Lost In Union High School
Passing exams, professional spectators, and summer school.
5 oclock rush hour is ...bad. Who knew?
Aaron passed his exam
Aaron is training to be part of the OK CPS
Brandon is doing parent involvement for 6th graders.
At least there was food
Brandon is the fun one
Ancient mesopotamia
Board game expert. Royal Game of Ur
Irving Finkel
Jump rope...athon
Brandon get’s knocked out in gym
Professional spectators
MAIN TOPIC!
Fond memories of summer school
Yes, we intentionally took classes in the summer
Things we weren't aware of growing up
What happened to summer school? And negative connotations?
Diversity of classes in school is important
We forget what it’s like to be a child
State testing is stupid, obviously, and needs to be removed, obviously…
Getting lost in Union High School
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI
Brandon 0:16
Friday Oh, I think I think Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 0:23
don't take offense. But yeah, I think I knew that
Brandon 0:30
try to sneak out as all right now.
Unknown Speaker 0:34
I kept wanting to leave early and they're like, Oh, so one more thing and the grown for me every time my god, there's always the worst. Wait, hold on. No, it's always like turn to walk away. And then somebody's like, oh, but hold on one more and you got to turn back around and slowly trudged back and stare at them.
Brandon 0:56
I was I was packing up everything and getting ready to Stand and there's like, oh, one thing one more thing before you go, like, All right, I'll sit back down. They started talking, talking. I was like, okay, so get my stuff start standing up and it's like oh so before you guys leave say it back down
Unknown Speaker 1:17
when you say one more thing, and it's not I'm starting to not believe you true true and so he just started talking and Mike my table just like you know what we're done. No, we all just got up and left.
Unknown Speaker 1:31
So yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:34
yeah, right. It wasn't just
Brandon 1:35
you I mean, that's fine.
Unknown Speaker 1:37
Now there's about there's about three What are they
Unknown Speaker 1:38
gonna do punish all of you come on tackle
Brandon 1:41
all of them Yeah, you got back here right on time. Good night you made bang it all rainy and nasty there to get nasty here. Well, yeah, yeah. It was me it's more like missing. Yeah. Like just like just a wet damp bog? Yeah, that's just kind of like, over everything. I mean, it's not like it's not really that cold. But the dampness is not helping. Yeah, it's, it's already hitting my voice pretty hard. Oh, yeah, we had we had ice pellets for about 30 minutes, which is fun. Hey, yeah, we missed that. You could have those. I don't
Unknown Speaker 2:27
want them
Unknown Speaker 2:29
the middle.
Unknown Speaker 2:31
Nobody wants those.
Brandon 2:34
So and the real question that I've been meaning to ask you is Has anybody accosted you over the breakfast coffee bar situation? You know what that was?
Unknown Speaker 2:43
Oh, no, I got Um, so keep in mind I've already been down in Oklahoma City Norman area for like a week. And so my enjoyment of human beings has steadily declined over the week. And then just immediately dropped off by Friday. And so
Brandon 3:06
I passed both my exams. Hey, awesome. All right, Thursday, man, I can't remember what the days are running together. Thank you. So I had the same problem this week, just like what
Unknown Speaker 3:17
day is it? Today? No
Unknown Speaker 3:19
more, I'll go more of those in a second. But you know, show up and it's really cool. Like, I get the whole concept of trying to stay connected with each other, getting to learn about no state
Brandon 3:35
facilities and, you know, state organizations and that part cool. It was also held at the Oklahoma History Center, which was also really cool. I spent a lot of time just walking around. Like one time I went to the bathroom and then I just walked into an exhibit, and just like, wandered off the next four hours.
Unknown Speaker 3:58
And so like everyone was down, there was You know, was like, not like super like dressed but like all the administrative people were, you know blazers and dress slacks and a bunch of people were there were like in dress slacks and polos and I walk in with like, my hoodie. And like, I was wearing jeans, but I was wearing my like outdoorsy pants and like tennis shoes, and people were giving me dirty looks. And I was like, I don't, I don't care. Like I was I was the only one I was the only one like in Yeah, I had a polo underneath. But I kept my hat on because I was like, I don't, I don't care. Like I will fight if anyone who tries to come up and talk to me. But luckily I had the the table that I was with. We all were suffering through the week and so we were just kind of over it together. But I was just like, I don't I don't I don't care. They don't make me do anything. And so like I'd go up and get a water. You know people will just Kind of like stare at me like I will I will throw this whole table at you.
Unknown Speaker 5:06
That is my mood right now. I
Brandon 5:09
can see i know i didn't i didn't fight over any coffee but I was I was really ready to about to
Unknown Speaker 5:17
throw it out if I had to give myself a little Donnybrook and toss the glove and pull the jersey up and do
Brandon 5:29
the rest pull me off.
Unknown Speaker 5:33
Yeah, that was my mood for the whole whole day until there gave us time for lunch and I got to explore the history museum. I didn't get to explore it in detail because I could have spent hours there but yeah, I went up and walked to the restroom. And they had a Vietnam or Oklahomans and Vietnam exhibit. And then they also had a people who migrated from from Vietnam into Oklahoma because there's a giant pop Vietnamese individuals here in Oklahoma. And so I went to the bathroom and I was like, there.
Unknown Speaker 6:05
There are indeed, yes.
Brandon 6:06
And I was like I don't, I don't really have to go back and listen to this thing. And so I just took a took a right and went into the exhibit and had like a cool Huey helicopter simulator that I accidentally sat in. I was like, Oh, no, I can guess I have to. I can't.
Unknown Speaker 6:30
So yeah, if anything dad taught me about simulators, I have to make sure I landed. And I just walked around for a little bit. And then I was like, Oh, I guess we should go back. And the guy was still talking about the same subject and I was gone for like 15 minutes.
Brandon 6:45
So you could have you could have taken more time to learn about the Hmong population of Oklahoma. That's that's important. There's, there's something that's in that museum beyond balik to go back and actually legitimately explore it. Time be I was, I was really about throw something at somebody if they said anything about me. I was just I. So don't people. Are you done? Do you have to keep going back or you know,
Unknown Speaker 7:15
what I had to do so when it's called for, that's conferences and training, but it's something called core. And it's pretty much getting you ready for your particular field, which for me is child welfare. Its Child Protective Services. Some of the one that goes out and gathers information talks to people figure out what's going on. And then they hire people make decisions. So it's pretty much like how to interview someone how to use the computer to do database researches and stuff like that. So our big tests are big tests. The portal sorry, on Thursday for my group was we had to do a we had to get there early, like seven o'clock in the morning. They gave us like a small referral that's like, these are the names. This is what happened. And so like, okay, so we had to, quote unquote interview a child at the school, aka, a testing room with an actor or with a greater in the room. And so we had to pretend it was, you know, a child at school talking to them. And we are graded on certain things like that we address allegations do we assess safety? Did we you know, we're able to have a conversation with a kid. Yeah, you know, and things like that. And you know, just kind of understand the family a little bit. And I past that. There are some things that I needed to work on. But usually when you interview kids, which I've had interviews with, kiddos before, like they can last anywhere between like 30 minutes to an hour, and they gave us like, 20 minutes and the way He's like, you know, that was really good stuff. But I just ran out of time and I'm like, Fine, whatever.
Brandon 9:07
And then we had to go back. And we had to do what's called an ALCS, which is an assessment of child safety, which is a completely different thing we have to read through and understand if a kid is safe or not safe, which I passed that and then the one that I was more concerned with, which does he then have to go and interview the, the parent. And so same case, whatever, so that I had to go back and, you know, I had to go knock on the door and introduce myself and then you know, that's how I'm why I'm here. Get an understanding of what happened, understand the family, get things like that. And I nailed that interview, which I was more nervous about.
Unknown Speaker 9:57
Because it's with with some of these people, you don't know how they're going to react. And so I was just kind of more gut wrenching, not like super nervous, but I was just more
Brandon 10:08
nervous about that. And I nailed that. And then I got it and go home and I'm like, great, I get to go home, and I got an email. It's like, Hey, you got to be on this thing on Friday.
Unknown Speaker 10:20
And so I didn't buy it at home. They meant
Unknown Speaker 10:22
right here.
