Why Information Still Misleads Us

Blake Elsner 0:24

Welcome back to another episode of Elevate with Elsner. Today we're talking about something that I think impacts every single one of us, whether you're a parent, educator, business owner, or just somebody trying to figure out what's actually true anymore. We've got information on our fingertips more than any generation in history. But are we actually getting smarter? Are we learning from the past, or are we just repeating the same mistakes with better technology? My guest today will tell us all about this. He's an author, historian, and retired educator who spent more than 40 years in education as a teacher, principal, and school district administrator. He's also the creator of Little Miss History Book Series, which helps make history fun and accessible for kids. Barbara, welcome to LV with Elner.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Thank you so much, and uh thank you for the invitation. I'm looking forward to sharing with your audience.

Blake Elsner 1:19

Absolutely. So before we get into everything you know happening in the world today, take me back. How did

From History Major To Teacher

Blake Elsner 1:24

you get started in education over 40 years ago?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Well, I started out on a different path, actually. I started out as a history major and I went to undergraduate for history and graduate school for history before I got into education. When I finished graduate school, I was faced with the decision what was I going to do with this now. I loved research and I loved finding answers to unanswered questions, but I didn't want to spend my life in that kind of ivory tower of you know, always having my head into the books doing the research and not connecting with people. So I went for an interview and pretty much on a whim, I decided to accept a teaching position. And I wound up in that kind of teaching position for more than 20 years before I started to become frustrated with issues in the educational system. And I became more and more aware that there were so many kids whose needs weren't being met, who were kind of falling through the cracks before because they weren't being educated in a way that they could best progress forward. And I decided I was going to address some of those needs or attempt to address some of those needs. So after teaching for 20 years in a basic elementary school curriculum, I went into special ed. I went back to school, um, I became certified as a special ed teacher, and I started working with children with special needs and severe special needs. So these were children who were autistic, who had physical disabilities like MS, uh children who had genetic disorders like fragile epsis syndrome or Down syndrome. And I worked with these really severely delayed kids. And as part of that, I became aware of other people in the field who were help trying to help meet deficiencies, like kids that had the physical deficiencies, the PTs and the OTs, who were working with the kids who had sensory issues or graffomodor issues, and speech therapists. So I became aware of this whole other world of people trying their best to fulfill all the needs that kids had. And almost by accident, uh there became there was a vacancy in the school that I was working with, and uh it was a private school connected to public schools. So in New York State, the private schools for special needs uh children on the preschool level were affiliated, or it went through the Board of Education and the state. So I was asked to take a position as the director of the school, and that meant going back to school again because I needed an administrative degree. So I went back to school again, and I kind of found myself on the other side um coordinating the curriculum. So this gave me an opportunity to really kind of fulfill what I wanted to do, giving every kid the kind of program that they needed. So I became a part of the staff training and finding the resources, finding uh, you know, working with the state and juggling all of this back and forth to try to get kids what they needed. And then I decided to try to take that one step forward, and I entered the world of bureaucracy more or less. I became, I took a position as a preschool special administrator. So I was working with New York City as a New York City administrator, evaluating, testing the kids, and actually finding individual programs for them and placing them in programs. And um that that was a wonderful period in in my career. Unfortunately, it didn't last because as most things go with big cities and bureaucracy, they decided to reorganize the uh whole administrative component of special ed. So being someone who was only there for two years, I got bounced out. Uh, and I went back into teaching again. Uh, found myself back in the public school, but doing special ed in the public school uh as um as a SEA teacher and uh as an educational consultant within the school. And then on the side, I was I was also working on my own. Uh I got involved with applied behavioral analysis for a while, ABA is popularly called, and it's one way of treating autistic children. So on my uh I worked individually one-on-one with kids uh who were severely autistic and you know, trying to help them meet their needs. So I've done a lot of different things uh and worked a lot of different ways, but my whole emphasis was still trying to get kids who needed to learn in a special way the ability to learn the best way that they could to succeed in the best way that they could. So that's kind of the story of my roundabout career. Uh, and um when I did finally retire, I decided that I would combine my two passions, which are history, uh,

Special Education And System Friction

SPEAKER_01 8:00

and my love of getting kids the learning materials that they need to learn best. So I started writing these history books that uh would allow kids to do some critical thinking, to ask them questions, to let them have fun, but also encourage them to be involved in thinking things through, solving problems, and um using what we've learned in the past to create a bit of plan for moving forward in the future. So I is that's as short as I can kind of make my uh story in a nutshell.

