Episode Transcript
Welcome to a new season of the collective perspective podcast. As we dive into this season, we're focusing on the pivotal upcoming election widely considered as one of the most important of our lifetime. Join us on this journey as we navigate through diverse perspectives, dissect key issues, and explore the profound impact on our shared future.
Get ready for insightful discussions and thought provoking insights. Welcome to the collective perspective podcast. Season three.
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Collective Perspective Podcast. This is Jeff and I have my buddy, Travis. What's up everybody? Jawad. Hey, how you doing? And we have back with us, Mr. John Green, the CEO of Operation Barnabas. He's already been on the podcast. Hey, John, what's up, man? Hey, good to be here, guys.
Glad to be here. Today's topic is the topic of American education, former educator, John used to be a principal. Tell us about your experience. When did you start being a teacher? When can, because usually you start off as a teacher, right? And then you work your way up vice principal and, and you're not elected.
Yeah. So I started as a, actually as a substitute teacher before I even graduated college. Making a big whopping 4 and 25 cents an hour subbing all day and then going to school at night to finish up my degree. So I was happy to become a teacher. And I was one of the few teachers that was actually when I got my first yearly salary of 18, 600, man, I was fired up.
That was big money. So I was actually excited, became a teacher, coach, football, softball, pretty much anything they'd let me coach, bring in, help a little extra income wise. And then. Yes, then you go to athletic director I became and then I did assistant principal, vice principal, principal. So I started in the mid 90s is when I first started and went all the way till I think I retired, if you want to call it that, retired in 2019.
I know you're not that old, but that seemed like maybe a 1980s salary. Well, if you think about when, when we came into the military, our, my starting salary as an E3, I think was probably maybe 14, 15, 000 a year. If that. There was a lot of still single income families. Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. How times have changed.
Yes. Where almost every adult in your household has to work. That's a pretty vast experience in education and then you retired. What was your decision to retire? 2017 was the Parkland shooting. Obviously that changed everything in the state of Florida and, uh, within months. So that was February of 2017 and within one month they passed the Aaron Feist Guardian Law.
Bradford County, where I was the principal at, was the first county to sign up for the Guardian program. And I was one of 13 in the original class, first principal, you know, in the state of Florida, to go through that and be armed on a school campus legally. Did that for a couple years, and then in 2019, I had a 12 year old student, seventh grader, commit suicide.
And it just kind of, in me, it created kind of a crisis in my heart that we lived in a world where we were having to arm principals and educators. And And then we had children that are taking their own lives and it just, it really pushed me to, to want to do more, to make a difference and working with young people, working with veterans, working with anybody, because I saw just, I remember standing with one of my coaches who was also a guardian.
And he looked at me one day, we were watching the kids kind of do their thing out there during, between classes. And he said, man, you know, we trained with the SWAT team not to protect this campus against Taliban or Hamas or some, you know, we might have to shoot one of these kids, man. And I remember looking at him like.
Dude, that's dark, man. Like what, what are you talking about? But then I'm realizing it's true. It made me realize like, dude, we live in a messed up world when our schools are now combat zones and we're having to arm our educators to protect them and it just, I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to do more.
You briefly discussed your career path. How did your. role as a teacher of all over the years? I was one of the guys that I loved education. I'm a teacher at heart. That's what I want to do. I think that's what God made me to do. And I just loved it. I loved teaching. So I was willing to do anything the school asked me to do.
So I was that guy that the principal loved having on staff because I would coach girls golf, just like I coached varsity football. Didn't make any difference to me. I wanted to get in there and jump in there. So I think I ran an at risk computer lab for three years. These were dropout prevention, trying to prevent kids from, from going down that pipeline.
I taught English. I taught math. So I was one of those weird dudes that had both sides of my brain working. So I could, I taught both those subjects. I was just, like I said, willing to jump in and help. I just loved it. I still love it. I still love teaching and working with kids. Teaching was kind of what I've always wanted to do and coaching.
I also felt led as I went through and became at the athletic director position opened up. That was amazing because I got to work with sports and I got to work with kids and coach and kind of do that full time. And so that tight, I loved sports and that was just another great opportunity. And then kind of that.
You start to get into your thirties and gain some wisdom and experience. And it's just, it was natural to say, Hey, I want to lead at an even higher level and be able to lead the, not just the athletic side, but also the academic side and have a say in those kinds of things. Got my master's degree, went back and got that from University of North Florida and educational leadership.
Got my principal certification and like I said, became principal at two different schools and loved it. I really did. I heard something now, I don't think, I don't think it's false, but you don't need a college degree to teach in schools anymore. Is that true? It's getting very challenging. And it's funny how pendulums always swings back and forth because as I was coming up, they were actually tightening the rules on teaching and who could teach and what you could teach.
And now it has swung back all the way the other direction where it's really, you know, Yeah, there are some, think if you have a military background, they will waive that. And it's because of the teacher shortage. They're really just trying to I love teaching kids, man. Gavin's first soccer coach when I was in the military, coached child soccer.
Great, man. They're just sponges and it's just so exciting to see them succeed or fail. In line with that struggle, are there any other specific struggles that administrators might face that limit their ability to either hire the right person or even have a big enough pool of people to select from? Yes.
So, it is, and I say this, that as much as I loved being a principal. It is, I believe, in the school system, the most challenging job because you are the lightning rod for every, you're getting it from parents, you're getting it from students, you're getting it from the school board and the county office, and you're just kind of the lightning rod for all that.
And so, you're on the ground, you're boots on the ground, you're in that school, you know what the needs are of that community. And yet you are handcuffed by what you can do by, again, county office, district, bureau, the bureaucracy is just massive. It's just unbelievable. Uh, the ESE world and how that's just blown up into a massive bureaucracy and all the paperwork that just is killing educators, the unions, the, the, the pay structure, like it just, it, it's, it can be overwhelming.
