Questioning Everything in Education

Welcome to the Learning Can't Wait podcast, an iTutor production at iTutor. Our vision is to ensure every child has access to education regardless of circumstance. Each episode, we will be joined by Pathfinders within and around the education space who are bringing about transformational change on behalf of.

Students, I am your host, Hayley Spau. I am so excited for folks listening in today to meet someone who is both new to me and not new to me. It is Mike Yates, the Senior Product Manager of Teach For America. Welcome to today's podcast, Mike. How you doing? Thank you. I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited about. I'm excited too, as, as I say, new to me, but not new to me.

You're one of those people on LinkedIn and in the world whose work and writings and actually a lot of content production I've followed for a minute, and now I get the chance to get to know you personally as do our listeners. Thank you. Yeah, I'm really excited. I it's been a pleasure, getting to know you.

I'm excited about this, like from title on on none the questions that we're gonna get into, so I'm excited. So, so let's tell folks the title, right? So Learning Can't Wait episode. This is called Questioning Everything in Education. Before, I want listeners to know that before this episode goes live, I confirmed that Mike felt comfortable with this episode title and I think it really, you know, and he's nodding his head.

Yeah, absolutely. But I think it, it speaks a lot to what kind of leadership you provide in this space and, really how you've led your life. So why don't we jump in? Yeah. I mean, I think like if somebody asks me to, To like sum up my story and my career journey. Like that is l that, that phrase questioning everything in education.

That's literally it. So yeah. Ready? Ready. That'll be your next podcast title. . Yeah, it might be. It's a good one. You heard it here, folks. We first people . That's right. Yeah. Well, why don't you tell us then, Mike, how did you come to be the professional and personal version of yourself who questions everything in education?

Yeah, that's a good question. So, Like grew up hating school. I,I was almost like a student conspiracy theoristin that when I was young I had had enough bad experiences with school to where I really had sort of internalized that, like teachers and the system itself like. Was all a part of essentially keeping students down and not helping students succeed.

The way I had experienced school was that, like I, I, at a very young age, I remember being around like eight or nine years old and, and really questioning like why I was being graded. I grew up in Texas and, and in Houston there was something called the Rodeo, and for some reason when I was like eight or nine, I just kept thinking like, this is like, they, they give.

A grade at the fair , like, why, why, why am I being evaluated and given this random number that I don't really understand? But the teachers acting like they understand and it's not an accurate representation of like what, I know I didn't have those words, but I just kept thinking. I kept saying that's like I'm a pig at the fair.

Right? And so like that, that's kind of how I went through school. I was always poking and prodding at the school system. My mother was a teacher in the school district where I attended hmm. Adding a layer of complexity there. Yeah, yeah. She, she was a teacher at the middle school where I attended, which I hated.

I just like absolutely was like, this is awful. But it was also where I experienced what I felt like was at that time, what I felt like was unacceptable behavior from teachers to where they would threaten me. Like they would threaten to like, oh, I'll send you to your mother's classroom. And I, I was like, well, you can't do that for every other kid.

Like, and it was not because I was like, misbehaving. It's because I was questioning things like I would question why we had to do a certain thing, or, oh, you have to write this in this format. And I'd say, okay, well is that the only available format in the world? And because the way the school system works, that's considered disrespect.

They were like, well, I'll send you to your mom. Well, little did they know, like she was the one who planted the seeds of descent inside of me, so mm-hmm. , I was actually literally trying to help them and say like, that's not the person you wanna send me to. Cause . That's the, that's not the consequence you think it is.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so I, I felt like, you know, at, at every turn in school, I was just, I was met with resistance when I was trying to literally, For a meaning and try to figure that out. Until I ended up at a high school. That ended up being a very special place for me where I had teachers that would positively engage with me doing that and like literally guide me through the world.

It's where I built up a lot of my sort of belief about what learning should be. Went to this incredible high school. There's a traditional school, but like there was. Weird stuff there. Like there was an outback steakhouse attached to the school that was the culinary program. Like Wow. Yeah, like, like we had like robotics labs.

We had a full broadcast studio at the time, like remember the old IMAX that were like different colors? Oh, for sure. Yeah. They like colored basically. Yeah. Like, I remember that being like, so state of the art and I like, sure. Just bought one on marketplace to put on my shelf behind me for like 50 bucks.

