“You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” Navajo saying – Education

Transcript

Dan Fouts  00:00

Intro:  Hello, Steve and Dan Fouts here from Teach Different. We’re veteran teachers from the United States bringing educators together from around the world to learn a simple conversation method, which we model on this podcast for you. If you’re a teacher, administrator, or parent who wants to use the power of conversations to build stronger relationships and fight polarization, stay tuned to hear the impact our method can have on your discussions. Then join our Community of Educators at teachdifferent.com for additional resources and to participate in lively conversations among teachers and faculty, free for 30 days.

Dan Fouts 

Welcome, everybody, to the Teach Different podcast. Tonight, we’re really excited to have a real leader in the Chicago area community, Scott Stewart. Scott has some teaching experience and works with youth developing leaders for the next generation. We’re eager to hear from him. For those unfamiliar with the Teach Different conversation method, we start with a quote, discuss the claim of the quote and share some stories about what we think the quote means. Then, we’ll disagree with it by discussing a counterclaim, that critical thinking piece. At the end, we’ll create a question about something unresolved that we can leave with people to think about moving forward. Let’s get started. I’m going to say the quote twice, and then Scott will share his thoughts. “You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” “You can’t wake a person who’s pretending to be asleep.” All right, a very mysterious quote. What’s your view on this, Scott? Welcome to Teach Different.

Scott Steward  02:00 – Claim

Well, thank you for having me, Dan and Steve. My name is Scott Steward, Big Stew, or Professor Steward, it really depends on how you know me. I am a businessman who found a passion for teaching back in 2001. I’ve been teaching formally for just over 20 years now. I am an Illinois State Board of Education certified teacher. I’ve taught at the high school level, predominantly, but I like working with middle school students. I retired from Chicago Public Schools to start my own private education business teaching youth business and technology with the hopes of preparing them for careers in technology or to start their own business. Business ownership is super important to me, as is the development of the black community. When I hear this Navajo saying, “You can’t wake a person pretending to be sleeping,” I’m reminded of the old saying that you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. What it comes down to for me is, if somebody doesn’t want to be there, you can’t force it on them. If somebody doesn’t want to participate, you can’t make them. People have to show up, ready to receive, ready to learn, ready to engage. You can’t force education on a student. We have to as educators identify with what students want to learn. My thought is that if you have students in the room who want to learn that particular subject, or at least understand why they’re learning it and how it pertains to their life, or why they will benefit from it, then you can wake them. You can educate them, instill something in them. That’s my initial take of the Navajo saying.

Steve Fouts  04:37

That’s great. I never thought about the participation angle, leading a horse to water, but you can’t force him to drink. I think that’s a good approach to this. I don’t know if you guys were thinking about this, but what is “pretending to be asleep,” and waking someone up? Sleeping and waking are loaded words in this quote. They may deserve to be circled, and to have a conversation with kids to understand what they think they mean.  I was thinking that waking is more of an awareness and an intelligence, maybe like a desire for education. That’s how I was thinking of wake.  For pretending to be asleep, I thought about the phrase, willful ignorance. When some people don’t want to know. They don’t want to change. They are who they are, and they know what they know. If you try to disrupt it, you’re going to get a lot of pushback. It’s a question as to whether or not it’s worth your time and effort with certain people. Back to what Scott was saying, I think this quote is saying, Hey, let it go. You can’t wake someone who’s pretending to be asleep. Focus on the other people who are already awake and do something with them. Don’t waste your time with certain individuals. I don’t know if I’m making sense, but that’s what I thought.

Scott Steward  06:38

That makes perfect sense to me. Especially when you said, some people don’t want to know. I know, for a fact, that I choose to be naive about certain things. I’d rather not know a lot of things. I’d rather be kept out of the loop on some things. I don’t know, when you were planning to bring in that other piece that I told you about.

Steve Fouts  07:03

When it’s natural. If you want to go, then go.

Scott Steward  07:08

I kind of don’t want to, but you put it out there. You threw something out there for me to weigh in on. Is the slap heard? They’ve coined it now. Is the slap heard around the world? The media did that. I don’t want to address it. I don’t want to talk about it, because there are some topics where I choose to stay ignorant. I don’t want to know the details. There are a lot of things where the less I know, then the better off I am. That reminds me that that’s quite selfish. But hey, it works for me sometimes. When you give that scenario about layoff, backup, don’t force me into it, it may just take time for me to be ready to take in that information. Will individuals awake in their own time? When I think about awake, I think about awareness. I think about being refreshed, because you’ve had time to rest. When you’re waking, you’re reenergized, so it’s a fresh perspective. When I think about sleeping, I definitely think about being unaware. Resting, of course, but just being unaware. Just not being present, if you will. 

