Made a decision face sunny, so I had a vision. Hey, everybody,
welcome to for crying out loud. Guess what what that voice is not
Lynette? Lynette is God. This bitch went to Florida to like, I
don't know, celebrate her birthday or something like I have some me time.
Whish. That's so not what moms should be doing. It's so seventies.
Really, she's on strike. She's on mom strike. She's walking around picking
herself. Yeah, yeah, having some meat to Anyway, we have Robin
Wazinski. Robin, Hi, everybody here, I am, and we're still
gonna make this a great show. I mean, Robin's gonna try her best
to bring bring the Lynnette sparkle to the show. No pressure at all.
Thank you. You know what, Robin, you have your own sparkle.
Thank you, you have your own likeli, how you doing good? Little
sweaty but yeah, very hot in here. See I'm starting to get the
blow of it. It's like, you know, when you first get in
your car in California and it's one hundred and fifteen degrees in the car,
Yeah, and you don't feel the ac at all for a little while,
but then suddenly you're like, oh, I'm starting to feel human again.
Yeah, I'm waiting for that. We can't swap places. No, I'm
just I'm just complaining. It's what I do these days. Listen, we're
in Patrick's garage. Basically, it's nice. It's really nice. It's really
nice. Well, there's video, right, so people have seen his croge.
Yeah, but it's not like we're like panic around. That's true.
You know what we should do, Kalin, for our video. We should
put our for Crying Out Loud logo behind us when we record. That would
seem so profession it would that would be that'd be sweet. You don't have
to do it right the second too, Alight, Alright, let's go.
You know what. While you do that, I'm gonna say hi to our
people and chime in if I remember. I will chime in because you probably
sometimes skip this part. Not usually, but we'll see. All right.
How about Elizabeth Williamson know anything about her? Nope, She's got a lot
of kids. Okay. And what does ried to do with Elizabeth Williamson's kids?
Does she accost them? No? Start it? How about hero Yamashta
Yep, his kids love him, they sure do. And what about Jacob
Crowley, Well, he's growley. He is growley, but like the sweetest,
sweetest, it's like a little part he and Leslie Acosta. Yep,
she's at Ikea right now. I started waiting by the elevator, trying to
traffic, not kids, though she doesn't. She tries to. She's trying
to traffic grandparents, to say, people's elderly parents who are Yeah, you
know she does is she kidnaps them and then she gives them to other families
who don't have like a working grandparent. Well, I mean that seems charitable.
That's almost a by working, I don't mean having a job. I
mean like actively helping their child with their kids, loving them, buying them
stuff to animals, buying them things like parents would never buy them. Nope.
Yeah, you know what that reminds me. And I'm going to tell
you this little story a little bit later about going shopping with Xander. But
there was a woman in line who was clearly talking to her mom, and
she was like, mom, well obviously that's how she was talking to her
mom. But she was like, weren't you saying you wanted to buy nice
things for like whatever her kids is Amelia because I'm in line right now with
like a hole we have a haul and I was thinking, God, that
must be so nice. What must that be like to be able to like
I mean, I see if she feels like paying like logistically, how does
that work? Then as a mom just gonna venmo her whatever the total is.
Probably she's going to be like, oh my gosh, I can't we
just spoil my Amelia? Huh? I don't know. Yeah, weird anyway.
Ashley she's so chic, and Nikki call your girl? And Randy may
aimes yep, she's got three names yep. And Rachel's a newcomer. Oh
she's a newcomer. Not who dies? And Aaron who is? Who does?
Yeah? And Athena consured she can dance, she's got the moves,
uh huh. And Polly she makes great pancakes. Well it's really the syrup.
Oh, Polly Pocket, Polly Butterfield and Valerie, Bubba Fenwick and Katerina
that Mueller checked. And Gabby and Missy where are they now? I don't
know. Have you seen him? No, no one's seen him. And
I've seen mug shots, but I haven't seen them in person. Maybe they
were accosted by Leslie Ishan vajpay frown. I always wonder if he's offended by
that, or if his fiance is or do you think she's flattered? She
probably loves it because he is super cute. He is really cute. Kelly
brand She's she's not your an, ye Alicia's Gavante from the city of El
Monte and Leslie Okay, COVID's back, so I understand if you're coughing,
I guess, but get a cough drop. It's been too long. Sarah's
Stafon, Oh she's your Paisanoh, Jennifer, get up, don't fall,
Sandrett's Udy's being green, Christa get this strap? And Stephanie stinker wrinker.
Oh boom boom. That was the longest shout out ever. Right, it's
long because you know why, we have fans that love us and support us,
and they deserve it. They do deserve it. They deserve us to
take our time. Yeah, what is happening with you? School has started?
Rob For those of you who don't know, Robin is a teacher.
She teaches first grade. She spent many, many years teaching kindergarten. Yea,
and when my when I had that full year on Zoom with kindergarteners.
Yeah, I chose to move to first grade the following year and loop that
whole class with me so I could have them in person, And that was
really amazing and I totally special bond with those kids because it was such a
weird couple of years. But I'm really glad I did that, and I'm
actually really enjoying first grade. Believe it or not, that one year makes
such a difference in just independence. Like there's I mean in kindergarten. I
know it's such a silly cliche to say it's like herding cats, but it
really is. It's like you tell one person to do something and they're You're
only talking to that one person and the other twenty five are still wandering around.
It's even with an announcement. They have to learn watch what other people
are doing. When I'm talking to the class, I'm talking to all of
you, and it's very very hard. Let me ask you this, I've
always kind of wondered this. I'm sure we've talked about it at some point.
