Speaker 1: Someone who's a very familiar voice to you if you
Speaker 1: listen to the show when I'm off, and you should,
Speaker 1: because Deborah Flora often fills in for me. And now
Speaker 1: we're on to talk about the Deborah is you have
Speaker 1: more jobs than you know, your average hustler out there,
Speaker 1: and one of your jobs is filmmaker. Let's put on
Speaker 1: your filmmaker hat today. Take off your Douglas County Citizen Marie,
Speaker 1: your other hats, just take those off, and then we'll
Speaker 1: put on your filmmaker hat. Because your movie that you
Speaker 1: did with your wonderful husband Jonathan is going to be
Speaker 1: screened this weekend. And I know that this was such
Speaker 1: a passion project. Tell everybody about whose children are they.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Mandy.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yes, I have multiple hats and I try not
Speaker 3: to stack them on top of each other because that
Speaker 3: just looks weird.
Speaker 1: It would make it anyway, it would make you taller.
Speaker 2: You could use that. Yes, I need to be as
Speaker 2: tall as you.
Speaker 3: That's the difference between us, one of the only differences.
Speaker 2: But anyway, Ye, thank you so much. It's great to
Speaker 2: be here and share with your audience.
Speaker 3: This coming Sunday, are going to be screening Braver Angels,
Speaker 3: which is an amazing organization perfectly time for this period
Speaker 3: in our history. It's an organization that is trying to
Speaker 3: bridge this divide and bring people together so we can
Speaker 3: reason together.
Speaker 2: And they are going to be hosting a screening of our.
Speaker 3: Documentary Whose Children Are They? It premiered in theaters nationwide.
Speaker 3: People can find out about it at whose Children They dot.
Speaker 2: Com and Mandy.
Speaker 3: This is important because it's a school board election year
Speaker 3: and so people are just looking for answers and this
Speaker 3: film is not political, it's informational and so it's going
Speaker 3: to be screened this Sunday, October fifth, I believe that is,
Speaker 3: and it's going to be at the Parker Task Force.
Speaker 3: People can go to my Facebook page Deborah Flora on
Speaker 3: Facebook and I've got the information there. They do ask
Speaker 3: that you it's free, but they do ask that you
Speaker 3: sign in so that people know who's there.
Speaker 2: But we invite you.
Speaker 3: I mean, it really is time to come and reason together,
Speaker 3: and that's why we made the documentary.
Speaker 1: You know, Debra, you and I have spoken about this
Speaker 1: at a different time, but yesterday I had a big
Speaker 1: thought right before the show started, and I've expressed to
Speaker 1: you that I have concerns that this new talking point
Speaker 1: in the school board races and it's in the Doug
Speaker 1: Co races and it's now in the Jeff Co races.
Speaker 1: Is it's all about mental health, mental health, mental health,
Speaker 1: mental health. And I'm not opposed to making sure that
Speaker 1: there's supports in schools, but this feels like another area
Speaker 1: where the school is trying to insert themselves into the
Speaker 1: parent child relationship because ultimately parents need to be responsible
Speaker 1: for checking on their kids' mental health. And yes, some
Speaker 1: parents are going to fail at it, right, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we assume all parents will. So this movie
Speaker 1: even though that's not what this is about.
Speaker 2: This is kind of like.
Speaker 1: I feel like the sort of slow drum beat that
Speaker 1: you talk about that gets it's just getting louder and
Speaker 1: louder and louder. So how do you describe the film
Speaker 1: to people that have not seen it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the film is really by the way, first of all,
Speaker 3: want to say it comes from the standpoint that we
Speaker 3: are pro teacher, pro parent, pro student. In fact, out
Speaker 3: of eighty interviews, the majority, the largest group that we
Speaker 3: interview are teachers, and it's really about letting teachers teach,
Speaker 3: not be social engineering or pushing political or ideological agendas,
Speaker 3: parents being equal partners.
Speaker 2: With the teachers, or the good.
