. I think that was fundamental.
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  Speaker 5: If it occurs, and if you can make that a
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  Speaker 5: school white thing. And I think Hattie don Hattie, a
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: famous educator, wrote Visible Learning for Teachers at his top
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: thing of analysis when they did all these analysis collector
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: teacher efficacy, which is are all the teachers rallied around
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: and supporting these big challenges so that kids can see
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: it and feel it. And if you have a school
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: that's in a sort of relentless challenge mode, but kids
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: are seeing they support me and care about me, and
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: we're all getting this together, that school can do amazing things.
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  Speaker 5: If all you're doing is rewarding, is successful. You can
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: walk into school and you just sense immediately eighty percent
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: of kids, seventy percent whatever are just kind of there
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: and it's not a good thing. So you really have
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: to that idea that we want to value all children.
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  Speaker 2: As much as possible. We do have rules, we do
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  Speaker 2: have boundaries.
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  Speaker 5: Schools should have rules and be able to discipline students
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: if they're not doing right. But you are if you
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  Speaker 5: are engaging ninety to ninety five percent of your kids
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: in something, you'll find you have a lot less behavior
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: problems too.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that probably is even deeper when
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: it comes to disadvantage story. So I've done quite a
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: lot of work with different schools, and some of them
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: I've worked with private schools, I've worked with public schools
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  Speaker 3: and normal or as. I've worked with public schools and
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: disadvantage stories, and particularly seeing the effort and the passion
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: of the teachers in those disadvantage stories is it's amazing
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: what some of them do. But I think it makes
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: teaching so much harder when you know you're in those
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: disadvantage stories. Particularly, I think if there's been generational unemployment
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: with the parents and all of those things and low
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: expectations kind of passed on. How have you any commentary
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: around that observations You may be completely different.
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: But I remember when we my first year, I was
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: going to take students to Nationals. That meant getting a
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: bunch of kids in California, putting them on an airplane and
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: going to the Nationals, which were in North Carolina that year.
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: And we had a school meeting of teachers and administrators
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: talk about should the school spend money to help support this?
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: And I had a Hispanic female teacher come to me
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: after the meeting and she said to me, Kevin, don't
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: take these kids to Nationals because they will only embarrass themselves.
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: And you just and I am a civil prit Teachers
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: need to be civil. So there's a bunch of thoughts
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: that just kind of went careening through my brain and said,
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: they can't say that, I can't say that, they just don't.
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: Thank you for your comment, appreciate it. But then as
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: a person, I just went, I'm going to take students
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: to every single tournament I can get them to as
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: long as I feel like this is what I want
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: to do, and I did two hundred tournaments and fourteen
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: national championships, had a lot of help from people. Sometimes
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: just paid for things out of my pocket. But whenever
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: they went trophies, they said bring them back to school,
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: show them to all the teachers, because I wanted that
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: message like these kids can do, so, these kids can achieve,
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: and and I believe in it.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I remember seeing some research many many years ago that
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: that one of the biggest determinants of the success of
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: a kid was the expectations of the teacher that and
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: whether this was was overt or are kind of sort
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: of underneath.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: It was like when the teacher expected.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: The student to do well, they actually did better, but
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: when the teacher had very low expectations of the student
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: and the student didn't do so well at all.
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, if you you know, it's it's kind of an
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: axiom in the US. You know, you treat them all
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: like they're geniuses. You don't find that they're all geniuses. Okay,
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: so that's true. There's there's some kids who aren't geniuses,
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: but you find a lot more geniuses. You find there
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: are a lot more smart kids. If you say, I
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: think there's more smart ones here, I give it just
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: a quick quick story.
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  Speaker 2: We had a you know year in my school.
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: We you know, kids would come in and like third grade,
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: it's just nine and ten years old, and the whole
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: math curriculum was based on they know multiplication facts. And
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: so none of my students do any multiplication facts coming in,
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: so like day one, they're supposed to know them all
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: and we don't know any of them. So I had
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: this program. We created it. I created it, and the
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: four week program so that every student, ninety five percent
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: of my students are gonna mass these things and we're
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: gonna have a competition at the end against upper graders,
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: like sixth graders, and we're gonna pair up students against
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: the upper grader and we're gonna have a little pair
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: like a like a match. And so the you know,
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: my best girl could do like one hundred multiplication facts
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: in forty seconds or some ridiculously low time.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And we all knew she was gonna win her pairing.
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: But she came to me the week before and said,
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: my parents are going to Disneyland and I'm going with them.