Blake Elsner 8:49

Yeah, I was looking at the books. They're they're they're real neat. Like I it kind of reminds me of the magic school bus a little bit. Is that was there a little take of that or no?

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Well, yeah, the magic school bus like kind of challenges kids to uh to think about everyday things and to in their own way come up with some way that they think that they could make it better. And that's really what I'm trying to do. And fortunately, uh I'm married to someone who has been an artist all his life and who himself uh has way back in early in his career was involved with children's books, illustrating children's books, uh, coloring books, illustrating, even illustrating a Bible for kids, illustrating all kinds of things for kids. Uh, and he also does comics. So putting that together, he developed this Little Miss History character who is a fun kind of reincarnation of me as a younger self. So as when I was younger, I loved to hike, I love to explore, um, I love the outdoors. So that's kind of incorporated in this little Miss History character. And I think she's a little bit of every kid. So uh she's a little bit of the curious kid, she's a little bit of the outdoor kid, she's a little bit of the nature kid. She also sometimes is hesitant. Uh she has different emotions because the books cover different topics, some of which are very serious, uh, like uh a Civil War story in Gettysburg. And some of them are uh so involved with nature, like a national park, uh Sequoia National Park. Some of them go way back in history, like little embryo tarpets. So kids that are into fossils and mammoths and dinosaurs will love that kind of history. So I try to, you know, um cover different aspects of time and events and places that uh that different kinds of kids would be interested in thinking about and exploring.

Blake Elsner 11:14

Yeah, that's definitely that's neat because I couldn't I couldn't think of a better way than like my six-year-old to teach him, you know, about you know, Yellowstone or or whatever, um, you know, a park or or some type of a like you said, a history, historic event um with a with a book like that that kind of tells a story and you know makes the critical thinking and all that into one book. So that's pretty neat. Now, going back, switching back to the little education side, I want to hear, um, you know, you've seen education change over several decades. Uh, what's like the biggest difference between the classroom when you started and the classroom today?

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Uh well, there are a lot of differences. First of all, uh the number of kids in the classroom. Uh and again, it's a little bit ironic because when I first started teaching, in the very beginning, I was in a private school. And my very first year of teaching, uh I walked into a classroom of 56 children. And that was kind of daunting. I think probably I was more afraid than they were, but I of course never let on, and they, you know, they thought I was pretty strict. But uh I was only about 11 years older than they were because I I I finished school very young. So I actually when I started teaching, I was only 20 years old. So it was daunting, and I was at the time I was almost finished with my master's degree. Uh and um I I had a struggle at that time. Uh, the only thing that was really individualized was the reading curriculum. So, you know, trying to teach kids in three different groups, uh, and and keeping the other ones busy when you're working with one group was was quite a challenge. So um today, of course, even in public schools, the numbers are um are much less than that. So the average teacher may have like 25, 28 students in the class. So you have fewer students, and theoretically, it should be easier to reach the individual student, but it isn't because of all of the artificial restraints you have from the outside. So, first of all, you have um a larger number of administrators than there ever were. Uh, you have a lot more people in in administration now because I work in in schools, I worked in there were there was maybe one principal, maybe an assistant principal, and sometimes not even that. But the teachers um way back were allowed to pretty much individualize the teaching within the curriculum. But as time went on, the administration was under more and more pressure to push certain curriculum. That could be for several reasons. Sometimes it's for um teacher unions, it's the teacher union pressure that this is the way the curriculum has to be presented. Sometimes it's uh imposed from um the high the administrative hierarchy, and by that I mean way up there, the people at the top of the administrative hierarchy saying, Well, we have to use this program, sometimes it's a political pressure. There are a lot of different reasons, but the teachers today are not allowed to