But okay, so you start, let's say you start kindergarten. You've
got a brand new class, and you know you're only the first parent teacher
conference is usually fairly early in the year. Yeah, what the hell do
you have to say about all those kids so their parents, so that you
sound like you really are getting to know little Joey well by that time,
Because we have our conferences the end of the first trimester. We have three
grading periods, so on kindergarten, we don't give a report card the first
trimester. We actually just sit down with every parent and talk to them about
how they're writing. But it's only you're only like a couple of months into
school. Yeah, but you get to know a kid pretty quickly, and
by then, I've also done formal assessment, so I know like where they
are academically with number cents and letter recognition and blending and some kids are reading.
And by then also you kind of just get to know like what their
preferences are and what they like, and what their behaviors are like and if
you need to talk to a parent about it. But if a kid is
having behavior issues, the conference would not be the first time a parent was
hearing about it. Really. Yeah, Oh my gosh, No, Like
I just had back to school night and I said, you will never be
surprised on a report card. You will have heard from me if I have
concerns, either academically or behaviorally. So so that's that call you really don't
want to get. M Hi, this is missus Wazinski, and I just
wanted to chat with you, if we could just have a few minutes to
chat about Jeremiah. And sometimes I'll say, have you been waiting for me
to call you? So often you just know they're seeing the same behaviors at
home and are just waiting for somebody to confirm it. Well, confirm it
or just pray, just wing in a prayer that things are different at school,
you know, but a lot of times they're not. I've actually had
an experience where I had a little boy who I knew one hundred percent was
on the spectrum, but he was undiagnosed, and so I called her.
And you can't ever give a label or a diagnosis to a parent. You
can only tell what you're observing. So when I called her, I said,
I just wanted to talk to you about some behaviors I've been seeing at
school, and I wanted to see if you're seeing the same things at home.
You know, he's really having a hard time transitioning from one activity to
another. He's crying when he gets frustrated, he takes his shoes off and
he climbs under the table. I mean, he was having huge behaviors.
And I was probably two sentences in and she broke into tears and she said,
missus Wazinski, do you think he has autism? And I said,
well, I can't diagnose him, but if you have concerns, we can
certainly help you find out. And it all sort of came out that she
had had concerns for years and the family was like, you worry too much.
She's fine, It's just he's just young. And so I think she
was so relieved that finally another person was like, yeah, there's something going
on, so let's figure it out. So within a couple of months he
out a one on one aid and oh wow yeah, And was she like
grateful. Yeah, She's was just a lovely, such a neat mom.
I still see her, and I still see him. He's in sixth grade
now and taller than me. And how's he doing. He's sweet, you
know, he's still it can tell he's on the spectrum, but obviously not
tantruming anymore and really just sweet and quiet, but he talks, and so
yeah, he's a really meat kid. Have you had that happened a lot?
I feel like a lot of kids are on the spectrum. Yeah,
and a lot of them come into kindergarten undiagnosed, because again, I think
there's just so much denial that can happen around it that it's like, Okay,
well that's just I think you probably keep giving yourself like benchmarks like okay,
well we'll talk to the pediatrician at three. Well now let's just do
preschool. Okay, well let's wait till kindergarten. And if preschool didn't talk
to them about it, they've convinced themselves that there's not an issue. But
I'm always the one to bring it up. So, yeah, it's happened
a lot. Do you think that there's I mean, I remember I know
a person who had a kid who was kicked out of several preschools first for
behaviors that seemed to indicate some sort of issue, but she just wouldn't hear
it. She was just like, Nope, my kid is just very bright,
and it's just she doesn't like to be told what to do, and
she was reading really really young, like very very young, taught herself to
read, which can be a red flag, right right, But I mean
she just would not hear it, kind of still won't even though her kid
ended up in like a special school and they were like only I mean,
she got kicked out of a lot of schools, but she just wouldn't.
It's just so interesting to me because I I feel it, and I know
I'm sure I've said this on the podcast before, but everyone is so worried
about their kid having a label. But people are going to label your kid
for their behaviors and either they're going to be calling them a jerk or rude,
or they don't want their kid near them, or they have a label
of autism. So people can start being educated and understanding, you know,
how can we be more flexible with this kid? How can we help them
transition and engage with other kids instead of just having being sort of hostile toward
them. Sorry, labels are going to happen, so let's make it the
actual label that can get them some help. Have you personally experienced where you've
called and been like, Okay, this parent is going to be relieved and
you're like, are you seeing these behaviors and the mom goes, Nope,
it's only happened once and it wasn't. I didn't think it was autism.
I thought there was a language development issue, and they were just like,
no, please find at home. You know. I offered to have the
speech therapist just come in and listen to him and see what she thought,
and they just refused, so I had to document it. Super bright kid,
but I that expressive language, there was something going on with it.
So every other time in your many years of teaching, the parents had been
open to like, oh thank you for telling me. Well, they couldn't
not because behaviors were so outrageous. Something had to give, you know,
right, I mean, when you're having extreme behaviors, then the parents willing
to listen, especially because the parent is having issues at home too, so
they yeah, or kids have come in diagnosed. But yeah, right,
every other time that I've had concerns, we've followed through to getting a diagnosis.
