Agent Palmer

Episode 84 features math teacher and eduverse podcaster on Unprofessional Development Mr. Mealey.

We talk about his path to teaching, education, staff rooms, grading, class size, pretty much anything you’ve heard anyone complain about, in so far as education is concerned, you’ll hear us touch on, excepting budgets, we don’t go there, but we go everywhere else.

Throughout the conversation, we discuss:

• On being a teacher
• The Eduverse
• Tony Danza, Teacher
• Fictional Teachers
• “Real Life” applicable lessons
• School and Class Sizes
• What kind of students were we
• Teacher Camaraderie
• Floating teachers
• Grading
• “These kids today”
• Teacher frustrations
• Bias in teaching
• Goals
• And much more

Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode

podpage.com/Unprofessional-Development

Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.

–End Show Notes Transmission–

–Begin Transcription–

00:00:00:44 – 00:00:31:50
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent palmer.com five R-E-A-S-O-N-S reasons to watch bad words. Tom Wolfe certainly has the right stuff to open the space race. And if you didn’t get a copy of Legends and Lattes yet, it’s been rereleased. This is The Palmer Files episode 84 with math teacher and Edu Vers podcaster on unprofessional development. Mr. Mealey. We talk about his path to teaching education staff rooms, grading class size pretty much anything you’ve ever heard anyone complain about.

00:00:31:51 – 00:00:54:56
Agent Palmer
And so far as education is concerned, you’ll hear us touch on accepting budgets. We don’t go there, but we go everywhere else. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.

00:01:11:43 – 00:01:37:09
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer, and on this 84th episode is Mealey a teacher by day and co-host of the unprofessional development podcast By night. The podcast is inextricably tied to his profession as a teacher, as he and his co-host and various guests from the Edu verse discuss education from their perspectives, that is, teachers and administrators telling war stories.

00:01:37:20 – 00:01:59:45
Agent Palmer
It’s basically like being in the teacher’s lounge. I reached out to him because I feel it’s important to talk to and elevate teachers. They don’t get enough credit and often receive more of the blame and criticism than is warranted. We, of course, talk about education and teaching, but there is a lot in here that you will appreciate. No matter who you are, you’ll hear us discuss grading and those kids today.

00:02:00:00 – 00:02:28:21
Agent Palmer
We talk about what kind of student to each of us were and how that shaped us. We also cover making the lessons real life applicable, overcoming obstacles, and perhaps we’ll even show our work as to how we got our answers. All of that and a whole lot more is coming your way shortly. But first, if you want to discuss this episode as you listen thereafter words, you can tweet me at Agent Palmer, my guest Mealey at UN Pro Cast that’s unprocessed.

00:02:28:26 – 00:02:56:33
Agent Palmer
And this show at the Palmer Files. You can find more information about the UN Professional Development podcast at pod page.com/unprofessional-development. And don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado. Class is in session.

00:02:56:38 – 00:03:05:45
Agent Palmer
Mealey, you are currently a teacher. Yes, and I feel like you should probably get I like I want to say thank you for doing that.

00:03:05:50 – 00:03:07:08
Mr. Mealey
Oh, yeah.

00:03:07:13 – 00:03:11:23
Agent Palmer
That feels like there aren’t enough people in that profession ever. True.

00:03:11:25 – 00:03:12:33
Mr. Mealey
It’s true. It’s true.

00:03:12:40 – 00:03:18:45
Agent Palmer
And you have a podcast where you talk to teachers. Yes. Or other educators, I should say. Yeah.

00:03:18:49 – 00:03:46:31
Mr. Mealey
People in the education field. We call it the edu verse. And some people are like in your normal K-12 schools and some people are professional, trainers and some people are, administrators or, you know, college professors and stuff like that. But the majority of K to 12 where people who, support K to 12 people maybe through they have like some kind of a, program or book or whatever, something like that.

00:03:46:36 – 00:03:53:45
Mr. Mealey
Yes. And of course, and I have to name drop. And the one time we had Tony Danza on the podcast, but so that’s fair.

00:03:53:45 – 00:03:56:35
Agent Palmer
That’s fair. What was the angle on having Tony on?

00:03:56:40 – 00:04:15:51
Mr. Mealey
So Tony, taught for a year in, a Philadelphia public school. So when he had gone to college before he got his big break, you know, and was, you know, he did some he did some athletic stuff. But before he, was like, you know, an entertainer, he had gone to college to be a teacher, and he’d always kind of felt the calling to do that.

00:04:15:56 – 00:04:37:07
Mr. Mealey
And so at some point when he was close to 60, he kind of had to scratch that itch. And so he went and, taught in, a public school for a year. And I happen to remember that when we started our podcast, cause I had seen him on Oprah talking about it, and the pandemic really helped out because he wasn’t doing anything.

00:04:37:07 – 00:04:59:33
Mr. Mealey
No one. And it. Okay. Yeah. And so I said, hey, he taught outside of Philadelphia or I’m from or in Philadelphia schools. I’m from the suburbs of Philly. Maybe, enough degrees of separation that I can get to Tony Danza. So I say to my Facebook, I said, hey, like, I’ve got a podcast, I want Tony Danza on who who can who can,

00:04:59:38 – 00:05:00:20
Agent Palmer
Help me here.

00:05:00:23 – 00:05:18:49
Mr. Mealey
Man. And so one person said, hey, my friend taught at the school where he taught. I’m going to reach out to her. And then she reached out to her. She’s like, hey, I didn’t really know Tony, but so-and-so was the guidance counselor then. I think she knows Tony. I talked to the guidance counselor. She’s like, hey, my job.

00:05:19:01 – 00:05:41:13
Mr. Mealey
This is funny that they gave her this job. They were worried about Tony Danza coming into teaching and parents complaining that their kids weren’t getting, like, a real education. So her job was like instead of she had the 25 kids that he had only taught one class, like they were her responsibility to continually check in with Tony, you know, check in with those kids that everything’s going right.

00:05:41:17 – 00:05:56:08
Mr. Mealey
And she said, okay. So I knew him kind of well, but since he left a few years, you know, I only did one year and it’s been a few years. I don’t really know him, but so-and-so, he knows Tony really well. They became friends. I said, okay, well, put me in touch with him, put me in touch with this guy.

00:05:56:13 – 00:06:08:28
Mr. Mealey
I said, hey, so-and-so says, you know, Tony. I said, I don’t want you to ruin your friendship with him. I said, bye, you know, asking him stuff. I said, I would love to have him on my podcast. So if you don’t mind asking him, ask him.

00:06:08:34 – 00:06:09:21
Agent Palmer
Okay.

00:06:09:26 – 00:06:27:48
Mr. Mealey
Yes, Tony. Tony’s like, sure, I’ll do it, you know? And we’re like, oh my God. Like this is really happening. And so, you know, got in touch with him. And I mean, I’ve got his I’ve got his phone number. We text not a lot, but every once in a while and send him emails and stuff like that. And he’s just he was just a fantastic guy.

00:06:27:48 – 00:06:51:13
Mr. Mealey
It’s a very, surprisingly emotional episode. It was a very, very, he’s got a teacher’s heart. He really, really got into it. And when if you ever get a chance to listen to the episode, if you’re a Tony Danza fan or a teacher fan, it is. It’s a very, interesting episode because he really, really enjoyed his experience and he really, fell in love with the kids that he taught.

00:06:51:13 – 00:06:53:26
Mr. Mealey
And it was a lot of a really big thing for him.

00:06:53:35 – 00:07:01:47
Agent Palmer
Well, this this allows me a fun segue, right? Because you were not a teacher from the get go. It’s not like you went to school for it and became a teacher. Yeah.

00:07:02:02 – 00:07:04:04
Mr. Mealey
I’m basically just like Tony Danza.

00:07:04:15 – 00:07:16:15
Agent Palmer
So. So the question is, growing up outside of the classroom, right. We saw teachers in media all the time.

00:07:16:20 – 00:07:16:52
Mr. Mealey
Yeah.

00:07:16:57 – 00:07:34:36
Agent Palmer
Do you ever go to, like, if I said, like, all right, you know, 16, 16 year old me, picture a classroom that’s not the one you’re going to, based on the media, like, right. Do you have a go to, like, oh, go and saved by the Bell or, you know, older than that. Welcome Back, Kotter.

00:07:34:42 – 00:07:58:18
Mr. Mealey
People like, it’s like people ask me like, yeah, who’s my favorite, fictional teacher and I, I’ve got I’ve got a couple. Yoda is like the standby because, I mean, I really think that, you know, just how he, he developed. And I think Mr. Miyagi is an excellent, teacher. Okay. And just how just how he would use things.

00:07:58:22 – 00:08:24:56
Mr. Mealey
So the biggest question kids ask, is when are they going to use this in real life? Right. Okay. So Mr. Miyagi is a perfect example of that. You think you’re just sanding the, you know, washing the car wax on, wax off, sand the fence, paint the fence, whatever, all that kind of stuff. And what he’s actually doing is training you to use these muscles that you’re going to use in the actual fight.

00:08:25:01 – 00:08:51:54
Mr. Mealey
Yeah. And so as a teacher, like you don’t use the quadratic formula, you don’t use, you know, 99% of what you used in school. But my job is to like stretch your brain, to have you critically thing, to have you learn how to problem solve, identify patterns, recognize things to you know, work with others, all the kind of things that we do in school that, you know, aren’t necessarily content related, but we build your brain.