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: So I called in a group the kind of the
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: second the next kind of group, and I said, who
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: wants to be the number one seed basically wants to
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: take on the sixth graders, and it's curling.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Adriana goes, I'll do it, mister Craig, and so okay. Cool.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: So the day of the competition arrives and we go
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: to library, which means I get to prepare set up
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: the room because we have kids switching back and forth
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: through two different classrooms. And Adriana comes to me and
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: she just looks at me and she says, mister Craig,
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: I don't think I can beat those boys in the
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: sixth graders. And I said, well, you know, Adrianie, know
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: what I see when I look in your eyes? And
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: she goes, what I see greatness, And greatness isn't about
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: a result. Greatness is about the effort you put in
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: and the idea that you would take the challenge in
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: the first place. And if you keep doing that, if
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: you keep taking challenges, and if you keep trying your hardest,
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: you might get. You might not win, you might sometimes,
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: but you're going to achieve great things in life. So
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: we I go wandering off, I set up my room
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: and we switch all the kids around Adrian and happens
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: to be in the front and between two sixth grade boys,
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: because there's more sixth graders than third graders, and she
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: has to beat both of them. And I go, I
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: go over the rules and I go, ready, set, go,
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: and they turn over their paper and I hear the
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: snap and her pencil broke. I've never heard that before.
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: I've done this a lot of times, never hurt. So
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: I throw a pencil. And the best way of describing
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: what happened was afterwards, I went to the teacher whose
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: class we mixed the kids up with, and I said,
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: what did your students think about this competition? Go? They
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: really liked it, But they all came back from your
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: class and said the same thing. There was this third
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: grade girl, and when we started, her pencil broke, and
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: she still beat everybody in the classroom. And it was
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: because she knew I valued her beyond the result. She
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: could win, she could lose, her pencil could break four times.
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: I was just gonna. I cared about her, and I
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: put into her life that if you keep doing these things,
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: accepting challenges and trying your hardest and doing your best,
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: you're gonna do some great things and it won't always
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: go your way, and you know that. I know that
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: sometimes it doesn't go our way, but if you keep
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: wanting a challenge and accepting it and responding to it,
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: you're gonna do great things that we want, of course,
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: because we know our math facts by that point, and
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: went on and did really well in math that year
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: because it helps. But I just you know, that's what's
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: always my message to students is I care about you
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: more than the result, and I'm gonna and I'm gonna
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: put that into practice every day, and so just watching
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: them do amazing things.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: They're my heroes. My students are my heroes.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: I think every single parent, teacher, and coach should rewind
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: this for about two minutes to that quote that you said,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: and write that down verbatum and say it every single
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: day to every one of their parents and be one
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: of their kids, right because it epitomizes what we call
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: challenge orientation in artiness, which I'm a big fan of.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: And having that challenge orientation where you view difficulties or
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: threats as challenges and it's not about the art come,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: it's about it's about the process. I think that that's hugely,
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: hugely important.
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: It's they did you go ahead, but yeah, so you know,
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: you go.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: I would just pointing out.
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: You know, we're at a national championship in twos on Arizona,
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: and my best player was Danny. There's six hundred kids
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: in a section, and he knows if he wins the
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: last round, he's in the top five. You know, he's
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: gonna go six out of seven. And so right before
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: the round, a bunch of kids come run after me, go,
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: Danny just threw up, all right, So I go walk.
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: I never panic. I just walk up there. Hey, Danny,
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: what's going on? There's a big pala vomit. There's like
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: three thousand kids going into the main room. It's five
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: minutes before the round, and there's thirteen kids staring at me,
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: watching and listening to everything I'm gonna say. And there's
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: Danny at the big pala barf on the floor, and
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: I just go, Hey, a couple of things, Danny. One,
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: if you're sick, we have a nurse along on the trip.
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: We're going to take a doctor because that's what we do.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: We're adults, we care about children. We wanted to get healthy. Now,
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: if you're nervous, I want you to remember something. Every
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: person who's great at anything. And I went over some
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: sports athletes from the US, Michael Jordan, you know, all
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: the all the people I know, they get extremely nervous
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: before big matches. But I want you to remember this.
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: You've earned your way into doing something meaningful. Eighty percent
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: of this group, these six hundred students, have no chance
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: at winning anything. But because you've tried every day and
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: you've put in the effort, you are in this exceptional
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: place of being able to compete for the top. And
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: I said, learn to accept that and value that, and
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: you'll get comfortable with it, and you're going to find
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: you're going to get there more often. So all these
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: kids are listening to me and they call to kind
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: of turn around, walk over, and so one more thing,
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: jan So if you if you're going to throw up again,
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: aim for the floor, because nobody wants to play chess
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: on a board covered in barf. So they all laugh,
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: which is what I want. I wanted them to laugh
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: as they're walking in. And so Daddy comes out first,
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: like ten minutes after the round, and he's stoic, just
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: absolutely no expression, And I go, what happened?
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Because I won?
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: So he's going to be in the top five out
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: of six hundred and during that time, and this is
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: the most important lesson I took from this. All of
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: the students had gone over to watch him play, like
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: this kid just threw up and he's playing in a
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: championship and he won. So we had the other thirteen
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: kids all won, And I thought, when you are that
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: person who takes a challenge and accepts a challenge and
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: can make your way through it, and it might be hard,
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: it might be difficult, might you might be nervous there,
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: it might be you are inspiring others to do the
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: same thing. And that's where leaders. Leaders are formed. And
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: he became one of the first people in his family
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: to graduate from a university, specific the degree in civil
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: engineering and doing a wonderful job in Stockton, California.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: And so just.