But sometimes is the behavior not egregious, but you're just seeing some stuff
that maybe you think the parent isn't seeing, and you feel like you want
to give them a heads up because it would be good for them to look
into some kind of interventions. I usually don't if a kid is performing academically
on grade level, if they're kind of going with the flow socially, even
if I know that there's probably something going on, no, I do not
bring it to their attention, because because it's so subtle, it's that would
be a really awkward conversation, especially if it's not impacting their performance in the
classroom or in the playground. You know, that's okay, it would have
That would be a conversation I could only have, like with a friend,
and even then I probably wouldn't. I remember, you know what, Let's
take a quick break, and then I'm going to tell you something I remember,
Okay, you know what we should talk about neutrafule. I am so
curious about neutrofle. So my hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and
I'm starting to thin, I get my temples, so I was really self
conscious about pulling it back. So I'm very curious about it. I was
having it in the front by my front part, and I used to think
it was from pulling it back in a ponytail, but I realized it's just
normal aging. Hormones, Like, it's just what happens to a lot of
women. And I realized, Oh, it's nothing to be embarrassed about.
There's treatment for that, and that treatment is Neutraful. I started using Neutraful.
We know Lynnette is obsessed with that. She's been doing it for like
a year. I started using it a few months ago because I was like,
why am I not using it? I'm having the same issue, and
I absolutely have noticed a difference already. I feel like the baby hair is
can you see that? Like I have baby hair growing back in and my
hair is not shedding as much in the shower. It's really great, and
it's you know, they'll send it to your house every month, and if
you miss a few, you know you can put it on hold. It's
so great. It's the It supports healthy hair growth from within by targeting rude
causes of thinning, stress, hormones, environment, nutrition, lifestyle, and
metabolism through whole body health. So take the first step to visibly thicker,
healthier hair. For a limited time, Neutroful is offering our listeners ten dollars
off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to neutrofol dot com
and enter the code fcol. Find out why over four thousand healthcare professionals recommend
neutroful for healthier hair. Neutroful dot com spelled n U t r A f
o l dot com promo code fcol. That's neutraful dot com promo code fcol.
All right, I am committing to trying it good and then let us
know, okay, how it works for you. I just remember, I
know I've I've told you this story. I've told this story on the podcast,
but it just stands out to me as I want you to tell me
whether you think this teacher was being inappropriate or no. Okay, okay,
this was second grade Xander, No, first grade, first grade Xander.
Okay, so you can re late first grade teacher Xander I was told was
being fidgety. Uh do you remember this story? No, But I'm thinking
of my kids. It's like I'd be talking to a lot of parents if
that was my Well, that's the thing, Xander was being fidgety, and
he was. And this is one of the those things where I know you
probably think that a lot of parents are like, oh, my kids just
bored. That's why they're But but her complaint to me wasn't that Xander was
trying to like engage his classmates. He was being chatty, which, Hi,
he's my son, so like he and he was laying down sometimes when
they're supposed to be like sitting up or he would put his legs out.
He wasn't sitting. They were all supposed to be sitting like Chris Chriss Applesauce,
staring at the teacher, and Sander would like like put his legs out
and he'd have to be reminded a lot of times by the teacher. And
uh, she said he was being he was getting very distracted. So I
said, do you think he could be bored? Now, I know that
that's kind of a thing that parents probably say, right right, exactly right,
yeah, but what happened? So but in the in the conversation,
I was like, well, what exactly are you saying, like because it
seemed to be a big enough issue for her to take me aside to tell
me that Xander's fidgety and just easily distracted. So I was like, well,
what are you Is this like code for d And she said, what
you kind of said? She was like, I can't. I can't diagnose.
But you know, if you wanted to ask your pediatrician about that,
I think that would be like a good idea. HU Xander does not have
ADHD okay at all. So but hey, I was like I got upset.
You know, I was like, oh, okay, Like if this
is obviously a big enough problem, I really thought that Xander was bored.
He's very bright. He's he's I'm not trying to be one of those parents.
He's probably he just has like a different kind of brightness that he thinks
deeper. He likes to think about things. He's super curious. He has
like oftentimes a lot of questions when he's interested, he gets everything without he's
so he says stuff to me that's like way funnier than stuff I could.
I think I have to say. I'm always like, okay, this kid's
ahead of me. So I was genuinely like, well, maybe because they
were a lot of the kids were behind, and they were making all the
kids read at the same level during this time. Well then cut to like,
I don't know, a week or two weeks later, she's like,
oh, by the way, Xander, I decided to take my advanced readers
and put them in a little book club and give them a harder book to
read and discuss. And she's like, and yeah, it's totally fine.
Now he's doing great. Yeah, And I was like, because because he
was bored, right, I didn't say that to her, But do you
think that was well and weird that she's made it? Tried to make it
seem like my kid at a Yeah. I mean, especially the whole fidgety
thing, because it is really hard to sit on the rug criss cross apple
sauce, and it's hard to do it for an extended period of time,
right, And even if you're totally fascinated by the curriculum, you know,
and a lot of it's not that fascinating, right, So I actually this
year I've started, so there are some kids who just need more space,
so I give them like a square on the edge. And kids have a
choice of how they sit, so criss cross is one of the choices.
Sticks is another choice where you you know what, you can see me right
now doing sticks? Sticks, good sticks. I like you're being very cooperative,
Stephanie, and stick and mountain mountain is this like on your knees but
low on your knees. I mean I can't like with your feet under you.
Oh okay, okay, yeah, so those are sitting on your shins.
Yeah, like your tushes on your feet. Yeah yeah, yeah.
I just don't like a double you because that's actually really bad for your hips
on your knees. Yeah, what about what about this kind of mountain?
I call this double hills? Oh maybe I'll introduce double hills. Double hills
is good because you can kind of like hold your legs and it's it's strong,
comfortable. Yeah it is. Oh that's a good one. Okay,
Oh my gosh, more choices. I know. How fun do you do?