Unknown Speaker 10:24
However, I did get to go stay at a Marriott Hotel. Like a really, really nice Marriott Hotel. And I just had to drive like 20 minutes north to Oklahoma City, and media and like a really nice hotel room and I'm like, oh, for me, oh my gosh.
Brandon 10:46
It was probably more that I complained. Like, to the person that put it on, because like, well, you have to be at this thing on Friday. I'm like, well, do I have to get a hotel? Like wall? No, I don't like you don't understand. It's a three hour drive for me at home, or to go home and then come back. Do you really want to put up with me? And she's like, Oh, well, we we, you know, we just put you in a room for the maryada. It's like, oh, thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker 11:12
So I love how with the threat of spending time with you and your
Unknown Speaker 11:19
like, you know what, never mind. We'll just do something nice. Yeah, it's
Unknown Speaker 11:22
like, do you want to donate me to be grumpy, grumpy or the entire time? Or do you want me to be less grumpy and they're like, Oh, well, we actually have some rooms available. Now this location I'm like, that's perfect.
Brandon 11:36
Look, you can't go stealing my I'm supposed to be the grumpy one. You can't go so much. I like that. That's not very nice.
Unknown Speaker 11:45
terms here, dude. Step on
Brandon 11:48
my hair. Aaron was nothing but grumpy. The entire T of today was less grumpy Aaron went on a date. So Aaron was left jumping as well. But no yeah, I walked in I was like I will find every single one of you here if you talk to me and give you enough no one did so something was working. I go those vibes, negative vibes or the picking up on those
Unknown Speaker 12:18
the seething hatred and it could have been this evening it could have been this evening and anger that was just dripping off of you and the glares that you were you know melting marble with probably probably didn't help actually another thing about it it's like it's like I walked into the room and someone's like I feel a dark presence of Sourav like we must. We must look at him. It was kind of like that vibe in the corner with your arms crossed just like me. Yeah,
Brandon 12:53
yeah, I saw Ron everyone. me. If I
Unknown Speaker 12:57
were sour on he would go
Unknown Speaker 13:00
I was so bored and just so tired that they gave us like a little booklet it almost like a look like a little diary. Um, I just started writing. Why Dear Diary, Dear Diary, no I just I started like writing and it turned into like a little miniature book. There we go. So from from like eight o'clock blank called novella.
Unknown Speaker 13:22
The Memoirs of a board
Unknown Speaker 13:26
member of Aaron of task Funkhouser.
Brandon 13:30
See I have a little book that I wrote
Unknown Speaker 13:33
that I yeah, I was just I zoned out. I can't exactly remember what we talked about. I remember the conversations I had with my table. And it sounds really bad for anyone who was listening. That is a state agent. I'm a good worker, I promise I just wasn't today. Like, I can't I usually I pay really good attention, but I just couldn't bring myself to it.
Brandon 13:57
So like, I'm very vigilant, but today I just turned everything off. Yeah, you need to do that every now and then. Sometimes he's not on it. Sorry.
Unknown Speaker 14:09
Yeah, my, I didn't I didn't want to use any brain power today.
Brandon 14:15
I don't really want to we had parent involvement night last night. So my parents not like, it's different than parent teacher conferences. Cuz that's when they come and talk about like school work and stuff, you know, but parent involvement is just parents come and hang out at school. There's like activities, and it's like a community building thing. Right? So they can just come and hang out and they can. There's like information about the school policies around and then they come to the classrooms and there's stuff to do and then there's food and stuff, and then they can come in and hang out and then go home. So it's very long night sitting around, like, okay, so it was kind of cool though, is why we had actually a lot of people which I wasn't really expecting. Sixth grade, I figured I'd be like, too
bad pretty good handful. No? Bad, I guess. Okay. Not too bad. I was long day. So just sitting in my room waiting for people to come. Do my little activity thing. At least there was food. Well, I didn't have any because I was very far. Well, there was food on premise. There was food somewhere. Other people had food. But like I got when I came home, so whatever chili they had in the cafeteria, so I Oh, so that's okay. Yeah, we we didn't think most of the kids actually came to play the game that we were doing. So
Unknown Speaker 15:56
you're the fun one.
Brandon 16:00
You taught them, or I taught them. Since we're learning about ancient Mesopotamia. In History class. Yeah, I taught them how to play the Royal game of Earth, the world's oldest board game. So that's what we did this week in class, we practiced and then last night, if they came, they played, they taught their parents the rules, and they played their parents in this game. That's really cool. Some of their parents are savages, man, they're like,
Unknown Speaker 16:30
Oh, yeah, take this boy.
Unknown Speaker 16:32
I'm like, I'm
Brandon 16:36
like, Whoa, parents of board game experts don't even mess with it don't even know. Funny, so we watched in class we watched the TV. The rules are actually deciphered by Dr. Irving Finkel. He's like a, the head of the ancient Mesopotamian cultural department at the British Museum of Natural History. Okay, so we kind of know what to and like if he is imagine to yourself what you think a curator of ancient Mesopotamia in the British history museum looks like in your head. Okay, are you picturing? If you're picturing basically Gandalf in a tweed jacket, you're exactly right. And he is very like, loud a cantankerous old British man. And so we watched a little video of him teaching somebody how to play. And it's the funniest thing ever, like, my gosh, he's talking about how this game does, in fact, bring out much rage and contempt for your opponent. And all the kids are like, whatever. It's just a board game. Yeah. And they started, they all started playing nice, right, but it's a game. It's kind of like sorry. Yeah, in that you're playing somebody else. It's like a and you have to get all of your pieces. I'm a little bored before they do interest. Big. There's a big center strip in the middle, where if you land on each other, they get kicked off the board back to the star thing. Oh, something like that. Yeah, sounds very much. Yeah. So they're all like, oh, whatever. It's all just fun and blah, blah. But by the end, like, almost all my class was like, no. You get to the end, you're like, three spaces away. And you can't roll the right number of dice to get off the board, right? Because has to be exact. And you can't roll it and then the other person comes along and goes right past you or lands on you and kicks you off. It was really great. They had a lot of fun with it. That's awesome. That's really cool.
Unknown Speaker 18:52
I like that you I liked you had that you had them teach their parents if they Yeah,
Brandon 18:56
so I've made I've made a board unlike Google in life. A little bit I just made it out of a, like a table, basically. Okay, sure, I guess Reggie table and label all this stuff and said here it is. So I have a very rudimentary version of the game that we played. I made some dice and we just use little bingo marker things as counters and we were triggered. Yeah. That lot. Also, I'm adding that to my indoor recess game list since we all know how to play it now. Little tournaments window to call the outside for recess.
Unknown Speaker 19:37
Yeah, perfect. Guy.
Brandon 19:41
Why not? Why not? You know? Yeah, you've already put in the effort. I
Unknown Speaker 19:46
know, some of them really are into it. Because we talked about it afterwards. Like so what do we think about this board game and they were like, let's just go right. I bought this up.
Brandon 19:58
Cool. Got fun, still sore losers 4000 years ago
Unknown Speaker 20:06
the competitive
Unknown Speaker 20:09
nature of people hasn't really changed overall the same exact same yeah
Brandon 20:17
it's it's kind of really funny like when you look at things that are that old are just like things that are kind of what's the word I'm thinking of not contextual but that like are relatable like when you hear you know things like ancient Romans scribbling
Unknown Speaker 20:37
like there's one on the walls Yes, yeah, there's that are there The slings that they use in like warfare, they would write notes on like the, the rocks that they would throw. And at some things would be like, catch or, or heads up or something.
Brandon 20:57
I just cannot how like humor. Kind of that, you know, joking. Now inappropriateness has still been around for humans for thousands of years. But he's trying to find it fascinating. Well, that's what that's all that's the things that make sixth graders able to actually relate to it to me, right. When you talk about how weird society was back then I kind of have no scope for what on earth that is. So like, yeah, you know, when you put those things in there, like, oh, okay, people still got mad over really dumb things. People do not like to lose a board games. Like it makes sense, right? You can kind of relate a little. What? Well, speaking of older games, do you guys remember learning some Native American games from Boy Scouts?
Unknown Speaker 21:54
Like there was a game where we took this pretty much like polls We like two people held them on on like one end and they made like a cross. There's like four poles in total. And they would like move the pole back and forth handle like jumping around that in the basement.