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: Knowing that, yeah, it's gonna be hard, Yeah you just
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: barfed before the let's but I don't care if you
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: can go in and play, and I'm going to be
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: happy with whatever you do. And he knew that and
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: he won. And so those things matter to kids when
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: they're when you put them in a situation where it's
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: a challenge, you have to be the adult that says,
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: I put him in here, and I'm going to accept whatever,
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: and I'm going to value them, because if you don't,
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: then you're crummy human being. You're your bad teacher, bad parent.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: If you only value success and you get mad at
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: your kids when they failed in then you're just a terrible,
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: terrible human being, whatever capacity you are.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely, I would probably have told Danny as
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: well that barfing is just his body preparing him for
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: action and wanting to focus completely on the chest and
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: not on digesting his food.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: So it got rid of it so he could be
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: leaders or focused.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: And now we've been talking about championships, it's obviously chess.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: A couple of people will have realized that, but we
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: weren't averted about that.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Why where did the idea.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Come to you to teach this advantage students chess?
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: I remember my first year.
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: My mom is a teacher, my dad's a teacher, my
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: brother's a teacher, my sister's a Teacher's gonna. I tried
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: to do other things, but it was kind of sucked
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: into teaching. And I'm at a school where it's ninety
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: percent free and reduced lunch, which in the United States
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: is a major poverty, a high poverty, and then ninety
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: percent English language learner. Almost all the students were Mexican,
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: and so in the first year as a first year
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: teacher that you go to staffroom, the teacher's always asking
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: you who are your smart ones? And I go, well,
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: that's a pretty smart one. And sometimes they go, no,
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: that one's been retained. No, that one's not very smart. No,
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: that was not very smart. And so by the end
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: of the first year I was like, no, I think
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: these kids are smart. I want to do something. And
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: my brother is a life master in Jesse, he's twenty
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: two hundred. I played chess. I said, you know, I
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: could create a chess program my second year and I
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: went to some students who are in my first class.
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: I said, you guys want to be a chess programmer
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: and go tournaments. They had no idea what chess was.
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: They just thought like the idea of taking off and
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: going places, and the parents were very supportive, and so
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: we started it just kind of out of my reaction
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: to like hearing these kids aren't very smart. And the
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: one thing about chess almost uniquely is if you see
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: kids playing and playing it well at all, you go
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: those are pretty smart kids, right, you know, it's not
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: like rolling dice or anything else.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: If they're playing chess very chic.
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: I was able to show people there are some really
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: smart kids and just because they've been retained because they
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: speak Spanish terrible thing to do, doesn't mean they're not smart.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: And so that was kind of my entry way into
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: doing it. That's why.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: And and what do you think that chess teaches kids?
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: I mean you talk about cognitive architecture and instructional design
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: and how that plays into chess. So what is the
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: value of.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Teaching these kids to play chess?
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: Okay, there is in that cognitive architecture instructional design some
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: things I saw because there's a pay they wrote a
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: Sweller Van marrying Bore and Poss wrote this paper called
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: Cognitive Architecture and Instructural Design. As watching my students who
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: were competing against the top public and private schools in
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: the country and having to catch up to them and
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: do pretty well at it, and I was I had
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: structured some problem sets in a way that you don't
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: see most problem sets. And I say, here's what I
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: think's happening. And the late doctor Van Marrying Bore and
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: then the doctor Sweller I had some emails back and forth,
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: and they said, here's something that's called the transfer of
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: paradox and the variability effect. The transfer paradox basically says,
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: if you challenge kids, they may do worse initially on assessments,
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: but they're creating chunks of informations chunking, and then they
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: create schemas out of these chunks. And if those initial
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: chunks are more complex and you can engage them in
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: the process of learning those bigger chunks, they'll do worse
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: initially on assessments, but then on the later assessments they're
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: going to do much better. Whereas if you teach them
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: really easy stuff at the beginning, they get used to
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: only easy stuff and they can never get make that
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: it gets harder and harder to make the jump to
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: more complex stuff. And so the transfer that transfer paradox
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: is saying, literally, and you can see it in different
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: ways mentioned throughout educational literature, is saying, make it harder,
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: not ridiculously hard, and and and don't and value the
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: process of learning. If they don't get it right right away,
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: that's okay, right, but make those chunks a little bit
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: more challenging, and they're going to grow faster and there
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: and their brains are wired. There's neuroplasticity in children, and
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: their brains are wired to want a challenge in the
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: first place. Most Now you can't say all, because you
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: don't say all about anybody, but and so I just
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: learned that. And so we were able to go up
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: and take kids to terminents where they're competing. Is that
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: Google exec children, you know, the Silicon Valley families, And
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: they did just fine. They sometimes they win, sometimes they lose,
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: but it wasn't that they were out classed in any way.
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: And so that part of watching the science of how
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: kids learned was really fun watching what.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: It did for them as people.
