Re:Building School 2.0
In 2015, educators Chris Lehmann and Zac Chase published Building School 2.0: How to Create the Schools We Need. In this podcast, they revisit each thesis in the book and examine how their thinking (and the world) have changed or not after a decade of doing the work.
Re:Building School 2.0
Chapter 3: Citizenship is More Important than the Workforce
Chris and Zac dive in to Chapter 3, wish they hadn't added "the" to the chapter title, and double down on the need for civics, citizenship, and government classes for all students.
Music.
Zac:Hi, I'm Zac Chase and welcome to the Rebuilding School 2.0 podcast. In each episode, we revisit one of the chapters from the book, and Chris and I sit down to examine how our thinking has shifted or stayed the same in the 10 years since the book came out. In this episode, we'll be investigating Chapter 3. Chapter 3. Citizenship is more important than the workforce. There's a movement afoot that says schools should prepare kids for the 21st century workforce. And on its surface, that seems like a good goal. Who could argue with that? Kids are going to need jobs when they graduate, especially in a time when economic stability seems precarious at best. But focusing on workforce development sells our students short. It assumes that the most we can hope for for our students is a life of work when there is so much more to learn. The purpose of public education is not the creation of the 21st century workforce, but rather the co-creation in conjunction with our students of 21st century citizens. Worker is without question a subset of citizen. And if we aim for citizen, we'll get the workforce we need. But aiming only for creating workers won't get our society the citizens it needs. A public education centered primarily on workforce development will put a high premium on following directions and doing what you're told. A public education centered on citizenship development will still teach rules, but it will teach students to question the ideas underlying those rules. Workforce development will reinforce the hierarchies that we see in most corporate cultures, whereas a citizenship focus will teach students that their voices matter. regardless of station. It's not only about what society needs, it's also about what students need. We can completely change the lens of why do we need to study this when the answer deals with being an informed and active citizen, as opposed to what we need to know to do our work. Most people don't need to know calculus, the periodic table of elements, the date of the signing of the Magna Carta, or Hamlet to be a good worker. But you do need to understand statistical analysis to read 538.com and make sense of the sociopolitical conversations there. You do need to understand basic chemistry to understand how an oil spill from the Exxon Valdez affects the region. Understanding how England evolved from a pure aristocracy to a constitutional monarchy, which helped sow the seeds of American democracy, helps us to make sense of our own country's history. And understanding how Hamlet chooses action or inaction in the famous to be or not to be soliloquy might help us to make better choices in our own lives. The goal of a citizenship-driven education exposes students to the ideas that will challenge them, push them, and help them to make sense of a confusing world. And more to the point, when we do this, we don't lie to kids when we say that's what high school is for. Our society is changing, and there are some serious warning signs that our economy may be fundamentally shifting in ways that will make it more and more difficult for education to be the great equalizer. Children across the socioeconomic spectrum are realizing that the economic cell of public education isn't ringing true. As college costs creep over $200,000 for private four-year colleges and over $100,000 for public colleges, for example, in 2014, Penn State's costs with room and board were $28,000 per year in-state. And as more jobs move to labor markets that do not have the high wages of the United States, the idea that all kids who work hard in high school will go to college and have economic success in life is an uglier and uglier lie. We're going to have some deeply challenging problems to solve in the near future. And we think that we're going to be faced with hard choices about our lives. We want our schools to help students be ready to solve those problems, to weigh in on those problems, and to vote on those problems. That's why history and science are so important. It's why kids have to learn how to create and present their ideas in powerful ways. It's why kids have to become critical consumers and producers of information. And hopefully... Along the way, they find the careers that will help them build sustainable, enjoyable, productive lives. We want to be honest about why we teach what we teach. We're tired of schools and politicians implicitly promising that the result of successful schooling is high wages. And we're tired of too many adults forgetting everything else that goes into helping people realize their potential in the process. Teaching kids that hard work in school Christopher Montgomery Lehman. I think the
Chris:fun part for me is going to be trying to guess the middle name
Zac:oh man if you get one it's gonna be i think we should just be like and that's the end of this episode that'll be what happens yeah hey chris hey zach is citizenship still more important than the workforce
Chris:well so first off I can't believe we never caught that the word the should not be in there because it creates a really ugly unsymmetry. But no, I mean, this is one of those chapters when I reread it and was like, like, could this just be in bold? Even the part about like, Hey, higher ed, you guys might have some trouble coming real soon here. Man, I, we, we, We looked good on that one. But no, this chapter.