It really can. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought about like a pay structure or the unions being a huge barrier to administrators. If you don't love it, if you're not, it is driving many, many good people from the profession. That, when you think about it, I think it was Lee Iacocca that said that. And in a truly great society, you think about it, teachers and educators should be the best of the best.
That's who's training the next generation. That's who's coming up. And that's not what's happening right now because of, again, all the factors I talked about. And there's more. Those are just some of the ones that I. Would you ever consider going back to school? My wife asked me that. She's, she's an active, uh, vice principal in the public school system.
And she asked me that we talk about that based on the things that I had to face 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Like. I don't think I could. I think I would, I think I would be so frustrated with not being able to, it was hard then to do the things I needed to do. Now it's almost impossible. So I don't know if I could.
What were those types of things? Well, just like, you know, the needs of your school. So hiring, you know, hiring, firing, being able to get the right people in the right positions, you know, any, any good leader, if you're running a business, if you're running a church, if you're running anything, you know, It's not about just firing people.
It's not just about hiring people. It's about getting people in the right spots. That was a challenge because of, again, union rules, you know, different things that you had to, again, the bureaucracy and the school boards and all the different things that they kind of put on these principals. And so you couldn't just move a teacher to another school.
Another subject area or move a teacher to another area where maybe they're, you know, I'll give you an example, a teacher that was very mild mannered, very kind of low key and in the middle school world, you're gonna get eaten a lot. They're like little sharks, man. They're gonna, they're gonna eat you up.
And so I remember just talking to this, this gentleman and saying like, Okay. Man, have you ever taught, thought about teaching like autistic kids? Have you ever thought about going into the ESE world? Cause you have such a loving spirit. You have such a kind, peaceful spirit. And that's what those kids need.
And he's like, nah, I never thought about it. And so we moved him into the autistic unit and it was like a, it was like a hand in a glove, man. Like it was a perfect fit for him. He was the perfect teacher for that. But when he was in the regular classroom, they were just eating him alive and he was miserable and the kids were miserable.
And so making those strategic moves that are. Best for the kids and best for the school became, it was difficult and challenging then, but now, like I said, it's becoming almost impossible. So how does, how does policy at the state level and the federal level impact the day to day procedures in school? So I don't know who said it.
Somebody said it was Mark Twain. I don't know why Mark Twain would say it, but I just remember somebody telling me one time. Mark Twain said everything. Yeah, he said, uh, whoever this was said the farther the decision gets away from the school, usually the dumber it is. People in Washington, D. C. have no idea what's going on in Orange Park, Florida.
People, there's no way. It's not, it's not a knock on them. I'm not being ugly. I'm just being real, man. Like, I don't know what's going on up there. I don't know what's going on in Pennsylvania. I don't know the Board of Education was. It's just like I said, the farther, and it just makes sense, not even education, the farther you are away from a decision making process or whatever, the harder it's going to be because you don't know the needs of that community.
Do they really restrain you that much, the federal level? 100%. I mean, I can see the state level, like they've come across a lot of, like they're banning books in schools. What can you say about that? I know you've been out of the game for a little bit, but I know you know about it. Yeah, I mean, like I said, my wife's very actively in it.
My father in law was a superintendent of schools. We were all, what books are they banning? The book banning thing is one of these crazy things that they're not actually banning books. What happened was is that you had books that never, regardless of whether you're a Democrat, Republican, regardless of your race, regardless of your background, there are certain books that shouldn't be in elementary schools.
That's just common sense. It's not a, it's not a policy thing. It's just common sense, man. These, there are certain books that we should let little kids be little kids, man, be, be little kids. And so there were certain books that shouldn't have been in there that got in there. And so there, so there became this kind of movement to get them out.
But then you start getting all these other groups coming in from both sides. And well, I want that book out now. I want this book out. I want that book out. And so you open that can of worms because you let those books in in the first place. And so now everybody's looking at these books like to kill a mockingbird.
I taught to kill a mockingbird as an English teacher. And it's, it's a, you know, to me, it's one of the greatest classics ever written. What grade was that book? We were, we taught that 10th grade. Sophomore high school that a high school. Yeah. I think that's a very, very appropriate for high school age kids.
But you have groups now that are saying, we don't want that book in there because it has this particular language in it, or this particular word in there, or this type of thing. So it's, it's become a free for all is what I'm saying is, is it's just once you opened up that can of worms, everybody's now, I don't want that book.
I don't want that book. So we got a big mess. So what I heard, this is what I've heard or read, is that someone was going around the school district. Threatening to sue the school district if they didn't take certain books out. Do you know anything about that? That's been going on for years, even when I was still active ten years ago.
You would have people at the county office, you'd have memos that would come out and say, Listen, if this guy comes to your school, don't say this. Don't do this. Because you had groups, again, that were just looking. We live in this, like I said, world where it's just so weird where everybody's out to get everybody.
And so this guy would come to the front office and say, I need to see this record, this record, this record, this record, and this record. So the poor secretary sitting there going, I'm just trying to get the kids to lunch, man. I'm just trying to get kids where they're supposed to be. She didn't respond in that way.
Well, I'm going to do a public records lawsuit now. And they would go down and file a public records lawsuit because that poor little secretary sitting at the front desk didn't spend the entire day. Making copies of whatever it was, my emails going back 20 years or whatever he was asking for, you know, they would ask for some ridiculous amount of information.
So same thing with the books. People are just, they have agendas. They're not, this is what's frustrating. They're not really caring about kids. They're not, they're not. It's my agenda. It's my party's agenda or it's my, my agenda. And so I'm going to, and like I said, it's coming from both sides. It's not just one side.
