A student might ask a thought provoking question and they're told, no, we can't talk about that right now. And they get the door slam shut in their face. what type of world do I want my daughters and my son to grow up in? I don't want them to live in a world where the color of their skin dictates whether they are allowed to read a book honestly or not. And so in this, the public school system, it's revealing itself more and more as to be a place to train people to fall in line. Hello and welcome to awake at the wheel. So before we jump into today's topic, I'm going to introduce it by telling a bit of a story. So since I was in grade ten, so since the age of 15, To Kill a mockingbird has been my favorite book. It was the mandatory reading back in grade ten, and then I read it a few times subsequently. After that. What I loved about this book was I felt that Harper Lee did such a beautiful job of balancing some really serious topics like racism and sexual assault, and then balancing that with the innocence of childhood. Summertime in family. So back in grade ten, like I said, this was the mandatory reading and we did a whole unit on it and that was that. After that, we had a subsequent unit where we had to select a social issue and do a project on it. So I was so inspired by what I read in To Kill a mockingbird, but I want to do my project on racism and racism wasn't a topic that was just suddenly new to me and interesting to me. Back in the eighth grade, I did my speech on this because it was something that wasn't really talked about back then. So when I presented this topic to my teacher, I shared with her, like, I was very intrigued by learning more about it. And this book gave me just different insight and different understanding of it. I want to dig deeper into it. So her response to me was, well, Melanie, don't you think we talked about that enough in the last unit? And I was just kind of taken aback and shrug my shoulders and said, okay, I guess I will pick a different topic. So I share this story to illustrate how far the other way. Now the pendulum has swung, with regard to this topic in schools and the way that it's approached and so on and so forth. So the following news clip really, really caught my eye. We're going to share this in just a second. But as soon as I saw this, given that this is my favorite book, I really thought, you know what? We have to have a further discussion about this. So let's watch the news clip. Okay. So no joke. I still actually have my original copy from grade ten. Back when I could actually see text that small. And I don't remember it being a big deal, per se. Even when we read it in class aloud, it was just. This is the context of the book, but nonetheless. So today we are joined by Matthew Mastronardi. Hi. Thank you so much for being with us today. Hey, it's great to be with you all. I'm really thankful for the invitation. So on this podcast, we have had other teachers who have found themselves in situations like yours where they were trying to uphold what was best for their students, helping them think critically, and so on. So we're so excited to have you here to have this discussion and learn more about, what inspired you to, I think, do the right thing in this situation. But that's just my opinion. So to begin, can you tell our listeners a bit more about you, maybe about your career and what brought you to this point? Yeah, so I grew up in Spokane, Washington, which for anybody doesn't know, you know, Washington State, not the capital. And that's in like the northwest corner. And I'm a little closer to the Idaho border. Well, that's kind of where I live. And I grew up here, and I went to college to be a teacher, and I eventually graduated with my teaching degree. And I entered the military shortly after graduating from college. And so there you in the video, you saw a picture of me in my uniform. I was in the Air Force for four years, and when I got out after four years, I jumped right back into teaching, moved, moved back home. And at this time I had a wife and kids. And so I've been teaching for the last four years. I taught for one year in elementary school, and then I did three years at the high school, which is where I just left. And yeah, I've always strive to be a genuine, authentic teacher who doesn't necessarily shy away from meeting genuine student curiosity with real context and my philosophy on teaching is like the classroom is supposed to be a place of guided exploration, to learn critical thinking, and sometimes, you know, the subject matter is important, but so is helping form young minds to learn how to think and not to stifle creativity. As so often happens in public school. A student might ask a thought provoking question and they're told, no, we can't talk about that right now. And they get the door slam shut in their face. And it's just, I don't want to be that type of teacher. And so, you know, I respect my subject matter, but I also respect my students enough to trust them with the truth. I think that's important to trust these high schoolers with the truth and help them form their own opinions about things, but not to hold anything back. And so that's what I've always tried to do as a teacher. So you said the word context. And I think, at least in, in the reading that I've done about this incident, we'll call it, I think context is missing. There's actually one headline that I read yesterday, and I it was obviously from an, un reputable source, but it said that master already read To Kill a mockingbird aloud on a, at a Juneteenth celebration. I'm like, I don't think that that's at all happened or even close to it, but, just an example of context severely missing. And I think maybe a certain narrative trying to be pushed about you. So I'm wondering if you can talk a bit more about the context. And you, you sort of touched on it, but the context within which you decided to make this decision to read the book as it's written. Yeah. So I teach Spanish. I actually hadn't seen the headline that