Dan Fouts  08:51

Yeah, that’s great. As you were talking, Scott, it made me think of something that happened today in class. The impact this pandemic has had on young people is something that I cannot put into words. I’m going to say zombie teaching. This is the era of teaching zombies. I say that not as a criticism at all. I say this as a collective. They’re asleep. I’m doing everything I can to wake them, but I realize how limited I am in breaking them out of their zombie like state that the pandemic has put them in. That is the real challenge of teaching right now.

Scott Steward  09:47

Yeah. I would say teachers that share that perspective, are the ones who are asleep. I’m going to flip this on its ear. These kids are wide awake. The pandemic forced everybody to evaluate their purpose in life. Let me share with you my understanding. Kids don’t talk like we talk. We’re ol’. I said it intentionally like that. I used some bro speech. We ol’, we’re old. We’re outdated to some of these young people. We think they don’t talk, that they don’t communicate, or that they speak broken. Well, I would beg to differ. I think these kids are not only the most resilient generation in the history of mankind, those who are still attending school, but I believe they have so much depth in them. I think the challenge is that we, as educators, are so gung ho on getting back to the way things were before the pandemic, but the pandemic has projected these kids ten years ahead. If you don’t know who Black Pink is or Sleepy One, and you’re teaching young people, you’re probably the one who’s out of touch. These kids are watching. We’ve given them the keys to the Emerald City without any regulation. What do I mean by that? They have access to the internet. They can look up anything and everything. Why are they looking at us? Why are we so antiquated, because we’re scared to talk about stuff like sex, drugs, and rock and roll, when that’s what they’re really into.  Let me retract that statement. I’m not saying all kids are into sex, drugs and rock and roll, but I’m saying they all have a perspective, because trust me, they’ve explored it. They’ve looked at it, at the very least. One statistic that’s really interesting to me, I’m just exploring it. Let me restate that. I have a thought that is interesting to me. I wonder what’s going on with teen pregnancy? I just don’t see it. I used to when we were growing up, and I wonder what’s going on with that. We have this gender transformation. We think that they’re all having sex, but maybe not. I don’t know. Are they having babies? Are they getting pregnant? Is this abortion issue really an issue to the point where it’s endemic? You know what I mean. Is that the right word? Is there an epidemic around abortions and pregnancy? I really want to know. I don’t see teenagers pregnant, like I did in the 80’s and 90’s. That goes back to what I said about not thinking the kids are zombies. I think the kids are wide awake. It’s us teachers.

Dan Fouts  13:41

Although Scott, I have to push back a little bit.

Scott Steward  13:44

Let’s do it. 

Dan Fouts  13:45

Okay. What I’ve noticed in two years, is there’s a loss of human connection. Students have a very difficult time communicating with one another. I had a high school student come up to me after class and say to me, I forgot how to interact with somebody. I had them doing some pair activity where they had to share an idea. This was a 17 year old about to graduate from high school who could not function in an environment where she had to communicate with another person. I think that’s real.

Scott Steward  14:36

I would agree with you, but I wonder what it’s like for her to communicate with somebody with whom she’s intimate. I mean somebody she’s close with, like a family member or a friend that she’s grown up with, versus a stranger. I’m thinking about her social life. I’m 51 years old, but I’m thinking about my social life. I like hanging out with people, but one thing I found out about myself during this pandemic is that I’m okay with not hanging out. I’m absolutely okay with these virtual settings, because society to me, and I don’t know if young people feel this way, but we’ve become so sensitive. We can’t have a damn opinion anymore. I came up in the age where you had an opinion and nobody got up out of their seat. Comedians could be comedians and there’s no shame in protecting your woman or talking about people who have medical conditions. There was no shame to that. You all know Andrew Dice Clay, Richard Pryor, and Eddie Murphy. I mean, come on, man, their jokes. Okay. It supports how we’re so sensitive. I have a hamburger, and somebody who is a vegan is going to judge me for eating meat. Now, I’m definitely not invited back to their house. I’m a heathen now. So I’d rather just hang out with folks who I know.  You know what’s even better, going back to my point about being naive, I don’t have to know you that deep to have a great relationship with you. There’s some truth in that, too. Luckily, we came up with that skill set. The three of us don’t know each other, but we can jump into a deep conversation and disagree. We’re not going to fight. We’re not going to be mad at each other. We probably could still get together to have a beer and enjoy each other’s company. To your point, Dan, I think you’re right. We came up before social media, before Instagram, before MTV Raps. We came up before television was the thing. We played outside. These kids don’t. I think we, as the adults in the room, have to really learn to appreciate where they are, and not hold them accountable to our standards. I think that’s the flip for teachers today. Getting in where they are. We talk about Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but we’re dating ourselves when we’re not talking about Discord, or Twitch, or something else that they’re really into. That shows our disconnect from them. That’s our premise at Genius Lab. That’s the name of the company I run. We start day one. We don’t even introduce ourselves. Our first question is, what’s your name? What’s your favorite food? What are you into? Who you listening to? What programs are you watching?  Kids really want to know that you care about them first, before they give a damn about you and what you have to say. Yeah, that’s my perspective on it.