And meanwhile, the kids are caught in the crossfire. Because we know, we did know, we lost it somewhere along the way. Common sense says there are certain things that elementary age children shouldn't be introduced to. They shouldn't. And then, well, yeah, but I think this and I think that. And so everybody has their agenda and they start coming in.
And it's just like I said, it's just, it became a free for all in the last five years. It really has. So it was like a more of All right. One group or one person or one, one agenda was going in saying they were basically guerrilla lawfare is I guess how you could say it, they'd go in there and be very assertive and pushy to get certain records right now.
They want them right now. There's a process to it. And I could see how A secretary or somebody who's not really trained in it to say, okay, well fill out this form. We have seven to 14 business days to get it to you. Let's fill out this form and we'll go through and we'll make sure that we got everything you need.
Send them on their way after they fill out the form. But when they come in and they're very pushy, it's like then things start to break down. The process starts to break down and they're like, Oh, what do I do? Everybody freaks out. I like what you said. That was the gorilla. What'd you say? Lawfare. Gorilla lawfare, man.
That's.
That's awesome. That's exactly what's happened. You, you just hit the nail on the head, whether it be books, whether it be public record requests, you have guerrilla law fair, where, like I said, both parties, both all these groups out there. Yeah. Have an agenda and they're like I said, Gorilla lawfare. There's no better way to say it.
I think there's a good reason why they have teachers up there with firefighters and police officers and stuff like that. Because the amount of stuff that you have to go through. So we're not only just talking about having to focus on educating these kids and making sure that they're successful and they're teaching them.
State tests and stuff like that and passing those. There's also these tragedy, tragic things that happened in school. Uh, unfortunately, when I first started, I can tell you, like I said, in 96 when I first started. There truly was. And the people that I was, this is what's saying, man, teachers are so amazing.
Right? Most of them, like they are just, nobody goes into going, I'm going to make 425 an hour or 18, 600. You know, nobody, nobody went into it because they wanted to make tons of money. Nobody now would say that. Yeah. But it was truly, it's pretty close. Most of the people I was with, it was the love of teaching.
You loved kids. I loved going in that classroom and imparting wisdom and having those discussions with those kids and teaching them. This was the cool part. We taught kids to critically think and use the frontal lobe of their brains. We didn't tell them to believe this or believe that or follow this party or follow that party.
We said, use this part right here. Listen to what the two sides are saying. Use this part of your brain up here and critically think about what's best for you. What's best for your family? What's best for you? And it, it was great. That was truly the love of teaching. And over the last 20 years, 20, 30 years, I've literally watched that love of teaching be just taken away from these, from these brave people that are still in those classrooms every day, but they are overwhelmed.
They are frustrated. They are leaving in droves because that love of, The love of teaching is gone. Now, it's all about state test. Now, it's all about shootings. Now, it's all about security. Now, it's all about unions and pay structures and all in federal mandates and bureaucracy. I mean, the amount of paperwork that they're having to do now.
I remember them when we went to, we were supposed to go to a paperless system. There's more paper today, quadruple the amount of paperwork that I was doing 10 years ago. So, well, they said paper less, not paper. Yeah, you got to know your, uh. extension of the word, you know, whatever they call it. We did the same thing in medical that we went to electronic charting.
You actually do more, but there's less paper backup. Right. Since we've gone to school and everything, a lot has changed. Obviously the whole world has changed. And to get into the next topic, uh, it's kind of a devastating thing. I would say every topic that we're going to talk about. The rest of this conversation can be devastating, but let's try to stay positive.
So the listeners out there, if you have some kids around, you might not want to have this podcast on. I just want to let you know that kids shouldn't be hearing what we're talking about either. At least at a young age. In the past, we've had guests on where we talked about human trafficking and it is right up there.
Sex trafficking, human trafficking and kind of coincide and unfortunately there's been news reports in central Florida, Tampa and stuff where principals are involved in a ring of human and sex trafficking. It's kind of a horrific thing that an educator. Would stoop to that level. Yeah, we can't speak for their motives and why they get into something like that.
Human sex trafficking, uh, human trafficking, what did we say about a year or two ago when we touched on that subject? I think it's like a 90 billion dollar a year industry. The NFL is 9 billion dollars a year. Sex trafficking is 99 billion. There's a lot of influence in it. How can schools identify and supporting victims of trafficking?
You know, you guys were just talking about the trafficking and these principles and the, uh, the, the trying, you know, I don't think any of us can even try to understand the mind of evil. That's what it is. It's, there's no other word for it. It's not a bad thing. It's evil. It's an evil thing. It's one of those things like what?
Yeah. It's just evil. But are you kidding me? But I would say. I always say this because obviously I work in the church world too, and we've seen scandal after scandal in churches across the globe. And this is what I always say, a pastor friend of mine and I would sit down and talk and he would say, man, I can't believe here's another one.
Here's another one. Here's another one. And I always say the same thing. It doesn't shock me that there's wolves because there's always been wolves. What's shocking to me is where are the shepherds, right? Where are the shepherds? Because wolves don't just, they can try to hide and they may get away with that for a period of time, but eventually a wolf always acts like a wolf.
My passion is, is I get fired up is, is okay, there's wolves. There's these bad guys doing bad things. Where are the shepherds? Because in almost every one of those cases, People knew ahead of time, they knew something was going, they knew something wasn't right. They, they might, like I said, these guys may be sneaky for a while, but eventually you slip up.
Eventually they're your, your true colors come out and that's, we're talking about patterns again. Absolutely. At that point in time, that's when the shepherd has to take, you got to take action. There's a saying that goes along with that, too. You can make as many laws if you'd like. Evil doesn't obey laws.
Within the school, I see the patterns. Uh, that's how you would identify them. Uh, what is being done to support either victims or clients? supporting families that have been victimized by this. Or even, sorry, even educating the kids on like, Hey, if somebody says come over my house or is that part of some school education?