Making History Fun For Kids

SPEAKER_01 15:08

individualize. And even in the case where you have a combination of um children that are in the in the typic developing curriculum and children that may be special needs. We have a lot of integrated classrooms today because the school districts don't have the money to have separate special ed classrooms, which some kids actually need. But uh there isn't enough money, so they're put in with the general ed population. And uh even if you have a special ed teacher and a general ed teacher, there's a lot of pressure for that special ed teacher to go along with the way the general ed teacher is working. And I had that in one school that I worked with. I was actually pressured by the assistant principal and said, No, you can't adapt the curriculum. You must teach it this way. And the kids couldn't, they just couldn't learn that way. Uh you know, it it's it's and it's a cycle, different things become popular, and again, they were pop they're popular with the union or they're popular with the administration, and okay, we're going to go with this curriculum, and they'll go with it for three or four years, and then they discover, well, we have a lot of kids that aren't doing well, whether that could be ESL kids, the second the second language learners, or uh it could be many different reasons, but they so they flip to something else. So you you can't have something like a whole language curriculum, which assumes that kids are all culturally the same, that when presented with a certain topic, they're all gonna understand the background of that. If they come from a totally different culture, they're not gonna understand the background, and they can't possibly understand they can't understand the language, they can't understand where where that whole idea is coming from. It's like just totally foreign to them, so they can't succeed. So then, okay, you throw that out and we'll we'll try a phonics program. And in most cases, the phonics program is the most successful because kids learn the sounds and there's nothing else influencing them. Uh, and then at least they're they're able to understand how to put words together. You can't, you know, you can't possibly understand context and and culture and all of these other things at the same time when you turn, you can't tell a child that doesn't understand the language and the culture, turn and talk to your partner and tell them what you think. I mean, that that's just that's just so totally frustrating to them. So, and it's not only is it frustrating to them, it's frustrating to the teachers who were who were trying to get kids to succeed. So, I mean, there's a whole basket of of things that you know have changed. And then of course we went to the testing. So now everything is testing, testing, testing, testing. And teachers particular this is true particularly in public schools, but it it can be in private schools too, that they have to the state mandates that you you must pass this certain test in fifth grade, it's science, and you know, in third grade, it's and and and uh all the grades up, it's reading and math, and and if they don't meet the standard, then everybody's in trouble. The teachers are in trouble, the administration is in trouble. And what does the standard prove, or what does it show us? Well, it all it shows us is on this particular test on this particular day, this child scored this. It doesn't teach them how to think, it doesn't teach them how to solve problems, and very often teachers will have to spend four to six weeks teaching toward that test and shoving other areas of the curriculum to the side. So that's why subjects like history today are very often not even taught on an elementary level. And if they are taught, they're pushed to the side and it's like whenever we can fit it in. So what's pushed to the front, it's the social emotional, how kids should feel, how they should think. And there's nothing wrong with teaching kids respect and empathy and kindness and gratitude. These are all values that need to be taught, but they should be taught by the parents in the home when the kids were very little. In my opinion, it's not really the school's main job to teach these, to teach these things. Uh, it's it's the school's main job is to teach them their the basic skills and how to think and how to solve problems and how to be independent and resourceful so that they can become one day tomorrow's leaders and one day responsible members of society. And the emphasis in schools are it's just not there today. Uh there are alternatives for parents, there are, you know, but in most cases, a lot of parents can choose those alternatives because they either don't have the the time resources, they don't have the money resources, uh, or they're they're not offered enough uh of an alternative. There COVID brought that to the fore because during COVID, uh a lot of parents became aware when their kids were learning uh online exactly what was being taught in the school. And a lot of parents didn't like what they saw, what was being taught. Um so they started to develop some alternatives on their own. They went to homeschooling, they they got together with other parents, they formed community schools or what they call micro schools. Um and I think for kids, uh especially kids that are struggling in some way, those are better alternatives. And I love charter schools. I've had experience with them with my own children, and they can be very effective. So if the child has a particular uh interest, interest in music or art or it could be anything, uh technology, even some a school that allows the child to develop that particular talent as well as getting the academic skills is a great fit for for that kind of child. But again, uh in in a lot of places, or a lot of states that's kind of frowned upon it can be for several reasons. Again, political teachers' unions, you know, all kinds of reasons, but the funds aren't there for the parents to take advantage of it. And another

