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306.
My computer.
No. Yeah. So I went to play one
game today, and,
it's an over 45 old guys' team. So
you're nowhere near, like, being eligible to play
on my, over 45 soccer team. And we
played one game. We lost 1 nil.
It was whatever.
And literally,
someone on my team had cracked a cold
for me, like like,
was handing it to me.
And then another guy comes over. He's like,
does anyone wanna play another game? We have
7 players.
And,
and I'm like and I look over, and
the guy who leads this team is actually
he works in,
he works on the technology floor at in
the district where I work. I'm like, man,
I can't let Dave down. I'm like, man,
just, like, hold my beer. Like, literally, I
was like, hold my beer,
and I'm gonna go play another game, which
was not a great choice. But so now
I now I can't feel my legs. And,
you know, so what bad choices have you
made lately, John? I'm just kidding.
You know, that's that's, like, kind of a
flex. Like, oh, man. My bad choice was
playing 2 90 minute games of, soccer. You
know? My
my bad choice is being a healthy athlete.
What's your bad choice? I'm like, Well, I
I mean, I I would say that I
would say that the healthy athlete is really
generous.
I came over to the guys on the
team, and I'm like, hey. I just wanna,
like, let you know that what I lack
in skill, I also lack in fitness. So
let's go. Let's have fun. And we lost
4 now. We didn't have subs and Hey.
A thing. No. But it was cool. It
was super fun. We're so we're so grown,
man. My bad choice was, like, not taking
my once daily Allegra the other day. And
I I had, like, allergies.
I'm I'm I'm turn I turned 42 this
month, man. I'm only a few years away
from that over 45 leagues. You're still too
young, bro. Like, you're still too young. Like,
most of us will probably be retired by
the time that you're eligible to live away.
No. I was thinking about that because I
feel like,
like, guys take it really seriously, which is
cool, but a lot of us also are
kinda like, we're just trying to extend our
career as long as we can. Like, in
the next 10 to 12 years, I will
be extremely surprised if a lot of us
are still playing, but,
but that's why you just chase the game,
man. You just chase the game. And, also,
like, you're 42. That makes me feel bad
because, like, you still look like you're in
your thirties, bro. You have not aged since
I met you.
This will be a good time for us
to do a real
intro.
Hello, everyone.
Recording now from somewhere.
That somewhere is the Mile High City,
the 303.
Welcome back to Tudo Teachers and a Mic.
My name is Gerardo Munoz,
your
Philosopher King, your 20 21 Colorado teacher of
the year.
And,
I'm just out here in this 2 Dope
Nation,
in these 2 Dope streets,
trying to create some content that is too
dope,
for
oppression,
colonization,
conquest,
and destruction.
We are imagining worlds here.
We are
become life.
Creator of worlds out here. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm in a playful mood today. It
is a Saturday.
The weather is perfect. My cat is a
maniac, and I'm trying to get him, unsuccessfully,
to come inside. I would like to go
for a run. I would like to do
my thing, but it is what it is.
Folks, if you are new to Tudo features
and a mic, we're brought to you by,
Cetera,
Investments LLC out of Cali.
But more than anything, we're brought to you
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our loyal supporters at patreon@patreon.com/tudoepeteachers.
You can support the work of this podcast
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We do have a promotion going on, and
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but I think they're kinda cool.
That
that it if if you,
easy for me to say.
If you support 2 Dope Teachers and, Mike,
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if you're an existing subscriber,
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Also, you can find us on social media.
One of the easiest ways to support this
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But welcome aboard.
You can reach out to us via email
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I'm really excited about today's conversation.
Sunshine is back.
And for those of you who don't know
who I call sunshine,
that is John Arthur,
2021 Utah teacher of the year,
national teacher of the year finalist from 2021,
and now candidate
for the Utah State Board of Education.
In this conversation,
I gotta tell you, I
I was really
pleasantly
impressed
with the way John brought
his platform, and brought the imperative
for serving in public office. It was really
a beautiful thing.
You know, John is a person that if
you spend time with him, he's gonna make
you smile. He's gonna make you laugh. He's
gonna make you feel inspired. He's gonna make
you feel good about yourself.
But there's so much more to him.