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: And the best player I had was a girl named Julie,
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: Danny's older sister, and she had gone to a tournament
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: in Berkeley. I'd taken her up with a group and
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: his three day tournament games could last six hours. And
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: what I had done chess six hours, wow, six hours
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: six games. So you know, so chess is a game
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: where there's sections, there's E d CB, a expert master.
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: And so if you wanted to take your good students
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: and help them grow, the most you would put them
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: up a section in a tournament. So Julie was a
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: bad player, and I purposely put her up in an
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: a section. And so she went six and oh right
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: and destroyed all adult men who'd been playing chess their
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: whole life.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: She's six and hours.
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: She wins like eight hundred dollars, and we're coming out
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: of the polly ballroom. We've walked down the stairs. It's nighttime.
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: I got to teach the next day. I'm kind of tired,
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: so I'm ahead of the kids. Kids move slowly, and
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: I'm like seventy five yards ahead of the kids, and.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: This guy comes. Adult man becomes running out of the
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: polley ballroom and Julie Way, Julie Waite. He's running this
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: fast he can towards her.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: Now, all my kids knew how to fight because they
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: were surrounded by all the major Mexican gangs, so I
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: wasn't worried about their safety.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: I mean could have been, but they could take that
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: guy out.
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: But I was kind of worried, like, what is this
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: crazy guy want with Julie's fourteen year old girl? So
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: I go trudging back and he has some interaction, runs
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: off and I get there like, Hey, what.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Happened, Julie kit Bossa, what happened?
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: It's a big smile on her face, and she goes,
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: he asked me for my autograph. And she became the
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: first she became the first person in her family to
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: graduate from a university. See that that moment where she's
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: been told I'm dumb or implied through countless the ways
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: throughout her young life as I'm not gonna do anything,
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna live in this neighborhood, I'm gonna be surrounded
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: by poverty. And and then someone comes running out of
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: a ballroom to get her autograph because she's special. And
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: I was told by lots of people in the chess community, Barier,
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: that girl's a genius. She's a genius, she's smart. And
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: and so chess changed the dynamic of how those children
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: thought about themselves.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: And that was an amazing thing to watch.
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: And it happened and a lot of different times with
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: a lot of different students.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: But I just remember that smile, and I remember saying,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: he asked me for my autograph. That's so cool.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that that that is very cool and and.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: And it's really about self efficacy, isn't it and at
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: that deeper level of that than driving in her you know,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: I can be very very good at something, and that
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: that that internal self efficacy and self confidence is critical
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: in helping people to overcome obstacles and British challenge, I think.
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: Because you see that when you put a challenge in
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: front of a child, how much they can grow. And
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: then you see the examples of like the worst parents
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: in history, which is their kids are much stronger than
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: other players, and they try in some way and they
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: can you can manipulate ratings and you can do all
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: kinds of crazy things so that they can put their
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: kids down in lower sections so they can win that wordlessly,
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: so they win. And then when they get to adulthood
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: they realize the world out there is not gonna is
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: not set up for them to win every single time.
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: And those parents have done such a disservice by not
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: getting their child in competitive environments where they have to
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: are challenged and you know, of course they need support.
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: Of course they're not gonna win every time, but that
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: allows you to go out into the world and go, Okay,
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: maybe I don't get it this time, but I'm going
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: to keep going. And that idea that I'm going to
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: keep going on. I'm going to keep trying and I'm
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: gonna get this because I'm okay with me.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: It's okay. It's not the worst thing in the world.
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: And to see those parents just and a lot of
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: times as parents who are fluent and have the resources
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: to rig the system for their children, and then they
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: get to be become adults and they're just miserable adults.
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: They don't can't do anything. They as soon as something
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: goes wrong they panic again, I need.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Therapy, I need this. I can't do that.
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: You probably see that in Australia sometimes, I don't think
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: it's a worldwide concept.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's very stereotypical.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Stereotypical story of growth, growth, and fixed mindset by Carl
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Dwack Right, It's it's you just described someone you know
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: who's always trying to engineer wins, you know, that develops
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: that fixed mindset, which means that they they they don't
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: they don't walk, they don't, they shy away from challenges,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: they make excuses.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: All of this stuff. I mean, he's just it's so
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: frigging important this stuff.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: And but let's let's know, I want to widen the
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: lens a little bit because you have worked in in
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: disadvantage areas for for quite a lot a lot of
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: your career, and what's the achievement gap? So you talk
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: about this achievement gap. So first of all, let's identify
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: what the achievement gap is.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: The achievement gap.