Brandon 22:13
Anyone? That's not that? that's a that's a Southeast Asian dancing thing. Right? Yeah. That's a we did that in PE in elementary school. And don't, don't you hold it like a parallel. How do I get my you sit cross legged from each other? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 22:38
So okay, so I was
Unknown Speaker 22:40
at Google this without writing pole dancing just real quick.
Brandon 22:42
Yeah, I can find that in your search history. I was getting confused with column I can't remember if you went branded. I know you didn't go on this trip. But the boy scout trip we went down to Texas
Unknown Speaker 22:59
and You didn't go to Texas, okay, I was just dead myself. But it was at this lake. And they gave me like a pontoon boat. And you realize, but like one of the places that we went to, there was a Cherokee camp. And they taught us like Cherokee games like he had a pretty much like a stick at a marker. And you would all stand in a circle and you'd like Chuck the stick at each other. And he caught it wrong, you would lose a limb he had like putting an arm behind your back, like lose a leg. And I taught that game to
Brandon 23:35
my students uncanny valley. We didn't do it inside because I didn't trust them. But I made I had like this like water noodle
Unknown Speaker 23:47
and I cut it and I put like a little sticking in it. I taped the end so safely and I made a little marker and you know, I got the kids in a circle and I would throw it and if they caught it below the marker, they would like lose an arm or Something
Brandon 24:02
I cannot remember what that's crazy. Yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty, pretty legit. The, the lady that taught us was like this really old jerky lady. And we were thinking she was gonna like,
Unknown Speaker 24:15
play
Brandon 24:16
nicely. No, she was ruthless. Like she would take the stick and like, spin it backwards and she's like, okay, catch and we were like, you're so powerful and try to catch it and we we lost every single time. It is something called
Unknown Speaker 24:33
to niggling.
Brandon 24:35
Can I apologize to it is a Filipino folk dance. Ah, it's ti in. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 24:47
start over. Start over. T is a letter of the alphabet.
Unknown Speaker 24:51
Ti n.
Unknown Speaker 24:52
What What is that in military terms? t go Tango India. I don't remember in November and oh yeah Tango India, November. India, kilo. Lima, India. November g goodness gracious, Great Balls of Fire. That's it.
Unknown Speaker 25:23
Okay. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 25:26
yeah, that yes. Okay. I'm on YouTube. Yes. Yeah, they're doing it much better than we did
Brandon 25:34
I third or fourth grade. How can we be good at this voice?
Unknown Speaker 25:39
Our intent was to crush the ankles of the people dancing.
Brandon 25:43
We didn't we didn't have PE. I remember this. We learned it in D for something. And we did it ever we did this, again,
Unknown Speaker 25:52
those two Crestor angles and not having that.
Brandon 25:56
That's probably true because if your friends are in there, you obviously want to trip them and make them volunter heads in golf G is golf, I believe sorry. So Grizzly, golf or golf. Golf, I think, okay, maybe I could be wrong. I didn't look that up. But I always want to say gamma, but that's incorrect. So I'm now intrigued. Yeah, I would have been out of breath by then.
Unknown Speaker 26:28
Geobella. Anyway, Jabra was on.
Brandon 26:31
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, Mrs. Evans PE class. Yes, I do. vaguely. Remember. It was for heart wellness stuff. Yeah. I remember jumping rope. I don't really remember any of the logistics of this except for that it existed. And I did it. And I wasn't particularly great at jumping of ropes. So
Unknown Speaker 27:00
Was
Unknown Speaker 27:01
I remembered oh no now I'm going to get this wrong I think the the jump rope they remember they had those plastic segments on them yes and and the different colors were four different links and I'm really sure
Brandon 27:14
yeah
Unknown Speaker 27:16
that's how you knew which length to get it was because because I would always get it was either like blue or green or something like that but that's how you wrap up because you're supposed to jump when you put your feet on it and stand up it's supposed to come to your armpits and that's a good Yeah, I
Brandon 27:33
knew that but I've never correlated that with what color the jumper awards. I just most the majority of them were red and white. So I just grabbed one I
Unknown Speaker 27:43
noticed we had green and blue ones too. Yeah, we had we had those green, yellow
Unknown Speaker 27:48
red.
Unknown Speaker 27:50
But you had you had to make sure you pick the one with the actual working handles because you know the little plastic that broke off and that's
Unknown Speaker 28:00
Jan,
Unknown Speaker 28:01
you guys put a lot more thought into.
Unknown Speaker 28:05
Well, I don't I don't remember. Like I didn't I had no idea about the link. So I'm still
Brandon 28:12
concerned about handle construction about the length of the rope and I was just like, give me that one. I don't know,
Unknown Speaker 28:18
whatever I need to do to not be here anymore. How fast can I jump ropes.
Brandon 28:25
I remember we did them in teams. And I was the first one up and I got to like 20 and I just like a pea floor because my brain like stopped working and like the rope. Hit my both my shins and I just went straight down. And
Unknown Speaker 28:48
when are you swinging this or I
Unknown Speaker 28:50
don't know. I don't remember.
Brandon 28:55
Not so vigorous about jumping rope jumping.
Unknown Speaker 28:58
I remember giving the room To my teammate, and he jumped for like the remainder of class and no one else in our group got the jump. And we're like, oh, this is easy.
Brandon 29:09
Look at our TV show just started with him.
Unknown Speaker 29:12
Just me. I do.
Brandon 29:13
I do remember some sort of relay aspect to this now. And there is also kings of for perhaps, yes. plausible. Okay. does seem plausible. Okay. Yeah. We also did something with hula hoops. Hi. I was never a big key person. So I don't mean the only the only extremely vivid physical education memory that I have was from the old Elementary School. Even that big old long jam there was also the cafeteria. Oh, yeah. You know, if we were playing a game in there, basically from what I remember, it was basically What the kids in my school now plan as spiders and flies, which is where the majority of the class is on one side. And there's a few people that are yet in the middle. And you have to run from one side to the other without becoming tagged. And if you get tagged you become it. And the number of people who are it grows and grows into there's only like one person left running around. Oh, okay. It doesn't matter this game at all. That's what I Well, the only reason I remember that game is because I was standing at one end of in my mind, the world's longest gymnasium right now. And I imagine if I wouldn't have that room now it would be like, holy cow. This room is really small. But I was on the back wall running toward the stage. I remember that. Oh, yeah. And I was running down the wall like where you would go into get the lunch because that cafeteria was actually in that same room. But it was inside those doors, remember, yeah, on that on the south side there. I was running from East to West was running. And my friend was in the middle. And I was running and I thought to myself, that punk is going to try to tag me. I just know it. And I'm running. And Yep, he started running after me. Know and I was sprinting down next to the wall. He loves, he loves to tag me and he kicked me in the shoulder really hard, and I lost my balance and he dove headfirst into that submit wall.
Unknown Speaker 31:39
I was out
Unknown Speaker 31:43
knocking
Unknown Speaker 31:47
out on the floor.
Brandon 31:52
Like I remember, like, I don't remember really anything after that until being in I remember them like walking down the hallway. Somebody was walking down the hallway with me to the nurse's office right? And I remember getting some ice and they called bomb to come get me and I had this like enormous not like right above like my forehead above my my right eye because I did when I fell, right I fell and even though the wall was on my left side I had turned because he shoved me and I slammed my head into the wall, kind of on the right side, like on the top of my forehead towards the crown of my head there. Yeah I had this enormous like not thing and I have ice on it forever and it turned like all these really girls colors because it was just so bad. Oh my gosh. It's like Wow, my memory I have a P and then being in high school and taking PE in summer school because I couldn't be bothered to It actually takes a year.
Unknown Speaker 33:02
Okay, so, so I wasn't the only one to do the
Unknown Speaker 33:07
sports.
Brandon 33:08
No, I took it in summer school. My friend and I decided that we were as we were, we were very much professional spectators. And we just went to summer school where we played some basketball for a couple weeks, some floor hockey. That was it was between my junior and senior year. I was like, Oh, yeah, I need a PE credit. No, I took it during summer school. So I was like, yep, that's the one I I intentionally took PE every summer in high school and in college, because I just I Clery summer. Well, it's okay.