Speaker 3: Of students, and what you're saying, Mandy about mental health
Speaker 3: is one of the key elements. Granted, we all know
Speaker 3: there's a mental health crisis amongst our youth. We can
Speaker 3: have a longer documentary debate about all the causes for it,
Speaker 3: but the reality is you cannot have these mental health
Speaker 3: just upsurges of people practicing mental health in the schools
Speaker 3: if the parents are not included and involved. What unfortunately
Speaker 3: is happening too often in any one of these issues
Speaker 3: is parents are shut out.
Speaker 2: And study after study after.
Speaker 3: Study has shown children prosper the more involved and engage
Speaker 3: the parents are in their education and their well being.
Speaker 3: And that's what we want to get back to. So
Speaker 3: the documentary covers, you know, almost everything. It's like chapters
Speaker 3: academic plummeting that's happening, what the real cause of safety
Speaker 3: and security concerns that are going on, which by the way,
Speaker 3: hurt teachers of you know, situations such as a sex
Speaker 3: education which when you read it, by the way, Mandy,
Speaker 3: that is the part of our documentary that would be
Speaker 3: our rated or NC seventeen if it had a rating
Speaker 3: in the theaters and we put a disclaimer up front
Speaker 3: saying not.
Speaker 2: Appropriate for children. However, this is what is shown to
Speaker 2: your children, right, so right, we copy everything in there.
Speaker 3: And the reason why is because different people may have
Speaker 3: different concerns. But at the heart of it is what
Speaker 3: you said, Teachers, parents partnering together for the good of
Speaker 3: students is the original golden triangle of education when we
Speaker 3: were the best in the world, and that is being
Speaker 3: really pushed apart by the teachers' units predominantly that have
Speaker 3: a different agenda and are not really finding for things
Speaker 3: such as teachers pay.
Speaker 2: I mean, it exposes this whole situation, and.
Speaker 3: That's what it's about, and I think there's something for
Speaker 3: everyone to talk about, particularly at this point in time
Speaker 3: with the school board elections coming up.
Speaker 1: Well, I put a link on the blog today at
Speaker 1: mandy'sblog dot com where people can go ahead and get
Speaker 1: the details and go ahead, and I believe do they
Speaker 1: have it as a yeah, you can sign up? I guess.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like an RSVP, so they know
Speaker 1: how many people are coming because that space is not tiny,
Speaker 1: but it's not huge, right, correct, Yeah?
Speaker 3: And it's going to be afterwards something that you know
Speaker 3: really needs to be practiced, braver angels. Afterwards is going
Speaker 3: to have people that are attending that would consider themselves
Speaker 3: to be left of center or right of center, and
Speaker 3: we're going to have a conversation afterwards and practice the
Speaker 3: very thing we need so much in this society day,
Speaker 3: which is civil discourse. Questions you know are welcomed afterwards,
Speaker 3: you know, and that's one of the.
Speaker 2: Things that we look forward to. So yeah, they do
Speaker 2: ask that you register.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Debrah like about that conversation. My perspective on
Speaker 1: this and I've thought about this so much as how
Speaker 1: do we how do we go because because as a
Speaker 1: mom who volunteered in our daughter's school and my husband
Speaker 1: was in the schools all the time, we had a
Speaker 1: great experience with our schools. We had a wonderful experience
Speaker 1: with the teachers. Wonderful experience is just really positive experience
Speaker 1: because we were involved parents. But it seems to me
Speaker 1: that teachers have enough bad experiences with bad parents that
Speaker 1: they then paint all parents with that broad brush. And
Speaker 1: parents have that one bad experience with that bad teacher,
Speaker 1: and then they paint all teachers with that broad rush,
Speaker 1: and it's like we have to start to recognize that
Speaker 1: we're looking at outliers, right, We're looking at the extremes,
Speaker 1: and they're now being used to justify any sort of
Speaker 1: animosity on both sides, and I think that's unfortunate and
Speaker 1: I'm but ultimately, well, both of those motives are how
Speaker 1: can I protect my kids? Right, Teachers looking at their
Speaker 1: kids going how can I protect these kids? But they're
Speaker 1: looking at every parent as a problem. And same on
Speaker 1: the other side. I just I don't know how to
Speaker 1: bridge that gap necessarily.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we need to get back to mutual respect.