you were referring to. I and that's funny. But I'm a high school Spanish teacher, right? My job is to teach Spanish and help kids understand concepts of language. And it was towards the end of the day and I was pacing around the room because the students, we had done the lesson, now they're working on an assignment and there's a lot of side chatter that goes on. And students are and I'm always walking around and sometimes I listen. And as a teacher, you get really good at hearing conversations all across the room. Like, I can pay attention to 3 or 4 conversations at once. And I heard these girls talking about the book To Kill a mockingbird, which they're assigned to read in their English class. And the part where I jumped in, I heard them saying that they have to skip over a naughty word. Everyone knows what word it is, and I just said, really? You have to skip over the words. I kind of jumped into their conversation a little bit calmly, but I expressed my disagreements because I love literature. I have a deep respect for historical books. And, you know, I don't think you should undermine the historical context by only reading the parts that make you comfortable or comfortable. And so I just expressed that sentiment and, you know, telling them that the author chose each word intentionally and you distance yourself from the meaning when you decide to only read the parts you like. Well, and it really started a a candid, spontaneous, but I think really important conversation. And yeah, I went off script a little bit, but I think the the lesson was important, and I didn't intend to take the rest of the period to, to talk about this, but it was just a short little thing. Well, a girl asked me, well, Mr. Mastronardi, if you were reading the book, would you say the word? And I said, yes. If I was reading To Kill a mockingbird, I would read every word. And then a student, a boy student who is is one of my favorite students, actually, he had the book, he opened it and he went to the page and he brought me the book and he pretty much said, okay, do it. And the entire class was staring at me, and I felt like I was past the point of no return, because I had just sort of talked up this game that we should read books as written and I, I don't know, I just felt like I had to do it because these kids are growing up in an in an age in their society that tells them that words are inherently evil, words are inherently dangerous, and or you're only allowed to read this on certain conditions, which that's anti educational. So I felt like I had to display a little bit of courage to just sort of dispel this myth that, oh, well, if you're black you can read it or if you're white you can't. And I believe it's the duty of a learner to engage with the text. Honestly, you're not a racist. Which that was the opinion of some of the students. But, and a lot of them just didn't really have an opinion formed because they're sort of caught in this tension. They don't feel like they should have to censor themselves. They know they're not, prejudice, but they also fear the consequences. So they're sort of in this tense and there's this tension. And I just had to display for them that, no, you can read this. And I told them, look, you should never call anybody this. This is that would be, despicable. But I'm reading from a book. And so I read a passage that, in be in full context. And, you know, I, I said the, the, the, the word that shall not be said, right. The N-word. And I'm not going to say it here, obviously, because we try to maintain decorum. Yeah. And then that video was recorded and there was a video and it circulated around the school, and it made its way up to the school board. And I eventually lost my job over this. Do you think it would have been made as as big a deal if it wasn't recorded? That's a good question. I think it probably would have. I'm actually glad the recording exists, because you can tell I'm reading from a book, and I can't dispute that. If there was no recording, you might be able to, you know, it's like a game of telephone. And now it's he said this, she said this? Oh, he didn't read it from the book. I was there. And so while it's unfortunate that the recording caused all of this, at least there's like an official record, I guess you can say. And yeah, so it's, there's like a it's a double edged sword. I think. So. All right. I'm sure you have a ton of questions. I'll sit back for a minute and let you jump in. Well, yeah. I mean, you know, the sad thing is that we've watched over the last number of years, both in the States and Canada, teachers getting away with indoctrination because the actual indoctrination, harmful indoctrination, going on words, implanting ideas into people's minds, whereas you were trying to, you know, literally, give a lesson on language. Right on. Right. So, I mean, it just it that's why we had to have you on. I mean, it's just it's reprehensible that this is what happened. So, you know, I'm not going to go off on a rant. I will ask you a couple of questions. I've seen you in a few interviews. So as of first of all, I don't know, have you heard of or have you reached out to Warren Smith and the Secret Scholars Academy. Have you heard of that interview? Yes. So I'm glad you. Warren Smith, he has been. I got to meet him. Not in person, but we've just actually gone back and forth because he lost his teaching job. We had him on this podcast. Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. And I got to know his story a little bit, but he made a video about my an article that was written about me. Oh, okay. I haven't checked it out yet. Okay. Yeah. And I didn't know who he was before that. But I had a friend who sent me a video, and I learned who Warren was. And about his story he had he did a live stream with me on his X account, and so and we've gone back and forth. I interviewed him and yeah, I, I'm really fond of Warren and he's been a great person to get to know. It's funny, when I saw your story, I thought of Warren right away. So that's cool. Yeah. Okay. So I mean, is it premature or you're not able to talk about whether you would be you know, thinking of teaching through that, channel? You know, that medium, the Secret Scholars Academy? Yeah. So I have, I have a YouTube channel, and I've been trying to grow it. Okay. I don't know if there's opportunity to work with other platforms and other people teaching. I am trying to have a, you know, grow my media presence a little bit to, you know, talk about some of the underlying principles. And, you know, I've been able to meet a lot of great people and it's opened a lot of doors, but I'm just sort of taking it one day at a time. I do want to continue helping people learn. That's one of the things I think I'm gifted at. But yeah, I, I'm open to a lot of different things at the moment. Okay. And so being open. So what recourse do you have I mean have you exhausted all the, you know, avenues. Are you still fighting and like is, you know, are you untouchable right now. What's going to what do you foresee happening. Yeah. So I am leaving every option on the table. I have some really smart people looking at my situation, so I guess I'll just leave it at that. You know, there's two, two potential fights to pick. I guess, with the union who I feel like did not represent me fairly and actually got in my way to actively resist me. And then you have the district itself, who I think there's a case that can be made that they retaliated against my viewpoints on a free speech issue. And so there's angles, you know, but at some point you do have to let the past be the past. And so I've been really trying to pray over it and deliberate, like when, when do you let this story and this, this what happened to me sort of just move on to to newer and bigger and better things. So after some really qualified people are done looking at this, I think it'll probably be time to just continue in something new. Okay. And if I can just one more thing Molly before. Yeah. Yeah. So you know from what I know about the story in the way you described it now there are some people who they want to take, they want to create a situation, use as a launching pad, use it to glorify themselves or bring attention to themselves and others will capitalize on a situation. Okay. In this case, I mean, it sounds quite clearly that, you know, it was a, let's say, a conflict or a sorry word here. Just a number, a sequence of events that happened that brought you to where you are. It wasn't premeditated. You weren't trying to make a stand aside from in that moment, trying to make a teaching point. Right. So when things like this happened, when if you said, you know what, this day I'm going to do this, I know there's a risk, but I'm prepared to take it. Whatever. That's one thing here this is. So I'm going to say unjust, unwarranted, unfair. Right. And you had the, you know, the rug pulled out from under you in what I consider to be just a reprehensible way, especially, as I said, given how so many other teachers are able to get away with, you know, just reprehensible conduct. Right. So and I'm saying this as someone who is not religious, but I know you have talked about your faith. You mentioned it a little while ago. And Malini is a person of faith. So do you. Would you say that you're like, what role would you say your faith, your family, your upbringing, all these different important factors. What role do they play in giving you the, you know, the persistence and the resilience to not be devastated by this? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's I you know, I believe that God ordains everything that even, you know, a hair will not fall off my head unless the Lord allows it to. And you I'm glad you mentioned it. Yeah. Because this this obviously was not premeditated. There's no way I could have woken up that morning knowing that this was going to happen. You know, there are so many teachers who have these TikTok accounts where they're constantly filming themselves throughout the day at work, and they talk about the lessons they're going to plan, which are ideologically motivated, and they're planning these things, and they're sharing it and broadcasting it to the world. You know, I've I'm active on social media, but I've never posted something that I'm doing at work or anything like that. I've never tried to use my platform as a teacher to make a viral situation. That's something that's never even entered my mind. But I was confronted with the situation, and I'm trying to go through it with wisdom. And so I'm having people pray for me. I've had meetings with my pastor at my church who, hey, can you give me some advice? And, you know, one thing he encouraged me to do is, you know, don't be combative and remember that you are not a martyr. Don't get martyr complex, because and and it's absolutely right. It's like I'm I am not the only. I'm not the last bastion for free speech on the face of the planet. There's a lot of great, courageous people out there who are, you know, faced with situations that are not ideal and they're being faithful. And maybe they didn't get any media publicity and they're just doing it, you know, and they have the the merits of it being a secret. Right? Right. Which is almost even more noble in a lot of ways, because it's like even when there's no attention, you are still being faithful to the, the, the truth. And so, you know, the Bible talks a lot about like, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Essentially. And so I've sort of, you know, I can't point to like one Bible verse that, but like, there's just the overall spirit would be, you know, don't be boastful, don't be prideful, remain humble. And I think, I think that's just what I'm trying to do to the best of my ability. And, you know, I'm fortunate that I get regular touch points with reality. Even, you know, it's very flattering to be asked to go on a podcast and to to speak on something that I care about a lot, like it's it means a lot. But I could totally see how it could