This is an educator who loves his students
and school community deeply.
He loves education deeply.
There's times that I've like watched him do
his thing and I'm like, man, if I
could just tap just a little bit of
the optimism that he brings and the joy
that he brings on a day to day
basis.
I don't know. Maybe I would have more
friends. No.
I I don't know if I would have
left the classroom if I have if I
had a way to,
understand and analyze and move through the world
that he does. So I think I think
if you have not experienced John Arthur,
you're really gonna enjoy hearing what he's gotta
say.
It's interesting because we are in election season,
and I would just encourage I would just
say, y'all gotta vote. And even if the
top of the ticket is lacking for you,
down the ticket there are other things that
really matter.
A lot of states, I think at last
count, 23 states are entertaining,
either voucher bills, like outright
or school privatization,
legislation
that the people have said over and over
that they don't want,
in education.
If you listened to doctor Josh Cowan's interview
with me,
on the privateers
and the voucher movement and the ways in
which it reinforces,
oppression and white supremacy and,
and undermines democracy, you gotta listen to that
before you go to the booth and you
gotta share it widely because even in
Colorado, the, there's a there's a,
there's a ballot initiative, 80, I think it
is, that would open the door for vouchers
and increase school choice. And these are these
are all
code,
for things that will undermine public education. So
you gotta check this out.
So in this conversation, John and I talk
a little bit about just sort of how,
you know, his year of service as a
national teacher of the year finalist in 2021
kind of gave him a a platform and
and sort of a vision of maybe doing
something more.
He talks with us a lot, not just
about issues in Utah, but he talks about
how we're just broadly,
how those issues impact our kids no matter
where we are,
rural or urban,
coastal or inland.
These are issues that are showing up in
a lot of different places. He also gives
us ways that teachers and others can be
involved,
and tackling things like book bans,
like these other kinds
of conversations that need to be had.
And he reminds us of the promise of
public education. And I think that's something that
a lot of us I'm just gonna say
a lot of us progressives will sometimes talk
ourselves into our corner.
We'll be the snake eating its own tail
when we talk about what it means to
support public education.
We know that public education
has
a spotty record at best and a harmful
record at worst
when it comes to elevating the hopes and
dreams of children of color.
However,
these initiatives
around privatization,
this wrong headed
like, free market approach
to schooling,
that is in its worst form illustrated by
vouchers. But there's other forms of this that
maybe you're not super aware of.
Like, that ain't it either.
And
if we still believe
in an education for all
that alters the trajectories
of historically marginalized
communities.
I'm sorry, like, to turn away from this
possibility
is,
is a problem.
Do not be like the rats on the
Titanic.
Alright?
Although, I think I just compared public education
to the Titanic. It's not what I was
trying to do. Anyway, y'all gotta check out
this interview.
At the end of the episode, John will
talk about how to get involved.
You don't necessarily have to run for office
yourself, but there are ways to do that.
So,
right now, here it comes. Episode
133,
John Arthur
and
the maybe free and liberated
board of Utah Education.
Stick with us here on 2 Dope Teachers
and Mike.
Yo. What's going on 2 Dope Nation? Welcome
back to 2 Dope Teachers and a Mike.
We are the most dangerous podcast in the
schoolhouse.
We are remixing
the conversation
on race, power,
and education.
I'm over on here on a Sunday,
and thinking about, like, how much I don't
wanna work tomorrow. Anyway,
but it's it's a thing. Right? It's a
thing that we all go through.
What's up? If you are somebody
who is living in a different mountain state
than Colorado, you may be listening to this
podcast for the first time
because
we,
let the people know that that our guest
is, is out here, and he maybe brought
us some listeners. So if you are new
to the show, welcome.
Welcome to 2 Dope Nation. Now,
sunshine, it's not popular to say this right
now, in a lot of quarters, but 2
Dope Nation has open borders.
Absolutely.
We maintain open borders. We want anybody to
come up in here. If you are 2
DOPE or if you aspire to one day
be 2 DOPE, yo, you're a citizen. You're
a citizen already. So welcome
to 2 DOPE nation.