Unknown Speaker 33:47
No, well, because we had to have when I went through we had to have a PE credit and a health credit or something like that. That's one and a half credits. One the half is the health class constantly semester.
Unknown Speaker 33:57
Okay, so not every so
Brandon 33:59
so but but yeah. But I yeah, I took summer school for one summer got my credit done ski class that was easy. You sat in a room and learned about bones and laying Okay, no
Unknown Speaker 34:16
I had a
Brandon 34:18
freshman class my freshman year I had a helfen p with Coach Roy did all at once.
Unknown Speaker 34:28
Yeah.
Brandon 34:30
Sport boy you did like football and stuff. So yeah, I had but I distinctly remember like when I was in like elementary or middle school Muslim middle school, but I took a like a summer school class of like, stamping and like, Greek culture with like, little whole be like fun. They do like Yes. It's like I've never been Summer School at all, except when I took PE, because I was like, No, I'm not doing PE for a year. Because PE in middle school was like, it wasn't like bad. Just not for me. I'm not care, right? Like, oh, you're gonna support like good, nice. I don't want to play basketball get out my way. Like, okay, I ran track in school, but that's just like I'm going to run as it I don't want to do PE things I don't want to play. I want to play pickleball for 47 days, I'm not sure that I want to I love pickleball and then I want to go home like other things that could be doing that could be in shop class, could be an art class. be inviting more band classes on taking? Yeah, like my senior is gonna take like, like friends to, like, came to all this stuff. I was like I got tied up. Get out here. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 35:58
yeah, no, I was very taken. That they offered racquet sports in the summer, so that I could I could take that and not have to worry about doing a long similar
Brandon 36:08
amount of light. I did take drivers in in summer school.
Unknown Speaker 36:11
Yeah,
Brandon 36:13
but that's not really part of the rest of the summer really. I didn't really know what it was shorter and weirder and it was like a little bit and just drove around with people and I went to McDonald's to get coach some diet cokes, or whatever it is.
Unknown Speaker 36:28
I got really good at that McDonald's drive through and rogersville
Brandon 36:31
Dang. Right. We had to we had to drive all the way to Stratford, because then my bottle was not in rogersville yet whenever I whenever I took Driver's Ed, so we drove to Stratford. We drove to see more jobbed in Springfield a couple times. Yeah, we had to get that. much needed that di cup real bad so we had to go get it. your
Unknown Speaker 36:52
CV. the repercussions of Collin taking racquet sports was for like a duration of the end of the summer, we always had to go to like a tennis court. And Collin had to drag his little brother around, and then just watch his little brothers suffer. Because I could not grasp the concept of tennis. And like it just if I couldn't compute it.
Brandon 37:21
I mean, it's like, it's like ping pong, but bigger.
Unknown Speaker 37:26
I couldn't scale things down, because it just
Brandon 37:31
feels things up.
Unknown Speaker 37:33
Yeah, it's bigger ping pong.
Unknown Speaker 37:36
And then we got into racquetball. Weirdly, like, awesome.
Brandon 37:41
The racquetball on college a lot. Don't worry that it's a room. bomb in the room. You can play around, but yeah, I played that in college because they had the wide right there on campus. Yeah, it was just us go. And yeah, I didn't want to do anything else. But being my friends like, hey, we'll go play some racquetball. So we were in there one time. We're like, what's this game? And like these random dudes taught us how to play. Like, yeah, this Yes, I got it. I like this game. So this is the record game. I've been waiting for the ball, just wait for the ball to bounce around and it comes to you. This is great. I love you.
Unknown Speaker 38:17
Eventually it will get back to you eventually it'll
Brandon 38:20
get back to you.
Unknown Speaker 38:21
Yeah, and that's why that's why I liked taking racquet sports because it was just a summer of doing a little bit of everything that involved a racket and so from badman to pickleball to tennis to racquetball
Brandon 38:37
better but I in high school, I just had PE so it was it was like they didn't have any of that stuff. We just we literally played basketball. We played a lot of dodgeball, but a lot of to base.
Unknown Speaker 38:50
I mean, they had those grants available, but I was like, Nope, I'm not doing that because I am so Who was that? We didn't have a racquetball.
Brandon 38:59
I would have been waiting I said coach Roy be like, hit him in the head with a dodgeball you know, you hit me out
Unknown Speaker 39:08
was the middle school coach, I just got coach Scott he taught rackets and that's what made it that's what made it a lot of fun is my friends and I would like that better. Yeah, I like coach Scott a lot.
Brandon 39:22
Yeah, he was koshka was one I like to see I had to take I don't think I really took any summer school classes in high school. No, Driver's Ed.
Unknown Speaker 39:39
I never
Brandon 39:41
I don't even know if they offered anything really. We had some stuff. Yeah, but a lot of it was like, Oh, you know, recovery classes and stuff like that. But they also had some are like Oh, he can't fit a new schedule. We they offered like certain classes.
Unknown Speaker 40:00
What were you that bad? Or like? What was the problem? Like? It wasn't a problem. I just had classes available
Unknown Speaker 40:05
that I wanted to take.
Unknown Speaker 40:08
Yeah, I don't think
Unknown Speaker 40:10
I don't I don't know if it our school there was
Unknown Speaker 40:13
like that. Maybe it was
Brandon 40:15
but I also missed that boat because I didn't know. And I think like I don't, I don't know, I was at a cognizant of these things like I didn't really that wasn't on my radar of things like oh, like, Oh, this you know,
Unknown Speaker 40:27
and maybe that's because we did go to the summer school programs in elementary school.
Unknown Speaker 40:33
Like we
Unknown Speaker 40:34
we did do that. So like there was already a positive association in
Brandon 40:38
elementary school and middle school like they were all about, like summer school for just a random like, summer school.
Unknown Speaker 40:43
But yeah, like stamping. We had, we did a
Unknown Speaker 40:46
world tour of foods I remember was one.
Unknown Speaker 40:51
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 40:53
But, and so and so.
Unknown Speaker 40:55
There was never a bad thing to me. So yeah, I took. I took like a science class in high school. Back Glendale. I think that was like a sign up for a science and marine biology class at Glendale. They had a program there. And then yeah, I took I took summer school every summer in college to get the classes out that I couldn't bear to tolerate for a whole semester out of the way. Yeah, it's not a bad idea.
Brandon 41:28
But I didn't. I didn't know like if because I didn't do it in high school, but it wasn't because like, I didn't know I could have a yes but because I always had like signups for classes in the summer. And so a lot of them were like, the keyboarding stuff or like, yeah, they are like, you know, a lot of those extra stuff that you kind of have that there's not always room for, right. I remember I remember there was a lot of that stuff that was
Unknown Speaker 42:00
Summer School class was the keyboarding. One. I took it in the summer between eighth and ninth grade.
Brandon 42:06
And it was at the high school. Over there, yeah, yes. Yeah. Well, I, it was that and there was some other stuff, but I don't, I don't remember. Because like now a lot of it is like at our school, it's like credit recovery. Like, if you failed, it's like online stuff to make up the credits that you failed. If you fail this semester of science or whatever, you go in, and you do like these online courses where you make up you have to do all this stuff and working like tests and all that stuff to kind of get that credit back. Right? But he's very, like, blah, and the kids hate it. But like, you know, you know, what's that? It's not like there's not like after. At our school, it's like after fifth grade, there's no summer programs for anybody. Really. Unless its credit recovery. Wow. So like, yeah, it's kind of not very exciting. Like it's kind of like I don't know it's point yeah, there's nothing for them to do, which in like small town cities like kind of not great like you're not good thing was more stuff but I don't know if part of it is a like a numbers thing because you know a lot of my kids want to come anymore when they're that old, right? I'm sure I combined with like no teacher is like yeah I want to spend my summer with seventh graders. Yeah of course I do. You know?
Unknown Speaker 43:36
Yeah. So I wonder what made I wonder if that is something that
Unknown Speaker 43:41
grew out of fashion.
Brandon 43:44
You know, it used to be, you know, 10 years ago.