Amazing. It's very, it's a retired product I had. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was telling the guy when I bought it, I was like, you have no idea how much this means to me, like . But like to me that was a signal of like, oh, this school is thinking about the future. I don't know how they did it. I gotta go back and talk to this principal.

I'm still in contact with him. They just had a, this odd but incredible collection of teachers that cared about students more than they cared about doing it their way. And, I sort of watched them. Sort of literally practice and grasp with that. So that that's what restored my faith, that education could be something different.

And then I tried to avoid it as an adult. Like I , I, I never wanted to become a teacher. Ended up just getting roped into it. I literally fell into education, didn't intend on being an education so, That's, so first I wanna hold space for the feelings that you're naming Yeah. That are heavy, right? Like that is, that is heavy to say that you felt as a child, that the system was built against you and your mind and the way that you saw the world.

And that is, Really awful and must have been incredibly challenging. And yeah, I appreciate you sharing that here on the podcast. Yeah, no problem. I mean, I, I, I've, you know, over the year I've, I've spent time with this emotion, which is, which has been great. Like I, and I still feel this way about the school system.

I, I wrote this on LinkedIn a while ago and I'm actually about to re. Rewrite it because I still think it's true. But, I had this realization that I was like, I am never going to be invited to the major education conferences because I am not the speaker that they want to hear from. And I, I wrote that after I got this email from a, a, a large charter school network that I will not name

And they said, Hey, it's our 25th anniversary. Will you come speak to us? . And I remember saying, thinking to myself, I'm not gonna do this. Like immediately I was like, I, I'm not, because. They clearly haven't like done enough research into me. At the time, I had a podcast that was called, school Sucks, so I was like, let me just, yeah,

They didn't, you don't think they listened? Yeah. , I don't think, I think they missed that one. So I was like, let me send y'all a couple links just so you can make sure that you didn't email the wrong Mike Yates. And eventually I actually just said, Hey guys. I don't feel okay with this. Like I, what I'm about to say to your people at the 25th anniversary.

I don't feel cool with you giving me money to do that, so I'm just gonna say no, just to save us. But I, I realize that like the system is old and, powerful and resistant to change and that's why. There are people like me out there. There are people like you out there that , you know, that have both work in and out of the system.

So I appreciate you you naming that and pausing for that though. Yeah, of course. Unlike other folks, right? There are going to be listeners or meeting people that aren't listening that I hope or wish they would. Yeah. You, it sounds like you had a big turnaround when you came to high school and you explored and learned in a space that really, I mean, you hear this all the time, that.

Knew you for who you were and what you needed to be excited and passionate and curious. Yeah. So I mean, that sounds like a pretty transformative experience for you. How did that shape. You eventually becoming a teacher and Yeah. The types of schools you, I know you were invested in and built and really love to see an action today.

Yeah. Yeah. So I went to this high school that was called Westside High School, and I have no clue what it is like today, but it was like, it was like the new hot thing in Houston Independent school district when I was in school. And it was because they just like literally anything you were interested in, they had it, like they had business, they had healthcare.

They had like media theater and everything was new. It was like a new school. So it was like all state of the art. And, I went, I got to high school with no plan. I, I had no hope. I thought school was wack. Like I thought most of the kids at that school were wack. I was like, all of y'all are. And I also, nobody knew me when I showed up because I went to school across.

From there for my whole life. And so everybody sort of had this built in friend group, and I didn't quite have that yet when I was a freshman, but my freshman year I just kinda like went, I just kinda like got by. And in my sophomore year, the most significant thing that happened to me in school was that I, I, I had this homeroom teacher, they were trying this advisory model that they got from this amazing network of schools called Big Picture Learning that.

I, I, I didn't put two and two together until last week and then reached out to my old principal and was like, is this true Big Picture Learning, like in the early nineties? Like they essentially created what many people know as the advisory, like homeroom model. So shout out to Big Picture Learning. But I had this homeroom teacher who was supposed to be more than just a teacher.

He was like a mentor, and his name is Mr. Martin. And I will never forget, like the first day I met him, I was like, who does this dude think he is? He had. Like the, the, like his hair was like spiked with like the gel. He looked, he, he looked like he was trying to look like one of the Backstreet Boys. And I was like, who is this man?