We, we are all over social media. You
can find us on Instagram on x, formerly
known as Twitter,
at Tudoopteachers. We're on TikTok where we don't
do anything, but we will one day. If
Chris Dear would ever teach me something, like
he said he's gonna Chris, I'm looking at
you,
and
all these people are gonna know that I'm
looking for the smoke with you, and and
I'm gonna know if you listen to the
podcast. Oh,
yeah. If Chris would teach you how to
be a TikToker like him, like, then then
2 Dope Teachers would would have a fire.
TikTok.
For your grandparents, we are on Facebook.
Facebook.com/2dopeteachers
and a mic. All the dashes between the
words. You can email us, 2dope teachers@gmail.com.
Email us whatever you want. Like, I'm actually
here for the slander too.
Sometimes I just feel like I wanna mix
it up, John. Right? Isn't that like so
you just like I just wanna, like, knock
some slobber for our kids. Right? Like, let's
let's get getting into some slobber knocking. So
send me love, send me hate, send me
whatever. Like, I'm too old to care anymore.
But send us your vibes.
And if you are really excited about the
possibility
of supporting
BIPOC created digital media and storytelling,
you can go to patreon.com/tudoteachers,
where for as little as
$5 a month,
you can contribute to maybe making this a
full time job for me one day. Also,
for Hispanic heritage month, you will hear this
before the end of Hispanic Heritage Month.
Anyone
who opts in at $10 a month or
more,
will receive in the mail, in the mail,
John, you will receive
the series of Hispanic Heritage stickers that I
am literally making with a printer right now.
Oh, man. Send those to you. You can
throw them on your notebooks, your water bottles,
all that kind of thing. John, do you
like stickers?
I love stickers, man. I love I'm an
elementary school teacher.
Of course. We we trade in the currency
of stickers.
That's right. I like, when I was teaching
secondary, it was gum, but stickers was, like,
catching up really cool. Good. Folks, I'm really
excited about this conversation as you heard it
in the open,
in the intro.
I'm just really excited to welcome
John Arthur to the podcast. John, welcome.
Thank you so much. It's great.
Yes. Awesome. Oh, you glitched for a second.
We're in the matrix now, but it's all
good.
So,
so for those of you who
have not been paying attention to,
state politics in Utah, and, like, I'm not
mad at you if you're not paying attention
to that, if you're not in Utah.
In in the Four Corners region,
we definitely try to pay attention to this.
But
John is running for state board of education,
and this is a super big deal. And
so I reached out to him. I was
like, yo, sunshine.
Come on the show. Let's talk about your
run for for office and stuff.
John, served as 2021
Utah teacher of the year. John was also
a national finalist that year, so he got
into all kinds of rooms that your boy
could only hope to get into,
but definitely
a person so worthy of recognition
past and present. And we're really excited to
have you on here to talk about your
run for the state board. So welcome. Thank
you, brother. It's it's an honor to be
on here. It's an honor to have the
opportunity to
share my experiences both as a as a
teacher, but also as as a public school
teacher wading into this political space, which is
incredibly uncomfortable. It's nice to be back with
folks who who who can help me feel
that and talk about it and process it.
Yeah. Definitely. Because I would not do that.
So
no. I mean, I think it's it's such
a and here I am contributing to the
toxicity around, like, oh, I would never do
that. But we're gonna talk about that in
the second
and last segments, right, about how we can
start shifting our mindsets as educators to get
involved
in civil service and policy. But I kinda
wanna start with
around the time that we met.
I I still have that great picture of
our feet, UMI, Arizona, and New Mexico,
the four corners,
2021
teachers of the year. Yes, sir. So we
met in 2021, which was a wild time.
Right? We were coming out of quarantine. I
will never say we were coming out of
the pandemic. The pandemic is still with us.
It's not going anywhere. Mhmm. And,
you know, a lot of us were kinda
thrust into
the public view in varying degrees
in, in pretty dramatic fashion, and it felt
like we were all just kinda learning to
ride a bike again, except the bike had
4 wheels, and it was on fire.
So,
so what I I wanna
and we attended a lot of the same
events. And
I think about
We had been in DC for our Washington
Week experience, which was
getting to connect in a policy way, and
we were both in the room when congresswoman
Jahana Hayes, former teacher of the year, who
had been elected to congress
spoke, and something
really electric went through the crowd. Now
we didn't all run for office.