Steve Fouts  18:15

Yeah. The one part of the quote that I found most interesting, because I think it pushes it into another realm, is the word pretending. If you’re pretending to be asleep, then you’re part of the problem. Think about the teacher trying to wake up the learner for a moment, trying to convey knowledge to the learner. If the learner is pretending to be asleep, it’s a game that they’re playing. Let’s think about it like this. If you’re a teacher, there are certain kids who you can try to understand where they’re coming from, but whatever is in their way, they’re not going to receive it. I don’t truly believe that, honestly, because if you’re serious, you can get to anyone. Maybe that’s the counterclaim. I think pretending is the interesting word in this quote. My question to you guys is what would make someone want to pretend to be asleep, so that no one would bother them with new knowledge, or with a new idea, or with whatever the teacher is trying to tell me? They’re in their own world with these things going on. Where’s that coming from, the pretending part?

Scott Steward  20:07

That’s a good question.

Dan Fouts  20:08

Good question. Pretending is a little bit negative. Who’s pretending to be asleep? They’re faking it. They’re tricking somebody. They’re hiding their true potential, and they’re just pretending. You don’t want to teach kids who are pretending to be asleep, when they’re really awake, and not giving you the benefit of the doubt. 

Steve Fouts  20:36

There you go. 

Dan Fouts  20:37

You’re the authority annoying them. Last week, I was talking to another teacher, just venting about a lot of stuff, and he made an interesting comment. He said, when I’m up in front of class, I feel like I’m just competing with their phones. What’s on their phone and the human being in the room have equal value, which is amazing.

Scott Steward  21:10

Go ahead, Dan. Go ahead.

Dan Fouts  21:11

No, that was it. I ran out of gas. 

Scott Steward  21:14

No, man. One hundred percent. You are competing with their phones. In 2012, when I left Chicago public schools, I was under fire for not always going with administration’s rules. One of the rules was that they wanted teachers to take students’ phones. We’re talking about 10 years ago. This was really happening between 2007 and 2008. The phones were kind of new, and kids were bringing them into schools, passing text messages. Once I took a student’s phone, and it broke. I dropped it and cracked it, and now I’m on the hook for paying for it. So, I refused to take students’ phones again. Then they wanted us to send them to the office. I thought it was too much distraction over a phone. At the time, I was using my phone for business, to make money. I’m actually using my phone for connection. I was on LinkedIn back then. I was in a school today and they had their Chromebooks. I started this back in 2008. When I ask you a question, if you’re on your phone, if you’re looking at me when I ask you a question, then you’re crazy. I’m not saying that, but that’s what I’m thinking. I’m asking you a question about a fact, and you’re sitting in front of your Chromebook waiting on me to give you an answer. Look it up. Look it up. Today, a student was attempting to tell me a piece of information that I had the full story on, I had a hold of all the facts. They looked at a piece of a sentence, and attempted to extrapolate the answer from that. I pushed back with, you’re not even reading the whole text. That’s not correct. It says it right here. What does it say after that? Oh, it says, …. Now I’m forcing them, if they’re going to be on these phones. You want a grade, or to show that you’re learning? Prove it. Use your phone for something else. You’re sitting on a phone, so get the facts of the information that makes you sound more intelligent. You can look up every question that you have and the kids don’t really know that. They don’t really understand that. We have to guide them. It’s not cheating anymore. It was cheating back back in the day. Today, it’s research. It’s gathering data. It’s comparing facts. It’s ensuring that your sources are credible. Make a tick tock about this topic. Post an Instagram about three things you learned today in tech. But, schools don’t want you doing some of that stuff, either. They don’t want you tagging. So, create a business account for teachers. Create an educational account and tag that account. Seriously. I’m saying it on record. If schools don’t get in tune with this, then we’re going to lose students by the droves, and not necessarily through enrollment, but into this engagement conscious slumber. I love it, conscious slumber. I have to share your approach with the phones. I struggled with that from 2012 to 2019. My thought was always, can we stop talking about phones? Let me work it into my syllabus. Yeah, they’re going to abuse it, but they’re also going to abuse oxygen by sitting in the back of my room doing nothing and not paying attention. I’m the same way. We haven’t made that pivot yet. But Dan, what you were saying is different. I think what you were saying is true as well. They’re so habituated. They were on their phones for two straight years.