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: Is this sort of expectation they have for students, and
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: in some schools it never closes. And so they wonder
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: why these students are continually underachieving and not closing the gap,
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: and and and and so they're they're using test scores
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: or using data, they're using all this stuff, and they
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: just see, particularly in poor areas, where they have this
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: path that students are supposed to take, and then you
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: find that they're underperforming consistently, and so that creates a gap,
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: and we wonder do we close that gap? And I
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: think you know two things should be said. One, in
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: areas in the United States where there's children in schools
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: that are high poverty, a lot of times of resources,
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: a lot of times of money aren't given. That's a
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: political argument that that's something that can be dealt with
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: later or in a separate way. But the other thing
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: is the approach to children and the tendency. And I'll
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: go back to something I said is to look at
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: those children go oh, por posito. It's a word that
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: means that it's in Spanish. Poor little child. They can't
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: do anything, So we'll just give them easy stuff. And
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: if you're a teacher and you're faced with an administrator
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: who's wanting to see good test scores, and you want
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: to teach, ah, okay, I can do rat cat matt, Okay,
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: here's something, here's a boy, and what's that sat okay,
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: And you can do all these simple things, and then
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: you can have your classic and assessmen, get one hundred
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: percent right, and then you can show your administry I
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: got one hundred percent, and and you can be a teacher. Well,
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: I want to I want to make a little harder
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: at the beginning. And you're not going to show your
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: principle one hundred percent. He's going to go, well, your
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: kids aren't doing that well in assessments, and you go,
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: but by making it harder first and putting complexity in it,
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: they're gonna do a lot better later and we can
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: close that gap. Well, he's facing his administers, the district administrators,
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: and everybody wants good test scores, and so this test
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: score driven mentality makes in particularly poorer as teachers make
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: the decision of I need to get the best scores
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: for my entire class, so I'm going to make it
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: a little bit easier for my students to do. And
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: by doing that, you in the mindset of children. You
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: do that year after year after year, you start to
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: create an inability to handle complex material and they're.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: So used to basic. Yeah, you got you see what
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: I'm saying.
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: It's the mentality like these kids can't do it, we'll
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: make it easy for them. And then over time they're
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: never able to get the complex things, and as you
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: get to fourth and sixth grade, it just that game up,
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: just it becomes almost impossible to clothes.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I totally get what you're saying.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: So, you know you're coming back to that cognitive architecture
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: and instructional design.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Is that that it is?
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: You know, it's a bit of sacrifice in the short
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: term for the long term benefits rather than looking for
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: those short term wins and taking boxes and actually cannibalizing
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: the long term development.
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: It is like I was, I was a terrible student
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: in school, and like in elementary school, I was a
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: trouble man.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: I did do bald things. And I had two parents
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: were teachers.
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: My dad a doctor in chemistry and my mom and
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: a master's in education. And so when they looked at
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: me around fifth grade, they said, you know, he's not
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: doing well in school. Let's test them for the Gifted
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: and Talented program.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: And I passed. It was a genius. Right.
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: So then they said, okay, he's not doing well in school,
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: We're going to move him into the gifted intell because
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: that's really really where he goots. And and but my
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: per were both teachers, so they thought, you know, the
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: problem is he's not getting challenged enough, so we're gonna
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: put him in.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: This situation.
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: Didn't mean I became a great student, but it put
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: me in the vin. And so many times we look
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: at these kids who are predominantly poor, and we go, well,
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: the problem is maybe they're just not very smart. That's
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: the assumption built into the equation, and so we're going
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: to scale back what they know, when in fact, for
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: sixty to seventy percent of the students, they need to
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: be challenged and they can close that achievement gap and
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: they can go on and do spectacular things and become
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: first generation college graduates. So it is the mentality of
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: a school, the collective teacher efficacy, and the mentality of
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: a district that says, we're gonna We're gonna challenge and
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: it's going to be hard. Right now, like when we
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: went to our first tournament. I take students up to
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: their first tournament, and let's say I took ten students.
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: Are gonna play three games each at this in against
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: the top students in the area, and we're going to
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: lose all thirty games, right, There'll be some close games.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: I come back.
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: Okay, guys, got a couple options. You can quit, or
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: you can get better and I go. But if you
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: get better, you're gonna win some trophies. Because I have
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: pictures of kids winning trophies and most almost all them
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: would stay in it, and then they go back and
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: they'd have that Okay, we lost everything, We're gonna keep going,
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: and then you start to see success and you start
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: to see them win, and it's that meant it's just
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: an education, that consistent mentality that I value beyond the result,
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: and we're gonna get through this thing together. And that
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: is just such a powerful message for kids that it
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: can close that achievement gap and almost any school. Yes,
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: there are resource problems that should be addressed and talked
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: about in a political sense, but that mentality, a school
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: wide mentality, can do an amazing thing.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: I am.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: You know, as you were talking about DoD it just
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: struck me that we tend to be having a similar
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: approach ye around mental health were And this is just
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: a kind of a commentary for me. But it's like
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: all of these trigger warnings and opt outs and if
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: you you know, if you're anxious, you don't need to
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: do this, and we just make it.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Easier and easier and easier.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: For people to opt out or they have them uncomfortable emotions,
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: we give them pills for it, and we're not we're
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: doing them at disservice in the long run. There's that
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: short term relief, but we're actually doing them at disservice
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: in the wrong run because they're not learning the coping
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: skills to deal with a difficult life. You know, that's
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: just just an observation for me.
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: We go back, Okay, your initial question, like, how's it
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: different when I started teaching? Maybe get one really big
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: kid in your classroom. By the time I finished teaching,
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: you'd have five or six very obese kids in your classroom.