00:08:51:54 – 00:09:00:03
Mr. Mealey
So that’s kind of so that’s kind of what I, I kind of think of is, developing those parts of your brain that you’re going to use in, real life. Does that make.

00:09:00:03 – 00:09:26:35
Agent Palmer
Sense? No it doesn’t. I, I, I and this comes up every time I talk to a teacher. Somebody in education, right? Yeah. I, I went to a rural school. High school? I was lucky enough to get out of there after two and a half years because I had, my second half of my junior year, I was abroad, and I came back and I got an early admit to college.

00:09:26:43 – 00:09:46:34
Agent Palmer
So by the time I finished my freshman year of college, I had my credits kind of transfer backwards. And so I ended my, you know, I entered my sophomore year with the the high school diploma, but I always like to say, like, I learned more out of the classroom, even with my higher ed than I did in the classroom.

00:09:46:45 – 00:10:04:29
Agent Palmer
And some of it was teachers. Absolutely. Like, clubs and, and that kind of stuff. And that was maybe because it ended up being more practical. Like you, I, I fell into being like, involved on my college campus.

00:10:04:29 – 00:10:04:51
Mr. Mealey
Yeah.

00:10:05:05 – 00:10:28:55
Agent Palmer
Not on purpose. It was very happenstance at the very beginning, but, like, those are skills that I still use to this day. And they’re like, oh, you’re going to run a meeting? Like, I’m like, I’m a I look because of all of what I just said. I was a 17 year old college freshman. So during my sophomore year, when I actually start getting involved on campus, I’m, I’m barely 18.

00:10:29:00 – 00:10:39:59
Agent Palmer
Yeah. You know, I’m still a kid. And they’re like, well, now you’re in charge of this club, you’re going to run a meeting. Like, what is an 18 year old sophomore going to like it?

00:10:40:09 – 00:10:40:29
Mr. Mealey
Yeah.

00:10:40:35 – 00:10:41:53
Agent Palmer
Talk about getting what is bro.

00:10:41:58 – 00:10:44:44
Mr. Mealey
How does it what’s what’s the beginning, middle and end of a meeting. Right.

00:10:44:44 – 00:11:11:44
Agent Palmer
And and you’re just thrown into the fire. Right. And I think part of it was my attitude, I probably wasn’t as open minded as I would be now. Okay. And I think that’s age 100% or maturity or whatever. But in high school, it was a rural high school. They, I don’t know, I was just if you they want you to fit in the box, they want the Stepford children.

00:11:11:44 – 00:11:30:17
Agent Palmer
They really do. Right? Like, I get to say that my high school was the, quote unquote, big high school because we were in the county seat. All right. Yeah. Yeah. And so the, it’s nothing compared to a big city. Right? Right. But yeah, for rural counties, that is the big city, F.Y.I.

00:11:30:17 – 00:11:34:19
Mr. Mealey
We have 3500 kids at my school. It’s insane.

00:11:34:24 – 00:11:35:18
Agent Palmer
Well.

00:11:35:23 – 00:11:36:35
Mr. Mealey
Here’s that’s way too many.

00:11:36:37 – 00:11:57:11
Agent Palmer
I, I, I think my graduating class is probably I’m going to get this wrong, but I think it it had to be under 300 and it was in a, in an area where it was kind of continuing to grow, like every class kind of started to get bigger. But it was in that 250, 300 range, my graduating class.

00:11:57:16 – 00:12:03:53
Mr. Mealey
Where everywhere, pretty much at least everyone knows everybody. There might be one kid’s name you don’t know, but pretty much everyone knows everybody.

00:12:03:53 – 00:12:17:16
Agent Palmer
Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. And I moved into that school district in like fourth grade. Right. So and I still kind of, you know, even even the people you don’t know, you know.

00:12:17:21 – 00:12:19:06
Mr. Mealey
Right. You know who they are, right? Yeah.

00:12:19:10 – 00:12:40:28
Agent Palmer
And I don’t know, like, would smaller class sizes have helped me? I don’t know, but bigger, you know, where I could have gotten a little c the the problem is I had class sizes that ranged from 18 to 30. So I was either extremely vulnerable and had nowhere to hide, or I didn’t know how to hide in a classroom of 30.

00:12:40:32 – 00:12:42:33
Mr. Mealey
Yeah, yeah.

00:12:42:38 – 00:12:50:49
Agent Palmer
I, I would have been a problem. Student. And that’s probably why I have so much respect for teachers now.

00:12:50:49 – 00:12:52:14
Mr. Mealey
Yeah, yeah.

00:12:52:19 – 00:12:54:49
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Can I ask if.

00:12:54:54 – 00:13:07:25
Mr. Mealey
Any of Tony Danza’s book was I apologize to all the teachers I’ve ever had. That was, that was that’s the name of his book that he wrote about teaching. You know what I mean? Because he he realized from the other side, like, oh my goodness. Like, this is, like, really a lot harder than I realized.

00:13:07:39 – 00:13:11:46
Agent Palmer
You can, you can you can you divulge, like, were you a good student, a problem?

00:13:11:55 – 00:13:38:45
Mr. Mealey
I was I was not a good student at all. I didn’t fit into the system very well. I was, you know, I was blessed with, you know, as a however you want to, like, measured, pretty good intelligence. I, I read a lot as a as a kid. Yeah. And I was always able to get A’s on tests, but, you know, I went to school in the, in the, in the late 70s and 80s.

00:13:38:50 – 00:14:01:00
Mr. Mealey
You know, I graduated high school 87 and, homework was such a huge part of what, school was back then that I would get, C’s and D’s because homework counted, like 40%. 50% of what? Some insane. So you a male.

00:14:01:01 – 00:14:16:02
Agent Palmer
You’re like, look, you and I are separated by about a decade or two, and I you’re a you’re Mike I’m your clone. Right. Like, because I had the intelligence to be able to maybe not get an AA, but it was B or higher on the test.

00:14:16:07 – 00:14:16:52
Mr. Mealey
Right.

00:14:16:57 – 00:14:36:36
Agent Palmer
But I oh my, my downfall wasn’t homework so much. I had gamed the system enough that I could do math homework in Latin. Right? Like, I, I could walk out of school with 95% of my homework done. My problem was, the math mentality that kind of spread to every other subject, which was, show your work.

00:14:36:40 – 00:14:37:11
Mr. Mealey
Yeah.

00:14:37:11 – 00:14:49:18
Agent Palmer
And it’s like I’m, I’m gathering the concept or my favorite example, which is my still the downfall of me, which is the English part, which is read this book.

00:14:49:23 – 00:14:49:58
Mr. Mealey
Yeah.

00:14:50:02 – 00:15:05:41
Agent Palmer
Okay. It’s about a guy who owns a farm. Well, what was the name of his oxen? I don’t remember, that’s a detail I don’t remember. Well, then clearly you didn’t read the material. It’s like, Hold on, wait a minute. You know, so, like, I was that stupid where, like.

00:15:05:41 – 00:15:07:57
Mr. Mealey
All those gotcha questions, right? Mean.

00:15:08:08 – 00:15:32:11
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I think that part of it, it goes back to the they wanted Stepford students and they had enough Stepford students where I was just the outlier. Right. And I think that that’s part of it. You’re podcast takes us into the quote unquote, staff room, right. Of, of, you know, a shared universe of educators.

00:15:32:25 – 00:15:46:06
Agent Palmer
And I was trying to think in preparation for this, like, have I ever either, you know, after school or in school, have I ever set foot in the staff room?

00:15:46:11 – 00:15:48:49
Mr. Mealey
Right? Yeah.

00:15:48:54 – 00:16:01:01
Agent Palmer
I can’t remember. I think maybe once, maybe once. Right. And it I will tell you that from the little I remember, it smelled of coffee and cigarets, right?

00:16:01:01 – 00:16:26:22
Mr. Mealey
Yeah. It’s it’s it’s not, very glorious. So, I mean, we have, I have a big school. We have probably had 4 or 5 different staff rooms, and some of them have, changed and, and, and and, at various times. And the PTSA blessed us at one time and then now the what used to be the staff room is used for another purpose for, for offices.

00:16:26:22 – 00:16:55:19
Mr. Mealey
And so the teachers aren’t in there. There’s guidance counselors and other, secretaries and stuff like that. And no, it’s very often like, you know, I mean, schools in general, they’re built very similar to prisons. You know, it’s it’s just very industrial furniture and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, occasionally there’s some comfortable stuff, but it’s, you know, but yeah, no, it’s, it’s full of copiers that are, possibly broken and, and all that stuff.

00:16:55:19 – 00:17:19:27
Mr. Mealey
Now, one thing that I did do this is, like, pre-COVID, I’m gonna try and bring it back is, I was in the the main office, and I’m looking and on top of, like, a, file cabinet, there’s this big popcorn machine, like, like movie theater size popcorn machine. Okay. I’m like, I said, what’s that doing there? I said, and why isn’t it in the staff room?

00:17:19:41 – 00:17:39:37
Mr. Mealey
Yeah. Oh, okay. And they’re like, well, that belongs to so and so. She had it here for we had an event and it’s just been here. And they use it sometimes at football games or a dance or something like that. I said, okay, so like how do I get it, you know, and then I had to like go through a bunch of bureaucracy of, oh, can I get permission to move this to there?