They have a lot in public education today. They have a lot of what's called social, emotional SEL, social, emotional learning, things like that. And some of it's really good. Some of it's not so good. And, but here's what I would tell educators today and tell people is The, to, to, for me, the biggest key was relationships.
And I'll give you an example to, I'm talking about, to how we can support these kids that are going through these horrific things. We had, uh, SROs on our campus. These were school resource officers, and I remember there was a big controversy 'cause of budgeting and things like that. They decided to take the, the SROs off the campus and, and I said, guys, that's a, that's a huge mistake.
And it's not about protecting and having somebody there as a guardian, that's important. But here's the thing that I saw, my, the SROs that I worked with were really good and here's what I saw them do. Because they were more than just police officers, and they saw themselves as that. They were protectors.
They were shepherds, as I just shared. Right. These guys built relationships with the kids, and they trusted these men. And so when these kids were going through something, or there was something, or another kid knew another kid was going through something, because there was a relationship, they would come to them.
They would trust them to say, Hey, you might want to talk to Billy. You might want to talk to little Susie because something's going on at home. Something's not right. She's been talking to this guy online or whatever. You know what I'm saying? They felt very comfortable coming to us as principal, SRO, teachers.
We tried to build a, an environment on the campus of trust. And I think we're losing that because again, we have so much. Transient, you know, teachers in and out. We have school shootings going on. We have all this kind of stuff where we're, we're teaching kids not to trust each other, not to trust the, the adults on, on the campus, not to trust the, you know, they, they watch the news, they see the media.
Well, cops are bad, cops are bad, cops are bad. So I'm not gonna go talk to the officer about what's going on. So I think we need to get back to that, to, to the relational piece of education rather than this bureau bureaucratic thing that it's become, that brings up the topic of homeless. Kids that homeless kids that go to school.
I think it's pretty courageous that they even want to go to school Being that they don't have anywhere to live, but a lot of them is not just living on the street They couch or couch to couch different relatives or people that They go to school with, and I know Orange Park High School, because we had Pastor Jake Jadis on here, and he, we had a discussion about homelessness in general.
And one of the things that his church did at the time. And probably, maybe still does, but they had a food pantry for the kids. When the school was out during like a spring break, they would still have breakfast and lunch served there. What are the unique challenges that homeless students face in the classroom?
So that goes back to that relational piece I talked about. Teachers knowing their kids, knowing what they're facing. So, for example, I had a young man when I was in the dropout prevention lab that was having to provide for his family. He was one of the main breadwinners in that family. And so to do that, he was a cook at one of the local restaurants and he'd work till two three o'clock in the morning, closing down, doing things like that.
So knowing my student, knowing what he was having to face every day, I had to adjust and that's the, and that's why when you keep things at the local level. It always works better because I wasn't saying we're going to let this kid off the hook and he doesn't need to do any work. He doesn't need to do his homework.
I was flexible and I adjusted for his schedule knowing at 7 a. m. He's had three hours of sleep at best. Uh, the fact that he's even in school is a shows a lot of testimony to his character. So let me adjust my schedule and be flexible on due dates work getting turned in all those kinds of things. So it's, it's knowing your kids and knowing that if a kid's hungry, We all know Maslow's hierarchy, you know, hierarchy and things like that.
That's one of the first ones. If I'm starving, I'm hungry. I'm not at my best. I'm not going to learn at the maximum way that I can. So let's meet that need first before we get into math, before we get into calculus and algebra and all those things. And so I think it just, again, it comes back to that local knowing kids.
And I, and I, I wish we could go back to those days and I know, Oh, back in the day, it was so much better back then that we all say that, but we really have lost that relational piece that really made. schools strong and made them places where kids felt safe. Kids felt protected. Kids felt where they were educated.
Um, and we just need to get back to that. We need to get back to that local rule where we can really know our kids so that we know that they're couch surfing and let's see what we can do about it. Let's see a lot of these churches come in and say, okay, you know, I remember there was one, I can't remember where it was, Alabama or somewhere, but the church got together and there was like 40 kids in the foster care system and they were like, They put them out of business.
They adopted all 40 kids and got them in the home so that they didn't couch serve, so they weren't out there. A lot of churches too, uh, I know even at my son's school that you have to pay for chips and soda and stuff like that, side dishes and stuff, but if you want to go eat, it's free. And I believe, uh, it's not the county covering that, I believe that the church is covering any, any kid that cannot afford food that day, that they pay the bill.
And one of the things I did in Bradford, because they were 100 percent everybody got free lunch and things like that. Part of the danger of that is, is, and we talk about that on the Barnabas, Operation Barnabas is being a hand up, not a handout is, you know, when you're just giving free stuff when the government's just giving out free stuff, that's not effective either.
And so one of the things that I brought to Bradford was, is a PE uniform, 20. Kid family can't afford 20. What can you afford? I didn't care if they gave me a dollar, I didn't care if they gave me 5, but now the kid has some ownership. Yep. Now the family has some ownership and they feel some pride in being able to provide.
I remember there was a church here local that they would do a free toy giveaway at Christmas time. And they noticed that the fathers, the men, if there was a father or a man involved anytime that was going down, they would be X out. They would, they would be not, not around because it was humiliating that I can't buy my kids Christmas presents.
And so this church switched it up and said, Hey, we're going to do the Christmas thing, but still have all the nice gifts, things like that, but we'll, we'll sell them at a reduced rate. So that, that iPad's 5. Cause again, it's not about the money. It's about that bringing dignity to people. That was something that I'd really tried to do in my district was in my schools was give people dignity.
It's not about how much you make or man, let's, let's work together. Uh, so teach these kids responsibility and ownership. So one of the big controversies in the United States, and I have my own personal thoughts about safety for kids in schools and school shootings and everything, without going too far into, uh, What people don't want to hear.