Like up here? The Backstreet Boys were popular. I mean, yeah, I was just, I was like, sir, I'm not here for this. But he. He did this activity where we had to introduce ourself. And I'll never forget, I told this joke, and I don't even know where I heard it before, but I was like, yeah, I'm from this, really small town on the outskirts of Galveston called Houston, Texas, and everyone's just like snickering at this.

And I'm, I'm just like, joke after joke, introducing myself and then afterwards he was like, Hey, I know you are like on the, like you're, you're trying to play basketball. I know. You're like trying to do, and he was like, look, I'm not, I'm not sure. I don't know what your parents look like, but he is like, if you were gonna go to the NBA, we'd probably already know that right now.

I was like, why are you sick? Wow. Day one. Yeah, like day one. So I'm like, why are you saying this to me? And he was like, I want you to join the speech team. And I said, man, speeches for nerds. And I walked away , let the record state I was on speech and debate. So was I. It's, I know you were . I like the story about stories and there we go.

You joined debate. Exactly. I mean, he was on me every day. Sure. I joined the speech and debate team. And I realized he's actually right. If I were going to the NBA, people would know it. . And I had a bl, I mean, speech and debate changed my world because I got to, I, you know, I'm a kid from the, the hood, so I got to travel for the first time and it changed my experience of school.

Because all of a sudden there was this adult who was a teacher that I spent a lot of time with outside of school, practiced travel, like who saw me in multi multiple environments and really got to know me and my family. So it transformed how I thought about the role of a teacher. All of a sudden I realized like, the reason why I think Mr.

Martin is awesome is not because of the way that he lectures. Cuz I actually don't ever get lecture from him. I don't know. All I knew is that he did Teach For America. I knew that like, I like about his teaching style. Like I didn't know anything about his teaching style, but I knew about his life, right?

Like I knew he was actually the first on record, the first victim of a hate crime in l. Right, like in the state of Louisiana. So like I knew that, I knew that he grew up Catholic and his grandmother was like, you going, you going, you were born Catholic. You're gonna die Catholic. And he was like, but I don't go to, you know, I, I knew all of these things about him.

He was human to you. Exactly. Yeah. It was the first time he, you took the words out of my, like, that was the first time that even though my mom was a teacher, it was the first time that I was like, oh, these are like real people with real lives who like care about things. The moment that I figured that out was actually like very insignificant.

But it was like he had this, large fear of birds and we were at a speech tournament and a bird flew into the window and we watched him scream and get up and run. And we were like, what just happened? And then he like explained to us , like his fear of birds, but for us it was like, Thanks for, thanks for telling us that.

Like we didn't know you were afraid of birds. Like I'm a, I'm afraid of heights. Like, you know, it was little, but it was really important. And I think like just being in a school where you could do all these weird things, like I did broadcast journalism, that's where I picked up a camera for the first time and I just, like I was telling you earlier, like I was, I.

Literally lost in this YouTube video of a guy who films B-roll footage on his own of him traveling the world. Like he lives in a van full-time and travels the world. And if you ever watch any of his videos, his name is Jake Frew go watch Jake Frew on YouTube. You'll not believe it, but he's films all of his B-roll by himself.

Beautiful landscape. So I was like lost in that. But that comes from that building where like I had. A wrestling coach who was like, I also love making videos, and decided to build a class and a club about it. Like I learned to do Latin ballroom dancing at that bill. Literally anything I wanted to learn how to do, I could do there.

And then I had these, these teachers who didn't care about all the traditional stuff, they cared about being human. And that was like, that was second to none for me. And that, you know, that type of schooling. , which you and I have talked about before when we first met, is really the type of schooling that we see as a future of education.

You and I being the we, right? Yeah. And, and the hope that we can kind of get outside the paradigm of school is X or school is why, but rather like take the elements of both that benefit children and help them become better versions of themselves really is. You know, a podcast for another time, but also mm-hmm.

Like what it's about for you. Mm-hmm. , I'm so glad you say that because sometimes I get, like, now that I'm deep in this like education innovation, like reinvention space. Sometimes it's easy to forget that like my roots come from a traditional high school that it just had a bunch of like different, they were like, what, what people today would probably call incremental innovation.

But for me it was massive. It felt massive for me. Like I've, I've worked on schools that like technically have no teachers where software does all the teaching and the, the adults in the building our coach motivator building projects, workshops, and I think that's really. But I would've never gotten there if I had not embraced the traditional model that was Westside High School.