00:17:39:37 – 00:17:57:14
Mr. Mealey
And what if I do this? And then how do I get like, all this kind of stuff? And then I went and found, you know, where do you get, like, the popcorn from in my city and, and all this stuff. But after about like, I took me like literally months, you know, I mean, and finally I got it up and running and I created, Popcorn Wednesdays.

00:17:57:14 – 00:18:18:58
Mr. Mealey
And so every Wednesday you would go in the staff room and there was a different teacher every, period that had their planning period that I assigned to be in charge of popping the popcorn. You’d go in there and it smelled like a movie theater then, and they had and there was a fresh popcorn for everybody. And I tried to like, you know, try to create a sense of, collegiality through that.

00:18:18:58 – 00:18:35:11
Mr. Mealey
And so I’m trying to bring it back. I’m trying to figure out a good location in our school because our school is overcrowded, and they have taken away some of the, the common areas for teachers to just gather and hang out and chat. And they’re now like offices for individuals that we can’t go in without disturbing those people.

00:18:35:11 – 00:18:36:57
Mr. Mealey
And so, yeah.

00:18:36:57 – 00:19:15:11
Agent Palmer
So the question I have and look, I, I understand that we’re not going to solve the politics of, of education funding and we’re not going to go there. But I did want to ask from a mental capacity or even mental capacity. Yeah. When these staff rooms, okay, which, you know, as a student were off limits when these staff rooms are made into offices, do you have a moment like is there a moment in the day and a place where you can go as more students get into the classroom and into the school, whereas you can, I don’t know, break down like I immediately I right.

00:19:15:12 – 00:19:22:38
Agent Palmer
And as I say this right and it’s it’s different. I immediately think of like the early seasons of scrubs where like JD there’s.

00:19:22:39 – 00:19:23:40
Mr. Mealey
This like in the closet.

00:19:23:40 – 00:19:33:10
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Exactly. Like, is that like, if you need to break down for whatever reason or just need a moment to yourself, like, do you even have that space currently?

00:19:33:10 – 00:19:55:35
Mr. Mealey
Right now not there has been often in the past and they are in my area building new schools to take to deal with the overcrowding. And hopefully in a year or two it’s going to be, resolved, but currently not now. You can, go to your car. I guess this is an option. There’s a couple little spots like that.

00:19:55:35 – 00:20:15:05
Mr. Mealey
I know some nooks and crannies that I could go if I needed to, but they’re not exactly. My, my, my school is built like a, like a small community college, so I would have to, like, track, you know, like, okay, you know, five, seven minutes across campus and then have to plan on getting back in time for that.

00:20:15:09 – 00:20:32:51
Mr. Mealey
But that’s there’s another thing that’s happening right now. And we can if this if this is germane or not, I don’t know. Is that, so teachers have been quitting. Like I said, we’re not going to solve that problem. So, and I’ll look at your school. They had this. When I say a floating teacher, do you know what I mean?

00:20:32:56 – 00:20:42:51
Agent Palmer
I mean, I don’t think I ever had a floating teacher. I knew that there were some what I would call semi-permanent substitutes, which might be the same thing.

00:20:42:51 – 00:21:16:27
Mr. Mealey
No. So. Okay, so here’s what they’ve decided. That’s some genius came up with this. At some point they go, well, you know, Mrs. Johnson, during, second period, she doesn’t have, a class. So, why don’t we have another teacher go into their room during second period, and then that teacher could go into, Mr. boy, Mr. So-and-so’s room during third period, and they they can go across campus to this room during, you know, and so, so they finagled that.

00:21:16:27 – 00:21:31:38
Mr. Mealey
And so there are what I, I’ve been a float, I’ve floated a couple times. So where you don’t have a classroom and you and are in and out of other, classrooms, which is one of the reason why I don’t have why some teachers don’t get a break because they’re displaced during the planning period, because there’s someone coming into the room.

00:21:31:46 – 00:21:41:09
Mr. Mealey
So, what happened this year is there was a teacher that was going to be floating into my room, and, he quit a week before school started.

00:21:41:14 – 00:21:46:48
Agent Palmer
Okay. I’m okay. Hold on. We’re going to. I, I have something I want to get back to you, but continue.

00:21:46:50 – 00:21:48:38
Mr. Mealey
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Go, go, go where you want to go? Yeah.

00:21:48:38 – 00:21:52:53
Agent Palmer
The real question here is we know teachers are leaving the profession.

00:21:53:08 – 00:21:53:26
Mr. Mealey
Yeah.

00:21:53:35 – 00:22:15:05
Agent Palmer
And it’s not necessarily glamorous if you don’t have a, a passion for teaching. Like, I will tell you, a lot of the people that I went to high school with, got degrees in, like, Eazy-E and stuff because they thought it would be easy and very few of them actually remained in education in any capacity.

00:22:15:09 – 00:22:15:37
Mr. Mealey
Yeah.

00:22:15:42 – 00:22:24:59
Agent Palmer
When when somebody’s like, with the people that are leaving, is the two weeks before school starts, like common is. But you know.

00:22:25:05 – 00:22:31:01
Mr. Mealey
It’s not it’s not uncommon. And there’s people that leave sometimes mid year.

00:22:31:06 – 00:22:37:34
Agent Palmer
So not every teacher’s like I’m going to tough out the rest of this school year or semester in

00:22:37:39 – 00:22:58:26
Mr. Mealey
And I and I and I understand that as well. I, I would love them to top out the school year. Right. But I’ve had multiple people that they sometimes try to like. Okay, I’m gonna try and make it happen at the semester turn, you know, I mean, but sometimes there’s an opportunity and they’re just like, you know, I’m I’m taking the opportunity and they’ll figure it out when, I’m gone.

00:22:58:31 – 00:23:11:46
Mr. Mealey
And they weren’t really concerned about me when I was there. So why should I really be concerned about them when I, when I, when I leave and I’m like, yeah, no, I got that. You know, they feel a little bit of guilt for their fellow teachers because they know that we are going to have to pick up the.

00:23:11:46 – 00:23:12:11
Agent Palmer
Slack.

00:23:12:24 – 00:23:32:54
Mr. Mealey
Pick up the slack. There’s there’s the way it happens is there’s these are long term sub. Sometimes they do what they call something like dispersed classes. So we go okay their their class was only 25 kids. If we can find five teachers that can eat fit five more kids go cram those classes to 35 or 40. You know, I mean, to kind of do something like that.

00:23:32:56 – 00:23:53:22
Mr. Mealey
You know, I know a teacher that one year taught a double class. He just took he just they found a space that could house 60 kids, and he taught, like 60 kids one block for a semester, you know? So, okay. They gave him an assistant. So there was a there was a sub that was designated for that class that didn’t know how to teach the subject.

00:23:53:22 – 00:24:07:29
Mr. Mealey
So he’s like, you’re just going to, here’s the answer key. You’re just going to grade papers for me and keep kids on task as best as you can. But for the most part, I’m going to be the one teaching the class. So it’s it’s a lot of higgledy piggledy stuff going on.

00:24:07:29 – 00:24:13:02
Agent Palmer
So I want to get back to the floater. Did you make a space in your classroom for the floater?

00:24:13:07 – 00:24:43:00
Mr. Mealey
I generally do. I try to give them some board space where they can put, you know, things that they want to write on the board and if they want, like, you know, a shelf or a drawer or something like that, and then I, then I do that. They generally don’t want too much because you end up not knowing where your things are yet sometimes you have either like a big, like, they make these, it’s like a milk crate, but it’s got a handle that pops out like a like an airplane bag handle.

00:24:43:05 – 00:25:05:35
Mr. Mealey
Yeah. Can you carry that around? Or, like, some kind of cart with wheels that have, like, like a cart that you kind of roll around and put your, junk on that. But when I floated, I would always leave, like, I would collect up the papers, and then a kid would ask me a question and I’d set the papers down, not on my cart or in my cart, just on a random flat surface.

00:25:05:39 – 00:25:23:40
Mr. Mealey
And then you go help a kid that’s asking a question, and you go to his desk, you come back, the bell rings, you, you grab your cart or your bag and you leave, and then you get to the next room. You go, oh, where are those papers? Where does that thing, you know, let me know. Like it’s like, oh, it’s, it’s either this room or that room, you know, it’s it’s it’s wild.

00:25:23:47 – 00:25:49:46
Agent Palmer
It it feels to me. And I’ve talked to people on this podcast that have left the profession and left other professions to go into teaching. Yeah. The people that do it, generally speaking, in education, feel like, two kinds of people. A they have a passion for teaching. Yeah. Or B they can’t do anything else. So they’re stuck there.

00:25:49:46 – 00:25:51:20
Agent Palmer
Right. And it feels like, oh.

00:25:51:20 – 00:25:52:46
Mr. Mealey
Yeah, definitely. There’s both of those.

00:25:52:50 – 00:26:04:22
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I, I don’t and look I, I’m not in, in amongst the teachers. Right. Like I come from a family of teachers that are all since retired. But.

00:26:04:32 – 00:26:05:39
Mr. Mealey
You’ve heard the stories, right?

00:26:05:39 – 00:26:29:34
Agent Palmer
It feels like those are the two things that we have right now. And if you know, the people that have a passion still want to pay their bills. So that’s one of the reasons they leave. But the people that are stuck there, I mean, like as a teacher, okay. And look, I mean, parents and and students can kind of tell when a teacher is going through the motions, but can teacher like do oh yeah.

00:26:29:36 – 00:26:38:56
Agent Palmer
How do other teachers handle like, oh, that’s so and so. They’re just, you know, reading, you know, doing the same book they read 20 years ago off the same note.