Do you employ the thing with the kids where they can choose how they
greet you, like handshake, high five, or hug. We do that
on when we go home at the end of the day, so they can
choose a handshake, a high five, or a hug. And then but
somebody implemented the fist bump today too. I said, no, it doesn't
start with an ah. Sorry, sorry, Charlie. No, not my
idea. I won't do a fist bump. You sound like a really good
teacher because you have really strong back. I mean, I like that.
I didn't actually do that. You know what I did. I gave her
a fist bump. How Like, I want to know how different is it
teaching now than it was like when early teaching? Because I have seen a
lot of like burned out teachers. How do you keep the fire burning?
You have a retirement date. I'm sorry, I'm being facetious. I don't
you just have to kind of do new stuff all the time. I don't
like completely turn over my curriculum every year, but I'm always doing something new
or creating something new, because I mean, if I'm bored, imagine how
bored they would be. So I actually did a lot of reading this summer.
Well, I shouldn't say a lot. The first two weeks of summer.
I took a deep dive into content and science of reading and just some
stuff that's really building now that a lot of districts aren't even talking about.
So really changing a lot of the way I'm teaching reading, Like high frequency
words are supposed to be memorized, but actually if the kids know the phonics
rules, they're all decotable. Oh really, Yeah, Like the word the
is a th, it's a digraph and a schwa THHG is actually decodable.
So there are just some kids who can't memorize stuff, but they can decode
things. But then don't you feel like they would be constantly sounding out words
that you just see all the time. Isn't it kind of better to be
like, oh, you just see the word and you say and eventually they
will, you know, after enough repetition, they won't have to sound it
out. It's more for those times when they come to an unknown word and
it's a high frequency word. It doesn't do one bit of good if they
haven't memorized it, But if they have the skills to decode it, then
they can read anything, right, So just more of a focus on that
and actually just different spelling rules and sound rules. Let's talk about my favorite
topica, bad parents and bad other teachers. You know, I like to
keep things negative where let's hop onto the negative bandwich. Yeah. Well,
here's the thing. You are a teacher, and as long as I've known
you, I've been impressed by the fact that you go above and beyond.
Sometimes you'll hear Lynette and I complain about a certain teacher. We also,
contrary to popular belief, brag on teachers that we have that we love.
Right now, I'm just going to preface this convo, was saying that Sadie
and Xander both love every single one of their teachers. Oh my god,
every single one. And it's incredible. Did I tell you that. Sadie
was telling me mom for the first time, like she said, I really
like my English teacher. They're in honors English at their school, which Sadie
was not able to do honors classes at that one traumatizing year of middle school.
But she's been doing. We have such good teachers and such interesting curriculum.
Anyway, she told me they're reading Frankenstein. Oh, but she said
it's the old right, she said it's the Mary Shelley version, right,
And she said it's like she was like, it's really really hard. It's
kind of like you know, like Shakespeare. It's what you thought it was.
No, Yeah, but she said that the teacher is making it really
interesting and like translating it, like like taking it bit by bit and telling
them, you know, helping them understand the story. And she's like,
it's really interesting. I'm actually really enjoying it. I've heard no complaints.
Xander told me he likes every single one of his teachers a lot. Wow,
And that's that's a first, right, that's huge, That is huge.
Last year was pretty good. Yeah, last year was pretty good too.
But you know, coming from that middle school year where every teacher sounded
like a nightmare, mister Zippity Doodop, the math teacher, that was like
I've always wondered, why are some teachers so so bad and like seem like
they just don't like kids and want to humiliate them, and some teachers are
so so good and go out of their way. I feel like a lot
of it is like a different era, you know, how things have changed,
I mean from even twenty years ago. And I'm going to make a
weird comparison, but like thinking about the Me Too movement, Okay, there
are just certain things that twenty years ago were totally normal. Getting groped,
you know. And I'm not kidding, like, okay, it's just I'm
going to totally take a detour right now. So I had my fortieth class
reunion on Saturday night, and beforehand, a couple of friends and I went
to a bar just because we didn't want to get dropped in early to the
reunion. We just wanted to catch up with each other. So we walk
into this bar, super crowded sports bar, and this dude at the bar's
probably seventy like locks eyes with me when I walk in. I'm just wandering
around looking for a table. He grabs me and like puts his arm around
my waist, and the whole time he's talking to me, he's like,
keep squeezing my arm, And I think, are you like, my arm
is not as an where you want to copy feel actually anywhere in my body.
It's like, it's just so weird about your arms. I don't like
my arms. Just let your arms get to hide them, relax and let
your arms get groped. Yeah, except the arm groping, But it was
that was from a different time, right, right, anyone our age or
younger would never do that to a woman, right. So I think back
to my high school experience or middle school experience, that part of the job,
especially a male teachers, was like to insult kids and tease them and
put them on the spot. And that used to be like acceptable and funny,
and it's like grow a pair, So it's going to toughen you up.
And I feel like the teachers who are still doing that just haven't evolved,
and they don't think about like what it does to kids and their feelings
and their self esteem because and some kids can take it, some kids don't
care. And if a teacher had done that to me, I wouldn't have
cared. It would have rolled off my back. If a teacher had done
that to my sister, she would have been in a heap, you know.
So I kind of think it's almost generational with teachers. I remember when
I started teaching and being the teacher's lounge, and the talk was always negative.
People would, oh, we and we are talking thirty five years ago,
you know, kind of talking trash about kids and about their parents.