Right. So, yeah. I love that you said that different podcast. And we should, we should do another one. Yeah. , well, we'll just stack them up. We'll stack them up. Record for days, but that so, so let's talk about podcasting and storytelling. Yeah. Yeah. Mike, you're a storyteller. Tell. Tell me about the impact that you believe stories have to change people's minds.

Yeah. I, I think that stories are everything. It's how we view the world, and we've always viewed the world that way. Like, n no matter how much you love or hate the classics, I'm one that kind of, I don't hate them, but I don't love the classics. I just never enjoyed them, but, . What is interesting is that from the beginning of time, we have always related to each other and communicated through storytelling.

I think even, even if you think about the modern day, like one of the things that's really interesting is that professional sports leagues have found that their leagues were like recently they found that their leagues are less interesting when there are not storylines. Outside of the game. So nobody knows that this is true, but there is this belief that when LeBron James was playing in Miami, he had this injury where he got hit in the face and he intentionally, he purposely wore this black face mask and everybody was like, is he Batman or LeBron James?

Which one is he? And they, there's this rumor that the n like suggested that he do that and then they find him for it because they needed a villain. Right. So I think. Stories unlock the parts of people's heart that make them receptive to all sorts of messages. And everybody knows this cuz everybody has a favorite show.

Everyone has a favorite movie. Like everyone knows this. We just don't process it out loud in that way. Mm-hmm. . Well, let's think it's Halloween. Halloween was yesterday. We're recording this at the very beginning of November. What percentage of costumes were villains and heroes from stories, right? Like you have schools that embrace, not Halloween, but Storybook Character Day because Yeah, stories are what tie us together and people telling their stories make a huge difference.

Exactly. I think like for education, I'm convinced that if we capture more stories and put them in a place where people can readily find them. About the school experience, about what the future of learning could be if we're, if we're talking to young people and, and we just devote our time to that and our energy to that.

And I actually think that you can see things change. Like everyone complains. Oh, we have all these policy makers that don't know what it's like to set foot inside of a high school. That's true. But you can bring them there, like through video and now like, let's not even talk about immersive experiences.

Like let I live in Texas. Why? You know, I'm probably, now, now that I'm saying this out loud, I'm gonna have to be the one that does it. Like somebody should probably gonna be me. Somebody should partner with the University of Texas. University of Texas has what's called the Advanced Computing Center, and in the, if you've ever seen the movie Interstellar, like a lot of the, the shots from space in that movie were taken from.

At UT since that like, yeah. At at ut, you know, cuz Matthew McConaughey, he is like, he's, he's like, he's the minister of culture at University of Texas for sure. Yeah. He's kind of a legend, like, I think he exists, but , like . But, in that advanced computing center they have what's called the HoloLens, which is a virtual reality simulation that can put you anywhere.

And so, Why not build an experience for the state senators who are actually down the street to go to the advanced computing center and put them in a high school classroom so they can see for themselves what it's like, like they're, they're saying they're busy, so let's use story. Let's use media. Let's use video to immerse them in an experience, right?

Like, Why not Teach For America? Also, it's gonna have to be me to do it. Why doesn't big organizations like Teach For America or like UNICEF start collecting stories of people who they serve and put them all in one place that's too large for people to ignore? Right. I think if we do that, then like, You'll see some change.

Like we know the numbers are out there, right? The raw data is out there. We see it. We talk about it all the time.We need to make data, walk and talk into people's homes with storytelling.I love this. I love stories. I'm one of those people who reads books for plot because I love stories so much. Yeah, so like I can.

Read and I will devour a book just because I'm curious what happens to the people in the book. Mm-hmm. And I get emotionally attached to them, and it's bad . Sometimes it's really bad, but sometimes it's great and there's a happy ending and, you know, my brain has the, the happy waves going. That's right.

But you know, honestly, you, and you know, you and I talk about this as well, but the pandemic allowed for a lot more storytelling. Yeah. And you had a lot of people, especially around education, Learning about inequity that they didn't know existed before. Mm-hmm. And for me, one, that's a shame. Yeah. But they didn't, what existed before?

But two, it's an opportunity and I love that you're naming some concrete ideas that you're gonna actualize. You said it here again, first, it's gotta be , but that, but that can actually give people the type of perspective they need to make informed decisions on how to move the needle forward in education.