00:26:39:01 – 00:27:02:25
Mr. Mealey
The sad part is the, the ones that like, I’ll be like, well, we’ll have this conversation among the teachers that are the passionate teachers. And I’ll say to them, do you think Mrs. Johnson even likes kids, you know? And they’ll be like, I don’t think she does, you know? I mean, and they like they literally hate kids, you know, and they’ll like, when they’re in the staffroom, they will be complaining.

00:27:02:27 – 00:27:19:45
Mr. Mealey
You have to distance yourself from those people that you don’t like. Pick up on that too much, but they’ll be just like, oh, these kids. And no, not at all. Like I had a conversation with this, with this teacher a while back, and we were discussing grades and grading and why this grade is that and why you shouldn’t do this grade wise.

00:27:19:45 – 00:27:41:45
Mr. Mealey
And I can get into that kind of details with that. There’s, I’m part of something called an UN grading movement, but there’s also this, issue where finally some people realized could do the math and realize that the giving zeros on assignments is really punitive and doesn’t work out fairly. And we can kind of delve into that.

00:27:41:50 – 00:28:01:29
Mr. Mealey
But this teacher was like, well, the kids today are da da da da da. And that’s what I said. If you were saying the kids today, you need to get out, you’re too old. I said, because, you know what? Can I tell you something? I said I went to school in the 80s and there were. And there were kids getting drunk in the hallway and making out in the bathroom.

00:28:01:29 – 00:28:14:41
Mr. Mealey
Back then, there were kids. I went to most farms in the in the bathroom and cheating on homework and I mean it. It ain’t nothing new. You can go back, I said. You know, it was really good. The kids in the, in the, in the,

00:28:14:46 – 00:28:15:18
Agent Palmer
40s.

00:28:15:26 – 00:28:31:13
Mr. Mealey

18. Yeah, the 1890s. Those were the good kids, weren’t they? Like, get out of here with this. Kids are kids every year. It’s just it’s just, you know, someone said to me, same girl, different dress. It’s okay. It’s the same thing. Yeah. I mean, now it’s before it was gum, now it’s phones. Whatever.

00:28:31:13 – 00:28:58:44
Agent Palmer
Same thing I, I went to school in the 90s, and I’m pretty sure there was a smoking spot like it. And it wasn’t like nobody questioned how they got them. That’s just there was a spot. It was outside. It wasn’t. You can’t smoke in third layers outside. And that was that was where you went. And yeah, I, I mean I’m the generation that got changed while I was in high school by or middle school by by like the Columbine and all that kind of stuff.

00:28:58:44 – 00:29:13:43
Agent Palmer
And it was, you know, my, my friend who was a minority who wore a trench coat, got told not to stop wearing trench coats just because, like, like, you know, he’s the nicest guy, still write poetry to this day.

00:29:13:48 – 00:29:14:06
Mr. Mealey
Yeah.

00:29:14:07 – 00:29:42:15
Agent Palmer
Wouldn’t hurt a soul, but they were, you know, optics. Right. But I want to get back to the grading thing because I, I like the idea of pass fail, although I hate it. I think pass fail is the best option we have because you either understand the material or you don’t. I have a problem. When we start working on degrees of comprehension, because I feel like that there’s so much that gets left behind in that regard.

00:29:42:15 – 00:29:44:03
Agent Palmer
Is that kind of right?

00:29:44:03 – 00:30:10:20
Mr. Mealey
Well, someone posted something posted this on Twitter just the other day. So there’s this one kid right? There’s ten assignments. Kid A gets seven out of ten, right. And does all ten assignments. Kid B does seven assignments and gets them 100% correct, but doesn’t feel like doing the other three. Both of them now have a 70 in the class like.

00:30:10:25 – 00:30:12:03
Mr. Mealey
They’re not the same kid.

00:30:12:08 – 00:30:23:58
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Or my favorite, which was like, don’t forget, the final will be 70% of your grade. All right, well, then I’ll just concentrate on if I pass that I don’t have to do anything for the rest of the year. Right?

00:30:24:00 – 00:30:43:41
Mr. Mealey
Right. And I mean, and that one blows my mind, too. Like, I now have the luxury. I don’t give a state test. There’s their state test in my school, but I don’t have to give a state test. I give that my final that I create, and I get to get to grade it. And if you get to grade it, like the state puts a crazy curve on the state test anyway.

00:30:43:41 – 00:30:48:15
Mr. Mealey
So that’s the other story. But, but I get to put whatever curve I want on there.

00:30:48:20 – 00:30:48:39
Agent Palmer
Okay.

00:30:48:39 – 00:31:05:12
Mr. Mealey
It’s like I explained to kids, I said, this is I said, this is my curve and this is this is what happened. And here’s what I do with in grading in general. And this is kind of like a thing that I’m doing kind of like below the radar, but I don’t mind talking about it. So when they take my test, I just give feedback.

00:31:05:12 – 00:31:19:19
Mr. Mealey
I don’t put a number on the test. I just say, this is wrong. You need to fix this. And they’re allowed to do corrections and and redo it. It can be like even though it’s a math test, it can we can consider it a rough draft. The first thing they head into me and they and they can change.

00:31:19:34 – 00:31:33:46
Mr. Mealey
And then at the end of the day, at some point I have a conversation with each kid and I go, hey, what do you think you should get on this test based on what you know, how you’ve done and what you’ve done. And the kid tells me, I think I should have an 85, I think should have a 90.

00:31:33:46 – 00:31:53:10
Mr. Mealey
I think I should have a 65. And I go, and that’s the grade we’re going to put in the grade book. Okay. And when I first did this, I was scared because like like, oh my goodness, what if all the kids just give themself 100 but but they don’t like if I would ask you how good a podcaster you are, what are you going to give yourself as a grade?

00:31:53:15 – 00:32:10:54
Agent Palmer
I mean, probably somewhere in the in the 70s I would guess, like, cause I, I know all the things I still like. Yeah, okay. The product is good, but I think on marketing I could there’s, you know, I don’t what’s the I don’t know what the teacher language would be like room to grow or like. Yeah, there’s.

00:32:10:54 – 00:32:13:34
Agent Palmer
Yeah. You know, so there’s always more.

00:32:13:47 – 00:32:29:07
Mr. Mealey
Right. And we always judge ourself more harshly then the outsiders would judge us, you know? I mean, if you would ask someone, hey, do you think you do you think you’re pretty or do you think you’re handsome? Do you think, oh, I’m like a this. You know, we got some narcissists out there, but in general people are going to lowball themselves.

00:32:29:07 – 00:32:46:09
Mr. Mealey
So the kids do the same thing with the grades. And I have to actually, like, explain it. But no, you look, you did this and you know how to do this and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so at the end of the, semester, I told them, I said this is I. So this is how it’s, going to go, there’s going to be a final exam.

00:32:46:14 – 00:33:03:19
Mr. Mealey
I said, but we have work together for 90 days because we’re on block scheduling. It’s just a semester. I have them for the semester. So if we work together for 90 days, you’re doing a lot of work. Me doing teaching, giving you feedback. We’ve been like figuring it out to determine that your grade is an 84 in this class.

00:33:03:21 – 00:33:26:56
Mr. Mealey
Okay. I said, why would a three hour test on Tuesday change my opinion or European? You know that I said so the lowest I will give you is your current grade. I said, if you blow the test out of the water and you get 100, I’ll put the hundred in. I said, but if you have a bad day, your girlfriend breaks up with you the night before.

00:33:26:58 – 00:33:50:33
Mr. Mealey
You know I don’t say this to them, but like, this happens like there’s kids that come in to take that. The test accounts a huge part of their grade. And, dad came in drunk from his girlfriend’s house, and, and mom and dad were arguing at, like, insane levels till three in the morning. And then this kid has to get up at seven in the morning and, like, take this test and try not to think about it, try to focus on, world history or whatever.

00:33:50:33 – 00:34:03:09
Mr. Mealey
I’m like, that’s that’s not fair. Give them, give them like the semester to kind of balance the stuff that happens in life. And so like so if you get a, if you get a a 30 on my final, I change it to an 84 and we just go on.

00:34:03:14 – 00:34:03:45
Agent Palmer
Yeah I.

00:34:03:52 – 00:34:13:27
Mr. Mealey
I, the kids, the kids actually go, so what if I don’t actually take the final and I’ve got a 90 in your class, what will, what will I.

00:34:13:27 – 00:34:17:35
Agent Palmer
Get for sure? Yeah, that’s a good that’s me, that’s me. I’m asking that question.

00:34:17:42 – 00:34:33:05
Mr. Mealey
Yeah I said, I said you get a 90. So if I don’t come to school that day you’ll put a 90 down for the final. I said, I have I lied to you yet? No, I said, I said, do you want me to actually put it in there right now? You know, like, really? I’m like, I don’t care.

00:34:33:17 – 00:34:50:29
Mr. Mealey
So this, this is that number or number of sticking in a computer. I know you’ve been trained to think that this is some kind of, like, monumental thing, but, like, do you know what you got in, 10th grade? English. Like, whether it was a B or a C or an A, maybe, but I, you know, probably not all of them.

00:34:50:44 – 00:34:53:10
Agent Palmer
Yeah. No, I mean that it.

00:34:53:15 – 00:34:54:29
Mr. Mealey
And no one’s asked you since.