And at the time this was and we were a low income school, lots
of immigrant families, like, obviously they're having a hard time, and now
we're piling on by talking about them and having this attitude toward them. And
I remember just making this decision that I think it's a couple of years in
when I became a mentor teacher and they talked about that you don't talk about
other teachers, because I would and observed teachers they would say, you don't
talk about anything you're doing with your mentees publicly, because then people are going
to question, well, you're saying something positive in public, but what else
do you say about me in public? So you just don't talk about other
teachers interesting in the lounge. But I sort of took that nugget and I'm
like, I'm never going to talk negatively about a kid in the lounge again.
And if I need to get advice about a kid, and if I'm
having challenges with a kid, there's a way to talk about it that doesn't
insult the kid, right, because I feel like there's just there's a vibe
that you're giving off to kids. If that's how you're talking about them,
then that's how you're feeling about them, and it's not fair. So that
was just a shift. What if you have a kid, I mean,
and you do have younger kids, so it's a little it's a little hard
to say, but maybe some of your co workers have had kids that are
just disasters, like kids that are maybe a bad seed, kids that have
you know, antisocial behaviors. What do you do? I mean, that's
when we get our school psychologists involved and we ask the family if they're open
to counseling. I mean, because it's there's always something else going on.
You know, it's never just the kid, right. You know, if
it were, then punishment would work and taking away recess would work. But
it's there's more to it. So there's probably something going on at home.
There may be something there may be mental health issues with the kid. But
even then it's not their fault. They need help, right, So I
mean, I'm I'm like, I'm not trying to paint myself a hero.
I still get frustrated with kids, but my goal is for them to come
to school happy and to leave happy, regardless of what behavioral challenges or other
challenges they might have. There's always something good about a kid. There's always
a strength, there's always I mean, the most valuable thing I do is
I have a list, and during the week I make sure that I talk
privately with every kid for at least three minutes, not about school, just
about how's it going, what'd you do this weekend, how's your mom?
You know, because that's there's no pressure with that, and it really it.
That kind of engagement with kids just changes your connection with your whole class.
Do they ever tell you anything like really disturbing in that three minutes they
haven't. I mean sometimes yeah, yeah, they call me Robin that kid
especially, we're really mature. They have said things that make me think,
huh. I one of my kids last year, I asked if his dad
was going to come to open house, and he's like, my dad never
comes to school. My dad would never be at school. And I thought,
oh, that's so interesting. And I knew the situation with the family
and that you know, gainfully employed, but apparently those lines were very delineated
in that marriage and in parenting that that was not the dad's job. Okay,
kid kind of seemed to accept it, but he was one that had
anger issues well, and that mom was open to counseling, but dad was
not for the kid. So yeah, you find out stuff interesting. Yeah
yeah, what about like dud other teachers? Have you ever dealt with like
and you could think of somebody who's no longer in the profession, have you
ever just felt bad for other kids because and not not even like your child
having a bad teacher, but have you ever worked around other teachers that you
were like my own my own son's first grade teacher was that teacher just really
total hoarder. First of all, so the classroom was always just a disaster.
And obviously Jack had autism, but she wanted him not to. And
You're like, yeah, me too, bitch, You and me both bitch.
But I remember and I can't remember. Okay, so you Lenette always
say this. Okay, I've told this story before, but I'm gonna tell
I don't know if I've told this story before on the podcast. I've been
in a long time. I'm telling it again. I came to school day.
I remember it was the day before Halloween. And Jack was not an
easy kid. He was I think probably mostly just unfocused, not necessarily disruptive,
but he probably would get mad and yell out at times. And so
again he was an audiity. Yeah right, he would call it right,
bitch cock sucker, you set cockfin hell. But he has autism. Yeah,
excuse me, make some room for my child. He he's bored.
And should we take a quick break before we finished this story? Okay,
quick break on that note. Oh, okay, we're back. Yeah.
So he had a few Okay, they were I mean in fractions, let's
say. Yeah, and the big threat now was you know, Jack Wazinski.
You're going back to kindergarten. I'm all right whatever. I loved this
kindergarten teacher and it was going to be like for a day or whatever.
So I don't know what she was serious though, I was going to send
it back. That was her only like, that was her tool okay,
was I can't deal with this behavior, so I'm sending you away. It's
like, wow, your toolbox is empty. So I come in after school.
Wait, how did you find this out? Did Jack come home and
tell you? No, they must have called me. I think he got
sent to the office, so I can and actually maybe not, because that
was during the grade where you had to go pick them up from the classroom.
In first grade, you actually want to pick them up from the classroom.
Okay. So I'm getting an earload about this. So and I'm standing
there and this is in the presence of the teacher of me. The teacher
gets down in Jack's face, and this is the day before the Halloween carnival.
She said, Jack Wazinski, if I had my way, you wouldn't
be able to come to school tomorrow. And this is how she's talking to
him in front of me. And I'm standing there and everyone's like, oh
my God, what did you do to her? I might nothing. I
was completely frozen. It seems like, you know, I'm an advocate.
I'm a badass. I know how to teach. And all I did was
tried not to cry. And I stood there and I said, are you
suspending him? No, but he's been a real handful or whatever. I
said, Okay, well he'll be at school tomorrow. And we left and
he said, so, can I not go to the carnival? I said,
no, you could go to the carnival. Fucking bitch. I didn't
say that to him. I stayed neutral. I never said a negative word
about her. He actually loved her. But you know, he was the
kind of kid where we would spend two hours on homework and he wouldn't turn
it in because like, he's an executive functioning disaster, and so how hard
would it be for you to ask Jack for his homework? And then I
would go into volunteer and I'm like, Okay, here's the problem, because
what I think about a lot in my classroom is flow and pathways, And
if they're going to be turning in something, how do you get it?