Yep. Yeah, I actually think that's so right. Like, I think it's because they say we can only access one side of our brain at a time, is like what they say. But I, I, I work in product management and product, product development. It's just fun. Like I, I have learned the value of just being historically right from Gary Vaynerchuk who says that a lot.

But, I've said very often in meetings like, it doesn't matter what products we. . If we can't capture stories around why this is valuable and why people need this, nobody's gonna use it. Doesn't matter. And three months later we'll get there, right? Like three months later, somebody else will be like, you know what, we should do like a video series on this.

Like, yeah, of course we should, because like, like that, that is what draws people towards a solution. And I think like, you're right, that it, it is sad. It took the whole world stopping for us to finally pay attention to certain stories. But what was, what was kind of beautiful about it is that like human beings took it upon themselves to, to highlight like what should be, what we should be thinking about and talking about and working on.

I, I do wonder, like I, I often, I often wonder like, what, what is the actual. Of the stories that came about through the pandemic, like during that time, I know podcasting was really important. I remember, Sarah Kay was doing a podcast. Sarah Kay is a poet. I always mention to her like everybody knows her, like Sarah Kay is a poet that a lot of people have.

Like if you know po, if you like poetry, slam poetry, she's one of my favorite boats. She did this podcast with TED, which was this like totally anonymous podcast. It was like these anonymous stories and I just remember, I think they started recording it before the pandemic, but I remember, hearing about like the listenership just spiking during the pandemic because people were not only interested in the story, but they were like, it's also kind of cool that these people are anonymous, like.

And I, I always wonder like, what's the actual numbers? Like how many people actually related or went through the same exact thing, you know? So super, super with that. I, I've, I now, now have work to do when I leave this , Hey, you're leaving here with a longer list of to-dos than you came here with today. I apologize for that.

It's all good. I love it. You've alluded a few times to Teach For America. Yes. You work for Teach For America. I'm an alumni to Teach For America, Ben, full disclosure moment. So it's the largest education nonprofit in the United States. Why does it have a reinvention lab? Yeah, so Teach For America has a reinvention lab because it, like Teach For America has caused real harm, to communities in this country.

And the harm that I'm men that I'm mentioning is like, so if you're not familiar with Teach For America, it's basically, if I boil it down to it's most basic component, it's a two year teaching program where you recruit really talented, Intelligent college students and they go teach in low income schools for two years minimum.

They could go, they could go for further, I think. I think the number that I heard is that the average alumni stays I think four years or the average corps member stays. Yeah, yeah. Like four years. So everybody criticizes Teach For America cuz they're like, they leave after two years, but most of them actually stay

and quite a lot. Teach For America, alumni stay in education long term as well. But the thesis was like if you have people who've actually been in a classroom and they stay there for two years, if they end up in finance or government or entertainment, they at least know what it's like to teach. And so I think like if you peel back the layers, you're like, okay, that, that, that seems very virtuous and probably the like the right thing to do.

But the way it played out in practice, just there was a lot of elite elitism. There was a lot of just like straight up overt racism, white saviorism, where you had these Princeton graduates literally going into the hood saying, okay, like, I know you're, you're a, a poor, like, uneducated person, and I'm going to give you all that I have for two years, and then I'm gonna go work at Goldman Sachs and probably forget about you.

Right. Like that. That's kind of like the story that was being told, and that was true in some places. So the reinvention lab exists because, and I actually will give her credit here. One of the people who was, she will tell you herself, Was responsible for creating some of those conditions. Teach For America had this saying, and I, I always forget the exact word, but it's like, it's relentless pursuit of excellence, I'm sure you RPR, relentless pursuit of results.

That's RPR. That's right. Yeah. So the person who like coined that also said, like, looked up and said, oh my gosh, like we gotta do something different. And at, at year 20, In her tenure at Teach For America, she said, I'm gonna build this thing called the reinvention lab. And we are gonna change the way Teach For America does business for the rest of his, his, the rest of its existence.

And then to her credit again, she went out and found people like me who were like, I hate school. I hate school system, . And was like, great, let's use that and let's, let's build new stuff. Let's, let's. Not tear down the bridge, but let's build a new bridge right alongside so eventually we can transfer everybody safe safely over to that bridge.

That's, that's the way we describe ourselves actually alive. It's like when they built the Bay Bridge, they didn't just blow up the old one. They built one alongside the new, one alongside it, and then safely transferred people over. And that's kind of how we think of ourselves at TFA. Like we're trying to.