00:34:54:30 – 00:35:01:16
Agent Palmer
Well, that’s the thing, right. Like I remember my first resume out of college and a college graduate.

00:35:01:20 – 00:35:01:40
Mr. Mealey
Yeah.

00:35:01:55 – 00:35:27:30
Agent Palmer
And you don’t have a lot. And you put your GPA down. Nobody’s ever like, I. I really should have done this experiment back then. I’m too old to pull it off now, but, like, I should have just made stuff up like, oh, I had a 7.0. Yeah. Nobody that nobody has ever asked me about that. Like my first professional job I got because I taught myself to code while working in retail for seven years.

00:35:27:37 – 00:36:08:30
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And that was a very applicable skill to the job I applied for and then got right. Yeah, I, I was a, I was a communicate I was a liberal arts major. Right. Like I that was so far beyond what I had went to school for and learned in school. But I still know, like as a I don’t have kids, but I’ve got friends that have kids that, you know, I hear about what they’re teaching and what they’re learning, and I just go like, I it it feels like it hasn’t like, I, I know, okay, that in my lifetime I went from, for a freshman in college, which would have been my senior

00:36:08:30 – 00:36:17:13
Agent Palmer
year in high school, having a brick Nokia, was like, just for emergencies only. And we were paying per minute by the minute.

00:36:17:13 – 00:36:18:09
Mr. Mealey
Right. Exactly.

00:36:18:09 – 00:36:22:18
Agent Palmer
And now there’s a computer in my pocket most days. Right?

00:36:22:23 – 00:36:22:41
Mr. Mealey
Yep.

00:36:22:53 – 00:36:36:08
Agent Palmer
How is it possible that your kid, who wasn’t even alive then, is having a very similar educational experience that I am? Does that frustrate teachers, too?

00:36:36:08 – 00:36:51:58
Mr. Mealey
Like, of course it does. Of course it does. And there’s, there’s so and that was part of the argument that I had with that teacher. So, my district has instituted this policy, okay. So that the that they’ve kind of like gone with it and then they backed away from it because teachers have resisted. But but they tried it.

00:36:51:58 – 00:37:10:04
Mr. Mealey
They try to put it in there. Okay. Where the lowest you could give a kid was a 50. Right. And the reason being and I’ll just do some real simple math for you, okay. If you get in a like for social studies. Yeah, you get a, you get a four and then if you get an F in English you get a zero.

00:37:10:13 – 00:37:33:47
Mr. Mealey
You average those together. Your GPA is now 2.8. Yep okay okay. So why if a kid gets a 100 on one test and then if you give them a zero on something that he doesn’t complete or, or he fails, you average lose together. He’s now got a 50. And now the kid has literally got 100 on one. I mean, his his GPA is now a zero.

00:37:33:51 – 00:37:51:55
Mr. Mealey
So why don’t and I don’t know why how we ever got on this 100 point scale that someone decided to do. I’m like, why don’t we have the four point scale for every assignment and every and every test? So the solution to that was okay, so we just make 50 the the bottom. But that’s like that doesn’t fit.

00:37:51:56 – 00:38:06:55
Mr. Mealey
But that messes with people’s heads. So like well they didn’t do anything. They didn’t get 50% right. Why would I give them a 50. Well we give them the 50 because with the average 100 and the 50 you get 75. Yeah. Yeah. But what about the with the kid who actually got a 50. That’s not fair. Because he did more than the kid who got the zero now.

00:38:07:06 – 00:38:28:15
Mr. Mealey
And it’s all this whole what I do this whole fairness thing. And I’m like, well, the 100 point scale system is not fair to begin with. I don’t know why you’re trying to, like, like, make things fair. Yeah. Right. And so then the question came like she’s like, well, I got this kid because I’m giving in 50s. And then he got like, he got like a 90 on my, test as well.

00:38:28:15 – 00:38:40:07
Mr. Mealey
If you get a 90 on your test, he obviously has a good level of mastery of the material. Yes. And then the teacher, like, well, the, the test was too easy. I said, whose fault is.

00:38:40:07 – 00:38:42:20
Agent Palmer
That? Yeah.

00:38:42:25 – 00:38:58:24
Mr. Mealey
That’s not the kid’s fault. He’s like, you know, like, well, blah, blah, blah. I was online and the kids could the kids could Google the answers. I said, well, everyone can Google every answer right now. I said, you have to create a test where the answers aren’t. Google will make them compare and contrast something or whenever they need to, whatever they need to do.

00:38:58:35 – 00:39:01:31
Mr. Mealey
And if they can Google it, then it’s not a good test question.

00:39:01:33 – 00:39:06:20
Agent Palmer
It’s it’s so weird that we’re here because I.

00:39:06:25 – 00:39:14:01
Mr. Mealey
But it’s it’s hard to create quiz test questions that are on Google. It’s much easier to go. What day was what day was the Magna Carta signed. Yeah. But but like but.

00:39:14:01 – 00:39:33:23
Agent Palmer
As an example, haven’t the answers been in the back of math books since like the beginning of time? Really? I mean, you know, you it’s hard to get away with looking at the back in the middle of a test. But like you know, the answers are back there. Yeah. So then you can ask.

00:39:33:28 – 00:39:57:32
Mr. Mealey
Well, then you can ask a question like, hey, I’ll go with the math. One in the middle is the question, you know, what do you think would happen if, the Declaration of Independence wasn’t signed or this bill was not in the Bill of rights? And just tell me what you think would happen, and then you show me you actually understand what what we’re talking about, rather than just going, what’s the Fourth Amendment or who was president in 1978 or whatever it is.

00:39:57:45 – 00:40:21:11
Mr. Mealey
And then with math, you know, you have to go, but here’s a problem. What’s a mistake someone could make when they’re solving this problem? Or something I do is, they can still Google it, but they still have to know how to do it. So I create math problems with no numbers in them. I put boxes where the numbers go, and each kid has to put random numbers in there.

00:40:21:11 – 00:40:39:04
Mr. Mealey
So. So you might put a seven and I put a nine and this kid puts a three, you know. And so instead of having like 26 you’ve got 34. And so now now each problem is different. And now I can kind of see, you know, now it’s a little less Google able, or you have to kind of just show some level of understanding to, to do it.

00:40:39:13 – 00:40:54:09
Agent Palmer
So as a math teacher, yeah, you have the thankless job of being stuck answering the question, what could I possibly use this for? Right? And and this is what what crazy teach.

00:40:54:14 – 00:40:57:36
Mr. Mealey
I teach seniors now, okay? I tend to deliver this grade, but I teach so.

00:40:57:41 – 00:41:21:06
Agent Palmer
So seniors are a little bit easier because at the very least, by then we know if they have an interest in something where the math may be applicable. Yeah, I remember, I remember, and this goes back to me being a bad student. I remember sixth or seventh grade, even when the math was still easy for me. Yeah, going, I’m never going to need this, right?

00:41:21:11 – 00:41:47:48
Agent Palmer
And I, I, I had teachers that were like, and this, this is going to get a little, soapbox for a moment. I had teachers and I’m sure you heard this too, because you’re older than me. You definitely heard this. Yeah. You need to learn math and science and history and and and English because you need to be well-rounded and I yeah, I, I kind of maintained that through most of my educational career.

00:41:47:48 – 00:42:11:59
Agent Palmer
The decisions that I made kept me well rounded. And then I got out into the world and they went, you’re not specialized in anything. Well, I’m sorry, but for the last 30 or 40 years, people have been telling me to be well-rounded and not specialize in anything. So I’m sorry, but I’m confused now. Was I supposed to, like, be like, oh, well, you know, I don’t need to be well-rounded.

00:42:11:59 – 00:42:26:40
Agent Palmer
And then they all say, well, don’t put all your eggs in one basket and blah, blah. Like I think I understand where all of it comes from. It’s so confusing when you get out there and they’re like, yeah, no, pick a thing. Like, I don’t like nobody told me to pick a lane when I was 16.

00:42:26:45 – 00:42:42:34
Mr. Mealey
Yeah. And then and in other countries have you pick a lane earlier. You know, I mean a lot of them, a lot of them do like somewhere around 15 or 16, they kind of steer you more towards a track. And so there’s, so there’s good and bad. And then I’ll, I’ll kind of I’ll kind of speak to that.

00:42:42:38 – 00:43:13:32
Mr. Mealey
So yes, I think there’s value in just us having some kind of common, you know, and I’m going to say that the word a common core, of, of things that we all can reference and know and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah. You know, and and without getting too deep into the political end of it, the real reason behind Common Core was that the colleges were saying, hey, I get this kid from, Utah, and he hasn’t read the same book as the kid from, Arkansas.

00:43:13:32 – 00:43:48:16
Mr. Mealey
And they don’t know the same math as the kid from West Virginia or or Ohio. Can we just have, like, a core of common things that people should know? Yeah. And then and then and then bring that to us. And the original idea was the core was going to be very small. There was going to be like this really small thing that everyone would get, and then teachers would have the liberality to, to add on top of that and go, okay, there’s like 30% of what I’ve got to cover during the year is this thing that everyone’s going to cover in every state for 10th graders, and then I can go and say, here’s

00:43:48:16 – 00:44:03:34
Mr. Mealey
some other things that I find or interesting, worthwhile, useful, whatever that I, that I can add to that. But then what happens is when you get a group of educators in a room and say what should be in the social studies curriculum? They can’t kill their babies.

00:44:03:39 – 00:44:03:55
Agent Palmer
Okay.