I somewhat feel that it is coached. That somebody is trying to take our Second Amendment rights. And whether that's your perspective and you're listening or not, this is my perspective. And I'm sure people share this perspective. So it's a little troubling that these people have to go after the kids. But there's a lot of people after kids.
We just talked about human trafficking and stuff like that. Yeah, they're making money off kids, whether sexually or working wise. These homeless kids, this is why I brought this up, is how many of the homeless kids do you think get trapped? So, obviously, wolves, people, evil individuals are looking for those isolated.
individuals, whether it be Children or women or whatever it may be. So yeah, absolutely. A child who is homeless, who is couch surfing is not under the protection of a mother and a father. Yeah, they're a target. They're absolutely gonna be targeted. But have you personally experienced any kid going missing?
Yes. Yes. Multiple times. Can you tell us about one? Yeah, there was one in particular that I remember. It was scary because I grew up here in Clay County, Florida, and I was an assistant assistant principal, I believe, at the time when the summer Thompson case happened. Elementary student, horrible tragedy changed this entire community.
She was kidnapped and murdered, and I believe she was eight years old at a time, and it just it rocked this community. And so when this happened that my yeah, School. It was those memories are popping in your head and you're thinking, Oh my gosh, this is going to be one of those stories. And so, yeah, you go into fear mode.
You go into where is this child and what could have happened to them. And you see the fear in the community. You were the president of the school. No, no, I was in the district. I was at the middle school at Lakeside. She went to one of our feeder elementary schools. The principal at her school was a good friend of mine.
In fact, she was assistant principal with me and we worked together. And, uh, so I was just trying to help her support her during that time. Cause as a principal, when that happened, obviously it was just, there's no words. I mean, there's no way to devastating. Yeah. So, so yeah. So, so yes, they are vulnerable.
Those are vulnerable populations. And I would say that's, again, where we as shepherds, as educators, as parents, as a community, We need to be involved in their lives. That's why mentorship is so passionate. It's such a passion of mine, whether it's veterans or whether it's students is, man, we need more shepherds.
Uh, I'm going to throw you a curve ball. Here's your curve ball. How many kids have you witnessed gone to mental health facilities and the, the pressure to send kids there from the county? Man, that was, that grew. And it's only getting, I can just tell you from my educator friends that are in it, in it right now, man, That's almost a daily occurrence now.
It was starting to pick up when I was in there getting out in 2019, Baker X count trying to get them to mental health counseling. It was sure. There's some cases where it's necessary, right? Or no. Yes. 100%. Absolutely. Uh, because these, these students, these kids today are facing things that. We didn't have to face when we were in school.
I didn't have the internet. I didn't have a phone in my pocket. I didn't, I didn't have access. You know, somebody said this the other day that, you know, parents are worried about, Oh, I don't want my kids in this particular neighborhood, or this is a bad neighborhood, things like that. And they said, you know, when you put a cell phone in a kid's hand, you've given them access to the most evil things on the planet, on the entire planet.
It was a click of a button. I think the average age that a boy is exposed to porn now is like 10. It's unbelievable. And it's changing. It's literally, neuroscience is now catching up and they're starting to do this research. It's changing their brains. So, yes. We're talking dark web stuff too there. Yes.
They're not just going porn. They're. Yes. They're letting all their information out there. Yeah. They're getting exposed to a lot of, and I wouldn't even consider that adult content. I would say demonic content. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I agree. This is crazy. One of the biggest controversies, like I mentioned coming up, is guns in schools and school shootings.
What is your, do you have any safety protocol that's changed over the years for that? What is the protocol now for it? So obviously, like I said, being the, one of the first guardians in the state of Florida, it changed dramatically because all of a sudden you have 13 educators. I mean, some of the, the original 13 that went through with me, I think a couple of them were school secretaries.
So you have school secretaries, you have football coaches, you have a principal, you have people that were never in a million years thought that we would be going through SWAT, you know, you know, watered down SWAT training. Do the kids know who has weapons or not? No, no, no. It was all anonymous. They did some news stories at the time and they blacked out our faces and all that kind of stuff.
And they would ask me, why, why, why would you do this? Why, why did you volunteer for this? And this is all I knew. And this is the gun debate. That's that's a whole nother animal. Here's what I know. Comments. Again, common sense says. If a bad guy is on a campus doing bad things and he is shooting kids, the sooner a good guy gets to him, he can't kill kids anymore.
No matter how fast, no matter how small the town is, it's five minutes before the cavalry shows up. That's a lot of casualties in that short period of time. I know the campus. I know every nook and cranny. I'm on the campus. I can be there in 30 seconds. That's going to save lives. And we've seen that or less.
Yeah. And so, and we've seen that again, happen in real time, unfortunately, but it does save lives. So. So that part of it, I was for the gun debate, all that kind of stuff that this is what no one's talking about in the whole gun debate because everybody wants to talk about take away guns, take away guns, take away guns, do this, do this, do this.
No one's talking about the breakdown of the homes. No one's talking about the breakdown of the two parent family. No one's talking about taking the fathers out of the homes. No one's talking about the demonic things that kids are being exposed to. on their phones constantly being bombarded with. No, nobody's talking about those things.
Cause again, whether you're Democrat, Republican, that should be 100%. How do we build strong families? How do we protect kids from those demonic forces? Instead of just saying, Hey, take away this gun, take away this guy. Well, I mean, I'm sure we can talk a lot more about gun control and stuff like that, or is it really called gun control?
Hmm. Whole nother part. That's another topic. Yes. Cause guns don't kill people. People kill people. What'd you call it? Guerrilla lawfare? Yeah. I mean, let's face it. Kids should be protected. It's sad that people target kids, but like you said, evil is targeting kids. Whether it's in school, out of school, online, especially.