Helped Teach For America. Imagine a new way of being. It's like some of the concrete things that we've done in our very, like we're, this is only like year 2.5, for us. But like Teach For America had little things that like, there was no policy for paying young people. So if you like hired a young person, it's like, Hey, thanks Pat on the back.

See you later. And we were like, given our history, can't be the case. So we, we created the first policy to pay young people. There is, now it's not. I don't think this will be nationwide yet, but there is now a system to include young people in the selection of corps member. So when you select the people who are gonna go into the classroom to teach, there's now young people from that community who are gonna be a part of that decision making process.

And that comes from the lab. There's also more flashy things, like we have this really cool sneaker competition, , you know, like we're building new products and stuff like that. So, yeah, that's, that's, that's why we have the lab and kinda what the lab is. I think it sets a really clear picture for retrospectives analysis.

Looking at impact, right? Like organizations in this field. Organizations being a broad term to include nonprofits for-profits, edtech. If they're not doing retrospectives and and analyzing their impact, they shouldn't be in the space. That's great and cool. Like I'm a skeptical alum. Yeah. Anyone who knows me can tell you I am a skeptical alum.

I love to hear the investment being made in how to be better, because honestly, as a human, I wanna be better. Of course, I've made mistakes. We've all made mistakes, but sure as heck, I'm gonna analyze why I made a mistake and who it affected, fix it and never do it again. So I'm glad to hear Teach For America.

An organization that is so weighty in this field and has so much impact is thinking about how to do better. And, and to be clear, like I have no idea if it's gonna work. I meet quite a lot of alumni who are like you, who are like skeptical alumni and rightfully so, right? Like there's a lot of data that says that organizations that try to change from within just never change because.

You know, there's essentially like too much Kool-Aid drinking or too many people who just, quite honestly, like for what, what I consider a virtuous reason, like people that don't wanna lose their job, like organizational change requires role definition, reshaping, right? And, and that's, it's really difficult work.

So I, I don't know that we will ultimately be successful, but what I, what I do think TFA deserves credit for. Is the attempt is the at bat, especially the person I just like have a lot of respect for is, I mean, I'm not just saying it because she's the CEO, but like you'll. You'll know this is real.

When I tell you why, like the CEO of Teach For America, her name is Elisa Villanueva Beard. I don't have respect for her because she's doing things right. I have respect for her because she's choosing, she, she like raised her hand and was like, yeah, like, I'll, I'll take on, I'll le I'll lead the organization at a time when like everybody knew it was a bad time to be a part of TFA.

Like, you like, oh, I remember when she stepped up. I remember reading it being like, wow, that's a decision. Yeah. And now it's like, oh, by the way, nobody wants to be a teacher anywhere. Like, like not just TFA, it's like nobody wants to teach at all. And with media, like every time I, I, I told her this once, like every time a, a teacher with a million followers quits on TikTok live, like that hurts.

Teach For America and every other organization trying to recruit teachers. And it hurts us more than we know cuz like nobody pays attention to media and. But like young people do. So if I'm 14 and I'm watching a teacher who has a million followers that I think is really funny, walk out of their classroom, I'm never gonna, why would I do that?

I'm not gonna go teach. Right? So like that's the person that chose to do that. , like chose. And I have respect for anybody who chooses to do really hard, impossible things. And that's, I have a lot of respect for her for that. Okay. Just gimme another idea that we're gonna have to do together. Yeah. One of the things I always said, and maybe this exists, you would know better than me, but one of the things I always say is like, when I was in the classroom and I was a teacher, TFA alum, I graduated a school just like Princeton.

Mm-hmm. And a large majority of my friends went right to Morgan Stanley, right To Credit Suisse, right to Joy Trip, like all the big banks. Right. They, they really looked down on what I was doing, like it was not respected that I was pursuing teaching. And I always said, wow, the respect we give. At that time it was really about like sports stars, the respect we give for sports stars, the stories that are told, like you named earlier about LeBron James that are told about sports.

I, I'm not a sports fan, as you can tell by the way I'm using the word. Okay. Yeah. I'm trying here. Appreciate and revere we have for athletes. Yep. That's the word, . It's just, it's. Unbelievable. When you think about, as we all know today, and we all talked about during the pandemic, how much teachers shaped children's lives.

