0:00
Welcome to ANI in the air talk about Tuesday where I talk about something
0:05
related to the school. So I was thinking today about the importance of trust. I've
0:14
probably talked about it a few times and you know just it's one of those things
0:22
that's you know very hard for adults to accept. They like the sound of our school
0:32
of you know our students deciding you know what to do with their day you know
0:40
doing their thing but I think adults don't really have a conception as to
0:49
what you know our students actually need to do in order to develop themselves. I
0:57
think it comes a lot from the fact that you know adults have by and large by the
1:03
time they have a child at a school like ours you know they've developed
1:08
themselves into adults somehow and so you know the things that are missing for
1:16
them are not the things that are missing for kids. What's missing for them is
1:21
actually often even though they spent possibly 13 years in conventional school
1:26
or 17 college or in my case I guess like 22 years going to graduate school you
1:37
know you know all that knowledge that's there most of us don't retain. We learned
1:42
some although I tend to always be surprised when I talk to people and and
1:50
they seem to be missing various basic important pieces not just in math
1:55
although that's certainly a big chunk of things but you know all sorts of things
1:59
history and literature I mean I'm pretty woefully unread from classical
2:06
literature books. I read many of them when I was young and have zero
2:11
recollection of them and I imagine I would have extremely different takes on
2:17
them if I read them now you know science history all these things all that
2:25
knowledge if you don't use it it just goes away even even knowledge that one
2:32
comes up with oneself you know I have a tool I wrote called that implements a
2:40
programming paradigm called literate programming and like I keep having to
2:45
look stuff up I wrote it I've been using it for 10 years I still have to look it
2:49
up I made it so you know knowing stuff is hard business what isn't hard is
2:57
learning how to deal with well I should say what isn't hard is retaining how to
3:03
deal with people once you figure it out but it's very hard to actually learn how
3:07
to do that a lot of it has to do with managing this one one's own emotions in
3:16
conversing with people you know there's a whole slew of emotions that always
3:22
come up whenever one's dealing with people one kind or another and it's
3:28
really hard to to control them particularly in the moment when you're
3:33
trying to come up with stuff to say and you're trying to be accurate and and
3:38
listening to them and coming up with something useful and you know making it
3:42
a protective time in one way or another whether it's an enjoyable conversation
3:47
or some conversation with some you know with some purpose to it don't be hard
3:55
you know that's a lot of what students do here the younger ones are still
4:01
trying to figure out just the basics of how the world works if I do this or do
4:05
that what happens right and you know that they're also trying to figure out
4:14
how these devices integrate with our lives because it's you know it's not
4:20
trivial figuring out what this thing with the screen is you know you can do
4:26
some stuff and make things happen but to really have it on a really deep level
4:33
you know it takes time and our students you know do it in a way that seems fun
4:40
and to adults eyes those often those fun things look really tedious and terrible
4:46
and pointless you know if I'm looking around at what students are doing it's
4:55
it's hard to justify it from an adult perspective what are they really doing
4:59
but they're learning they're learning something amazing they're learning about
5:05
you know I'm kind of seeing these kind of maybe nuggets or something I don't
5:12
know they kind of like hop around almost like a frog you know and it's
5:18
challenging to do that physically and they're communicating and you know
5:25
like there's a whole slew of things that are going on and yet a casual adult or
5:32
even many other kids who are not part of this environment would say no I hate
5:37
people doing they're just screwing around but that's what they're supposed
5:40
to be doing and you know that's where trust comes in because we don't
5:44
understand it as adults we don't I mean I'm I've been here for five six years
5:49
I've seen all sorts of things and all sorts of stuff surprising me you know
5:54
like you know I just always amazed at what you know the students can do I
6:03
guess I'm less amazed now because I've experienced it enough times but if
6:08
someone said well how'd they figure out how to do that why can they do that I'd
6:12
be like I have no idea I just can and I can quickly pick up stuff you know the
6:17
ones who have been here a long time their brains are open their minds are
6:21
wandering voyaging you know they hear and they understand the new ones you
6:30
know it's often very hard to almost communicate with them because their
6:35
minds aren't open they're their minds you know particularly the older ones
6:41
that are recovering from some very problematic conventional school setting
6:45
and I mean problematic in the sense of not not necessarily you know problem
6:52
problems but like you know they didn't really get to do much and I had to spend
6:59
a lot of time on classes and work and whatever you know that's really gonna be
7:04
challenging to communicate with them and over time that challenge disappears they
7:10
figure out how how it all works you know how to be present in the moment how to
7:19
be a participant in their own lives in and for them you know it often involves
7:27
really shutting down a long time to wipe out all the the bad mojo that they've
7:35
had to experience of you know the just just just kick it out to the curb you
7:42
know young adults they often you know do that after they're done with their
7:48
schooling if they haven't leaped right into a job or if they have a lot of free
7:53
time despite having a job you know they it looks like they're you know
7:58
oftentimes they shut down it's like then you know the kid in the proverbial
8:03
basements like what are you doing down there for years you know and it's like
8:08
they're undoing all that stuff and then hopefully over time they they get better
8:13
the younger this process happens the shorter that period of time is and the
8:18
stronger they can come back yeah you know people do these things
8:26
yeah yeah so you know it involves trust I don't know if this is really a message
8:35
of trust but I mean I guess it's yeah it's just like thinking about you know I
8:42
mean I mean it fundamentally comes down to trust there's nothing producible
8:46
there's nothing checkbox II there's nothing you can't say do this do that
8:51
you know I often also think about you know wanting to say something to you
8:58
know our teens about getting ready for the next steps so we do have check-in
9:02
meetings at the beginning of the year to to say some stuff and you know yeah you
9:08
know just like hey you want to go to college do this do that if you you know
9:16
want to get job do this or do that or you know like I want to prepare them for
9:21
the next steps but you know it's like just look around at what they're
9:26
actually doing it's like you know what I think this is what they probably need
9:29
some of them will do those steps they're ready but a lot of them are you know
9:35
wanting to you know really delve into being a teen with other teens all that
9:45
socializing all that figuring out all that emotion that's that's you know
9:58
that's what's difficult is just really accepting them as they are not getting
10:07
into their business just trusting that they're kind of figured out and hoping
10:13
that nothing you know problematic actually does happen that's why we are
10:18
here as staff in case something does occasionally does and we help the
10:25
community deal with it but you know for the most part it's just trusting that
10:30
everything is this happening well I think I rambled along rambled along
10:39
enough so I will see you when I see you