On the same Kind of topic line there. Do you think that on the local level schools are doing enough or do they need more guidance from? higher up levels or Should it stay in the local? The further away it is Exactly. I would say it needs to get back to that local level the relational piece because with all these can and I've actually Had a conversation with a school shooter and one of the things that he shared with me was that, and again, you're never going to, there's no excuse, there's no excuse, zero, but this kid had been bullied and let down by every per, I mean, when, when he just went through, if half of what he said was telling me happened to him was true, it was horrific, the kind of life that he had been exposed to.
It's one of those ones where as an educator, as a parent, as a citizen in this. We care about this community where we live. And so if we have a student that's being exposed to those kinds of things and those things are kind of happened to him, it goes back to what I said earlier in the podcast. Where are the shepherds?
Where are the people that should have stepped into that young man's life and said enough? So his cry was falling on deaf ears. Absolutely. Pretty sure it has something to do with justice reform, but again, that's another big topic that we can't, we're not going to talk about right now. Sure. There is the topic of class sizes.
And within the class size, I'm just going to condense these two class size and overcrowding immigrant children. And I was just listening to a report today that said most schools are 10 percent down and some schools across the United States are having to let teachers go because now they have, they have empty classrooms.
I think a lot of it is, is that they either went to virtual school online after the pandemic or they went to corporate run schools. Home school. Big one. Home schools is another big one. Another one is private schools. Another thing too is immigrant children that are migrating to the United States, whether it be legal or illegal, those kids are harmless.
They're innocent. They still need an education. They're innocent. They need an education. And yet the taxpayers are. Paying for that and there's language barriers. What experience do you have with immigrant children? I just walked into a classroom not too long ago where the teacher was in tears. Asked her what was wrong and what was going on.
And her last period class of the day, I think she said she has 26 non English speaking students in one class. And, uh, most of them Haitian, but she, uh, then you throw in a Chinese kid and you throw in a, you know, Hispanic kid. So you have, you know, three, four different languages going back and forth, no English, but three or four different languages.
And she's an English speaker only. So now you have like the perfect storm of, again, it's just common sense guys. And you want to just tell the federal government and the state governments and these, these bureaucrats, like I would love for some of these bureaucrats and some of these politicians, you come teach that class.
Come on down. Come on down. I'll pay for your plane ticket and come on down and you get in front of those 26 kids where you don't speak any of their languages. They don't speak your language, but teach them math. Teach them English. What administrator, uh, they have to apply to get into school? Is it not in English?
Uh, the application is English. There's a lot. There's usually an interpreter. They have interpreters. Sometimes they have like who is their liaison that gets these people into school. So usually every campus has nowadays again, federal mandates, things that we have. There's ESOL teachers, there's ESOL liaisons that are, they're able, but again, that person might be Haitian.
So they can't speak Spanish. They don't speak Chinese. They don't speak anything. You still have this perfect storm of people coming together that yes, you have some liaisons that can help. But at the end of the day, What we would do is, and again, this was 10 years ago, I know I'm old, old, but like, first thing we would do is get them on like a Rosetta Stone or some type of language program, because until I could at least have some basic conversational communication with you, I can't really teach you anything.
I can't really help you with anything. Is that really the teacher's job to teach them English from Ground zero. The, the regular classroom teachers, no. And some schools have the resources and have the access to be able to have a person that can be like maybe run a lab, an English language lab, things like that, an ESOL teacher they used to call them.
But no, just a regular classroom teacher like this, this young lady, no, she's completely overwhelmed and under equipped and not, there's just, you're asking them to do the impossible. And it's frustrating because like you guys said, it's not the kid's fault. And I know that's a whole nother podcast for a whole nother day, but a five year old could fix the immigration problem.
But we have. two parties that, like I said, nobody wants to use that frontal part of their brain. Nobody wants to use the frontal lobe of their brain because it's not that difficult to solve that problem. What you're doing is by both parties not coming together and fixing the problem, you're setting up people like in this case educators for failure and you're setting the kids up for failure.
Because the kids are frustrated because they're sitting there, they don't know what's going on. So they start misbehaving and they start acting out and they start doing things. So it's just, it's a perfect storm of bureaucratic guerrilla lawfare. Through her frustration, how long did it take her to get the help she needed?
She's actually, that's going on right now. This is happening, this is happening in real time. So there is no help coming right now. There is no, it's, it's hang on for dear life. So that's, so technically there's no resolve at this time. No, no. These kids are coming in, like I said, under the teachers are under equipped or under trained, they're under prepared.
And you're asking them to do something that's impossible. And the kids are coming, whether, like I said, the teacher can't do anything about that. I can't do anything about that. They're, they're there. It's just becoming more and more challenging. And I, and I have a unique perspective because we adopted the young man from Haiti and, uh, we, we got him into the public school system last year.
And he spoke pretty good English. He was not fluent, I would say. Um, and I'm just telling you from a parent perspective with one kid. Who was pretty good and also very smart kid. So he, he picked up learning very quick. The entire year was a challenge because there was miscommunication at times. There was things that we thought this was the way it's supposed to be, or he had to pass this test and this test and this and that, and that, and it was different because we didn't communicate well.
So I'm just trying to imagine that's a kid who speaks pretty good English. So I'm just trying to imagine a kid. Who speaks nothing. Like, what do you even do? Where do you even start? You're literally asking these poor teachers to do the impossible. My eight year old had, uh, some Spanish speaking students only in his class.
Whose chair is squeaking like that? And, uh, he was just so sweet. He downloaded a language learning app and started to learn how to learn Spanish. Yeah. So he could talk to her. But I think that's crazy how these, and these kids are just thrown in the middle and these parents come from wherever they're coming from, like I said, legal or illegal, and they don't have these kids prepared to go to school or they don't expect to teach them English.