Mm-hmm. , we need to do some better storytelling around teachers too. Like teachers, absolutely. Celebrities, teachers, as. , you know, there are, there are people that gain their own following, but what if we try and get some following around some folks that are just doing the work? Yeah. Without the following that, you know, without the TikTok, without the Instagram, without the Pinterest boards.

Like, maybe that has to happen too. Exactly. That's something that, is like on my, on my wishlist, you know, the other, the other thing that I just plainly. Think should happen is I, I think that because I think there needs to be more options in, in, on the market, both for professionals who want to teach and for students.

I actually believe that professional athletes, specifically professional athletes, I, I believe they should be stepping up to build schools. To fund them and to be a part of them. And I don't mean like the example everybody always goes to is like the LeBron James, I promise school. And I'm like, nah, not like that.

Like I personally, I appreciate that LeBron James is doing that, but I feel like he missed an opportunity. To, to do something that could have been monumental. He did something that was very good, but he, he could have done something that's monumental, basically just like put his name on a charter on a like district charter school.

And I think that's fine, but like I would like to see 17 LeBron James academies that are funded by LeBron James. Across the country because if he does it, then some other rookie who looks up to him may do it as well. And if they need help, we will literally coach you in how to build school. We have really smart people who we know, like Hayley and

We have a network of 60,000 alumni who've been on the ground. You know what I'm saying? Like, like Teach For America is a big enough organization and we can make a big enough ruckus about this if we. So the, where I got this from is like Nipsey Hussle, who listeners don't knows, is a rapper who died way too, too young.

He had this theory that if he could build STEM centers in the poorest neighborhoods in America that were sponsored by a real estate investor and a local celebrity in that neighborhood, then one kids would gravitate towards the STEM center, and two, he could keep them alive. Like, this is what we're facing.

It's, oh yeah. Yeah. He's not just like, oh, we can give them cool projects. He's like, no, no, no. Like they can be inspired to be somewhere where they can be safe and alive. Yep. So like I want more stories of educators and I want more partnership from people who have money who say they care about this. And I think, I think one is probably the key to the other, like if we get more stories from teachers, like imagine if you collected a story from every teacher in Cleveland.

And then an organization like Teach For America that has deep roots and like just quite frankly, we have lots of money and lots of connections. Email that to Rich Paul and say, what's LeBron gonna do about this? LeBron might be likely to say, you know what? I didn't know that was going on. Like that in my city.

Let me go do something. Cuz he would, I think he would. I think the same is true for many cities around America, right? Like do it in Austin with McConaughey. Do it in like do it in New York with these film and these Broadway directors. Right? I think we like those. Those stories will move those people plus policy makers, plus college students who have not considered teaching before, it will move them to action.

So, You got me on my soapbox now, . Well listen, and that's exactly where I want you to be. Yeah. I want you to be on your soapbox. That's why you're, that's why you're here putting the mic. Yeah. Oh man. I, you know, I'm listening. I'm like, yeah, let's do that. Let's, I mean, where do you find the time? That's a good question.

I think one of the things I'm most fortunate for is I have a really flexible schedule and I have a really amazing family. My kids are homeschooled, so I helped build a school and then we took that model and we just like built it into our house. The, the re the reason why we homeschool is there are lots of reasons why people home.

And ours is like, we always tell people what Italy, it's arrogance. We homeschool because I think my model is better than the, the private school, the public school and the charter school down the street. I just believe it is. And we found a cool community for them. So like, but like given the fact that my, my wife made a choice to stay home and run that school, that choice gave me both permission and room to go out and run faster in these other places.

Just to be married to somebody that's like, Hey, I get it. You gotta go. Like, go and fix this for us, for the community , and I'm gonna go do, I'm gonna do this part over here like that. That enables me to do a lot. And, and so I, I, I sleep plenty. I just have a really flexible schedule where I can squeeze things in.

these new things, I don't know where to, where to put them on the schedule, but, I know people that I can find that will help with this. I think that's the other thing. It's like, it's literally this, right? It's like, it's like jumping on podcasts. Like before I got on this podcast, we didn't know each other personally.

And now, now, Like, cuz I'm, I'm still going to hit you up now. Oh, you can't get rid of me now. Yeah, exactly. It's over, it's over , right? Like it's, it's, it's literally, it's community now, right? And mm-hmm. And that's how we move this forward. Like, I don't know how I would collect these stories, but I know a guy, like, I know a guy named Q who lives in Denver, who's gonna do it probably.