00:44:04:02 – 00:44:21:41
Mr. Mealey
Like they oh, well, they have to know this. Well, I learned this. Well, there’s they’re going to have to know this is like, no, they actually don’t have to know all of it. Like like let’s just and and they can learn it. You know, all of it has value to somebody at some point. But we don’t need to like, have like, like, but we don’t need all of it.

00:44:21:41 – 00:44:41:34
Mr. Mealey
And so, but I do think that there is value in, you know, going to the buffet and tasting everything and see what you like and then decide, hey, I’m going to go back and get some more helpings of this. And I do think that like somewhere 13, 14, 15 that, you can maybe help them guide now what one thing and we’re kind of getting back to some opportunities with trades.

00:44:41:39 – 00:45:08:30
Mr. Mealey
But what happened also so with the trades to some degree is there was implicit bias that some admins, guidance counselors, teachers had and go, oh, well, that’s the poor kid or the minority kid or whatever. Yeah, stick them in the trade school and meanwhile he has like the, the, rocket scientist, you know, brain surgeon brain.

00:45:08:39 – 00:45:29:58
Mr. Mealey
But like, because maybe he got in a fight one time or got caught in that little smoking area you were talking about or whatever, send him on to teach him how to weld or do electricity and all that. And so then they threw the baby out with the bathwater. And so we’re not doing any of that because everyone needs to be college ready now, which is silliness, which is another, you know, the way to another silly world.

00:45:30:07 – 00:45:31:42
Mr. Mealey
Everyone doesn’t need to be college ready.

00:45:31:49 – 00:45:40:45
Agent Palmer
Is is there a very prevalent us versus them mentality for the faculty versus the administration? Is that a thing.

00:45:40:52 – 00:46:09:21
Mr. Mealey
In most places it is. In most places it is, and it depends on the I mean, I happen to work for an admin body right now, which I, which I love, which understands that if you give teachers, as much freedom as you can, that they will do good things for the students, that you do not need to be on their back, that most of them are the passionate people that we talked about that will do their job, and making rules and micromanaging isn’t going to get the cranky ones to be any better at teaching.

00:46:09:26 – 00:46:11:13
Mr. Mealey
It’s just going to make them crankier.

00:46:11:17 – 00:46:23:05
Agent Palmer
Yeah, okay. All right, all right. I, I have to ask, though, you haven’t always been a teacher and you’re currently a teacher. Yes. What keeps you a teacher?

00:46:23:10 – 00:46:43:13
Mr. Mealey
Okay, so, I think I’ll kind of, like, talk about, like what brought me into the profession. So I also come from a family of teachers. My dad taught for 38 years. My brother is a teacher. My grandmother was a teacher. My mom taught briefly before she got married. I have a cousin who’s a teacher. So, as a young, rebellious youth, I think I’m doing anything but what dad does.

00:46:43:18 – 00:46:53:57
Mr. Mealey
You know what I mean? So I went out, and I just, And I. And I went to college, and I flunked out of college my first time because I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do. Yeah. And then I happened to be,

00:46:54:02 – 00:47:19:32
Agent Palmer
By the way, before I let you get too far, I. It wasn’t age, by the way. I mean, I just told you I skipped my senior year of high school. I was on academic probation after my first semester, and I spent every waking minute after that making up for it. But like, I, I think part of it, some of it might have been age and immaturity, but I think the other part of it was I didn’t have a goal.

00:47:19:46 – 00:47:37:17
Agent Palmer
Right? Right. And when you don’t have a goal and I don’t care if it’s academically or not, like think about your house like, I, I don’t have to clean up because I’m not having company. So I’m not going to or versus somebody coming over. You have a goal like and and that’s super important.

00:47:37:22 – 00:47:54:56
Mr. Mealey
Especially academically and particularly at college when like if you just want to sit around and watch TV or go hang out with your friends like there’s always someone to goof off with and always at college, you know, I mean, I was just like, I would have I had a round robin of friends of like, oh, I can’t, I can’t hang out with you tonight.

00:47:54:56 – 00:48:04:00
Mr. Mealey
I got this thing going on and I just go to the next guy or gal. We I’d be both with them and then like. And then the guy that was studying for a test the night before, he’d be free the next night. And like, you.

00:48:04:02 – 00:48:05:03
Agent Palmer
Know, there’s always something.

00:48:05:14 – 00:48:22:07
Mr. Mealey
Right? And so, but then I just. Then I flunked out of college, and I hung out with my college buddies for a while, and then I, ended up, like, getting, some, basically some menial jobs. And then I started getting into, speaking the trades. I got into trades, I got, I was, exterminator.

00:48:22:07 – 00:48:45:24
Mr. Mealey
So I at least had like a, a decent, a decent living. And I had, a neighbor, but I don’t know how she knew I was good at math. I have no idea how she figured that out or how it happened in conversation. But she knew I was good at math, and she was taking some classes at, the local community college, and she was taking like, you know, it, you know, freshman algebra, whatever it was.

00:48:45:29 – 00:49:01:31
Mr. Mealey
And she’s like, I don’t get this. Can you like you’re good at math. Can you help me out? And I’m like, I’m good at math. Yeah. Yes, I am good at math. Sure. Let’s let’s let’s, let me take a look. You know what I mean? And I and I looked at the the book, and I looked at the answers in the back of the book and tried to extrapolate.

00:49:01:31 – 00:49:15:38
Mr. Mealey
How do we get from point A to point B and looked at and I said, okay, first you take this and you do this and you need to do this. And like she had this moment like, oh my goodness, I get it. And then she says to me the words it like still so ranked me all the time.

00:49:15:38 – 00:49:40:25
Mr. Mealey
She’s like, you explain that better than my teacher. And like I just you know I give you know, I’m like, I don’t like preach a lot, but I but I’m Bible. I mean, I’m a I’m a Christian. I believe that like there’s like, you know, like a purpose for my life. And at that point I really felt like a call and as if, like, oh, I’m supposed to be doing this like, I need to, like, get in the classroom.

00:49:40:38 – 00:49:56:04
Mr. Mealey
And it was a long road until I got in the classroom because I had, like, along the way. I got married and had kids. And, I was having to pay bills, and then I had to, like, I got a, associate’s degree, and then I had to go online and online learning when I first went was not what it is now.

00:49:56:04 – 00:49:57:36
Mr. Mealey
It was it was really it was.

00:49:57:44 – 00:50:09:06
Agent Palmer
You overcome a ton of obstacles to get exactly where you didn’t expect or want to be. Way back when the first decision could have been made easier easily.

00:50:09:06 – 00:50:24:52
Mr. Mealey
Yeah, yeah. No, no, it’s funny because I there’s a guy that literally graduated high school a year before me that is, retiring this year, you know, and he’s and he could have retired last year. He was he was just. Where is he? Just he’s just like bean bean milk. And I’m 53 years old and I’m like, oh, I got like 12 years.

00:50:24:52 – 00:50:39:46
Mr. Mealey
I can’t retire from a long or a long time here. If I’m going to, if I’m going to, you know, that’s the one benefits. If you’re thinking about going to teaching there, there is some really good retirement benefits. You know what I mean? Particularly if you were I mean, I’m in North Carolina up north. They’re they’re even better.

00:50:39:46 – 00:51:00:05
Mr. Mealey
My dad is is been collecting 98% of his salary for 20 years. Okay. But but as a retired person. So there’s some really good, stuff when it comes to retirement. But that’s but you have to slog through a lot of years of being in a classroom to get there. So some, some of those teachers also like you saying that they’re aren’t leaving because they’re like, five years away.

00:51:00:05 – 00:51:07:47
Mr. Mealey
I’m eight years away from, you know, being able to pull, you know, X amount of dollars a month for, for sitting on my butt. And so, I can’t change.

00:51:07:47 – 00:51:13:44
Agent Palmer
Now, but you don’t seem to have the handcuffs. So what’s keeping you in the profession?

00:51:13:48 – 00:51:35:51
Mr. Mealey
I love kids, and I just. I love I love seeing learning happen. I really do like that. That my neighbor that did that, I like, you know, I mean, I had I had a kid today and, one of the ways I explain teaching is, you got taught to ride a bike. Or have you ever taught anyone to ride a bike?

00:51:35:56 – 00:51:37:38
Mr. Mealey
You have much recollection of that experience?

00:51:37:38 – 00:51:41:58
Agent Palmer
I don’t, but I do know I’ve taught people things.

00:51:42:02 – 00:52:04:22
Mr. Mealey
Okay. So. Well, when you teach someone to to ride a bike a kid, right? Yeah. That when you first start off, you normally have your hand on the seat, you know, and your hand on one of the handlebars, and you’re just getting them to kind of pedal, right? Yep. And then you kind of let go of the handlebar and you just hold onto the seat and you kind of guy that.

00:52:04:35 – 00:52:24:16
Mr. Mealey
And then at some point you let go and they they get it. They but what they normally you’re going to crash as well. Right. And then you pick them up and you do it again. And so I try to find that balance because like I don’t want to be like I want to like make them struggle and I want them to.

00:52:24:29 – 00:52:40:29
Mr. Mealey
So to wiggle a little bit and like almost feel like they’re going to fall down or fall down and then help them get back up and then but then that joy when they, like, realize that, oh, you let go of the like the, the seat a while back. I’ve been like riding a bike for like a block now you know.