Steve Fouts  25:17

It’s so profound. Don’t take it personally.

Dan Fouts  26:15

I don’t, but, again, this is the adjustment that we’re working with. Let’s go with this. When you’re looking at facts, phones are great. When you need information, I call on people to use their phone to find things. But, it’s different when you’re in a discussion and critical thinking has to happen, where they’re connecting different things and need to pay attention and focus on ideas that are already out there. That’s when, if they’re using Tick Tock, it’s a distraction. It can be the best possible thing and a distraction within the same class period. 

Scott Steward  27:09

Dan, we have a rule at Genius Lab. It’s the 45 second rule. I haven’t done any scientific research on this, but teachers can be a bit loquacious. We can talk. We are verbose. We can fill a class period hearing our own voice. What we realized at Genius Lab is that we don’t give students enough time to even think of an answer. At Genius Lab, after we ask a question, we must be silent for up to 45 seconds. What we found out is that silence is much louder than the sound of our voices. What we also found is that in that 45 seconds, which is an eternity, by the way, you’ll hear stuff like, what did you say? What are we doing? What’s going on?  I’m talking about when you’re sitting or standing there after you ask a question, and you’re engaging, waiting on a response. Try it. The longest we’ve ever had to wait was 45 seconds in our seven years of doing this rule. But generally, after about 10 or 15 seconds, you get some engagement with, “What did you say?” They’re so used to hearing us talk, that they don’t even know what is what. We have to be quiet sometimes, and then just simply restate the question, and be quiet. Teachers, don’t say a word. Don’t say, come on you can figure this out. Stop talking. You are with them every single day.

Dan Fouts  29:11

I’m with you. I think silence is the greatest thing ever in a discussion. 

Scott Steward  29:18

You got to give them that 45 seconds.

Dan Fouts  29:20

I give them more than that. I give them more than that, Scott. I will wait until someone says something.

Scott Steward  29:26

It generally happens within 45 seconds. 

Steve Fouts  29:33

That’s a long time.

Scott Steward  29:34

A long time. Above the 45 second mark, what we’ve realized is that maybe we didn’t state the question clearly enough. Maybe it’s on us at that point. We need to ask it again or ask if they understand the question and then just pause, just simply pause. A lot of great stuff will come out. One of the things we found is that students are simply afraid of being wrong. 

Steve Fouts  30:06

Let me pick up on that please. The fear of rejection, of being seen as wrong, or as not smart, I’m going to argue, is related to pretending to be asleep. If you pretend to be asleep when someone asks you a question, and you don’t have an answer, you can always say that you just woke me up. I don’t know. It’s willful ignorance. It’s a way to get out of ever having someone say that you didn’t know what you were talking about. I don’t care about that. Trump, that one. I think that kids use that as a defense. Let’s bring the conversation back to the quote, “you can’t wake someone pretending to be asleep.” We’ve talked about how you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force him to drink. Is there a counterclaim to this? Is there another way to look at this where if you identify someone pretending to be asleep, you actually have some tools at your disposal, some tactics to try where you can get them to wake up? I’m posing that question to both of you.

Dan Fouts  31:49

Here’s a quick trick I use. It doesn’t work all the time. When a kid is acting like they’ve been asleep, and they say, I don’t know, I’ll say, okay, what would you say if you did know? You can’t use it all the time.

Scott Steward  32:08

That’s classic.

Dan Fouts  32:08

You have to pull that out, though. It’s a good one, because then they smirk, and come up with something. That’s one little trick.