Zac:And what a difference our words have made in the world.
Chris:Yeah, we could have had more. If all of you listening would have only bought the book then, think about what good you could have done.
Zac:Yeah, people were at home like, I bet in 10 years they're going to do this as free podcast. And they were right. They were right. It's true. There are two things for me on this one.
Chris:Yeah.
Zac:And I'm going to start at the what has occurred to me second. And that is around the idea that there is still resistance to, like people are still rallying and marching and like those pieces are still happening. And we wrote this in an Obama era time, right? Like I think that is important. Like this is a pre-Trump book that we wrote.
Chris:It was a more hopeful time.
Zac:Yes. It is really interesting for me to say, you know, we said citizenship is more important than workforce. We're focusing too much on preparing workforce, not enough on citizenship. And then you see the things that are happening and you see the reaction to George Floyd and you see the reaction to Trump won and you see the reaction to all of these pieces where people are literally taking to the streets and protesting and organizing and those kinds of things. And I think, well, maybe citizenship is baked into our schools in ways that we didn't anticipate. But then I also think, no, no, it's not.
Chris:I mean, I think what's so interesting is, is that citizenship is baked into being human, right? I mean, I think that,
Zac:well, I didn't see the beginning of 2001.
Chris:Those
Zac:monkeys
Chris:killed. Are we closing the podbay doors now, Zac? Christopher Howe Lehman. Don't take my job. I know. No, I think that, I mean, I think the unfortunate piece here, and this is one of those moments where I think we have to check ourselves, which is it's not just our definition of citizenship, right? And I think this is at the root of, why we see schools fighting against this citizenship idea, or maybe not schools, but politicians, policymakers, what have you, why it's so hard to operationalize, for lack of a better word, is because whose definition, right? Because as much as I agree with everything you just said, there are those who would say, you did not include me in your definition of citizenship right there. And we talked about that last week.
Zac:So writing that chapter, and this is a little behind the curtain magic for everybody, Chris and I do not remember who wrote which chapters. And we will oftentimes say either, no, you wrote that one, or we will both say, no, I wrote that one. So we don't know. But when you look at that chapter...
Chris:Importantly, by the way, wrote the first draft because there was a lot of collaboration once those drafts were written.
Zac:That's true. When you think about citizenship and how we framed it in that chapter, what do you mean when you say citizenship is more important? What is the citizenship you're talking about?
Chris:No, that's a great question. And the nice thing is that I don't think it has a left-right balance for me in this case. I want people to be able to be fully actualized citizens of our world. I want them to understand what it means... to think about things when they step into a ballot box. I want them to be good neighbors. I want them to be good parents. I want them to know how to affect change in the system. I don't want to tell them what to think. Now here's the dirty secret, right? And this is not just educators, this is probably you know, lefties in general, which I define myself as, obviously, is we really do think that if we give people the critical thinking skills to be able to analyze their world, they'll end up with a viewpoint somewhat close to ours, right? I mean, like, and that is, you know, and that, you know, and I think that's probably true of center-right conservative intellectuals as well. All of us who think of ourselves as like, well, if you just really thought through it, you'd think like we did, right? Like, that's a... a very human level of hubris that I think happens. But I do think, I don't want people who just think like me. I want people who think and then can take that thought to action in meaningful ways. I want them to understand the systems at play in our world. I want them to understand how to impact those systems. I want them to understand how those systems impact them. I want them to want a better world, and I want them to be able to define for themselves what that means. And I guess here is where, if you want to say there is a valence to it, I want them to care about their fellow person. I think being a good citizen means a less solipsistic view of the world than I think workforce development actually does, or this notion of my education. School is here for me. is not a citizenship-driven statement. School is here for all of us, is. This is one of those chapters that could be a book. This is one of those chapters where I read it and I'm like, yeah, this is great as far as it goes, and I still believe every word of this.