And it goes back to the original thing we said in the part, the first part of the podcast, when it, that's coming from the federal level because they won't take care of a problem that needs to be taken care of. And so even at the parent level, how do you fault a parent trying to come to a country The better themselves, the better their family selves coming from these, the things that my, my son that I adopted from Haiti, like the stories he would tell.
And this was before Haiti, I mean, this, Haiti's really bad what's going on down there right now with the gangs taking over. So he was right on the cusp of that when that was getting ready to go down. Like, how do you fault parents for wanting to come here and get their kids to a safer thing? So because there's not an orderly system in place, you've set everybody up to fail.
The whole system's set up to fail. So without there being an orderly system there, does that translate to being Translate, sorry about that. Not having enough resources for those kids that don't speak English and Yeah. Are there, are there any other resources that are in place for them? Uh, for any student that doesn't speak English as a first language.
It's really, like I said, it's, it's no, it's over. It's a, you're asking to do the impossible. Because I've traveled, most of you guys in here, all you guys in here have traveled, like, I went to Italy last April, like, we went to this gorgeous little town. I mean, it was just beautiful. And I'm like, man, and I'm looking at all the townspeople and I'm like, man, I want to get to know these people.
I want to, I want to get into this Italian culture. And because I couldn't speak their language and they couldn't speak my language, it was the most fun. frustrating thing because I was just wanting to be a part of this. And I, I couldn't even have a, I couldn't have a basic conversation with them. And so I'm just trying to imagine a kid sitting in a class and you're trying to learn Shakespeare.
You're trying to learn algebra. Like it's just, it's, it's an impossible thing. And until they fix the problem, which is again, and chaos system, we're going to continue to be overwhelmed and the resources won't be there. Do you think that that adds to or contributes to the beginning of like, maybe even a mild depression when they, as a barrier to them learning more, like they, they know they can't understand you, uh, does that make them feel a little more dejected?
Uh, can you see that in the way that they're, the way that they present themselves in class? I would say it goes both ways. Some of them shut down, some of them just start to misbehave. Because I'm going to act out, and that's what she, like I said, that's what she described in her classroom that day, and I saw it, again, 10 years ago, when we had ESOL kids coming in that couldn't speak English and were, again, put into a situation where it was, again, impossible.
You're asking people to do the impossible. It's like talking to a toddler. 100%. Yeah. So, I think to, to wrap up this conversation is if, I mean, obviously we can talk about this for a long time, but there's, uh, two other concerns that I have that I wanted to discuss before we close up teacher salary and retention.
I think we can safely say that these teachers don't get paid enough, but I guess my question for you would be. Uh, what stops them from going to corporate run schools? The corporate run schools don't pay. Nobody pays. Um, they don't pay either. No, no, there's no, it's, I would have never thought that. No. Some of the more wealthier private schools, you'd be shocked at what they actually pay less in some cases than the public school system because I don't have the reasons why, but it's in the law enforcement world.
We have the same problem. You have police off. So in our area where we live here, a first year police officer or a first year school teacher. Can not afford to live in our county alone. You do just do the math. It's basic math. Take 48, 000 a year, do rent, car payment, insurance, all that stuff. Add all that stuff up.
They can't live alone. They have to have a spouse. They have to have two incomes. They have to have a roommate. And so you're asking people to protect us and you're asking people to educate our children. But then you're telling them this is how much we value you. We're going to give you a salary that you can't even live by yourself.
And these are our kids, you know, and these are two of the most important jobs, two of the most important jobs and a, and I, and this is reality because I'm a sports fan and I love football more as much as anybody out there, but this is, this is, it shows you as a society where we're going to have to start tackling and starting to get in our frontal part of our brain, we're going to pay a guy to throw a football 60 million a year, but we're going to take the people that are supposed to protect and serve us and the people are loving our kids and educating our kids.
And we're going to say, we're going to keep you at poverty level. It's crazy. It's insane. You don't have commercials at school. And I L I need an IL for teachers. Oh, but you have Pepsi. You have Pepsi sponsoring, uh, as long as they can put soda. Candy bars and sodas. So, do you know how salaries compare across state lines?
Florida's tends to be towards the low end, but this is what people don't understand. Again, basic economics 101 tells you, well, that teacher over that state makes this much more. Yeah, but what's the state tax? Cost of living. What's the cost of living? What's the, so many other factors. You can't just look at a teacher in California and say, well, they're making so much more in California.
When you break down teacher salaries, whether it's in California, New York, Florida, it doesn't matter, Mississippi, teachers are not getting paid enough money. It's that simple. Common sense. Again, anybody can do basic math 101 and go, we're not paying these people what they deserve to be paid. And it's Well, they're all government employees, right?
Except for the, the corporate room. Correct. So isn't it more of the government? Could be funding them a lot, give you a lot more funding. Or are they always looking? Wow, that's a whole nother podcast, isn't it? ? Yeah. I thought, I thought the money followed the I know, I know. We thought the money followed the students, though it's supposed to.
Well, no, we're supporting wars. It's definitely a labor of love. I, I mean, I, you know, my, my wife works in the education, um, field. My. Wasn't wasn't that was an educator as well and the money just definitely doesn't reflect the the The job and you see where people who are committed to that job feel They you have more of a love for the children and they do the hope to have money to be paid Right proper.
We live in we live in the greatest supposedly the greatest nation in the world and so I would say So, love, you're this. Wonderful, caring person who loves kids, but hey, go, go, we're going to put you below the poverty line. We're going to be like, how are we saying that we value you when we, when we don't value It's a straight contradiction.