Scott Steward  32:16

That’s great. To that point, I think kids want to come off as knowing. I want to go back to the point that Steve made about acting like they don’t care. That I don’t care sentiment shows up sometimes as being bored. This is boring 

Steve Fouts  32:16

This isn’t enough to keep me in. 

Scott Steward  32:46

Dan, I really liked that. That’s a smart one, man, because you’re giving students the space to try and answer. I think that’s something else we have to remind students about, that school is the place to make mistakes. Unfortunately, grades are so punitive. They hurt. If you’re not getting a B or better, it hurts a student. We have to figure out another way. For the past 20 years, I’ve been against that grading system. It sucks. It doesn’t really help. Another tool that I used in the classroom, which some of my principals appreciated, is to say that I’m taking grades and everybody gets an A. Everybody gets an A, but you can lose it if you don’t come to class, cut class, or don’t do the assignments. Eighty percent of my students did everything to maintain that A or B. I used to say this all the time, you worked hard to fail a Mr. Steward class. It’s really hard to fail. Unfortunately, I did fail a couple of students. I just couldn’t pull them out of whatever they were dealing with outside of my classroom and it just wasn’t appealing enough to them. That sucks. Those things stick with me as an educator, but I also learned that I’m not Superman. I’m not going to be able to save them all. I wish I could, and I try, but it’s okay. They’ll get their lessons somewhere else.

Dan Fouts  34:53 – Counterclaim

That’s great. I totally agree. We don’t want to ever be in the position of failing a student, but sometimes we can’t win all of the battles. That’s an important part of any profession. I was thinking that a counterclaim to, “you can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” is what can we do to wake a person who’s pretending to be asleep? I found in my career, and I’m 29 years in now, that I win a lot of my battles one on one, not in the classroom. I invest two minutes with a student before or after class, or send them an email or something to acknowledge their individuality and form a relationship independent of the classroom. That’s a way to wake up a student. I think we forget that as teachers. We want to talk to the group. We want the group to love us. We want to collectively solve all the problems, but I think the battles are won individually.

Scott Steward  36:10

I agree. Yeah, I agree with you on that as well, wholeheartedly.

Steve Fouts  36:20

The balance is to have an approach, because you are a teacher. You have a class, but you also have to realize that these kids are at varying levels of consciousness. You have to have strategies for the ones who are asleep. You have to have strategies for the ones pretending, and you have to be ready to help the ones who are just wide eyed and bushy tailed wondering why we’re not going quicker. That’s what is hard about teaching.

Scott Steward  36:58

Yeah, I’m challenged with recognizing that I don’t always know what’s going on in a kid’s home or background. Abuse of all kinds is happening. It doesn’t always have to be sexual or physical, emotional abuse is real, too. There are some dream killers in homes, homelessness, and depression.  Those things are very real for kids. I’m 100% sure that I’ve never said this to a kid, but I’ve heard other teachers say it, you don’t have any problems. What are your problems? All you have to do is go to school. You don’t have anything to worry about. That’s so foul, man. You have no idea. That’s the type of verbal abuse, emotional abuse, to discredit a kid that’s out of pocket. I don’t have the tools to bring this issue up with colleagues in a way that they would receive it as not the best approach. That’s where they’re coming from. It is a hard job, a very difficult job. Dan, you’ve been at it for 29 years, and I’m sure you have some very successful students, but I know there are a lot of teachers who just don’t have the empathy that’s required to really help the majority of students be successful. I don’t give a crap about a test score. I know test scores are important to get into good schools, but those test scores don’t have anything to do with how successful you’re going to be in life or what kind of person you’re going to be. I was an average student. I remember one year when I was teaching at Chicago State the valedictorian of my graduating class came in. I could not believe that I was their professor. She was the valedictorian, but life hit her hard. She ran into some challenges and was going back to school as an adult. Fine, there’s no big deal about that. She couldn’t believe that I was the teacher, and ended up dropping the class. So, those test scores don’t mean anything to me. You can probably get into Harvard and maybe become a Supreme Court justice one day, if you play your cards right, but it still doesn’t dictate what kind of person you’ll be. We really have to build the character of our students. That’s what’s most important to me. 

Steve Fouts  40:08

That’s our conversation 2.0. I think education in general has lost its way. It doesn’t have a purpose anymore. It started for a certain reason in the 19th century. Now, we’re just going through the motions. We don’t know what we’re doing. I think it needs to come back to building character. That’s how it started. Most of the schooling in America was religion based, or it was based on getting people to be good democratic citizens. There was a purpose. There was something that you could measure yourself by, that meant something in your life, and how you function with the rest of society, not just your own ambition. So, we’re lost there. That’s a little preview for another conversation.