Unknown Speaker 43:48
It used to be like that, or 1520 years ago it was a norm or if just
Brandon 43:54
Logan rogersville was kind of a weird
Unknown Speaker 43:57
diamond in the rough kind of thing. of
Unknown Speaker 44:01
doing their own thing with that, because
Unknown Speaker 44:04
I have, like I said, when I talked to people about it, it is very weird. They're very, like, confused. And so I guess that was not the norm for most other schools districts.
Brandon 44:16
I don't know. Because again, I didn't do it a lot. But I was doing like in middle school, like, all my summer was baseball related at that point, right. So yeah, I know that did a little different for you then. Yeah. Because I didn't. I didn't have that. Like, I didn't go to the middle because even though I knew that, like Middle School, summer school was like, fun things. Like my friends didn't really go. And I was doing like tons of baseball stuff in the summer. So yeah.
Unknown Speaker 44:48
I know. I didn't know I didn't go But then again, I didn't.
Brandon 44:52
Like I didn't think like, Oh no, it's summer school. That's bad. I was like, Dad busy. I can't go do other stuff. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I was doing other things. I couldn't have time to do that. So I don't know. I never thought about that till right now, because I don't. I wasn't really aware that's one of those things I was not aware of. Because it was past, like, the realm of my focus. You know, it was like outside of my focus zones, I didn't really pay attention to it. Because I had this bad habit of doing that. Like if it doesn't, I'm not immediately concerned with it right now. It doesn't exist. Right? Yeah. Yeah, and problem that I have sometimes. So that it's part of that too. I think like I didn't really know about it. So maybe, maybe it was but I don't remember. I don't sure I should not remember like making fun of people for being in summer school. Not being like, haha, you have to like that wasn't that was not the thing that happened. I don't remember. So. There was no I don't remember like a negative connotation. I don't remember any competition at all. So I think I was really, at least I don't remember negative one. That's good, right? Yes, they go.
Unknown Speaker 46:07
I think a lot of the art falling out of summer school probably has to do with, you know, funding issues that a lot of schools just can't really afford, you know, Summer School, a lot of schools are going to know, you know, like four days, four days, four day weeks instead of the traditional Friday. So they because they don't have the funding to, you know, stay open, or they want to save money by just going four days. Instead of you know, that fifth one, which kind of makes my job difficult. Sometimes if I have to go talk to a kid, I have to like, remember which school is like Wait, do they have school on Mondays and then Fridays? Like, which one is it? And it's totally embarrassing when you go out and you go to a school and no one's there.
Brandon 46:54
No one's there to see you. Sure. Right.
Unknown Speaker 46:55
But I think a lot of it does have to go with you know, with funding. Hmm.
Brandon 47:02
And I think a lot of schools just trying to cram as much like classes that meet the requirements like in as possible. And so, like you have
Unknown Speaker 47:17
kids trying to, you know, take multiple classes, like each semester and not, you know, kind of sticking to the same routine and forcing them to kind of, you know, be diverse. Well, that makes sense. Because, I mean, that's one of the things that you see getting take out the diversity of classes in schools, you know, Mac is one of the ones that gets brought up a lot of how it's, if it's offered, it's nothing like it used to be and most the time, it's just taken out completely. The other one is woodshop,
Brandon 47:47
which we have which up at our school, like I've stinking love, which I wasn't like, I'm good at it, but like, I needed that break in my day, right. I needed something. It was I never know Everything else outside of academics to like, focus on for a while, because it's a nice, like, it's good. I learned a lot of good stuff. I've made some janky shelves, right? It was cool. But like who clock, like I needed it for like, a break. Like I needed to focus on something else, I needed something else in my day that was different, I needed to break up the day, I wanted to do different things by other people, you know, and like, whatever. Like those are like, those are the reason that you go to school for that release of that creative thing that you do, or that technical thing that you do in a case of like wood shop or ag welding or something like that. Like, you need that. Like that's what keeps you going to school and then you are there for you also go to math and you also go to writing or whatever, but like, you want to go for art or you want to go for a shop class, you know?
Unknown Speaker 48:55
Well, yeah, and I like that idea of I might not be good at this, but Killer thing but the break from the monotony well and I mean new things in the application of something of of that's totally different. And of you know, I'm not just sitting here reading listening to somebody talk and flipping a page I am using this rather dangerous piece of machinery to to explore and to create and to mess up and but but you know you're all in it together and working and it is a different atmosphere
Brandon 49:34
and I but you know the state doesn't really give a darn if you can use a table song, right? They only care. You only get funding based on the number on your state scores in like the reading and writing column. That's because they don't care about anything else. They want to see your they want. I just had this meeting two weeks ago so I understand I know exactly what's happening. You get your it's your Your ca score, Communication Arts score, your math score and your science score.
Unknown Speaker 50:08
Anything else?
Brandon 50:09
there? You know, granted graduation rate in attendance is so sad.
Unknown Speaker 50:13
Because when you think of like, where do all three of those kind of things What do you all three of those come together?
Brandon 50:21
In the woodshop? Yeah. When you when you're baking when your class
Unknown Speaker 50:28
Yeah, all all three of those in so much more come together in our applied and so what was always interesting to me is anytime and like a math class or reading or you know, reading comprehension kind of stuff, when that question comes up with when am I ever going to use this in real life? Typically, typically, I feel like
Brandon 50:47
hours and when you're out in the ag building welding stuff,
Unknown Speaker 50:54
or you're sitting there trying to prep and run a three course dinner that you're making in home Mac right? Like, all of a sudden, all that stuff comes up. And what would be so interesting would be to see what kind of studies have been done to compare test scores in schools that offer them versus don't and what's changed as courses have been removed and taken away?
Brandon 51:19
Probably I'm gonna guess that that study doesn't exist currently. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 51:25
well, I think definitely are reading
Unknown Speaker 51:29
that these data that kids who actually take not just you know, the gen ed courses but who take like a music class take like, you know, activities class like that. They do score higher, not just on like their state scores, but or the state testing scores but also in like, other classes as well.
Brandon 51:52
Pretty sure Oklahoma did a study on that which you know, Oklahoma surprising
Unknown Speaker 52:00
But there was there was a know as a series of like this, like they took one school that had like all these programs, and then they cut all those programs, pe art, music, and then they're like, Well what happened to our test scores, and then they're like, let's try something real quick. And so they brought back like music and the test scores went up again, not like significantly, but enough to show that there was a difference, like a matching difference that said there was something here and so they put a little bit more money into it and brought back like not like p but like something of that nature in like 10 doors went back up again. Because the kids were
Brandon 52:46
able to have that free thinking that thinking flow of you know, I get to express myself I'm happier at school because I get to do something that I actually enjoy. Yeah, that's I think that's a big part of it is like I haven't Release of where I can enjoy this part of my day. And then that kind of makes you able to be at school for the rest of it. Right?
Unknown Speaker 53:07
Because if you can tolerate it because
Unknown Speaker 53:10
one hour
Brandon 53:11
race if you're at school all day long, and you don't enjoy any of your seven classes, like why would you want to go? Oh, yeah. Right. I i understand that. That makes sense to me. Like I don't I think in the education field, oftentimes people don't remember that. There's this really bad habit that I noticed. When you go to these things. People forget what it was like to be a child. Yeah, they're like, Oh, we gotta, you know, you hear all all they ever talk about is your test scores. I can remember when I was a kid, I did not care about whatever test I was taking at all. Day testing. Going the auditorium we had to fill out a little MMA t junk or whatever the Stanford nine little bubbles garbage. All I remember about that is it being boring and me not really caring and like a well
Unknown Speaker 54:13
matter how much they told us to care or how that it was important. I didn't care at all because it didn't reflect on me. It was another test. It was boring. It was a you know, taking me away from other stuff that I enjoyed. Well, I just couldn't be bothered like, Why Why is this important?
Unknown Speaker 54:33
I don't care i'm here. I'm just a student.
Unknown Speaker 54:34
Yeah. What was the military standards test? Yeah, so I said yes.
Brandon 54:41
Also, I did not know until like very recently that that test is actually also counted on the state score thing. Are you serious? Yeah, I didn't know that. I
Unknown Speaker 54:51
know. For us it didn't count.
Brandon 54:54
Like cuz I Missouri part of your thing. Like they look at the scores. Just Nobody stores good on that because they don't want the military to call their house. They're like, because like, you were like, whatever, blow it off because I don't want the army recruiters calling me.