go to your head very quickly and you could try to become rich and famous or whatnot, but like, you know, I'm a family man, I have kids. I have to help them get ready in the mornings. I have to mow my lawn. I have to help. And so, like, I think those are really good, like healthy doses to like, remember, like, no, I my life is not really extended beyond like this where I'm at. And so I try to have a humble view of myself in that way. And I'm not perfect at it, but I'm doing my best. And so all of that, to kind of answer your question. Okay, well, you touched upon the faith part, which was how I opened it up with, and what about, you know, I'm assuming from what I've seen, I things haven't changed. But your wife, the the role that your wife, the rest of em plays in the strength. It's just because we're always encouraging people to, you know, to prudently, you know, speak out when something's wrong, you know, to try to do what you can to, you know, to fix the system if it's possible and so on. So whenever someone has actually done that, once again, wasn't premeditated, just you found yourself here and you're trying to do it with grace and humility. I think it's important for people to understand what factors might go into, you know, someone not staying quiet, someone's, you know, living by principle or living in line with their principles and so on. So, so if you can sort of we can talk a little bit more about the other elements, maybe, you know, your wife, your family, your upbringing that you know, you know, as you say, you know, the fact that you're not playing a martyr. I'm so glad that you said that, because I have seen so many people either thrust into this position or adopting this position and they, you know, become the martyr. And they might either like, it's like there's all about them, okay? Or, you know, and they make it clear or the pretending it's both some of greater cause. But in reality, you see, it's just about them. They want that right. And if you have a higher, you know, a higher, not a power, but higher, purpose guiding. You. You conduct yourself very differently. I think that's what we're seeing with you. So again, you know, if you should put together the elements that allow you to do this so people can have hope and say, you know what, I might be able to do the same thing if I find myself in a similar situation. Yeah, yeah. It's good. It's good to think about this in that way. I think, you know, the worst thing about making yourself a martyr is like, you lose sight of everybody else who's doing amazing work and like you, it's so hard to just do something single handedly, right? Like, I would hope that, you know, I'm doing my best in this spot that I have. I'm in to really highlight, like the importance of, historical and literary honesty, which, you know, downstream from that, it's really about the truth. And so because I have a high regard for the truth and, you know, I think I've always been a a man of conviction and, you know, that's just some been something that's been instilled in me from, you know, my parents, I've always been one to like, really, I don't know. Have a deep sense of like right and wrong. And I think that's where, you know, my faith plays into that. And, you know, my now my family having kids. What what type of world do I want my daughters and my son to, to grow up in? I don't want them to live in a world where the color of their skin dictates whether they are allowed to read a book honestly or not. I don't want them to live in that world, so I want to, with tact, fight for to make changes to shift the Overton window. I guess you could say, because, you know, that's where a lot of ideas get filtered out. And we want ideas that are faithful to the truth, faithful to the fabric of reality, to to to be where we live. We want to live in that world. Freedom starts by conforming to the truth. And so, you know, it's great to have a wife who's really supportive. I obviously like this would be so much harder without a faithful, spouse, you know, because, you know, at the end of the night when you're putting your phone away, your kids are down just to be able to have somebody to, like, talk to and, somebody to encourage you. I mean, you can't you can't put a price on that. Like, if and if I were just living in some bubble by myself in a cooped up in an apartment or something, and relying only on myself like that would I would probably make a lot of mistakes. Okay. And sorry, I'll just one last thing. When you talk about, you know, what world do I want my children to grow up in? And you're saying about, like, you know, being afraid or not being able to read certain literature, right. And I think it goes beyond that. You've touched upon it, which is, a child who's raised in a in a culture of fear, of anxiety, that anything I say that was okay yesterday, today may be verboten, you know, might be somehow be dangerous. As you said, words are not dangerous, but that's what they're being taught. And, you know, again, if you belong to this group, you're allowed to say this, but you can't do that, etc., etc. it's just so divisive, so harmful. So I, you know, I really am glad. I mean, again, it's very unfortunate that you've found yourself in this position. Right. But I do hope that, the factors that you've mentioned do enable you to continue, find some, you know, find some kind of recourse or at least a path forward that allows you to continue to do what you're doing and to speak truth and to try to better society and by society. I always tell people, you're not going to change the world. You may not change your society, but the the little circle around you, you know, that's our society. And when there are people who are trying to do that on a daily basis, it's really sad that they're being, you know, shut down and shut up. So I really do hope that your voice, you know, continues to adapt to be broadcast. And maybe that's, you know, it's not so widespread, but, you know, in some form. Yeah. You know, you talk about like words in