Dan Fouts  41:06

Yeah, I agree. To your point, Scott, we all need to adapt to post pandemic teaching and learning. We’re not there, yet. The question I have from this conversation is what is the best way to teach kids after the pandemic to help them reach their full potential? That’s a centerpiece in my mind that I’m still mulling over. It’s really important. Did any questions pop into your head?

Scott Steward  41:51

I have some ideas around it. There’s a company that you all might be familiar with, called Thrively. They’re not paying me to do this. Their approach is to ask kids what they want to do, and teach them that until they either succeed at it or decide that they no longer want to do it. If you have a kid who wants to be a pilot, then figure out how to get them to learn as much about aerospace dynamics or being a pilot as you can until either they become a pilot, or they say, I think I just want to be an accountant, or an actuary, or whatever. Figure out what these kids want to do and teach them that. Now you can tie in the importance of reading, social studies, economics, and science. That’s a step in the right direction.

Dan Fouts  43:15

Yeah, that’s great. That’s a great answer.

Steve Fouts  43:18

I like that. Scott, of course, the challenge is that kids don’t know what they want. I shouldn’t say it like that. They want to do things, but it changes so quickly. I’m wondering if there are certain tools or skills that we should be teaching them. Teaching kids what they’re interested in is going to keep them motivated. It’s gold, because it’s going to keep their engagement. They’re not going to want to be asleep. They’re not going to pretend to be asleep. They’re going to be ready to learn. You can’t go wrong with that. 

Dan Fouts  44:13

That’s a good way to look at it.

Scott Steward  44:15

I have a kid who said to me, Genius Lab needs its own tablet. I said, wow, okay. I started exploring this tablet idea with him, and I realized he was really just saying he would like Genius Lab to have a private label device. Maybe, we can go to Apple and slap our logo on it, but in his mind, Genius Lab creates a whole new device. I started taking him through the process, and you could just see his wheels spinning about what it takes to do such a thing. Now he has some perspective. He didn’t realize he was describing Genius Lab having an app that sits on all of these other platforms. He didn’t know, but now, he wants to learn how to build an app. So, we’re on that journey, until he figures out how to build an app. We all do stuff until we bump our heads. What are the best tools to teach them that, the experience of doing the thing. You fall a few times, you scrape your knee, or you break your proverbial leg in the process. I hope you don’t ever break a leg, but you mess up along the way. That’s the best education. I also want to say two more things, and then I’ll be quiet. I think teachers need to be more transparent and honest with their students about their personal journeys. We should demonstrate to students what it is that we’re teaching them, that’s how I came up with my book. I tell my students that you can come up with an idea, and people will pay you for it. They don’t understand that concept. I told them that I had an idea for a book, and I wrote that book. I self published it and brought in 100 copies and gave one to all of my kids. They thought I was a superhero. They were like, how’d you do this?  I took them through the process. I looked it up. I researched it. I wrote it. There are some typos in there, but that’s okay. I did it on my dime. I wrote that in 2010, and the book still sells today. That’s bananas. I think those are the things that we have to do. We have to show them that we’re not just blowing smoke teaching English class, and having never written anything. You know what I mean? 

Dan Fouts  47:35

Yeah, that’s great. That’s inspiring. We need to live the example that we’re setting for them, so that they see us as authentic and living the life that we’re suggesting is valuable to them. Absolutely. We have to play the game.  Well, Scott, this has been a great conversation. I’m really glad that we used this quote, “you can’t wake a person who’s pretending to be asleep,” and immediately went right into education. I think that was the right direction to take with this, and I really appreciate your ideas and perspective, and how you look at the world. It’s really great. Thank you so much for coming on the Teach Different podcast.

Scott Steward  48:29

Thanks for having me, man. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

Steve Fouts  48:34

Thank you, sir.

Dan Fouts  48:36

Thanks, everybody. We hope you’re walking away feeling energized by some great ideas, and have a sense of confidence that you too can master the art and science of conversations to make a lasting impact. We at Teach Different are dedicated to supporting you along that journey. Please visit teachdifferent.com to join our Community of Educators for additional resources and engaging discussion among fellow teachers and administrators, free for 30 days. We’ll see you there and next time on the Teach Different Podcast, take care!