00:52:40:29 – 00:53:03:19
Mr. Mealey
Oh my God. And that and that and that joy. So when if you can find that sweet spot to where they call it productive struggle and you see their brain working really, really hard and you gotta find that tension because at some point they’ll give up. Yeah. And that’s you gotta know. Well, ask him another question. Give them a hint, ask a leading question.

00:53:03:30 – 00:53:19:34
Mr. Mealey
How do we like what do you notice. Like what do you think happened to the four or what should we do. And it depending on the the the aptitude of the kid you change how your how your questions are worded and how much details you give them. And so each kid can kind of get like a unique experience like that.

00:53:19:41 – 00:53:34:36
Mr. Mealey
But seeing that and then seeing them, the power that they feel when they’ve mastered, even if it’s something they’ll never, ever use in their in their life, it’s just like when you you solve the Wordle, if you do the Wordle, it’s like, oh, I feel like, I feel like I did something, you know what I mean? Like, congratulations.

00:53:34:36 – 00:53:56:48
Mr. Mealey
It’s it’s whatever the word is today. But like, you didn’t really do anything. I mean, you did something, but you don’t need that skill. But there’s a there’s that endorphin release and you get to see that endorphin release and then you get the endorphin release and it’s just it’s just a lot. It’s just a lot of fun. And as well, now that I’ve learned, talking about the content and the curriculum, I’ve realized if I don’t get to everything, it’s okay.

00:53:56:52 – 00:54:19:13
Mr. Mealey
There’s like 25 things I’m supposed to teach them. They’re only going to remember to anyway like ten years from now. So, so, so if if I throw out three of them because we’re having a we go off on a tangent, we want to learn something different or we want to have a conversation about something that’s going on in their life or the, or the school or the world or whatever.

00:54:19:18 – 00:54:38:54
Mr. Mealey
Hey, we can, we can, we can do that and let’s, let’s just let’s just have a let’s just have a good experience and, and let’s do life together. In addition to like learning, learning the math, I mean, I have some liberty there. I can’t just do that every day. We’re just going to just talk about our lives. I have, you know, I’d get in trouble if I did that, but if we get off on somewhere, we can go somewhere for a little bit.

00:54:38:59 – 00:55:00:10
Mr. Mealey
You know, talking to a kid today like her, her cousins died in a car crash and or an uncle have been going through and talking about the fact that her grandmother took them on a cruise to try and help them get over the fact that they just buried there. They’re buried there. Two sons, like a week ago, you know, I mean, that’s like, you know, like, this is kid care about.

00:55:00:14 – 00:55:30:16
Mr. Mealey
Well, this kid care about the math today, you know what I mean? Like, and if I’ll tell them, like, if if you need to, you know, if you just need to put in headphones and zone out, like, do that today because like, like I get that, you know, I mean, whatever math we get done will get done and you’ll and you’ll be okay if you need to like, go like, you know, cry in the hallway, just go in the hallway, you know?

00:55:30:21 – 00:55:55:51
Agent Palmer
So I can sit here with my microphone and say that teaching an education needs an overhaul. And some of you may agree and some of you may not. I can say that teachers are underfunded. And again, some of you will agree and some of you may not. I can say that our classrooms are too rigid. Our schools need to embrace change and that universally education needs a higher priority not only from government officials but from parents and families.

00:55:56:04 – 00:56:17:31
Agent Palmer
But that’s not what I want to do here. What I want to say is that I appreciate teachers more now than I did when I was, quote, in the system, unquote. And while my reading habits are partly to expand my horizons, so is this podcast and the projects I take on. I have met some amazing people as the host of this podcast and the lessons that I have learned on Mike.

00:56:17:33 – 00:56:54:23
Agent Palmer
I’ve shared with you, but I’ve also learned lessons from my passion projects and consulting gigs as well. Everything everywhere is a potential learning experience, and if I had had that mindset when I was in the classroom as a much younger man, then perhaps I would be miles ahead of where I am now. But it has taken all this time and all of my experience for me to sit across the microphone from a passionate teacher like me, to not only thank him for what he is doing, but to want to understand more of where he is coming from so I can help others understand as well as humans.

00:56:54:25 – 00:57:20:40
Agent Palmer
Our legacy is what we leave behind, and often that is knowledge and another generation that will hopefully stand on our shoulders. Teachers play such an important role in that linear timeline of humanity, that we often think of it only in terms of grades and achievement. We shouldn’t. Education isn’t about grades, it’s about understanding. This is something that I have fought for since I was in the educational system.

00:57:20:40 – 00:57:49:34
Agent Palmer
As a Disenfranchized youth, but it hasn’t stopped. Understanding concepts and others is vitally important to our daily lives, and often that understanding comes from teachers, maybe not even in the educational system. Perhaps it’s a brother, a sister, a friend, a boss, a mentor, or a parent who can teach you something. Thank those that have taught you. And don’t forget that if you have something to share, you are also a teacher.

00:57:49:39 – 00:58:18:53
Agent Palmer
We are all teachers and we are all students. Class dismissed. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 84. As a reminder, all links are available in the show notes. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can tweet me at Agent Palmer, Mealey at UN Pro Cast that un proc ASC and this show at the Palmer Files.

00:58:18:58 – 00:59:22:04
Agent Palmer
You can find more information about the UN Professional Development Podcast, of which Mealey is a co-host at Pod page.com/unprofessional-development email can be sent to this show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com. And remember your home for all things Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.

00:59:22:08 – 00:59:24:42
Agent Palmer
All right. Mealey, do you have one final question for me?

00:59:24:47 – 00:59:52:35
Mr. Mealey
Yeah, sure. So since we’re like, you know, talking about education and that’s my, my craft, I will, I will, I will go that direction. So, I’m giving you a blank check. Okay. All right, that and you are going to use that to, fix education. I’m going to say you can’t. Salaries is too easy. Okay. So you can’t just say I’m going to I’m just going to like, give every teacher like, double their salary.

00:59:52:48 – 01:00:07:28
Mr. Mealey
But you have to apply that, blank check in the education field. What are you going to do to, make the education field better than it is for for teachers and or for students or America? Well.

01:00:07:33 – 01:00:41:11
Agent Palmer
There’s a part of me that immediately thinks about technology and technology inequities. Because I, So my high school was the county seat, which meant that not only were we one of the bigger towns in my county, but we probably had the most money in my county. I’m just speculating, but it’s not based on the people I met afterwards that were in the surrounding, school districts.

01:00:41:16 – 01:01:13:59
Agent Palmer
Yeah, we we had all the money. And so I think that’s part of it, but I really think that, you know, finding a way to pay school boards with and this is a very important thing with term limits, because I think back to my educational experience, which albeit is colored by a few events, that I’ve talked about on this show previous.

01:01:13:59 – 01:01:45:51
Agent Palmer
But for the most part, I think that the school board is where a lot of these decisions get made. And if you could a pay them and B make it term limits that churn is so important. The school board that was in charge of my high school experience was incestuous at best. By and by legitimate blood relations.

01:01:45:51 – 01:02:08:22
Agent Palmer
I’m not even talking like by marriage. I’m talking like like, oh, that’s the superintendent, sister. Oh, yeah. And and they sit because they’re related. They sit on these boards forever. Which means if you want something done and so-and-so’s against it, like, oh, we should put tablets in front of every kid. Oh, but that’s not fair to the to the rich kids who already have a tablet or whatever.

01:02:08:27 – 01:02:32:22
Agent Palmer
You know that. Take your pick if they have one thing that they’re against. And it might seem progressive in a general sense, and they’re against it, they’re there as long as they want. And I feel like if you pay the school boards and add term limits, there’s an impetus to get something done instead of just sitting there for 10 or 20 years.

01:02:32:36 – 01:02:38:46
Agent Palmer
And and if I can’t pay the teachers, I’m paying the school board and I’m setting term limits.

01:02:39:01 – 01:02:59:18
Mr. Mealey
Okay. I don’t know what I, I think that’s not a terrible idea. I’ll say also, particularly in smaller, districts like you’re talking about with the school boards and I’ve, I’ve talked to multiple teachers who have this, if you get on the wrong side of the school board just because you, like, parked in their spot at a church or, you know, you you it.

01:02:59:18 – 01:03:00:17
Agent Palmer
Can be the littlest thing.

01:03:00:17 – 01:03:11:40
Mr. Mealey
You you failed their kid because their kid was a moron or didn’t do his, didn’t do his work. Then you as a teacher are going to have, a rough time as well. And they, they,

01:03:11:44 – 01:03:12:10
Agent Palmer
I think.

01:03:12:10 – 01:03:21:58
Mr. Mealey
They go people in and attack people sometimes too, with, with, unjustifiably. I’m sure there’s some times they come after some people who who need to be out. But but I’ve heard too many horror stories.

01:03:21:58 – 01:03:45:44
Agent Palmer
I think that’s the other thing, too. It’s, it’s the school board. I think that term limits kind of allows a few of those. Well, my daughter just graduated from college. I’ll let her be a substitute and get the first position open. Well, guess what? In four years you won’t be on the school board anymore, and you won’t be able to protect your daughter who’s just an idiot or whatever.

01:03:45:44 – 01:04:13:38
Agent Palmer
Like. And I’m not trying to cast aspersions, but that kind of stuff, especially on a smaller scale in this in a rural area that happens so much. And I think the school board has so much power. What if you don’t have that churn, if they’re people sitting there for six, eight, ten years? Yeah, even if they’re great, you’re going to get rid of more of the bad stuff than you’re going to lose to the good, I think generally so.