So it's not a bottleneck? Right? So they turned in their homework first
thing in the morning, and the tray was at the door. So there's
this big crowd. It's like a who concert, you know, pushing in
on each other and kids digging through their backpacks. And of course what does
Jack do. He shuts down. He's like, this is chaotic. I
don't know how to navigate this. I'm going to turn my brain off and
go to my seat. It's like, why not then just go get his
homework out of his backpack at recess? You know he did it. It
was just it was a ridiculous year. Did you complain to the principle?
Oh? Well, the principle is another story, same principle. One day
I was on campus volunteering and she finds me and says, you know,
Jack is have I was in the classroom today and Jack's having a really hard
time focusing. I said, I said, you know he has autism,
right, She said, yeah, but he's really not, folks. I
said, it's in his I ep like, focus is one of his biggest
issues, and he's bored. No, I didn't say that. He probably
was very fin smart. He wasn't bored. He was just tuned out.
Yeah. I think it was a chaotic classroom. He couldn't navigate that just
from a sensory perspective, and I think he's shut down. And so there
were times so she I would go in twice a week to volunteer because I
was still working. I was working. I was only working halftime, and
so I would just like do all her clerical stuff. And then one day
she said, ah, we have to learn borrowing tomorrow and math. I
hate teaching that. I said, oh, I love teaching math. I
said, do you want me to come in and do the lesson? Would
you? I'm like sure. All she could talk about how was how rowdy
this classroom was, and they couldn't They wouldn't focus on any lesson. I
swear to God, Stephanie, you could have heard a pin drop during my
lesson because I was putting numbers on kids to represent the digits and what happens
when that end They got to use manipulatives and they were up and talking and
it's a lady, you can't teach borrowing on the chalkboard. It doesn't work.
So that was a disaster of a year. Sadly, hearing these stories
just makes me kind of sad because it takes special teachers to think how do
I engage kids? And I feel very lucky that we found this school,
even though it's very, very small, and I wish my kids were at
a big, slightly bigger school. But when I went on the tour of
the school, I mean, that's what they're doing in high school. Like
they were teaching economics, senior year economics. And I told you what I
toward the school. These kids' faces were lit up and they're like, do
you want us to tell you what we're working on. We're doing these economics
thing and this person owns a store, and this person is a distributor,
and this person makes the product. And they had these bags of candy and
they were like, and we're figuring out how many and these people are consumers.
They're there to buy it and this is the money. And it was
like a whole lesson on, like a real life lesson on economics. And
these kids looked so happy right where they got to actually do something. Yeah.
Yeah, as opposed to I've I've as you know, my kids have
school hopped a little bit, so I have been to and before Elbie started
high school, I toured a bunch of different high schools, and you know,
I watched I went into classrooms where kids just looked like so bored.
They looked like they were about to fall into a coma, you know,
just staring at the teacher just droning and like a textbook in front of them.
And I was like, I just it's triggering to me from my high
school because I could not focus. Yes, I'm sure I had undiagnosed ADHD.
I don't know if med's would have helped me. I just think I
was just bored. I didn't care. I didn't care, and no teachers
really made me care, except for my one teacher who taught teenagers in the
law and it made everything really fun. And he was had a sparkly personality.
All the kids hated him. They all hated him, mister Steckelstein.
It was quirky and he wore like a polyester colorful polyester suits and he was
weird. And I with a drumstick and would hit the drum on people's desks
if they were looking like they're sleepy. And I was interested in the law.
I like true crime, like before it was hipped to like true crime,
so I was like I loved hearing about like how traffic tickets and like
how to avoid in shoplifting and where are the charges? It was teachers,
interesting stuff, fascinating to me. But I also I think also teachers have
to tell kids that they're glad they're there, you know. Yeah, it's
if you just need to be happy to see kids, and if you're not,
you shouldn't be teaching anymore. So I do think. I think about
my school and there's not one teacher that I would label as a bad apple.
Honestly, they're also into it and if something's going awry, they try
to get help, and we meet together and we mentor each other. I
mean, it really is a dynamic school. But are you just saying that
because you think they're all going to listen to the show? No, no
one, if I did not tell anyone I'm on this show. No,
I'm actually saying that I love them all. I feel that good teachers can
make such a huge impact. I'm so proud to be your friend and like
for what you do. And I know we told this story before too,
but like your students and their parents remember you years later, like when you're
an impactful teacher. You know we told this story before, but We were
at this fundraiser years a few years ago, many years ago, because pre
twenty twenty, right to sixteen, probably eighteen because it was yeah, mid
terms. Anyway, we were at this Democratic fundraiser and the woman came over
to you starts crying, are you missus Wazinski? No, she didn't say
was Inski. Yeah, it was that long ago. Yeah, And I
was like, what is happening here? What's this lady all emotional about Angel's
mom? His name was Angel? I mean, how perfect is that?
That kid was so sweet? Yeah, that was fun, and they're sure.
I have another kid whose mom was my student. Oh my gosh.
And ninety one did she remember you? Oh yeah, And I totally remembered
her. I remember that class like the back of my hand. Yeah,
because that was and eighty nine was when we got the big influx of the
Armenian immigrants because of the earthquake. Oh. So all those kids are just
you know, they were my first kids, and they were all learning English
and figuring out how to find friends and just the sweetest little girl. And
she still looks exactly the same, really, and her little boy is so
cute, Oh my gosh, but he like he's all boy. He fidgets.