Unknown Speaker 55:10
Yeah, I distinctly remember asking like, the army person handing this out. It's like, is this for grade is like, Well, no. And so I just didn't do it.
Brandon 55:22
Like, I put my name on it, and I was like, Okay, I was like, Well, no, you have to do it. I was like, it's not for a great is it? He's like, Well, no, like, is it? Like, no, it's like, oh, I'm not doing it. Now. I think the state of Missouri looks at those scores, because that was on our little sheet that we looked at in our meeting the other day, and I yeah, the only memory I have of that was, again, going to the auditorium, looking at a paper filling out some bubbles and then sitting there bored out of my mind because I was done in like five seconds. Like, okay, whatever, like, but I remember everybody in my school was like, yeah, I'm not even gonna try and this because I don't want the recruiters Call me. You know what I mean? Like, that was a thing. That was a known thing that happened. So to find out that the state looks at that score, I was like, that's a weird one
Unknown Speaker 56:10
that just look at first of because I don't think anybody cares about
Brandon 56:14
that. As bad as like I
Unknown Speaker 56:16
put you could see how they go, Oh, well, if they're already taking the test, you know, I you know, if it's already part of the standardized procedure, why don't white why not look at it? Yeah, but why not include it? I was like
Unknown Speaker 56:28
what you do.
Brandon 56:31
But working in school forever. I didn't know that was a thing they looked at as terrible. Weird. Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, I distinctly remember nobody caring about as that. So it's distressing. The state looks at that and been like, Oh, yeah, we gotta look at that and make sure it's, you know, look at the scores and add them because everyone's like, Yeah, whatever. I distinctly remember telling my students No tests don't defy who you are, and how much money the
Unknown Speaker 57:07
school gets.
Unknown Speaker 57:10
Work little bees work
Unknown Speaker 57:13
be a cog in the system
Unknown Speaker 57:25
just had available and how different it was, you know, like it was. I don't I just don't run into very many people who had that same experience of what else the What else do they bring up? Well, I mean, I think really random clubs, like I got my yearbook for something today and I was like, it was that that was
Unknown Speaker 57:44
what happened. Where was that?
Brandon 57:48
Yeah, things like that.
Unknown Speaker 57:49
I know. Obviously, yes.
Unknown Speaker 57:53
People from larger schools, you know, like Megan will talk about, obviously, they had like a swim team and you know, more of those kinds of activities like sports wise, but I don't remember I'm continually shocked at how much they provided for just the straight up like, creative side of like the arts. But they really seem to invest in at rogersville which, which is Yeah, I don't consider myself a creative he kind of person most of the time. But man, those those classes were a lot of fun to take.
Brandon 58:29
I did have about 7000 Fine Arts credits.
Unknown Speaker 58:35
I will say that I
Unknown Speaker 58:37
yeah.
Brandon 58:38
You need some more practical arts?
Unknown Speaker 58:43
What if we take tech lab
Brandon 58:46
classes awesome. By the way,
Unknown Speaker 58:52
so what was i don't think i didn't take that one. What was that one?
Brandon 58:56
That was like it was basically like a engineering class where we do weird stuff like learning about like bridge design. And then like, basically what they what people call now like, they talk about STEM, you know? Yeah, yeah, like oh stem, it's the newest thing I was doing that garbage in high school. So don't even come at me like this new, because that was definitely my tech lab class, we would do things like oh, we're talking about bridge design, structural things like how force and and stuff works cheering force versus compression forces. And then we build bridges out of very rudimentary materials, get a bunch of weight plates from the weight room and hang them on the bridges to see whose was the strongest. Yeah, we did that kind of stuff. Oh, it was very, like science engineering based. And then we would construct things with that knowledge to see if we can do it like towers. You know, how can you build towers to withstand certain forces and stuff like that? So that's what we did in tech lab was back SF on the designing a lot of engineering, but not like Learning about stuff and then building random thing. Wow. Like, I know
Unknown Speaker 1:00:07
that sounds really fun
Brandon 1:00:08
was really fun. For sure. It was only semester class, but still, it was very fun. Yeah, I mean just things. Yeah, classes like that that just make it kind of
Unknown Speaker 1:00:20
again it makes it more bearable makes it a lot more tolerable to be there because I you know, I remember
Brandon 1:00:28
I need a break from algebra for a little while I like algebra is fine, but I need these amounts for a little bit because I got it. So that was that was the thing that I had. Like, that's why I'm going to school so I can do bad things. So yeah, that's what I wanted. That's what got me up out of bed and go to school every morning. Even on super cold early mornings for October, early money band practice. It didn't kind of suck that band was early in the morning. Because, you know, or first hour at least, but it is kind of weird, like the follow through rogersville on like, social media because he totally have a swim team now. Yeah, they have a swim team. And then they have like,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:20
and play. Yeah. Because like, of course after we leave, like I totally would have done archery or, you know, skeet shooting, not swimming, but like I definitely wouldn't go not swimming. I definitely would have got there because I just distinctly remember dad training us for something. I felt like that would have been it.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:40
Oh, yeah. We had like, we had different clubs when I'm
Brandon 1:01:43
done band.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:45
For for high school. You know, we had like, we had lit club we had
Brandon 1:01:50
history club.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:52
Things we had like we even had a Star Trek club. What?
Brandon 1:01:56
Yeah, what? Yeah, I remember that.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:00
We didn't really do much with it, but it has like, we have like an ultimate frisbee club.
Brandon 1:02:05
Heck, No, we didn't have it. I don't Well, again. Yeah. I I was looking at my yearbook for something else. I was looking for someone's name. I think it was what it was. Yeah, cuz weirdly, the maintenance director of our school was like, going somewhere with somebody to get a thing and they asked me. He said he was from rogersville. And he has if he knew me, and he was like, Oh, yeah, I know him. I was like, What?
Unknown Speaker 1:02:31
But I was looking at that, but
Brandon 1:02:32
Yeah, I did. I say I looked at the clubs in there. And I did not remember those existed. I'm sure I, at the time, I was aware of their existence. Right. But again, I was not in them. You guys. I was very like, I was that person. Like there's two types of people in high school clubs. It seems like you're in a whole bunch of them or you're like the one. Yeah, and that's like, what I was just gonna I'm in band. That's good enough for me.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:00
Both a class and a club
Brandon 1:03:02
was what jazz band was like that too. But like I was, like, I'm do bad things. That's all I want. That's why I'm I spend all my time. I'm good. But there was there was looking back. And there was lots of other options for people. They could do multiple things or like really other strange things, because there definitely is a sign language club in my ear book. I didn't know that. There's like chess club and all kinds of other stuff. And I didn't math club, but I'm a math club called we were called mathletes. away. Do you remember this club?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:37
I mean, I
Brandon 1:03:40
remember calling Kevin and Kyle definitely being in math club.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:45
We were definitely under Mr. Rubinoff for that beer mathletes for sure. I go,
Brandon 1:03:51
I do not recall that.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:56
Yeah, we're going to go and compete at
Brandon 1:03:59
the Jq at arena on the MSU campus,
Unknown Speaker 1:04:03
do math avans or whatever they're called?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:07
Yeah, yeah. But we break up we would we would
Unknown Speaker 1:04:11
each each of us would study certain topics. And we would break out into our own competitions basic, basic. Imagine taking, like math tests. And, and then, and then at the end, we would get the whole team together. And we had to solve like a math problem or two or something like that. And yeah, it was pretty, pretty intense.
Brandon 1:04:31
I mean, that's kind of cool. Like, now. I'm sure when I was in high school, I would have been like, Yeah, no, thank you. Like, that's a good option for people to be able to do keynote. I mean, yeah, it's like, how do you get bored stuff and I think part of it is you have to have the problem. Our school was like, so small that like, there's not like it's hard to expand to our options, because there's know people
Unknown Speaker 1:05:02
just start having all the same people and all the same clubs.
Brandon 1:05:05
And that's, that's how it is now and like then they can't go to something. Because like, the other club is having the same thing that day. It's like, Oh, well, there's two people here.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:19
Yeah. Which really makes it hard.