Zac:We talk often, you and I and friends of ours, about school as a public good.
Chris:And
Zac:what's really interesting is that if somebody is not engaged with that term, the idea of a public good, it is a really interesting thing to then continue the conversation and see how they interpreted that term. So school as a public good being publicly beneficial or good to the world. Right. Down with that. And then the other piece that I think folks often come back with is interpreting that as school as a public commodity, right? A publicly available thing.
Chris:For the record, your use of both meanings of the word good there, that was, I mean, that was well
Zac:done. Thanks. I got a degree in English from Illinois State University. Apply now. I'll write your letters of rec. So that was, I think that that piece is interesting. And thank you for asking me what I think citizenship means in that particular place. When we started this, it was quiet, but he said it.
Chris:I was thinking it. I also, this is the give and take. We, I knew you'd get there. You asked the questions, but you asked the questions you want to answer too. Let's be
Zac:honest. Yeah. I just thought, you know, civility wouldn't. When we were writing this book, when we started writing this book, I was in grad school and, And I was in a class whose title I don't remember, but it was taught by Kay Merced. And she wrote a book called The Good High School. And one of the pieces that she had us do is design a school. What would you do? What would you build your school to be? And one of the pieces that I played around with as I was doing that project was, what if the school's metric for success was was not college admittance or matriculation, wasn't kind of participation in the workforce. What if the school's measure of success, and I had no idea how we were going to measure this, was 5, 10, 15 years post-graduation for a high school, what percentage of their alums voted in every election? So when I think about citizens, there are only a couple of things that we get to do as citizens. Right. We have rights, of course, as part of the constitutions of our states and our federal constitution. But the piece that I think occurs to me is, are we voting?
Chris:Right.
Zac:And I think that that also speaks to what you're talking about. I don't need you to be on the right, the left, the center. That doesn't matter. But we also know that people don't show up to vote in elections.
Chris:Right.
Zac:Even the big ones.
Chris:And I think about Diana's... you know, referencing Diana Laufenberg for those folks who did not listen to chapter one. Uh, I think back to her project that we already referenced in the podcast about, you gotta go to a meeting, whether it's a board meeting, whether it's a school board meeting, whether it's a city council hearing, whether it's whatever, you gotta go to a public meeting and understand how those things work. And, you know, I, it's funny, several years ago, um, what,
Zac:That was referenced in my other podcast, not this one.
Chris:You're right. You're right, it was.
Zac:But
Chris:for the record, Zac, you know what? You should listen to that one. But also, proof that I do. Yeah, that's true. So there you go. See, I do listen, Zac. Finally. That's
Zac:all I wanted.
Chris:You know, like, I think that Several years ago, back when Michael Nutter was mayor, he came by SLA for something. I don't remember what. And he said to me, you know, how does a school this small have its kids everywhere in the halls of power in the city or something close to that? And I think that that's one of the things that has sort of been a hallmark of SLA today. kids and and hopefully in no small part because of the agency we've helped them unlock and the need for that and the understanding of the responsibility that goes with the rights of being a citizen right is you show up in the halls of power and you try to affect change right you try to like make the world better you know but i think you know we're talking about this idea of citizenship one of the sort of influences for me as an educator is comes out of being Jewish with the sort of strain of Judaism that places a huge focus on social justice and the idea of tikkun olam, right? Heal the world, right? Which is this core tenant of Jewish activism, right? Tikkun olam. And I think that, you know, you asked me earlier, what is my definition of citizenship? And I think it's that, right? Like working towards tikkun olam. How do we heal the world? And what a better vision of going to school, right? Why do you go to school? So I can help. So I can try to make the world better, right? As opposed to why do you go to school? It's like, so I can get a J-O-B, right?