So can you share a little bit about
how
serving
as a national teacher of the year finalist
and Utah teacher of the year in 2021
was sort of a stepping stone in the
direction
of civil service in your own run for
state board.
Definitely.
Yeah. 1st,
meeting folks like Johanna Hayes as well as,
and when you're a teacher of the year,
you get broken up into these homerooms. Right?
So we we go in little groups. And
and one of our mentors in homeroom was,
Sean Sheehan, who'd also
run for office, who worked as a congressional
staffer.
And But we're in the same homeroom. I
remember Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Town hall room.
Oh my god. Exactly. And he Yeah. Listening
to him talk about the the political side
of education.
You know, he and Rodney Robinson have their
podcast, the the teacher caucus, and I was
listening to teacher caucus. Yeah. Shout out.
It was it was fascinating to me because
it connected to this experience I was starting
to have where people were,
for the first time in my career, asking
me,
what do you think we should do about
blank?
You know? And and whether it was, what
do you think we should do about masks
in school? What do you think we should
do about
shutdowns, remote learning? Whatever it was that was
the hot topic at the time. I suddenly
had people asking me my my opinion about
it, my perspective.
And at first, I felt uncomfortable with that.
I'm a you wouldn't probably know this about
me, but I'm by nature an intro introverted
kinda human. I I like to kinda keep
to myself.
Sorry. Which, again, you you probably wouldn't guess.
But just by nature, that's that's what I'm
about. So when I'm talking about You are
a super deep and present person. You're a
really peaceful person, and I think that's
I think, like because you're very good with
people. You're very comfortable around people. But Yeah.
But, yeah, there's definitely
there's
sunshine space,
and then there's, like, the pace of a
lot of the nonsense around us. So Yeah.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh at
you. I'm No. No. No. I appreciate that.
Friendly. I think it's But but I think
you're right. I'm an introvert who loves people.
I just I love humans. I I love
everything about
us, you know, and the way that we
have to navigate
times, like like you said, like the pandemic
that that continues and and how
how little grace we give ourselves too often.
And and when people ask me these questions,
it was often coming from a place where
people were looking for quick solutions, not not
allowing for the idea that we needed time
for healing, for for introspection
before we could move on to to doing
the business that we've had before us. And
so as people would ask me for my
opinion on different things, I started to recognize
that my opinion had power.
And not just mine, but teachers generally. We
were the experts
on the front lines living through this experience
that other people were kind of imagining. Right?
They were imagining what was happening in our
classrooms.
And
at the same time, you also saw people
losing their minds. You saw people going into
school board meetings and just shouting down the
place. We had one in Utah that that
turned into a just a hot mess where
the the school board members exited the room
and the this crowd of people,
like, assumed controls, started sitting in their seats
and saying, we're now school board members. The
the old school board has been dissolved. This
is the new school board in one of
our local districts.
And as I watch this happen, it 2
things occurred to me. 1,
this is crazy. But 2,
you know, it's not insane to think that
we need different people in those seats. You
know? Even though I completely disagree with these
these folks, what they're shouting about, I I
could still humanize them. I could still see
them as as
terrified,
worried,
concerned about children. And in a lot of
ways, I was feeling the same things.
In that moment, compelled to to start to
picture a path
toward moving in the policy making spaces,
while at the same time not giving up
my my place in the classroom. I I
love teaching. I'm still I'm still young enough
in my career where I'm I'm excited to
go every day, And and I I'm not
ready to give up my dream job.
But I'm also not satisfied
delivering 2 minute public comment meet public comments
at, school board meetings. I'm not Yeah. Satisfied
writing op eds anymore. I want a sit
at the table with a with a finger
on the button that lets me talk as
long as I need to to try to
move us into more
productive, effective places.
Yeah. I I love this point too because
I think
what you're referring to
is kind of this graduated
civic engagement that we experience as teachers of
the year because at first, it is go
speak at public comment. I remember, like, going
off at public comment about, you know, coming
back to in person,
too soon. And then it's like, write the
stop it. Do this one minute, like, you
know, this 2 minute interview, like, real quick
on the news and that kind of thing.