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: And when you go out to pet you have parents
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: with notes saying, don't allow my student to do pe.
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: It's too hard for them. And so they're setting their
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: kid up to be diabetic and to do terrist. That
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: kid needs me. It needs exercise. We need kids to
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: be active. And so that was another of the big
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: Chaine just that I saw, Sorry, go ahead, yeah, no.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: No, I think we are again as I talked about earlier.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: It's well intentioned inter vengeance, but have the have a
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: whole bunch of unintended consequences down the track. Let's let's
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: let's switch tacked a little bit. I want to talk
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: about your your books. So why did you why did
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: you decide to write a series of kids books? And
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: you've got a trilogy, you got The Little Boy who
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: Cried Hoax Wolf.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: And you've got The Good War, and you've.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Got Princess Max Conquerors, Uh, Princess Max Conquers the World.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: So and talk to us about what what what one
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: was first? And why did you decide to write the book?
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: And what was the outcoming that we were looking for.
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: I was living in Bookhetty, Panama, which is a lovely
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: place to retire. By the way, if you're going to retire,
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: go to Bookhetty, Panamas. It's just an amazingly nice place.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: And it's a huge retirement place, now, isn't it. It's
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Panama is because I was reading about this. It's a
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: big plas, particularly for Americans to go and retire.
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: Well, Bulketty's like thirty four hundred square feet, so it's
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: not hot and humid. It's it's got pine trees and
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: a lot of great restaurants. So I had looked and
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: it's cheap, and so I went there and I did
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: some chest there, and I also wrote some books The
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: Little Boy who Cried Wolf and I changed it to
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: Hoax later because I figured people would get the political
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: allegory there came first. But then as I was doing
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: chess in a Bulkhetti at the library, beautiful library there,
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: and I had a bunch of Panamaning students here and
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: in walks my lone American boys by Rachel. He's about
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: nine years old. His name is Alex and he comes
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: in wearing a floor link blue dress and he said
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: he he's five minutes later, he goes, this is my
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: favorite Cinderella dress. And I was like, I top twenty
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: seven years, never seen a boy in address before. But
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: my initial reactions I don't care. It doesn't matter to me.
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: I said, that's a lovely dress. Come on in and
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: let's get going. So he came in, and the interesting
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: thing was the reaction of the Panamanian student. So I'm
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: pretty sure never seen a boy in address before, but
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: they went, well, mister Craik doesn't seem to care, so
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: we don't care. And it just was not a thing.
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: It was not a thing. And so that idea. Because
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: I was during COVID, I was in Bookketty Panama, I
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: had a bunch of time, and so I was like,
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: I think there's a story there, and I changed it
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: to basketball, and I just felt I wanted to write
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: a story about children, particularly and how.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Children change.
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: Children could be whatever they want to be, and we
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: need to love them. Doesn't mean we accept bad behavior,
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: but the primary thing is when a child walks into school,
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: walks into a classroom, or walks into life of a parent,
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: we love that child and that chually I wants to
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: wear dress to school, I couldn't care less. It doesn't
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: bother me. It bothers a serious amount of people in
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: the US. They get all hot and bothered by it.
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: But it never bothered me. And I just want to say,
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: he's just being a kid. He's being himself. He's kind
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: of brash, and he's good at basketball, so deal with it.
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: And so that's kind of how my way I came
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: to that. One the good words of the story about
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: racism in the US. And we had a slavery in
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: the US and did a lot of crummy things. But
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: I want My mom was a teacher for forty years,
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: and so one of the teachers in the stories miss Margie.
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: My mom's name is Margie, and she did in the
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: story it's mentioned, but at the end of every school year,
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: my mom would take all her second graders or first
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: graders to our house and she would have a big
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: party and she'd read stories to him. And we got
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: to go to see this is Marjorie Kreipe's house. And
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: I remember it was I went over from one school
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: to another. A teacher met me at the door and
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: she said, are you Kevin Craig, I said, I am,
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: Are you Marjorie Cripe's son, and I said, I am
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: because she was my first grade teacher and she was
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: the best teacher I ever had.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: And I remember going.
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: To her house and so those things that my mom
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: did and watching my dad and my brother and sister.
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: I wanted a story. I wanted to involve my mom
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: in a story that dealt with racis because she loved
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: every She took care of Chinese every single day that
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: she was a teacher. She told me this, and it's true.
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: She would walk by each desk and pray for each child,
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: and that she did that forty years in a row.
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: Every child in room didn't matter poor black, white, purple,
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: couldn't care less. She cared about that child. And as
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: my friend told me, you knew two things about missus Craipe.
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: You knew one, she loved you, and that is absolutely
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: she loved every child. But two, he didn't really want
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: to make her mad at you either, And I go, yeah,
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: I did that a few times as a sun and
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: didn't go really well. So but you knew those two things,
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: and she was an amazing teacher. So that story kind
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: of involved my mom, but it involves also the idea
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: of race. My three adopted children from Guatemala, they dealt
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: with race differently than I had to see how race
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: impacts them differently than impacts me, and so I wanted.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: To get that story out there too. It's kind of
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: a long answer to short question.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: But did that really sorry, did that really open your eyes?