Zac:I think a school that says we're trying to get you to be a voter and heal the world so that you can feel like you can do one thing differently. and know you're done, and then work on the other one.
Chris:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heal the world's a lifetime. That's a big thing. The average 16-year-old going, what do you want from me now? One of the things I really like about our capstones as they've evolved is we now say part of what the kids have to define for themselves is why does this capstone make the world a little bit better? And it's really fun to watch kids like who are doing maybe not purely social justice or sort of activism capstones. Think through how is this thing that I'm spending 80 hours on this year going to move the ball forward? Even if it's something that I did because it's just my exploration. Like I made a mural that made my school a more beautiful place. And that is good.
Zac:Later chapter, we talk about banners. I think it's vision must live in practice.
Chris:Yes.
Zac:I think it is important here because I think every school leader who might listen to this thinks, yeah, citizenship is important to our school. And then I would say, when is the last time you had your faculty sit down and just have a conversation that says, what does it mean to be a good citizen? What does it mean to educate good citizens? That's right. When have you created the space for that conversation, the one that you and I are having right now? And I will say that I don't think you and I have ever asked one another, what do you mean when you say citizenship?
Chris:I think we did. I actually disagree with you on that. I remember some– late nights in the office with Yumi and Diana debating that idea because Diana has strong feelings on this, right?
Zac:Diana has strong feelings about everything. I say that knowing so do we both. Okay. So here's my other piece.
Chris:Okay. I have, by the way, and it gets to our, our next steps. Not only do schools not create space for the conversation, but And this goes back to vision must live in practice. They don't make space for this to show up in the curriculum.
Zac:Right? So wait, that was my next piece.
Chris:Okay. Well, that's not surprising because we would both think this. Yes. Go for it.
Zac:So my next piece. So the first piece was kind of, you know, people are, there are still activists in, in a world where a school system does not necessarily focus on citizenship because I think there are still families. And I think that that's probably a lot of where that comes from. The second piece is.
Chris:And social media. I mean, let's be clear.
Zac:Yes. And a conflating of social media presence being the same thing as activism being a really difficult thing.
Chris:Yeah. But I agree with you. And like, yes. And.
Unknown:Damn it.
Chris:I know. So excited. There is no question that the last decade of activism. And I'm talking about not like being a. Twitter warrior or whatever right but the way that social media has been able to amplify messages good and bad has put people in the streets as much as I'm down on social media right now from where I was a decade ago and we'll get to that in future chapters I also don't want to deny that this is one of the places kids are figuring out their world and one of the ways they're figuring out what it means to be a citizen. And if anything, that's one of the reasons why it is so important that schools do it because we know that the messages that can be received through these various media aren't always clean or clear.
Zac:Yes, that is all true. And I worry that without the conversation, thinking you posting something on social media is the same thing as marching or protesting or
Chris:sitting. Or voting. Or
Zac:voting. Or voting. Yes, exactly. My second piece is we don't teach civics classes. There used to be civics classes. Where I went to school, we called that government class. Right. We
Chris:teach government class in senior year to all of our seniors
Zac:now. So it's interesting that you said that because what I thought you would say when I said that was, no, no, no, civics education should permeate the entirety of the curriculum. It should. To which I would have assented and agreed and then said, and we need to call it out in the same way we call out literature.
Chris:Yes, and, right? Like, there's two. I think that... how we teach kids to show up in their world and why it's important to learn the things that we think are worth learning in school are all about how does this impact the way I live my life and how does the way I live my life impact this larger world. So that's where civics shows up in a science classroom that is talking about the water cycle. That's how it shows up in English classrooms through any of the myriad
Unknown:.