Brandon 1:05:23
And then there's like smaller ones, but I know FCA is still still pretty popular. Oh, yeah. But that's not like a that one. That's the one to me letters. I can't get you on that one. When people kind of asked me about rogersville One of the things that I definitely bring up is just like the power presence of the FFA. Like I don't know if any of you guys went to barn warming, but I went one year. I went one year only because somehow my friend got nominated for barn warming king. Well again, we have to go so like
Unknown Speaker 1:06:03
my friends shut up the barn warming it was kind of weird. Oh, geez also
Brandon 1:06:08
our school the school I work at now their barn warming is definitely in the gym, which I found really, really not okay, I definitely remember getting them across to a barn burner to be one and watching really strange contests like hay bale throwing and hot dog eating.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:25
But yes, Amy, Amy's race wasn't this. There was
Brandon 1:06:30
well, there was another one. The other one was but there's like some sort of pie thing ever that
Unknown Speaker 1:06:35
lots of cotton eye Joe
Brandon 1:06:36
I don't remember that. I was scoring it was like I knew a bunch of people there because it wasn't like you know, Roger was just not quite big enough to where you didn't like know whoever was shooting Oh yeah, associate with him. You still new Oh, hey, that's that dude. Like I said him if he's in my math class or whatever. It's like And it was if you can imagine me and Corey at a barn warming. Oh, very interesting. Yeah, it's not the type of people you would expect to be warming a barn but they go anywhere, new and stuff. What I also,
Unknown Speaker 1:07:17
I also definitely, if someone asked me about rogersville I bring up that I also bring up the fact that I'm pretty sure it was Portland, or some school out that way that got mad at us because during FFA week
Brandon 1:07:34
we had the white trash bash. I
Unknown Speaker 1:07:39
don't know. And
Brandon 1:07:41
I had this was not a thing that I recall. Well,
Unknown Speaker 1:07:44
we had we had a distancing himself from being the central ringleader of the white trash bags. Yeah, yeah, like
Brandon 1:07:50
that. That is a new phrase. I never heard that before. Well, you're missing out but Dr. tractor to school they also also bring that up. But I know we had we had a white trash bash day where people would just dress up as you know, by trashy people.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:13
And like that was an What is it called? Like a theme for like a football game. And I remember like, another team got mad at us because they thought we were making fun of them. And they're like, oh, have you seen like us? us like, this is us on a normal day, like, What are you talking about?
Brandon 1:08:31
But yeah, like I bring up those, like three things, mostly, and I can conversation about rogersville. But yeah, just how much like cool things we had. And then he talked to someone from like, Union, Oklahoma, and all the things that they had and like, Oh, well, man. Yeah, but that's cool is insane. So, so cool that I got lost in there one time. I tell you a story that I got. We definitely drumline contest there. Yeah, I decided to join drumline my senior year because I was like, Yeah, why not? I can drop them because I could read music I got to play the timpani which also means that I got to be in charge of carrying around Tiffany's not those are definitely last them for about 30 minutes in the Union High School because all those hallways are eating your Miss. exactly the same. And I did I bought my drums. So I had made my three enormous drums for a little while because I can't remember where but you know, you're a good when you lose enormous drums in a school because it's so big and all the hallways look exactly the same. The first time I'd ever been inside that building. It was like Oh man, I am so last right now.
Union High School in really distressed I was going to get killed because I lost Tiffany's the most expensive drop, like Oh no.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:18
Yeah and and let's be honest one of the hardest to lose so you really
Brandon 1:10:22
good job and I was just really upset that they're like everyone's responsible for their own instrument. You are responsible for all three companies all three
Unknown Speaker 1:10:30
of these massive
Unknown Speaker 1:10:36
bear
Unknown Speaker 1:10:38
being slighted
Brandon 1:10:39
yeah something about this seems fishy
Unknown Speaker 1:10:45
like me in the marimba player guy we're like just screwed because we're like well dang it we've got this big, like, Yeah, well
Brandon 1:10:56
because the symbol player like what the heck? Get back here. Help me out
Unknown Speaker 1:11:00
triangle and the Glock come pretty bill once another thing that I kind of took for granted term rogersville is like all of the plays that we did, but I get to places like Keeney Valley in there like, Oh yeah, back in the day we used to have plays, but that's just like a thing that they cut. And so like, they don't have like a program for and I just remember like, I can't remember who was talking about it, but I remember was like a, like a one of our administrators at rogersville. He's like, we specifically put in their request to have like a big auditorium. Just so we can put on performances. And I remember that being like a big staple, having like a good quality music arts like section for like the band and choir. And you know, just enjoying that aspect of it and then coming to a place that had never hadn't had that. Like 50 years
Unknown Speaker 1:12:03
and so
Unknown Speaker 1:12:05
I I miss I mostly miss being Sasha the dancing Russian.
Brandon 1:12:11
That's really the key. You may dancing around the bar being Sasha.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:16
Yeah, we know that song still pops in my head occasionally and like what is happening? I
Brandon 1:12:23
didn't really want to watch that movie like super bad last week for some reason. I was like,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:27
so long though.
Brandon 1:12:29
I know that's what made me not watch it. Like three and a half hour. Like I loved heavier very much but
Unknown Speaker 1:12:38
yeah, it's three and a half hours but two and a half of just heavier pulling his milk cart.
Brandon 1:12:42
That's true.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:45
On the other hand,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:48
ts
Brandon 1:12:51
did that in there. The other thing though, that in practice swinging back to things are different than I recall was student section being a thing. Yeah, right. Like sporting things are like literally everything as it right now at school the student section is like, not existent. Like Really? It's so weird. Is it really confused me? Is that just Well, I don't know why Yeah, I have no idea. Like they just don't care. Like
Unknown Speaker 1:13:27
I I remember at rogersville you know it being pretty crazy all the time like so she has all games basketball, basketball games basketball guys.
Brandon 1:13:39
Like we're fighting a parking lot one time like that it was nuts. It was like standing room only at every game.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:48
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:50
But then like, I get to any Oh, and people just like for granted. Any overhaul was terrible. And you guys went to win. Some of our games so so you saw firsthand, but like people just like kind of like sparsely sat in the stand. But then I remember going on trips to like different high schools or any Oh band like playing like for their football games. And like I remember we went to, like j Oklahoma stands were packed, but no one cheered. Like and like a band we are. Yeah. And like the band didn't play. But in Oklahoma, the band can play like non stop. Oh really like him in Missouri. Like when they when the play or when the balls in play. Like you have to stop. But no,
Brandon 1:14:37
no, no, that against Misha is against fun. We know. Like, hey, you better quit that, right?
Unknown Speaker 1:14:46
Yeah. And so like true, like everyone is in in the stands. And it was just silent. And so our band director looked at us and he's like, I don't, I don't know if we should cheer. And they're like, in all those people in the band for like, Heck, yeah, we're gonna cheer. And so out of an entire crowd of like, a few, maybe like a few hundred people. Like, we were just insane. I mean, we played constantly. And we kind of got a little ripple effect that people would also kind of get involved in. But like, you know, when I coached at candy Valley, it was, you know, our stands were semi packed, but no one like, really cheered. Unless, like, Doug, the state, like students would just come in, like, sit and just talk like, they wouldn't watch the game. And so I don't know if it's just if you're like a winning program, like if you go to like a jinx game or union game, or in a wasco game, or two weeks ago, I went to a husky Huskies game, which is right behind my office in Alaska. And I gathered, which is an Oklahoma if you guys didn't know that,
Unknown Speaker 1:15:55
yes. Now was that in the Northern Hemisphere, or it's actually
Unknown Speaker 1:15:58
it's actually in the Cambodian district
Unknown Speaker 1:16:01
of Okay, that's what I thought was there.
Brandon 1:16:05
Now granted, it was a district playoff game. And like, everyone in the crowd had cowbells. Which I think is like
Unknown Speaker 1:16:17
they don't like that.