our language. Language shapes your perception of reality. In when certain words are banned or censored it can shape your perception of the world around you. Right. I, you know, I've been reading a lot about censorship. And you know, I learned recently like when Stalin was, you know, he ruled the Soviet Union. There was a time where the words famine, starvation, truth, liberty were all banned. You couldn't actually, like, publish anything with that contained these words or that, you know, talked about what they are and how long goes by until like that actually starts to remove itself. Like those concepts of liberty and freedom become absent from the substance of your thoughts, because the language was controlled. And downstream from that is your perception of the world. And it works both ways. And I'm not saying, hey, anybody should use really sharp, offensive words, but it's a very slippery slope when you start to remove some of them because every word. Right. We even say that earlier is not inherently dangerous. It's the intent and the heart behind its usage. And we need to help kids understand the difference. A sane society can look at a word used in different contexts and discriminate between them, and not have an emotional collapse, and I think that's important. And I think largely the concept of impact versus intent is being misconstrued in your situation. I heard in the news clip, it sounded like they were almost applying that in a positive sense. But I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think by and large, people view that as, as a negative, as like, well, that's fine, that that was your intention. But the impact is still terrible. But I think the converse is in fact true. Yeah. We can't make our decisions based on how, I mean, all decisions based on how we think somebody is going to respond, especially if it's a something about the truth. Right? We don't conform the truth to us. We conform ourselves to the truth. And sometimes, like if it's a difficult subject, it needs to be done with sensitivity and care. I believe that I'm not saying we could just, you know, be un sensitive. I'm not saying that at all. But like this idea of like oh telling this person the truth is going to offend them. So therefore we have to, you know, not do it. That is a recipe for disaster. Even in, in, in my country, like when we sit with the US Constitution, when when we don't read it as written and we only pick the parts that we like to emphasize and look at all the problems we're having now. I mean, I can go on and on, but, it's just the impact is should be considered. But that should, that should, that should like, you should modify your delivery. Yes. It doesn't mean you don't deliver the truth at all. Right. And if you're if you're talking to a child versus an adult, if it's this person's from this part of the country or that part like all of that should be taken into consideration. But we can't lose an ounce of truth because we're, you know, afraid of the impact. We have to move forward with it. Yeah. And it's, awfully convenient that people pick and choose when to look at things in that context and not to veer too much into religion. But this is true of, perhaps Christians who are pushing a certain agenda. And I am a Christian. So I, you know, saying this from the the lens of my experience is that we will often pick and choose what will suit the narrative, rather than looking at the Bible as it is and the truth as the truth. And, I think this happens across many contexts. Yeah. I mean, I mentioned the Constitution, but like the Bible's another really good example of when you only read the parts that make you comfortable and like it's like maybe men are competing in women's sports today because not enough people, like, want to read the parts of the Bible that says that God made them male and female. And there's actual biblical and religious authority to, like, back this up, not just like aside from biological truths, there's actually, a God who made them male and female. And now we're blurring that line. And I'm not saying Christians are responsible for that, but it's like we have a duty to speak up and call it out, and then maybe things wouldn't be as bad. So on on the topic of faith, and I think you somewhat touched on this, but do you feel that the situation that you found yourself in has a higher meaning? Yes. Because at the all truth is God's truth. I really don't think it's about a word. I don't think it's about a passage from a book that's just the vehicle through which this was sort of which we arrived here. This is about honesty and truth telling in education. And I think we're seeing a system that's crying out that, oh, we can't have that much honesty and truth telling, or a teacher who does this too much will become a liability because he doesn't, fall in line with what we deem orthodox. And I think they saw me as potentially becoming a loose cannon. And I, you know, whether or not that's that's not true, right? You know, I worked there for three years and this is the one thing that's ever really come up. But I do think there's a higher meaning because downstream from all of this is“Are teachers allowed to tell the truth?” And as a Christian, as a citizen, I think we have to be able to speak the truth. And there's a whole lot of consequences when you self-censor yourself from doing that. And so and I think there's a, a lesson of courage through all of this as well. It's like, you know, we've had a lot of issues regarding truth. Like we had a girl who she lost to a boy in the state track and field championships two years in a row, to the same boy because he is competing in the girls division and people self-censor themselves to speak up. And no, nothing changes. And so I mean I sort of view it all in the same category of are we allowed to speak the truth. Is the classroom a place where. We use the truth to help us think critically and we can speak. It's unabashedly. Yeah. And I think what I'm about to say is probably blatantly obvious