Chris:And there is a very specific thing that you need to understand as an American. If you wanna be more than an armchair activist, you have to understand the systems and structures that are at work in our society and specifically in our government so that you know the levers of change. And that's the civics piece that we can't just assume gets sort of sprinkled in.
Zac:Right. I think my last piece on this one is actually... I think perhaps my thinking on this title of the first three that we've talked about, I think my thinking on this one is the most different so far. Okay. And that is we have set up a false dichotomy between citizenship and workforce because the importance of... the rights of workers, the importance of understanding what you do as a worker, the understanding of what you contribute to society as a member of the workforce has become so very important. So I worry that the way we approach it in saying citizenship is more important than workforce, citizenship is workforce.
Chris:So Obviously, I mean, and this is– you know this about me. What
Zac:is about to happen? Tell me about your lineage, Christopher.
Chris:As Sid Lehman's son, the son of the union lawyer, I wouldn't make that assumption. I always say it as that workforce is important and being able to be economically independent and being able to have a viable work life is a part of being a citizen. However– Citizenship is higher on the hierarchy, but you can't be a fully actualized citizen without being economically independent and having a say in your workforce. And to quote Sid Lehman, of land, labor, and capital, only one of them is sentient. That's an incredibly important point. And I think that how we think about what we do for our economic life and how that contributes to our To the way we show up as citizens is important, right? Like, I mean, and history tells us that, right? Like, you know, like the labor movement has both struggled with and then embraced civil rights.
Zac:I saw Newsies, so I know what you're talking about.
Chris:I was thinking more Phil Oakes, Link in the Chain, but like, sure. Yeah. Um,
Zac:probably. I
Chris:don't know. Folk music, my friend, folk music.
Zac:Um, Christian Bale, Christian Bale playing, playing a New Yorker and singing and dancing. That's how I learned about workers rights.
Chris:Keep going.
Unknown:Um,
Chris:You know, I really do hope our listeners appreciate that as we try to take on big ideas, we also are just hoping you giggle once or twice an episode. But I think that the reason we drew the dichotomy as strongly as we did is because that language of school as workforce development 10 years ago that drum was banging very
Zac:loudly and and that connects to our colonialist piece of the last episode right and and talking about kind of systems of power yeah and we don't want you to think too much about citizenship we want you to think about getting this job that we need you to do without thinking too much about anything really
Chris:yeah and a citizen does not give up their rights when they walk into the workforce
Zac:I think that if there's a chink in the armor of what we've just talked about, I think there's one last piece that is important. And I think that as we talk about citizenship and we talk about workforce and then we talk about, I think capitalism is important there. Let me say it differently. I think financial literacy is important there because talking about how money makes all of these pieces work is also important. So a civics class that talks about your rights as a citizen and how your government works, so a government class, is also in a modern American setting going to be a capitalism class or a financial literacy class. that talks about how these systems interact in a different way. Because if all you're talking about is there are three co-equal branches of government and there are systems of checks and balances, but you are not talking about and looking under the hood of how money makes this happen.
Chris:Yeah.
Zac:Or understanding that the more money you have, the more you get to influence other citizens.
Chris:Yeah.
Zac:then you were doing it wrong, right? Like there's just a like, you know, to go back to Newsies, you're not just like, you know.
Chris:I'm impressed that that's your callback, by the
Zac:way. Well, it was a formative film in many ways. I'm realizing that.
Chris:And now I know the role Christian Bale plays in your life. Never fear, Brooklyn is here. Sorry, you were saying Money, Newsies. I actually want to know how you're tying this together.
Zac:I think that civics is important. I think that workforce is important. I think that understanding the role that money plays is also equally important. Because I think that where we go wrong is in a pure government class that says something like, all you got to do is show up and vote, and then you can make a difference in the world. I was Peter Falk in The Princess Bride just in that moment. As you
Chris:wish. You don't
Zac:want to hear about the kissing.