Brandon 1:16:18
Why is there a Misha would stop the game and maybe they would take them all the way.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:24
That was that was and that was like one of the first football games. I went by went back to since you know, believing cainy Valley. And just like the atmosphere of it was like, yeah, it was a winning. It's a winning program. They're making a playoff run for the first time in a while. But like, from like the young kids to like the old people, like, everyone was going nuts and I'm like, Man, this is
Unknown Speaker 1:16:47
football, like
Brandon 1:16:49
football. At our school, like they have a fairly decent basketball program and like that's the thing like our school is known for basketball or like the history of it existed. Yeah, that's what people want. They're like obsessed with basketball. But they do that when you go to the games, they do exactly that. They go and they sit down, they sit in the bleachers, they got the arms crossed, and they just sit there and look at it. And then they will like shout things at kids. I'm like, angrily like, not letting help everything. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, they're being like, extra helpful, like, super. Like back to like, shout things at the refs angrily Yeah, but that's it. There's not like a positivity attached to it. It's like, you better be good, or else like, it's very strange. And not enjoyable to be at. And I just don't. I can't Yeah, see, like the little kids games and I go to like fifth and sixth grade basketball to watch my kids like that. Both parents are just all like rah rah. And I don't I don't know. It's so weird. I don't understand. And that's like, nobody can None of the students come to the high school game because the parents is over there like shouting. And like even like probably isn't like two years ago, we were in like, district finals like sectional finals or whatever. And they were like, yep. Your Ruby it's pretty cool. But what what in the world
Unknown Speaker 1:18:21
see the the atmosphere of just like being back at like in a heist is granted that was also the first time I've actually been in like the stands of a high school football game. Because I was never in the stands in high school, because I was always on the field. Yeah, I was always in like, our stands or marching during like when I was in college.
Brandon 1:18:43
I sat in the band
Unknown Speaker 1:18:44
bleachers. In the end zone. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:18:47
well, I guess I guess count like Oklahoma City, college wise, but like I was always in the press box or I was always out on the field for coaching and so being Back granted, I sat next to the or I stood next to one of my co workers who like is definitely in like the older alumni crowd of that school and so they you know, stand by the fence in front of the concession stand and talking about the weather and like back in my day, and so all the the school only had unfortunately to
Unknown Speaker 1:19:27
do it. Anyway so you were saying
Unknown Speaker 1:19:29
gee haha
Unknown Speaker 1:19:34
Pascal and have like 10 people on the bands I couldn't really hear their marching man, but just being back in that environment like for the first time and like actually seeing that perspective of a high school football game for once. I actually bought a posca hat. And like, just like it was it was just that cool and just drew Drew 37 on it and marker like dope. This is my now There's a nice little little lady has a little clothing shop and she makes like busca like shirts and, and things like that. And so I bought a T shirt and I bought a hat. I bought two hats. Actually. She swindled me. She was an older lady. And she looked like she didn't get much business that day. And I was like, I'll help the community. I seriously by two freaking hats. And so yeah, I have a you know, the love has it. Understand. It wasn't I didn't say it was a bad thing. I'm just saying.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:32
He woke up from his fugue state and was like,
Unknown Speaker 1:20:34
wait a minute, where this has come from? I need five more hats.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:38
It was it was just
Brandon 1:20:40
just being brainwashed you actually
Unknown Speaker 1:20:43
just being back that environment of like a community being behind a sporting event or being behind a school. And that's how rogersville was like, everyone pretty much came to like a football game. Everyone pretty much came to a basketball game even though it He greatly dislike basketball when I was in high school I pretty much went for jazzman
Brandon 1:21:06
Jasmine's coolest but yeah and
Unknown Speaker 1:21:11
yeah like I just remember people being behind it but then I go to some of these other schools or other places and I like people show up but they don't do anything and like do not do not know how to sports ball like you are you broken like no time for like socializing but there's a game going on cheer for your school dang it
Brandon 1:21:29
yeah and even like I was on like all about like Pep assemblies right and it really wasn't extra heavy in high school. Some say still not
Unknown Speaker 1:21:43
some say
Brandon 1:21:44
some saying that was not happy. I was definitely like, sitting in the back row the bleachers, big pipe similes, right but I remember they were a thing. Like people were into it like most people, and then later they brought bandana like no bands gonna play at the pavement like what way do we have to though? Like, hold on a minute. Yeah, like wait a minute Hold on, but like, they were a big thing. And like our school now doesn't even do them partly because it's like, oh no, you're taking away from educational time, blah blah blah but you know, safeguard your instructional time all that stuff, which on one hand I'm glad because they used to just do them like all the time it was like what what they always do they're the same hour so whatever hour that was like totally got shafted, right? Because like if they did seventh hour every time whatever he's having to our class was like I got my elbow is a month Do you like what a habit pro days? You know, it was a good class time. So that stinks for a teacher. Like we have now swung the exact opposite direction though. No Pep assemblies ever, ever. That's kind of weird. Yeah, you know I think that's That's odd. But again it goes back to like oh well we got to make sure that this number is is good because the state only cares about this number right here is more and and how
Unknown Speaker 1:23:14
it how counterintuitive it is, you know we've mentioned have to focus on that number they strip away everything else to get it just that number but they're stripping away all those other things that go into support that number and be may feel like you're taking away time from studying for the number but if you're not letting them be kids, you know yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:43
Grow right you
Brandon 1:23:44
especially in high school, that's the thing they talk about, right? Like you got to talk about they only they only care about like certain educational models, nice stuff. That's the buzzword. Whatever buzzword model is in for the week. Right here is it's like Writers Workshop. Oh my gosh, the workshop model. The workshop, like, Yes, I understand. It's not like you're not you're thinking talking about this. What's important about the workshop model? is the part where you, you tell them how to do it. You practice it together, and then you let them do it on their own. Yeah, that is the structure that in my opinion, the important bit. Yes. Doesn't matter what the thing is that you're doing. That is the thing, right? These are the very small steps but you have to have now they will say like, Oh, no, you have to have X thing and y thing. Well, black button. No. Yes. Right. But again, because they focus on whatever insert thing here, like yeah, you sort of lose sight of the fact that the other big thing that you are doing is you are teaching the students how to people,
Unknown Speaker 1:24:55
right.
Brandon 1:24:58
You have to teach them The other thing that we're doing is to teach them how to humans and interact in a societal manner. Yeah. How to function together as people and by like, beating in their heads it like, Oh, you've got to study you have to know all of these standards for this tennis. you going? Is that? Is that really what is it, that elbow?
Unknown Speaker 1:25:29
Help the
Unknown Speaker 1:25:30
society at large, like be a good CEO? Does it help with civic duty and the idea of being part of society and something larger than you actually, you know, then you right now doesn't? It does
Brandon 1:25:41
not. Right.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:45
It does the exact opposite by saying
Unknown Speaker 1:25:47
well, if you don't focus on your test scores, like so, like the, the focus, all of a sudden shifts to being on the individual, and you get taken away from that larger context. And that civic duty.
Brandon 1:26:01
Yeah. But being civil is very important. Right? And like, that's something that you just know how to do. Right. Right. It's not innate. by any stretch of the imagination, clearly. We need education. And that is well, so like, finding time to incorporate that is also the struggle, right? How do you incorporate these things to make mean and that that brings your meaning back, right? Because if you just sit and stare and read, like, that's not super great, because you have context. You have no applicable context. You can't apply it to anything. So like,
Unknown Speaker 1:26:49
do you need other
Brandon 1:26:52
what's the word I'm looking for outlets, there we go. To throw this information, or you have to apply it somehow. And they just, you know, strip that back and we all knew well, we don't do that or else bad excuses like no one does it? We no one knows because you don't put emphasis on it.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:08
Right? I don't think it's important. Yeah. It's funny how that works is whenever
Brandon 1:27:13
it is interesting, isn't it?
Unknown Speaker 1:27:15
When when, when you don't leave time for it and you don't provide resources for it. Nobody's going to do it. And then you know, like, well see, nobody does it. So we don't need to provide resources for
Unknown Speaker 1:27:25
it. Like that's
Unknown Speaker 1:27:27
not how that works.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:31
That's not how any of this works.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:33
No.
Brandon 1:27:35
Same day that went to Mr. darks carnival. Yeah, yes. Okay. All right. Like scare her away with bizarre spooktacular circus extravaganza.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:49
No, it was. It was really cool. All right.
Brandon 1:27:54
Sweet. charm overcame, chains are juggling, juggling.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:03
The
Brandon 1:28:05
comedic vampire really sealed the deal.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:11
Next time.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:14
Exit exit, exit, go.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:20
episode ends at 131
Unknown Speaker 1:28:25
don't put it in the video