And I literally already texted him and was like, Hey, I'm gonna hit you up tomorrow, , because Yeah, yeah. Like it's, it's just community. And then thankfully the life that I get to live. Well, I appreciate you sharing that. I'm excited to see what comes next and how I can get involved. No, you have to be now like, yeah, no, you scheme this together.

It's memorialized down the pod. There's no way out for me. That's right. You're in the game. Yeah. It's a good game. I wanna be in it. So we're, we're definitely like nearing the end of the time. We have a lot of, for today's Absolutely. Podcast recording. I have a thousand more questions I wanna ask, but I'm gonna save them for the next episode and That's fine.

That's right. I'm gonna ask my, my typical ending question, which I think you'll have a unique answer for, which is, what advice would you give a teacher starting their career? The, the, the best advice I have is that we have to do this work, and I mean, emphasis on, we. I, there's a lot of like traditional advice out there that people will say like, but I, like somebody has to do this work, this, this.

Like,the work of education is exhausting and it is hard, but we need people who are willing to raise their hand and do the work.And so I think it's that and the other. The other thing I would add is, For however long you have in you, like run hard for like, I, I'm gonna just shout these guys out. There's three guys that I only have ever connected with them on TikTok.

They are three black male educators and they're all in the same school, which there's actually five black male educators in the same school, which is like, it's kinda like, yeah, it's kinda like five unicorns that found the found themselves. And what, what I love about them is that they make no promises about.

10 years from now, or three years from now, but they're like, right now I'm in it and I'm in it 110%. I'm giving these kids everything I have, and that's the, like, those are the people that I feel like. Like, again, when we were talking about highlighting, like, we need to make those people famous because mm-hmm.

Mr. Moore and Rodney, like, like they are the ones who are, they're choosing to do probably the hardest job in education that exist right now, which is being in the classroom. So for all the teachers out there, we have work to do. I'm, I'm doing this. It looks different. Your job is way harder. And so when I say we, I mean we're in it together, which means hit me up.

Let me know what you need. . Like I have office hours every Friday on LinkedIn live where I will literally help you lesson plan. Like I literally, I'm like telling people, open up your unit plan right now. What are your objectives? And I will brainstorm with you on a Friday like I am in this with you. So we got work to do.

I knew you'd have a really, really great answer for that question. I, I just, I appreciate that because like everything else that I've seen you do and that I've heard you do, and I've read that you do, it is grounded in reality and it also is fair. Like, it's fair to say you have to work really hard. A, we need you, there's no other option.

And B, like do it for as, work as hard as you can for as long as you can. Yep. And I think the underlying message that you named from the, the three gentlemen you were talking about in the school, like it's one day at a time. Yeah. That's like anything in this world. Like you cannot predict the future, nothing is promised.

So just give it your best one day at a time. Mm-hmm. . And then I like, there's a number of really difficult jobs that, that, that people don't love. And I just like, the thing that I, that I've been confronted with lately is like, If you don't love teaching and you know where I, I need to just, where I got this from was in my third year of teaching.

I had a student that came into my classroom and said, you know what, this teacher needs to quit. And I was like, why'd you say that, ? And she said, because every day when I get here, she looks miserable. She looks like she'll wanna be here. And I thought to myself, wow. I mean, I didn't, it was a moment where I was frozen.

I didn't know what to say because I agreed with her so profoundly. Like, if you don't love this, like what we used to say at the school that we built was bring the dinosaurs or don't come. Like, I know it's hard. I know you have a lot going on, but like, Like, like bring what you have all of it to, to that school building and give it to those kids.

Because if you don't, nobody else will in a lot of cases. So, whew. Okay, . That's so real. It's so real. Mike, this was great and I'm already looking forward to talking to you again either on the podcast or. Yeah, so, so incredibly grateful. You came on today. You were so honest with everybody. You shared so much about yourself and your journey, and you gave us a little glimpse into the future.

I, I feel really, really appreciative that you took the time outta your day to be here. I'm, I'm happy to meet you, and I'm glad that I got to spend the time doing this too. Thanks to everybody who tuned in today and listened to our episode. Hopefully you have a better understanding of why Mike Yates questions everything in education.

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