throughout this conversation, but I think it still, is worth mentioning that I really believe that. The. The basis of your decision to do this, if it was not regarding something that was ideologically viewed, you probably wouldn't be finding yourself in this situation. But people are failing to and refusing to listen to what you're saying about truth and critical thinking and giving students what they deserve, which is an education that may cause some discomfort. But done in the right context is what they deserve. Yeah, I mean, an honest education is the only one worth having, and I mean, if if the classroom can't be a place where students are taught to understand, right, then where are they going to find their understanding? They're going to find it among their peers who don't have the same experience, don't have the same years of life experience. They don't have the they haven't acquired much wisdom yet. And so, I mean, what's better to have a teacher, confront the ugliness of history and be able to help students understand that or skip over it, and then outside of the classroom, the students are talking about it amongst themselves, and it's sort of like the blind leading the blind, essentially. And that's where, cycles that you're trying to cut off from repeating. It's fertile soil for. Then they sort of get perpetuated because then kids might approach, difficult ideas or concepts that are, hard to deal with. They might make light of them, they might turn them into jokes. And then, you know, down the line, it's like we lose control of sort of these things that it was a hard lesson that we had to learn. And then it's just going to perpetuate all over again. It's like education was never meant to be safe. Never meant to be polite. Yeah. But it's about understanding and that the road to get there can be uncomfortable. Yeah. And I think you make such a fabulous point there as far as in this effort to censor such things, I think matters are being made worse, like you said, because now kids are going to talk about this stuff regardless. But they're not doing it with the appropriate guardrails or guidance, or framing contexts and so on, and just making a bad situation worse. And something you said earlier reminded me, I think of something Warren said when he was on here that, part of the challenge he experienced, I think, is what you're experiencing is, schools and colleges are teaching kids what to think, not how to think. And that's obviously very problematic. Yeah, there's a certain spectrum of orthodoxy that you're sort of a it's the Overton window. You know, I know, I know some people don't like that term, but, you know, I you call it a spectrum, whatever you want and you're allowed to stay in there. And, but as soon as you challenge one of the, the main statutes of, you know, the progressive secular ideologies with what they've determined to be Orthodox and actually help a student think, right, you can disagree with me, but at least think about it critically, and I can respect that. But. We're seeing that, you know, even even trying to help, help the students think like that's not what they're seeing in this case. They're saying, oh, you didn't fall in line. And so in this, the public school system, it's revealing itself more and more as to be a place to train people to fall in line. Right. And, you know, a lot of people, there's memes, there's videos, there'll be an actual scholarship over the fact that that seems to be all schools have long been factories, you know, to produce good citizens, good workers, whatever, mindless workers. Right. Whereas the other school of thought, of course, is, as we're talking about academia, education, it is to educate and teach critical thinking. And I just want to tie in with a couple of things that you said. One, you mentioned truth many times, and we're in a situation right now, and I hate this. Whenever one of my patients says this or a student, I stop thinking, you know, when they talk about my truth, I got none. You? No, there is truth. You have my experience, my opinion, my belief. I don't care. But it's not your truth. There is truth, you know, writ large. So, you know, but that's what we're becoming. We're becoming, Okay, well, fine. You can have your truth. I'll have my truth. And without a unified truth, without being able to agree on basic facts, you know, how do you have a coherent society? Yeah. So you can't. And I think all a lot of the violence and up, unrest that we see and it's, it's all sitting right in front of us today where we're reaping the benefits of that ethos is this idea that you have your truth. I have my truth. And, you know, There's one of the big problems and I've mentioned, you know, I've been reading a lot of Neil Postman. He's he's becoming one of my favorite authors. He talks about how one of the biggest problems in public school systems is walk in the door and ask somebody, what are you doing here? And you will not get a meaningful answer. The public school system can't answer that question. Or if anything, the highest virtue, the highest ideal that they can serve is so that students can get a good job. That's that's I truly believe that. And you ask ten different kids, what are you doing here? Ten different teachers. What are you doing here? You're going to there's no transcendent narrative that unifies the purpose for which we're coming together. And I think that's one of the big problems, because when when that's the case, you can only teach on a very narrow, for a very narrow purpose. That is very vague and it doesn't actually feed the human soul. It doesn't help somebody grow in their what it means to be a, a person. And so I think, you see, a lot of people will come out of that harmed and deprived of purpose and belonging because a school, a public school, at least it it puts on this facade that it's a community, but it's not, it's a network. And when you know, he talks about this in his books, it's like when a community pretends to be a network. People get