He has a hard time, but he's funny and he likes learning,
and so fidgeting is not an indicator of like a learning disability. It's an
indicator of needing to move your body. Yeah, I just you know,
I wish that more teachers that I knew of. I mean, because like
I said, the good ones are so good. The bad ones have been
so bad. They just seem to dislike kids and not see kids as anything
but something that gets in the way of teaching if they at all have any
individuality or if you know, to me, I feel like a lot of
kids want to socialize. They're at school. A big part of being at
school, right, kids talk about it. The most important thing to kids
at school is not like learning math, it's making friends, saying your friends,
being with other kids. And then you get these teachers that like,
you're not allowed to say one word to your neighbor. First of all,
it's not really your neighbor. I wish we need to stop saying neighbor,
next door, seat mate, your friend, your classmate, whatever. Anyway,
I'm just saying, it's like, it's not it's not so abnormal or
they're not doing something against you, Like I understand that it gets disrespectful if
they keep chatting and chatting and chatting and you're trying to teach during direct instruction,
it would be tough. But or then they should allow some time for
kids to work with a partner or chit chat a little bit or you know,
I've just or something. I've known of teachers Elbe had this where if
they were done. A lot of teachers nowadays let kids go on their phones
when they're not doing anything else. Yeah, there are certain teachers that do
not and collect phones at the beginning of class. But a lot of teachers
have kind of adjusted to, like, listen, if this is our world,
rather than pull out a book because they're not going to do that,
go ahead and pull out your phone on have earbuds if you want to watch
tiktoks or whatever. But there are certain teachers. Albi has told me that,
like, let's say you're doing a test, this happened, I don't
know, and you're all done. You cannot chat with a friend, you
cannot look at your phone, you cannot do anything. You have to sit
and stare into space. Oh my god, you can do more in prison,
I know. That's why. I don't why that's punishment, that's an
actual punishment. That's so weird. Yeah, yeah, I mean I hopefully
they're close to retirement. You know, I don't know why all I want
to talk to you about is teacher teachering teacher. Right, Wait, there's
more to us and our friendship. He just wanted to see queen. Yeah,
that was so fun. I had such a sore throat the next day
because I was screaming and singing every song, especially kay Tell. The kay
Tell was amazing. Yeah, and we made friends with that lady who never
contacted either of us all about getting us a T shirt. She was friends
with the band, yeah supposedly, yeah, like good friends with them.
And she was like, listen, I'm going to hook you up. They
didn't have they didn't have their own merch table, but she was going to
hook us up with a Raglan shirt. Yeah. And we were so excited.
And she took our email addresses and no liar blew us off. Yeah.
See, if we ever go see your friends back again, we will,
and we will. And we went with lyle Le Crock. Oh.
They had so much fun. He's the sweetest, Yeah he is, and
he totally talked more this time, did he. Yeah? Remember, and
they drive home he was actually chiming in and kind of having fun, like,
yeah, he seems like he's coming out of his shellow a little bit,
a little bit. I had to ask Xander a couple of times.
I was like, is Lyle having fun? And Xander's like, yes,
I promise, Like, well, he needs to tell his face. His
face missed the memo. He just always looks very intense, like he's really
like but apparently he was. He went home and told his mom like how
much fun he had, and he's he'd never been to a real concert.
Yeah, well, because it was the first time Xander had been to like
an actual venue, outdoor venue, real venue. Yeah, that was fun.
And you took we took them to their first music show. Yeah.
I remember. We ran into one of my students at Queen remember, yes,
I think that's what I was thinking. So funny. I was excited
to see my student kid. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and I have
his little brother this year, so we got some generations going. That's so
cute. That was cute, Kaylin. Do you feel like you get stuff
out of hearing teacher talk now that you of kids. Yeah, I mean,
I think they need to be a little bit older still. I think
they're just still a little too young for you to care about, for you
to give a shit. I just think it's wow, the fact that you
had that terrible teacher but didn't complain to anybody, because you know me,
what can I do? You know they would have one and my kid moved
out of a classroom with somebody who's being mean. Well, here's here's the
other side of the story. Jack loved her, right, he thought she
was great. But I can think of another person from Jack's life that he
loved. It was pretty mean. Yeah, that's true me, you know
who I'm talking about. Yeah, it was another big, big interest of
Jack's, something he loves to do. Oh my god, how come I'm
not remembering this being shows? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yes,
and was very tolerant of somebody who could be pretty mean. Yeah. It
was different though, And I think people who have kids in theater would vouch
for me that those directors are as hard on them as they are loving on
them. I think it's a delicate balance, and so I cut some slack
there, especially because it's a relationship that he really needed. You know there
was he needed that, so I cut slack. I'm sensitive to like people
don't need to be mean to kids. On the other hand, let's talk
about asshole parents. Okay, I'm sure I have been one obviously, Yeah,
But I mean I really try, and I've been doing better. I
really do try to like check my entitlement, you know, I have,
I can tend to. I think this has to do with my upbringing.
Get very defensive of my kids, of myself. They need to be nicer,
you know. It's hard for me to see, like, oh,
maybe my kid was doing something wrong, you know, but I really do
try to take a beat and understand from the teacher's perspective, Like I can't
expect every freaking teacher to be Mary Poppins and like loving on my kids and
making everything magical. It's fascinating. I get that. So I do have
to take a step back sometimes, I know I do. With orthodonics offices
and blah blah blah. I am learning, I'm trying. Some of it
is is exaggerated for humor, but some parents, I do think. I
think I at least have the ability to look back on when I've been a
little too HASTI or impulsive or gotten upset and check myself, but are their
parents? You know, what do you do about the really entitled parent like
me? Times ten? I think I have a really strong personality and a
big voice, so parents rarely mistreat me. And if they are upset about
something, I do the same thing you do. I take a beat and
try to figure out where they're coming from, because it's their kid, so
clearly they think something's going on or they have an issue that needs to be
resolved. So there have only been I mean, I can only think of
two offhand that were really inappropriate. And it wasn't even to me. It
was with other parents and the parent was approaching other parents about their kid's behavior.