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: Having adopted kids from Central America who were Latino? Did
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: that make you understand things a little bit differently than
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: from the other side.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: It did as.
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: They especially became older, Like my son came home and
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: he was eighteen or nineteen years old and he goes, Dad,
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: the please stop me today? What I go, Where were
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: you guys on cal State Stanislaus University Stanslas State as
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: just walking across camps?
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: I go, what were you wearing? Any gang stuff?
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Now?
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: No gang stuff? What are you drinking PEPSI.
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: Okay, okay, you were not drinking alcohol on your I
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: go okay, So let me call the president of the university.
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: So I called the probably. I go, why do you
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: stop my son? Why does this university security? What's the
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: problem with my son? And they go it wasn't us,
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: It was the Turlock Police Department. So I call the
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: Turlock Police Department, speak to the captain and I go, uh,
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: it's one in the afternoon. My son's walking across to
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: the Calcey sounds. I like, what's the problem. They pulls
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: through the report and on the phone, he says to me,
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: your son was walking suspiciously and we told him to
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: leave the campus and never come back. And I look
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: at my son. I go, dude, walk suspiciously. He goes
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: like that because he's kind sarcastic.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Fight I am, And I.
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: Was like And I hung up the phone, and I
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: thought that would never happen to me. That would not
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: have happened to me when I was nineteen. Would happened
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: to me today? That would And I watched when the
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: kids were with me, and they knew I was a dad. Okay,
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: they get treated one way, but then as adults they
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: would get treated completely, sometimes differently, and it was just
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: because of color of their skin. And I saw that happen,
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: and it made me go back to think about my
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: teaching career, which is I genuinely care about each student.
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: I've had most of them brown hair, brown. I speak Spanish,
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: but I can't I can't live their lives. I can't
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: experience that, but I can do my best to help
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: them get out of the situation of povery tonto when
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: there is a problem, to fight for them, to be
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: on their site, to write a letter of recommendation, do
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: whatever I can because I'm on their side. But I'm
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: not that person, and not being that person means I
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: don't get to understand what they go through. And I
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: want to try to empathize and care, but I don't.
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: I don't get it, and so I saw it in
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: my own children.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: I'm one of my last question here the You know,
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: I think anybody who's observing things is noticing that, particularly
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: in the US now, things are becoming more and more
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: divisive politically, and they've become very, very.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Divisive, and much more so than a number of years ago.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: And what impact do you think that is having on
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: the whole education system?
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: I think, you know, in the USA, we have what
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: we call red states and blue states, red states being
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: kind of conservative states and blue states being more liberal states.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: California's liberal, Texas kind of conservative.
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: And so you really see things impacting education by what
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: state you're in, And like with in Texas, what I
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: was told with my books, you know, particularly Princess Max
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: can't be in a library and can't be a library
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: book fair is probably not at a book fair. And
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: so then they get the Ten Commandments in the classroom,
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: which I don't I think is a bad idea. So
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: much of this political divide is sort of a it's
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: a combination of very incredibly rich people and very conservative
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: dispensational believing is evangelic who think the world's going to
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: end and want it to end, and so they have
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: a great deal of clout and and so, and the
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: other people are like, no, I don't even if the
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: world's going to end, I don't want it. I don't
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: want like this, and I don't think I think that's
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: kind of crazy. And then you put literally unlimited money
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: able in politics, and so unlimited money combined with craziness,
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: and it makes things a challenge, a challenge for school
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: because if you're superintendent, you're going to have the anti vaxxors,
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: you're going to have all kinds of stuff. You're gonna
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: have people coming to you and say we need this,
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: we win and want and then you got the other
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: side and that they're.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Crazy, we can't have this.
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: And so in certain states they go down a certain path,
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: and other states they just go, now, we're going to
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: do it this way. And the overall effect is that
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: what you see in teachers is that over a five
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: year period, and I think this is one of the
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: worst statistics when you compare to the rest of the world,
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: over five year period, fifty percent of new teachers leave.
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: Fifty percent of teachers in the US leave after five
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: years because there it is not a supportive environment. It's
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: a it's a political environment, and and that is devastating
• 46:15
  Speaker 5: for children and devastating for the education process because you
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: need veteran teachers. They kind of understand how things go,
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: and there there's wisdom there. And so you see all
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: these people getting into education for all the right reasons,
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: because they care and because they love children and they
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: want to see good outcomes, and all of a sudden
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: they get in it and it's this political quagmire and
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: they have parents come and say are.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: You doing this? Do you do it? Do you go?
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: And if you're not getting support from the principle, if
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: you're not getting an administrative support, and you've got to
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: deal with this stuff every day, then your life is
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: miserable and you kind of go, is this really what
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: I wanted? To do and then they just get out
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: and so half those teachers leave and you get teacher
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: shortages and you get people feeling it's crazy.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: So they're not particularly they're not particularly well paid in
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: the United States as well.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Is that set by the states or is that is
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: there a federal.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: No, there's no, It really up.