harmed. Families, students, faculty, everything because it's pretending to care about you in these certain areas of your life, which only a community is really meant to feed, and you can't be a part of 15 communities. You just can't. There's just there's not enough bandwidth. You have your family and maybe your church and maybe like one other community, but the school taking on all these paternalistic, responsibilities, faking it, they're pretending because they can't actually meet that need, on this large scale, mass operation that they have going on. It's, you know, they say, oh, you'll always have a home here. They say things like that, but do you really, you know, and then they, you know, they ask students to open up about all these, inner inner thoughts that they're having and, trying to pry into, like, their, the secrets of their lives, like. And that's when you do that as a network, I think students can learn to have, you know, trust issues. And there's a there's all sorts of identity things that go on, especially because you're distancing people from their families when that's their role. And yeah, so I mean, I could go on that. Sorry. And it's a side note to that. And yeah, they're not therapists. Right. But they're trying to take on that pseudo role of talk with your feelings, their identity and so on and so forth. But they're just not equipped to do it. Right. And just a little, a point of order you earlier and you mention that you said at the school you're saying that it was a community masquerading as a network. You meant that was a network masquerading as a community, I believe. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's a network masquerading as a community. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for highlighting that. Yeah. I was going to say, I mean, there's a reason that we chose the name for our podcast, Awake at the wheel because the people in charge, whether it's education, whether it's mental health, whatever it is, you know, we've noticed that the people you know who should be, let's say, promulgating all these, you know, the ethos that you mentioned. Well, the good one, you talk about that one, but, you know, the proper ones, the principles of education, etc., or whatever happens to be it seemed that they were all asleep at the wheel over the past number of decades, which is why we find ourselves here. And you also mentioned courage. I've mentioned a number of times in a number of interviews. I, I understand the need to feed your family. I need I understand the need to maintain your reputation or maybe your professional community network, whatever you want to call it. I get that, but I can also say that I can call out cowardice when I see it. And you were talking about the courage and the people in charge, the people who should have been awake at the wheel but fell asleep. You know, either they're lacking in critical thinking capacity in having the right, I guess, the right purpose, having the courage, the integrity, the wherewithal to, you know, manage a very difficult situation. You know, if someone drops the ball, that's one thing. If someone doesn't even try to grab the ball. But, you know, they're open and they should be getting the ball, that's something entirely different. And this is what I'm seeing. And I'm sure in, I don't know, up until, you know, all this happened, were you, were you aware of how badly the system, you know, like, was, the, say, broke at the top, or were you able to sort of insulate yourself and do your job and teach the way you want to teach, like, well, like how how did you see the world before and after this whole kerfuffle? Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. You know, I, I've seen examples of just agree egregious decisions being made that I just I'm like, man, this this feels like it's a slap in the face to just what, what's plainly obvious, you know, like boys competing in girls sports and things like that, or, you know, some of the messaging that comes down from the higher ups where a lot of the big decisions are made and it's enforcing an ideological agenda, or at least trying to perpetuate that. And so, yeah, you see that some people don't because it aligns perfectly with their worldview. But for somebody who is maybe a little bit more traditional or maybe call me conservative, it there's some red flags for sure. At the end of the day, I like to go home. I like to, you know, get off work and clock out and, you know, so it's I think it's a little bit of both this I, I didn't ever see myself being at the center of a controversy like this. And so I got to experience it firsthand because people that I really respected had immense respect for all of a sudden pretend I don't exist. Cowardice. Yeah. I mean, and there's been a few, there's been some support behind closed doors, but it's, it's very, very few far and few, few and far between. You know, even from the leadership, there was leadership that I respected and I acknowledge, okay, you're the leader. I'm, I'm following you in doing things that I thought were really respectable. But to not appreciate any nuance in the situation, but to feel the pressure, I don't know exactly where the pressure was coming from. If it's from the school board or outside organizations or the union, and to sort of just ignore the past three years and a lot of those. Intimate, like maybe not intimate, but like a lot of those really great moments we had as colleagues. Right. That I, you know, I thought we had a relationship and, that and just ignore all that. It's just like, man, I got a taste for like what? The system can sort of the, the worst side of it, I think, you know, it takes it takes a good person who I thought I, you know, had a lot of respect for. And now how quickly loyalty can be eroded, I guess. you did bring up the one other thing, which is why a lot of people don't speak up. It's. I mean, I can't call it anything other than a betrayal on every level. Okay. So I just have to ask you, when you've been betrayed this badly on all these