What's the old saying? Put your money where your mouth is? Well, we're, we're putting our money in the 60 million quarterbacks and telling these police officers and teachers. Well, I thought that, um, lottery was supposed to kind of help with the education system. I thought that's what it was supposed to do.
In Florida, I believe that's the Bright Futures scholarships, uh, for, for getting into colleges. My brother actually, he got his bachelor's degree at UF. So he benefited from that. There were some, again, I'm not going to, there were some benefits that came out of that, but if you go back to the history of the Bright Futures and the lottery and all that, again, another podcast, there's, there's a lot of shell game.
Wow. A lot of those coconut shells being moved around, so it's a facade in some perspective. Follow the money. Wow. You definitely have a servant's heart, man. And, uh, I, I think it's sad that the school system lost you. I think that there's some, there's another future for you. I think that you can be the voice for the voiceless, can speak truth to power.
And I think that politics is the next level for you, man. I think that we need someone like you to kind of Spearhead a narrative that people are detached from. If I may ask this one last question, this one, we'll go back into some of the other topics. You talk a lot about using that frontal lobe and that critical thinking with the standardized tests that we have today.
Is there a way to get around the standardized testing to actually teach critical thinking again? Because I, I'm in the medical field and I see a lot of people coming out of their professional schools, if you will, and they lack that common sense, that critical thinking to get things done. Is there a way, do you know how to address that type of a problem?
Yes, and we all know, use common sense. We need to blow up the system and start over. I mean, I think it has a lot to do with parenting too. My kids are going to have Yeah, but, uh, you, you paired with the right information. And I, I think we need to be exposed to the right information and I think we're denied that.
We're detached. By giving them that cell phone, that iPad at 8, 9, 10 years old. No, I think to answer your question, the system, the system needs, if any, if this were a business, they'd be bankrupt. The whole system needs to be re evaluated. And ask the question that the right questions is this what's best for kids.
And in this case with the standardized testing, that's one that I'm passionate about. I watched standardized testing kill the love of teaching and kill the love of learning. I can't remember who it was, but they had a term called read, read aside. And it was just basically saying the same thing that we've killed.
We we've killed the love of learning, the love of reading, the love of things like that. I remember in school we would have discussions and you, There was no technical right or wrong answer, but the students would say, well, hey, what about this? They were actually encouraged to ask those questions and the teacher would then guide them Well, you got to look at this this this and this and then make it that decision and the kids would either change their opinion or they would learn how to Incorporate more information into their decision making right and then what you just described is his teaching As it should be.
That's what, that's what drew most people into teaching like your mom, like your, your, your family members is being able to work with kids and watch them wrestle with those. And here's the deal. We say failure is not an option. Failure is an option. It should be. It's 100 percent an option because that's how you learn.
That's how you grow. Yeah, absolutely. Just to interject just on a personal level. My grandmother, they named the armory on west side, Mary, Marilena Gibbs Armory. That's my grandmother. So she, at a time when she was, you know, shipped from, she left here and went to Philadelphia and she got an education where in the south, they weren't allowed to read.
But when she got back to Jacksonville, she realized that there was an issue and kids needed to be taught. There was no program at that time for kids to get an education at a young age, so she started the first schools, like the elementary schools here, just would get kids, get them in the truck, ride through the neighborhood, pick them up, and take them to her house and teach them how to read.
And she was one of the first educators in our neighborhood in Sweetwater. And how many kids benefited from that, man? Oh man. Think about that. Almost everyone. How many lives? Just one educator. You think about the investment. You talk about an investment, we go back to teacher salaries and money. What, look what the impact was in a community.
It was a, it was a huge impact. She would feed them lunch. And teach them how to read sad as a lot of those people now are Make decisions to pay teachers more and they don't they don't realize that The only reason you got to where you're at is somebody taught you and it's so important man You're the real deal bro thing I think there's a bigger bigger calling for you to walk walk this thing out with man I want to see him go back to school.
I want to see him run for office. I want to see him do reform I want to see him We're trying. We're trying, guys. It's, uh, I think I want to see him take. He's the real deal. Operation Barnabas. I saw you on the news last night. They ran a story about action. Yeah, he's the real deal. Chief. We're sitting here watching our next probably mayor, governor, president.
Probably. He's the real deal, man. I'm not being political, but I don't know if that will happen because I'm I'm not trying to promote any candidate one way or the other. But, uh, but I do like candidates that. Don't do what there's a, what's, what's the word I'm trying to say here? Like, yes. So I'm not going to be a party, man.
I'm not going to be told that you have to think a certain way or do a certain way. I want to do what's best for people. I want to do what's best for, for the community. Oh, you mean? So you're not going to just fall in line with everybody else? No, not me. So if that's who you're going to vote for, you're probably not going to vote for me.
Whatever. Obviously, I think, I think he goes to the speaker. this place called prayer. And I think he answers to a mighty God. So he's, he's accountable to our most high Lord and Savior. Yes, sir. Hey, everybody. Thanks for, thanks for listening. Thanks, John, for being here. Thanks, Travis and Jawad. Please reach out to your kids and let them know that you care and that you care about them.
You have their best interest in their mind. Get involved with their school. I think that's only get involved in their school. Sit down at dinner around the table and have a talk, especially if you can go on field trips. I know I go, you need to volunteer. I'll be there. Be there for the kids, be their safeguard, be their shepherd during what, why they're out there.
There you go. There you go. John, like I said, you have a servant's heart, man. You really do what you're doing with what you've done for the schools and for them. Probably thousands and thousands of kids. And now you're focusing on the veterans. And I think that is great too, because veterans are now benefiting from being a shepherd.
That's right. Be a shepherd. Oh, have a good one. Thanks guys. Absolutely. Appreciate y'all. Appreciate what you're doing. Bless you, man. Like, thank you so much, everybody. Thanks for listening. Peace out.