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: It's up to different counties and different Like I was
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: part of Modesto Teacher organization, and as an organization, as
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: a union, we were one of the highest paid publical
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: teachers and I think the United States. But you could
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: go to many places where people made half of what
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: we made, and there are other places, you know, and
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: when you get to Kentucky and you get to some
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: of the more rural places, people not I mean there
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: there are some teachers on food stamps, some teachers you know,
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: where they're just living in poverty and they're facing all
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: this stuff. And so it really goes back to the
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: district here. And I was very fortunate to be in
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: a district that had the paid teachers pretty well and
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: the retirement benefits are pretty good, and we didn't up
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: until the time I left, there was not a lot
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: of political nonsense. It's changed since I left, So it's
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: it was. It's kind of crazy in the US. And
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: the depressing thing is to see people who want to
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: help children learn and to see them go.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: This isn't about children learning anymore. This is just about craziness.
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: And they leave and you got to bring in someone else,
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: and then it's just it's a bad cycle to be in.
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: But until until we get a common sense, until we
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: can turn the temperature down. The temperature in our society
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: is way up right now, and everybody's angry, and you've
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: got to be angry. You got to be mad at
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: this person. And it's a crappy way to run a society,
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: but it's what we have right now. And can we
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: get to a point where we turn the temperature down
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: and I can look at you as my neighbor and go,
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: I don't agree with you, but can we work together?
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: And I've always said that like the church I go
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: to in San Antonio, pretty liberal group of people. They
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: help the homeless, un housed, they do a great thing.
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: The church I go to and when I'm in Costa Rica, wonderful,
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: fairly conservative group of people, a lot of Trump supporters.
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: But when it's time to help people in the community.
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: They go, we don't care who's help, We're gonna go
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: help everyone.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: And I like that.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I need to.
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: I can be around people who think differently to me
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: if we can work together to do something useful. If
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: all you want to do is yell and belly ache,
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: you're not you're gonna help solve any problems. You're not
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: making the world a better place for children. You just
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: it's a bad thing. So I don't know what's gonna
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: make it better, because it just seems that if the
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: temperatures keeps going up and up and we're not turning
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: the temperature down, there's things we could do, but nobody
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: seems to want to do.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: So.
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but I'm hoping, I hope and pray gets better.
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: I mean, maybe I'll go to Australia where.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: Things are better.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, I mean different countries are obviously better.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: I think Australia is a lot better. I mean, Finland
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: is widely regarded as the best education system in the world,
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: and I believe that in Finland, and teachers, if not all,
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: but most have master's degrees, and they're they're very well paid,
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: and they're very well regarded, and it always made sense
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: to me too, you know, rather than having having a
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: low bar to get into teaching, as is the case
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: in Australia, you want to have a higher bar, but
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: you've got to reward them. You've got to be able
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: to attract talent if you want to improve things right right.
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: Finland does an amazing thing, which is they really only
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: test students they're I think they're junior of high school.
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: There's no there's no testing from k through at least
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: junior high. There are others like in Asia, there are
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: there are Asian countries that do really well on tests
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: where they do more testing, so it's kind of a balance.
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: But Finland is really a great example of where schools
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: could go if they wanted to get out of that
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: testing cycle that that says I value the child in
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: my school by the test result they're going to give me.
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: And they don't do that, and they do a lot
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: more play, a lot more different, a lot more recent
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: and kids need to get out there. They need to
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: be active, they need projects they can work on together.
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: There needs to be discussion and talking and all those
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: things that Finland does a really good job of a
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: lot of things. If the West, if picking in the
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: US wanted to start to emulate things they do, it
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: would be a good thing.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely think I think that's a great point to
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: finish on. And Kevin, I I really love your passion
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: around education. I love the fact that you you've used
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: chess to to actually build students up and help their
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: their overall education.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: So just good luck with your books. Where do people go.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: If they want to check out your books? Buy your books?
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: Bookie is a speaker in the US around education system.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: Where's the best place to send them?
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: Okay, I'll send you the link, but it's Kevin Crepe
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: motivational speaker dot com. It's kind of a big long thing,
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: but you can spell all the words Kevin Crape. My
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: name's right there, motivational speaker dot com. Uh, it'll direct
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: you to the books. I'd love to go talk to
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: US schools, to go anywhere in the world to talk
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: to schools. It speaks English, so to me, it's it's
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: just trying to say here's how we can help children
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: and so. And if I sell books, that's fine, but
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: I'd love to do the public speaking part of things.
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of stories I got like
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: thirty forty stories about students doing amazing things, and I
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: just feel blessed. Like I said, they're my heroes. And
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: I got into it wondering what would this be for me,
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: and I realized it's how much they gave to me.
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: And so Kevin creat motivational Speaker dot com go there.
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: I'll get you the information and so hopefully, you know,
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: maybe we'll touch base again and it'd be a fun
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: thing and so anyway, maybe I'll drop down there sometime.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool, awesome, Thanks keV
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much, appreciate it.