Oh yeah, and so that's when I stepped in. And they didn't
they apologize. They it was a father. Was the other kid's behavior pretty
bad? No, it was typical and his kid was participating in it too,
like bullying. It wasn't bullying, it was Are we too quick to
say the word? Absolutely? I am so tired of saying the word bullying
because and bullying is targeted repetitive towards someone who's at a lower step than you.
For lack of a better word. So someone pushing a kid once on
the playground isn't bullying. It's being physical and probably needing a time out.
If that keeps happening over and over again, if they keep finding that same
kid to do it, then that's bullying. But it has to be targeted
and repetitive. So yeah, a lot of kind of typical behavior is labeled
bullying. So when a parent emails me about a bullying situation, I'll generally
ignore the word bullying and just addressed the behavior. So it's because I'm not
going to be able to educate them on what the word actually means or they
use it for any kind of aggression towards their kid. Yeah, but you
you get some Karen's yeah right, for lack of a better Okay, So
I was using the word. Yeah, I had a total Karen mom.
It's probably ten years ago when I was still partner teaching, and so this
mom had daughters who were driving and a little girl in my class, and
she was always on time to pick her up. And one day she was
in the office waiting and waiting, and I was getting worried because this was
really unusual. So I tried calling the mom's phone and the dad's phone.
I didn't know that the sister was the one who would be coming and picking
her up. And when she finally got there, I said, oh,
I was really getting worried because your mom's usually on time. She said,
oh, there was traffic on Glendale Bulvard. I said, Okay, in
the future, if you have a way to call me safely, please call
the school and let them know. Okay. The next day I got a
two page letter tearing me a new one for attacking her daughter in the office,
talking to her like a kindergartener. And I was there must have been
ten witnesses to that conversation where I talked to her exactly like I just talked
to you. And I almost had to laugh at it, because it's like,
I don't talk to kindergarteners like kindergarteners, so why would I. Sweetie,
you should have caught if you're gonna be you know, It's it was
the weirdest sort of strike out against me. And I just looked at my
partner and teacher and I said, I'm never dealing with that mom again.
She's yours. You're going to do the conferences, You're gonna swert. I
got it. That was the same year that the dad was confronting other parents
and she's like and he's yours. It's like, okay, fair enough.
Oh my god, that's hilarious. So I can't pass people off now,
so I have to be really diplomatic. Okay, well this reminds me.
Will you remind me for Friday's show. I have a something that I've been
really interested in that I've been watching. Just say it's something you've been watching.
Okay, Kaylin, are you sick a little bit? O? Jeff
Covid No, I don't know what it is. Oh boy, all right,
listen, this has been so fun. I have you for Friday because
Lynette is out for the week, so we have we have more time to
tell more stories. But before we go, let's do a shout out for
Kelly from Wilma and Freda. You've been there. Oh it was so good.
You had the salmon too, did right with that? The sauce oh
so so good. So they make the best brunch. But obviously they also
have like dinner food when they do little shows, and they have cilantro Haulapenia
wings and yes, the Seven Spice sugar and crusted salmon. Anyway, go
there, palm springs or a palm desert. Willman frieda also basic. Becky
could hook you up with a T shirt or a mug or a mouse pad.
I have to get another Scott Bayo mouse pad because mine is wearing.
You guys say, here's his worn out Scott Bayo blocked me so lucky?
Or I need to stop using mouse pads. I wonder the other like my
brain is trying to process how you use a mass mouse? You still use
a mouse? Yeah? Do you use a mouse klin on my desktop?
Yeah? Yeah, well wade to use as a mouse, but it's a
stationary kind. Have you seen those? And it doesn't hurt your wrist?
Oh? I don't know. I didn't care about that all right. Also,
my guy, Adam Lerner, Ye, he's a car broker. He's
so good. He's been helping a lot of her crying out loud people get
sure. So he tells me he gets calls all the time, so he's
happy to just chat with you. If you're like, I don't understand exactly
what a car broker does, he will educate you and help you figure out
if if he can be of help to you. He will save you money.
His number is three one zero nine nine eight seven zero four eight,
or you can go to his website Adams got Acar dot com. And let's
just do one more. The Family's Skeptical. It's a podcast. This is
an interesting line. Yeah, where it's about. It's a mom who started
a podcast about raising her kids without religion, and I love that. I
think that is really cool. And you know, she can't even she feels
like she can't say her name because she doesn't want anybody giving your show,
which is interesting. I guess I understand that, but it's like, that's
why it's such an interesting podcast, because you can't just talk about yep.
It's called The Family Skeptical. And also, if you guys are looking for
a podcast, I have another podcast called board af that is really funny,
so funny, and it's just we talk about whatever and it's weird coverage of
just like that. Oh that's Pricks, Rose Rose Pricks. I have three
podcasts, this one bourd a f which is a podcast about nothing but it's
funny, and Rose Pricks, which Cecily and I've been covering. We've this
season of and just like that, and we are hate watching it and reporting
back so good, check it out so bad anyway, Thank you, Kaitlin.
You're a part now, don't I put up letting go.