What Classrooms Lost Over Decades

SPEAKER_01 23:18

thing is uh we need more trade schools for kids that are interested in that. Why do we have such a shortage of people in the trade industry? Because we don't encourage kids who love to work with their hands, no matter what it might be, to do that. So uh, I mean, we need to encourage uh uh a wealth of possibilities for kids. And again, um it helps them, not only does it help them to succeed, it helps society to grow and prosper as well. So I can't I can't really understand uh why there are so many people opposed to that.

Blake Elsner 24:13

Yeah, and piggybacking on to um like the history thing, I'm guessing that's like because like STEM, right? So there's not as much, is it's like the whole, like you're saying, the whole new way of teaching, and this what I say is an awful way of teaching math, but apparently this is the the way to teach math these days. But like some of this stuff, and I think about like take taking tests too. Like I was a terrible test taker, like even in college, luckily with my program in college, everything we did was it was right. You had a write, and you never wrote your name. It was always you'd put like some fake name, and then the teacher wouldn't know who he's grading or who she's grading, etc. So that way when they read it, they're like, Who is this? They don't really know. I'm sure they kind of knew it once they figured out your writing style and everything. But what it did was it definitely made me think when you get handed a blank piece of paper with a couple questions on it and you got to start writing, um, yeah, your brain starts firing in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Yeah, it can't be that rote kind of thinking, like, well, give me the one question and and then I'll I'll I'll give you the answer. It you know, it has to be multiple uh possibilities. Cooperative learning is a great, is a great team approach too. Um you know the smaller school that allows kids to do hands-on learning, uh, like you know, working together and solving problems in one classroom, giving different groups of kids a different problem to solve, and then having them each work on their problem, and then coming together at the end uh with some kind of group solution. Uh, you know, that's a great way of encouraging kids to develop the critical thinking skills as well. So there are lots of ways of doing it, but unfortunately, we're all today in education and it has evolved slowly, but now it's all, you know, well, this is the curriculum, this is what we do, and and we get the answer and we take the test, and and if we pass the test, then we're given the diploma. But we're not teaching them to be independent, we're not teaching them how to solve problems, and I think that's why so many kids today are so lost because they haven't been provided with these skills from the time that they were very young. And then you have parents who have different parenting styles that feed either work with this or against it. You know, parents who who take uh the permissive road and say, well, my kid can't be wrong. It's the school's fault, it's the administrator's fault, you know, and then you have the opposite end of you know, the authoritarian parent that says it's my way or the highway, which certainly doesn't help the child to be a critical thinker either. So, you know, we have to, I think, as parents, and there's no, you know, there's no playbook for being a parent, it's just you're thrown in and you've got to learn hands-on. But I think there has to be a balance, and parents have to realize that uh they have to be more of a mentor with their kid, not you know, not controlling or being willing to listen, always communicating with them and asking them those open-ended questions from the time they're very little, you know, never accepting the yes and no answer, and encouraging them to always ask why. You know, a little child has a thousand questions, and you can always play on that. Why do you think that way? And let them give you the answer. And then when they give you the answer, help them to understand the answer and also help them to see, well, there might be another point of view to that. I mean,