01:04:13:43 – 01:04:38:24
Agent Palmer
But you know, that’s my answer to your question. I still think we need to pay teachers more like I, I still want that to be part of the equation. But if not, you know, having an active board that gets paid and has a, a light at the end of the tunnel, like this is not just a cushy seat for however long you feel like in public speaking.

01:04:38:28 – 01:05:03:02
Mr. Mealey
Paying teachers. What I tweeted this out about, I don’t know, about six months or so ago, I crunched the numbers and I think it was as like, maybe, a 10th of the of the of the federal, a 10th of a percent of the federal budget. And you could give every teacher, A5K, tax credit.

01:05:03:07 – 01:05:04:10
Agent Palmer
Yeah. I, I.

01:05:04:12 – 01:05:26:11
Mr. Mealey
And then and like boom, every other teacher has, every teacher has like that’s $5,000 a year. Is, is a is a game changer for a lot for a lot of teachers, you know, I mean, and then you have that extra $5,000 and because the federal government, teachers, those people and some people like, oh, and federal government, central government doesn’t pay much of our salaries, it’s it’s state and local to pay, the teacher salaries.

01:05:26:11 – 01:05:43:53
Agent Palmer
I also think that when you get into that kind of math, it’s where and this is no fault of yours. So I don’t want I don’t want to cast aspersions, but like, it’s where I feel like the average American fails. Math is like numbers get put in front of them.

01:05:43:57 – 01:05:44:30
Mr. Mealey
Yeah.

01:05:44:35 – 01:06:04:58
Agent Palmer
That may seem big. $1 billion, right? Or or 85,000 or you know, 3500, whatever. There’s big numbers that get thrown in front of them and look, I think part of it, it’s not just math, part of it’s just basic intelligence. Yeah. The intelligent person is going to go 1 billion out of what, 1 billion out of Jeff Bezos?

01:06:04:58 – 01:06:25:08
Agent Palmer
He doesn’t care 1 billion out of every American. Now we’re talking about a dollar a person, $2, you know, $0.50 a person like, you know, I mean, like we we there’s a there’s a level of comprehension when these things get put out that like it scares off most people. And I think, you know, some people want them dumb.

01:06:25:12 – 01:06:36:16
Agent Palmer
That’s a whole oh they fall away. But I yeah, but you all deserve a raise and, and and, that’s. Yeah. Just there should be no argument there.

01:06:36:21 – 01:06:58:18
Mr. Mealey
Yeah. All right. So now I’ll, I’ll kind of follow that up. Okay. So now, so now we put in the school board. So let’s say there’s still a little less money. How do you think we should handle the kids who are both. And so you think financially or outside the box what you think should happen? Yeah.

01:06:58:22 – 01:07:27:59
Mr. Mealey
You as a kid. There’s a kid that will take half a year to learn, what’s normally taught in a year. And another kid that it takes a year and a half to learn. Yeah, well, it’s taught in a year, right? Yeah. So now how what what should we what should we do about that? Should we just have them in the same class and just teach, teach to the middle or, and then pass the kid that doesn’t even learn it or what do you think we should do?

01:07:28:04 – 01:07:57:16
Agent Palmer
I don’t know, and I’ll tell you why. Because from my personal experience, I was I was when I moved, okay. I moved after my third grade year and into fourth grade year. Yeah. I was getting ready to be tested for the whatever the gifted program happened to be where I was. And because of my lack of grades, my first year in my new school, they didn’t give me the gifted test.

01:07:57:21 – 01:08:23:10
Agent Palmer
A lot of that had to do with politics. More than anything, it had to do with the fact that they weren’t engaging me. You’re not getting my best if you’re not engaged, and I think part of that and it comes from, you know, I’ve said it before, like I’ve had maybe, less than a handful of teachers who have really taught me something high school, college, middle school through my entire life, my entire education.

01:08:23:10 – 01:08:25:17
Mr. Mealey
Most of it was you just you just figured it out on your own.

01:08:25:19 – 01:08:35:36
Agent Palmer
Or I just I was just I did the best I could to be the Stepford child they wanted. Yeah, and that was it. So I got my 70 and I moved on some.

01:08:35:41 – 01:08:44:08
Mr. Mealey
Some, some areas. If you just compliant, then they then they will just. Okay. Well he’s he doesn’t know it but he’s doing his work all the time so I’ll give him a B.

01:08:44:08 – 01:09:11:35
Agent Palmer
So I, I think part of it is the entire system probably needs to get blown up if I’m being honest, because I think, you know, the example you gave is I could easily fall into either category, depending on the teacher you put me in front of. Like, you could literally ab test me. If you could clone me and put me in two different classrooms and depending on the teacher, I’ll get it in six months or I’ll get it in 18.

01:09:11:35 – 01:09:35:00
Agent Palmer
Right? Yeah. And I think that teachers need to be allowed to teach like you need, like it’s not even about test scores when we’re talking about comprehension. Not everybody is equal. My mother, I always try and get her to listen to my podcast. My mother is a visual learner. Okay. So because it’s audio only, my mother kind of struggles through some of these episodes.

01:09:35:09 – 01:09:53:26
Agent Palmer
Yeah, and I understand that. But how are you going to handle my mother, who’s a visual learner if you don’t have any graphics or anything visual when you’re teaching her? Right. So does that make her dumber than me? Because I can get it to words? No, it makes us different. And so,

01:09:53:31 – 01:10:12:22
Mr. Mealey
And by the way, also this is that just like we you have the kid who’s, like, short until, like fourth grade and then ends up being, like, the tallest kid in the class in 10th grade. It happens with brain development as well, you know? I mean, this kid that’s like struggling to read on, like a fourth grade level in, in fourth grade.

01:10:12:28 – 01:10:28:31
Mr. Mealey
Yeah. Also in seventh grade, something, you know, like the Grinch’s brain grows three sizes that year. And all of a sudden he can, like, do stuff. And it’s like, okay, you know, now, like, he’s good off kids all the time. They go, this used to be I’ll teach them something that they used to that they should have from a while back.

01:10:28:31 – 01:10:41:52
Mr. Mealey
And they’ll be like, why is this so easy now, this was like so hard when I like, tried to learn it two years ago. I’m like, because your brain has grown, dude. Like like that’s what happens. I said you weren’t ready for it then. And that’s okay. You’re ready for it now.

01:10:41:57 – 01:11:06:01
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I, I think it’s, I think the other piece to this, which I’ve, I’ve only seen bad examples of, but it’s one of the reasons I bring it up is there’s a social development that happens in school that can get stunted or mutated based on moving a kid faster than they belong. Yeah, or holding them back. Right? Yeah.

01:11:06:01 – 01:11:26:38
Agent Palmer
And I do not believe I think that most of the time, the only places it’s handled dwellers on TV because they can afford to have the conversation, which is, should we hold Jimmy back? He might, you know, learn more, but maybe we should put him up because that’s where his friends are, and he might do better with some help around him.

01:11:26:51 – 01:11:46:32
Agent Palmer
That’s a conversation I feel like is only on TV. It it doesn’t actually happen necessarily that way I wouldn’t know. But like that’s a conversation that is also a piece to all of what we’re talking about right now where it’s like, well, what do you do? What do you do? This kid’s been with these same ten kids that have helped him along.

01:11:46:32 – 01:12:03:54
Agent Palmer
And as a teacher, or if especially in the same school district, you can see like, oh, well, Timmy’s always helping Bobby, but they always get by. Well, what happens when Timmy can’t? Or Bobby’s not like, what do you do? And are you going to break that up? And that’s on you like that?

01:12:03:59 – 01:12:23:10
Mr. Mealey
Well, I, I ask the question, if there’s no right answer, I don’t think I asked the question sometimes I’ll have a, I’ll talk to a teacher. Sometimes it’s like a newer teacher and they’ve got this kid and it’s this kid that is just they’re doing their best, right? And their brain isn’t developing very well. And they are they are, struggling.

01:12:23:15 – 01:12:50:08
Mr. Mealey
And I go, okay, so if you fail him and he takes your class again next year, do you think he’ll pass that time? And they’re like, no. I’m like, well then like it. Move them along, I guess. Just move along. I had this conversation with an admin one time. He was helping. And this is what happens. The conversation that’s happening, honestly, is this one.

01:12:50:13 – 01:13:09:28
Mr. Mealey
There was this kid. He was like, I mean, he was in fights. He was getting high on campus. He was, you know, doing whatever he could, you know, and they had a special ed teacher. He wasn’t in special ed but was special ed teacher. They just had some free time going around to each teacher, writing down all the things that and these agreements with these teachers.

01:13:09:28 – 01:13:31:17
Mr. Mealey
If Johnny does X, Y, and Z, then you’ll pass him. Yeah. And I go to the admin, I go, this is one of the most like bizarre things. Yeah, yeah. Like all these other kids that like actually want to learn and they’re not getting this individualized thing. He goes, listen, he goes next year the middle schools are going to send me five more.

01:13:31:20 – 01:13:50:01
Mr. Mealey
Him. He goes, I need, I need to make room. I can’t have six of them on campus. I gotta get one going. You know. And that’s what the middle school is doing. The middle schools like, listen, we keep this kid, he’s going to be getting these other kids high and having sex with the sixth grader and beating up the other one.

01:13:50:06 – 01:13:54:03
Mr. Mealey
Like, we need to get him out of here and make him a high school’s problem. No.

–End Transcription–

This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).