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all, we asked the question whose
Speaker 3: children are they? In Western civilization, the very building block,
Speaker 3: cornerstone of Western civilization is the idea that parents have
Speaker 3: the unique right and responsibility to guide their child's upbringing.
Speaker 3: The kids do not belong to the government or the
Speaker 3: state or the society as a whole.
Speaker 2: That is a key.
Speaker 3: Element respect for the parents' role. Then parents have respect
Speaker 3: for teachers who have spent their lives getting a degree
Speaker 3: to learn how to teach. But the magic happens when
Speaker 3: there's mutual respect between both.
Speaker 2: The problem that it's occurred.
Speaker 3: Is groups like the teachers' unions that have their own
Speaker 3: agendas getting in the middle of that golden triangle and
Speaker 3: kind of exploding it. Or the fact that when there's
Speaker 3: been a increase in students and in children of a
Speaker 3: certain amount students and excuse me, and of teachers of
Speaker 3: a certain amount that's twenty seventeen eighteen percent, administrators have
Speaker 3: skyrocketed eighty five percent. It's one of the reasons why
Speaker 3: you know there's less money going into the classroom. I
Speaker 3: think every parent wants the teacher of their students to
Speaker 3: have everything they need, a good income, resources for the classroom.
Speaker 3: But we've got to come together and see why isn't working.
Speaker 3: Because everyone knows that it isn't working. We're plummeting in academics.
Speaker 3: Violence is up, all kinds of division is up. This
Speaker 3: is about identifying it. But it's also, by the way, Mandy,
Speaker 3: a really positive outlook towards the end of how this
Speaker 3: is changing, with parents waking up, getting re engaged, and then.
Speaker 2: Wanting to let teachers know, look, we're not the ones
Speaker 2: to fear. We're here to support you, but.
Speaker 3: We need to come together and understand that used to
Speaker 3: be the teachers and the parents coordinating, not all these
Speaker 3: external groups with ideologicals agendas that don't work in the classroom.
Speaker 1: Debah Flora is my guest, Debb. Before I let you go,
Speaker 1: I heard that you had another side project that is amazing.
Speaker 2: Oh you know what. I'm so glad you asked, Mandy.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I want to invite everyone to go to another
Speaker 3: page on Facebook, which is Mandy ampersand Deb.
Speaker 2: We're fancy Mandy and Deb.
Speaker 3: Yes, I have this online streaming television show with an
Speaker 3: amazing woman, Mandy Connell.
Speaker 1: I heard she was amazing.
Speaker 3: She's amazing, and you know, with a lot of focus groups,
Speaker 3: we decided to mean the group that show Mandy and Deb.
Speaker 3: Follow it at Mandy and Deb on Facebook. That's an
Speaker 3: ampersand and we really have so much fun talking about
Speaker 3: things that we all care about, but having a good
Speaker 3: time at the same time. And it is for brave men.
Speaker 3: It is the den of estrogen, but we do really
Speaker 3: connect with in a way they talk about issues.
Speaker 2: So I invite everybody. It's a fabulous one. I'm so
Speaker 2: glad that you asked.
Speaker 1: Well, a Rod just called it an estra den, so
Speaker 1: we've not no and you can I heard that. You
Speaker 1: can also see it on the Independence Institute's YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a court. Absolutely, that's where you watch it.
Speaker 3: Go to Independence Institute's IV on YouTube and click subscribe.
Speaker 2: It's so much fun and we have a lava lamp.
Speaker 2: That's really all the.
Speaker 1: People need to I mean, everyone should check it out.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you so much, my friend. I will see
Speaker 1: you soon.
Speaker 2: That sounds great. Thanks so much, man, you have a
Speaker 2: great day.