Chris:What's impressive is if you saw Zac right now, the bookshelf behind him and the whole framing, he could be in Fred Savage's bedroom right now. Oh, man. I think that's right in a very serious, like to be serious, you know, this is a pedagogy piece, right? Which is sterilely teaching anything rarely gets you where you want to go. I grapple with this in my own brain sometimes because there are moments where I want to teach a poem because it's a beautiful poem. Right. But I waver on how much I agree with the following statement. Oh, this is fun. Yeah. Which is schools should or should not be purely utilitarian for kids. And on the one level, like everything we teach kids should have use and value. So, yes, there is the utilitarian piece. But we don't know. Nothing is going to be of use and value to every single kid, every single moment. Like such a superpower. complex question, but especially in this notion of citizenship. Because to me, and I don't mean this when I say what I'm about to say, I'm not talking about a brand of it, like or a valence of it. But the point of teaching a civics class is not this sterile, memorize how many members, you know, of the House of Representatives there are, dot, dot, dot. but rather it is this activist class that it should allow you to do, to analyze things and then do things. And on some level, we have teased out this idea that on some level, social studies should be the curriculum, right? Like even as the English major, I have to admit that social studies might be the most important subject we teach in school because it is what gives kids the tools to, more than anything else, to fully analyze their world. But then you need science and then you need English and then you need math and then you need all the other things. But at this root of being a good citizen is understanding, I can look at the world, I can see the systems at play, I can see the levers of power, and I'm going to figure out how to do this better.
Zac:I want to say, before we wrap, that all of that is connected to this assumption of as kids learn about how power works, as kids learn about how the government works, as kids learn about what it means to be a citizen, that it isn't followed by now go out and do this, right? It is not a direction of, all right, now I've made you facsimiles of myself or I've transferred my ideology to you. That is not what that is.
Chris:Absolutely.
Zac:Next question is, so what are you going to do with it?
Chris:That's right.
Zac:Because that's what I want you to do as an educator. What are you going to do with this knowledge? How are you going to apply it? It's that question of how is the world going? Capstone reflection piece of how is this going to make the world a little bit better is also open to interpretation of what better looks like.
Chris:Absolutely. How are you going to
Zac:make this world a little bit more progressive would not be cool, man. Not cool at all.
Chris:No, and the really cool thing about that is like, and that's for any number of reasons. One is teach, don't preach, right? Which again, I will say a thousand times over the next 90 some odd chapter. If there's a right answer to the question that the kids have got to get, because the question in your mind, they'll never do more than what your imagination can get to. Right. Like, number one, what an incredible act of hubris on the part of any educator to think that they can figure out everything a kid might do.
Zac:That's two hubrises in one episode, everybody.
Chris:I'm pretty excited about that. But number two, what an incredible lost opportunity. Yeah. Right? Jamie Cassip says this all the time. Like, what is the problem you want to solve? And I don't know what the kids want to solve, and I don't know how they're going to solve it. My job is to help them solve. you know, to see the code in the matrix so they can figure out what the problems they want to solve are and how they're going to go solve it.
Zac:What is your from theory to practice for this chapter? What's your new, how
Chris:do you move?
Zac:How do you move? Citizenship is more important than we'll just say workforce. What's your new piece for folks to consider as they think these thoughts through?
Chris:Where do you make time for this in your schedule? If you don't schedule for it, you don't really value it, right? We talk about this all the time. And I think you referenced earlier, like, there's going to be a lot of educators listening to this and go like, yeah, I don't disagree with this at all. Then it's like, well, show me, right? So my from theory to practice is make time for this. And
Zac:the this is?