different levels, you know, I mean the only thing that hasn't been betrayed a seems like is your faith in your family, you know, or maybe some close friends, but like, you're able to, you know, least that is solid. That's kind of your rock and all of this. But the other betrayals, like, how do you take that in stride? Because, again, I want other people to sort of get, you know, take hope from this and say, you know, I'm prepared to deal with the betrayal that's going to come. So you're right, like my family and my my close friends and my, my faith circle have been very supportive. The one, the one group we didn't really get to talk about was the students. And I think they are what really motivated me through all of this and just seeing the way that they fought for me, that's amazing. It was I, I can't say, you know, out of all the people that, you know, quote unquote betrayed me and the students were faithful. And maybe there's a couple here and there. And like you saw on the video, there's those that disagree. But like the my students, the one that were in my class, the ones who I've had in previous years when push came to shove, they, they, you know, they, they put their money where their mouth was. They, they showed up, they mobilized, they organized and, you know, on, on, on their summer vacation, they a lot of them showed up to the school board meeting, which is at eight in the morning, 8:00 in the morning, which is a very uncommon time to do a school board meeting. They, they showed up and they made public comments and they, you know they made a Instagram fan page for me and they were mobilizing their friends and like and I just saw like man I, I'm so proud of these kids because like this is, this is like applying courage. This is talking about it and reading about it. It's you're actually applying it and you're using this in the, the means that you have, which as a 14, 15, 16 year old, you know, they're not they're not many, but you're using it and you care deeply about this. And so that was something that really sustained me I think was just seeing them. And like, man, I can't turn my back on them now. So I have to I have to keep going. And, you know, the their families and the community, you know, the support that they showed, it was I felt unworthy of it, to be honest. Well, for what it's worth, from everything I've heard, you know, I, I hope you do feel that you are worthy of it because me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Like really in I respect it, I appreciate it, and I take heart from it because, you know, again, you're not a martyr and we all know how it ends for martyrs, okay? And you're not acting like one. I think you're acting like a man with principle. Right? Who sees a bigger picture, who has courage, who has integrity. And I think those qualities are in short supply. So, you know, again, when we see someone who evinces them, we feel it's our duty to say, let's get them on and see if we can get them on because we want other people to see it as well. Yeah, yeah. So we often end the podcast with giving our listeners something to take away as far as something tangible that they can do with all of this. And I think, you know, to echo some of what Oren just said, by and large, I think the takeaway from your experience with this is that you live a life that is in line with your morals, with your ethics. You do the right thing, even if it's the hard thing to do. So with that framing, what can people do in their lives, in their day to day lives, in their jobs? Yeah, that's that's a great question because. Yeah. How do you apply all this? Right. If you don't actually apply it it's kind of worthless. I mean, just off the topic of courage, like we were talking about. I'm sure there's a lot of ways to answer this question, but, you know, I heard once that courage is the virtue upon which all others rest. It's like a Jenga Jenga tower. It's like it's like that bottom one. If you take it, take one of them out. The whole thing comes down, you know, you can have patience. Patriotism, all these other virtues that are rest on top of that. But if you don't actually have courage to live those out, those are sort of meaningless. And so I think one thing people can do is find a hero who's dead, like an author or somebody from history that is no longer alive, who wrote some things down and find somebody who you you have a special connection with across time and read about what that person did, who in time is where he or she lived out courage, because there's a lot of power in being able to summon somebody up from the grave and be able to, like, feel like you have this, like they're speaking to you almost. And so that's something that, for me has meant a lot, is like having some of these archetypes that I can summon out of the grave, and I can feel like they're talking to me, even though they're not, but they're there. I can apply the what they wrote down and learn from their experiences and courage is contagious. And so when you can read about it firsthand and feel like you're experiencing that thing with that person, I think that that's really helpful. And so find a good book, find a biography, an autobiography, and, read about somebody who displayed courage in the past. Amazing. Okay. Well, Matthew, thank you so much for being with us. I truly admire the work that you're doing, the messages that you're putting out there, and of course, we so appreciate you being here and chatting with us. Yeah, certainly. And oh, sorry. What are you going to say? No, I was just going to say thank you to to both of you. And, it takes a special, special people to appreciate nuance, especially in our day and age. And so I got some catching up to do on some of your episodes, and I look forward to it. And it's just been great to meet you guys. And, thank you from the bottom of my heart for, you know, allowing me to share my story. Of course. Thank you. So on a on that inspirational note, until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel. Thank you.