Testing Culture And Curriculum Swings

SPEAKER_01 29:32

you can take a child down any street and and walk down the street and ask them questions. Oh, look at look at that old house. Who do you think used to live in that house? Do you think they went to school like you went to school? Do you think they dressed the same way you did? Do you think they had the same play time as you? Did they play with the same toys? Did they play sports? You know, there's a million ways to develop a kid's curiosity. And if you develop their curiosity, you can get them to start thinking in different ways, you know, not just to kind of blindly follow the crowd. And what did so many kids do today? They follow the crowd, and of course, don't let me get started on social media, which just plays into all of this. And, you know, oh, but I have to fit in with my friends. Well, they fit in with their friends because they're being fed that same algorithm. Whatever their friends think, that's what they're given more information on. And they're never allowed to get out of that loop to think differently, because they're always seeing that one point of view. So they don't know the difference between facts and opinions. To them, opinions become facts because they're reinforced with that same idea over and over and over again. So, you know, how do we combat that? That's an another reason why we have so much bullying because kids are, you know, constantly told you you have to fit in with this, or you're not into the crowd. It it's such such a uh kind of hamster wheel, you know, that that they can't get it get off of. But if parents are constantly trying to balance that and say, well, did you ever think about the other side of that? Could it possibly be wrong? And having them try to be exposed to different media, to you know, not always parents can be very guilty of of that too, you know, always giving them the same point of view, always watching the same kind of news, always watching the same kind of program. You can't tell your child to spend less time on social media if you go to the dinner table with your phone and you're scrolling through your phone while you're telling your kid, well, you spend too much time on your phone. Uh parents have to be a good example too. And in today's world where the parents are working, they're coming home, they're trying to, you know, they're trying to keep up with the outside world, they're trying to keep up with their kids, they're trying to keep up with what's going on in school, and it's not easy. So I think in some respects, the more technology we have, it it's uh it it's we're told that we've never been more connected, and it's we can hear what's going on on the other side of the world within five minutes of when it's happening. But really, in reality, in some respects, we've never been more disconnected because we're sitting there looking at our phones instead of talking to the person who's sitting next to us.

Blake Elsner 33:17

Yeah, that's true. I mean, considering this like podcast, I think you know, people are listening to it in Japan. I mean, there's like I'm up to you know 30 plus countries throughout the whole world, and I'm like, it is interesting. It's like you're connected, but disconnected, right? Like that's a good that's a good way of putting it. Um, so well, I really kind of really appreciate you coming on here to take the time to join me. And I think one of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that we have access to more information than ever before. But access to information and actually understanding something are two totally different things. And and whether we're talking about history, education, parenting, or even business, I think the ability to ask questions, listen, and understand different perspectives is something we can all get better at. And for everybody listening, go check out Barbara's Little Miss History book series and the work she's doing to help educate the next generation. Um, I know Barbara, you can go to Amazon. I know all the books are on there, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yeah, they're available worldwide. If you go to the website Littlemisshistory.com, uh, you can uh find information about the books. You can find where they're available, they're available at online Amazon Bonds and Noble's independent bookstores. I even uh some retail outlets sell them online. They're available at some of the historical sites that uh that are the subjects of the books. Uh, so they're very easy to get. But there are a lot of resources on the on my website as well, things that parents or teachers can use, uh YouTube teaching, uh book reviews on my blog, and and so on. So if they just go to the website, they can click on any link and go directly to that link

Parenting Curiosity In The Algorithm Age

SPEAKER_01 35:03

and get hopefully information that they could use for their own family.

Blake Elsner 35:08

Totally. I know a lot of parents that listen to this. So I know that, and even people that you know that are homeschooled, or you don't have to be homeschooled. I'm sure you got tons of uh different things on that on that channel to uh you know share with other parents and kids to help them uh keep growing.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

That's my hope.

Blake Elsner 35:28

That's right. I I well I appreciate you coming on here. Any final any final comments or or words to the audience?

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Well, I would say if you don't know your history, you don't know what you're talking about, because we have to take what we have learned, what we know from the past, in order to make today better and hopefully to make a better plan for our future. Uh sometimes things don't seem to be going well, but if if we try to be objective, if we try to take information and think independently about it, listen to others and think critically, you know, analyze the information, observe, go back to the way people communicated in the past and use those lessons to help ourselves communicate, even in our crazy world of technology in the future.

Blake Elsner 36:32

I love that. That's what they say. What people who forget history tend to repeat it, right? So we don't we don't want that, right? We want to remember.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

We want to remember, but we want to do

History As A Guide Forward

SPEAKER_01 36:43

better. That's that's right. You know, that's the important thing. We can always do better, and that should be our objective.

Blake Elsner 36:50

Appreciate it. And to everybody tuning in, thank you for being here. Make sure you like, follow, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody who might get something out of it. Until next time, one love.