Chris:The this is giving kids the opportunity to experiment with, with the idea of being a citizen. This is, if you wanna quote David Perkins, how are kids gonna get to play, if not the varsity version of this, how are they gonna get to play the JV version of this in your school, in your classroom, and how are you gonna extend your classroom so they get the chance to play with these ideas in the wider world?
Zac:I'm just pausing for you to ask me what my from theory to practice
Chris:is. I just assume you're going to go there. I assume this is a– see, you're expecting some very Midwestern Protestant version of now I have to ask you the question before you answer it. I'm going full East Coast Jewish in my dialect. All
Zac:right. No, I've lived many lives. I can drive with that one.
Chris:Please cut that out.
Zac:No, that's fine. I think that's the most important thing we've said the entire podcast. No, I will take yours back a level to that point of my from theory to practice for this one is have a conversation with a colleague about what it means to be educating students to be good citizens. Just have a conversation. Like, Formally or informally, if you are in charge of a faculty meeting or professional learning experience, build that in. I'm going to do that next week
Chris:because of this podcast.
Zac:I'm going to set
Chris:aside time in our back to school PD to actually give people time to have that conversation.
Zac:Fantastic. I've Gandhi'd the hell out of this episode. I am the change I wish to see in the world. That is the piece that I would say is to do what Chris is talking about. To do the piece of where does this live? Where does helping kids be better citizens? Where do they get their hands dirty in this whole business of kind of keeping up a republic and a democracy? Then the question has to be, what does that mean to help educate kids to be good citizens? And that should be a joint effort. Because if you were doing it on your own, you're doing it poorly. Because inherently... The citizenship we are talking about in American schools is one that says what you do and what I do are interlinked with one another. And if we're not having that conversation, we're just going to do it wrong. We're just going to do it wrong.
Chris:And if you're looking for another space to have that conversation.
Zac:Oh, damn, your segues are slick.
Chris:Come to EduCon. EduCon is the conference that we host at Science Leadership Academy every winter where we take apart ideas like this. In fact, these questions that we're asking right now could be an incredible EduCon session where literally a group of educators come together to discuss what this looks like and how you have these conversations and what our definitions are and how they manifest in schools. And session proposals are open until... September 15th. So if you'd like to propose that session or another one, we would love to know what you've got to say and the session and the question that is burning in your mind about how we do school better and how we innovate and how we modernize and how we make schools healthier, better, and more intentional places for kids. If you go to 2026.educon.org, you can get all the information, how to register, how to sit in a session. And you can learn a lot about sort of how we talk about these ideas every year. We hope to see you there.
Zac:My favorite part about Educon is that I have brought so many people who are not at all connected to it to Educon and people, you know, you, you, you propose this and you're like, Oh, the dead of winter, the mid Atlantic region sounds fantastic. And then they leave saying, Oh my goodness, I have not had so much concentrated time talking and thinking about what it means to learn and teach and in a very, very long time. So if folks haven't been to an EduCon, I highly recommend it. And if you are listening to this podcast, you probably have a good conversation proposal in your brain right now. So submit it. You can go to 2026.educon.org or just educon.org and get all the details you need.
Chris:And if you come this year, there's a better than average chance that you'll get to talk to us on the podcast because I'm sure we will be doing something with this podcast.
Zac:Oh, I had not thought about that.
Chris:Yeah.
Zac:I mean, yeah, totally. We think about how do we become kings of all educational media. And on that note. are coming for you. I don't know who, actually, I would consider the kings of all educational media. So we're coming for you, whoever you are. If you think it's you, that's who I'm talking about. Christopher Lehman, thank you so much.
Chris:Zac Chase, always a pleasure. And we'll see you next week.
Zac:Oh, next week when we talk about... Yes. Build modern schools.
Chris:Because that we can do in 30 minutes or less. It'll be great.
Unknown:Thank you.
Zac:Thank you for listening to another episode of the Rebuilding Schools 2.0 podcast. Chris and I will be back. We'll talk to you next time.
Unknown:Thank you.