And that kind of dissatisfaction
with that saying, these are cool things. You
know, I'm hungry for more. Mhmm. So you're
you're kind of leading into a really important,
you know, sort of
issue, and I I I wanna get your
thoughts on it.
So,
you know, I'm in my graduate school program,
and one of the classes I took that
was absolutely transformative for me was,
critical policy analysis
in education systems.
Shout out doctor Tabron. I hope you listen
to my pod. You're on sabbatical?
Like, listen to my pod. Because I I
keep on so you talk about somebody who's
who's, introverted. Doctor Tabron is very introverted.
I'm gonna I'm gonna go on a bunny
trail for a second real quick. So
so, we had to do a project that
was quantitatively,
like,
found like
like, grounded. Right? Like, something around stats.
And I had just sent a tweet that,
like, went viral for, like I have no
idea why. It was about,
it was about grading at the university level.
And, you know, if you head over to
my Twitter account, especially to my personal Twitter
account, it's like, oh, look. You got 4
likes. Oh, you got 3 likes. That's great.
This one hit 50 k.
Wow. And it was oh, you know what
it was about? It was about
how doctor Taber and this professor of mine
had
insisted
on putting the full URLs,
of articles we were reading and then insisted
on having us actually find the articles
because it bumps engagement for scholars of color.
You may not other get
those. Man, that sets some stuff off. It
was wild. So but doctor Tabron. I've been
trying to get doctor Tabron on the pod
for 3 years now, and I I feel
like I will not be successful.
Anyway,
I'm sitting in that's okay. Doctor t, it
is okay. You keep doing Keep the faith.
I can have it. You keep you keep
working, and it's great. So I'm I'm in
this critical policy analysis class, and one thing
that starts to really
come to life for me
is how
important it is to be knowledgeable
about policy questions around education. And now Mhmm.
You and I have been in education for
a good minute.
Mhmm.
My experience has been I've heard teachers,
great teachers, wise teachers, teachers with so much
knowledge and experience of what it means to
be a teacher in these streets today,
say to me,
I can't do the policy thing. It's just,
like, it's confusing. It's frustrating. I don't feel
like I fit.
Right. Can you speak to that? Because, actually,
one of those people I am sure is
listening to this episode,
and that person needs to seek public office.
But but what how do you react to
hearing teachers
verbalize
that sort of feeling of disillusionment
and anxiety when it comes to policy?
Yeah. It sounds like somebody who's already overwhelmed
by the hardest job in the world
imagining stacking something on top of it. It's
the most it's the most natural,
frankly, sane reaction that anybody could have to
the idea
of of, you know, going outside your classroom
and wading into the murky space that is
policy because that that space is informed
and and driven by,
you know, state legislatures,
state school boards, local school boards.
You know?
A lot of us have a hard enough
time working just with our building admin. You
know what I mean? And trying to affect
change in our classroom or in our schools
that that it can feel overwhelming
just in our own house.
So then you you throw in the idea
of of
talking to voters or trying to move
public opinion on an issue so that that
legislators
or policymakers will do something different.
Frankly, I think it's nuts not to think
I'm gonna stay in my classroom and just
keep doing what I can control because within
these four walls, I I have I have
more power. And these, you know, these sort
of I don't mean to be true too
dramatic, but these invasions of board meetings at
the Mhmm. At the local and state level,
like,
why would somebody wanna be subjected
to that? We have elected officials
in these United States of America
who are getting death threats. You know, governor
Whitmer, like, there's a whole plot to abduct
her. Like, just wild stuff. So, I mean,
it it is actually really understandable.
Yeah.
I'll take it one step further, though, as
the guy who has decided
to to wait out into that murky space.
The reason why I ultimately decided I had
to is because
at some point,
if you're not going out there and trying
to affect change, then you've just you've accepted
the idea that you're just gonna take it.
Whatever decisions they make, you're just gonna take
it until you can't take it anymore, and
then you're gonna leave.
And I I'm still in that that point
where I I just I'm not willing to
take it. I I I have to go
out there
and and fight the good fight. That's why
I joined my my education association in my
1st year of teaching. I recognized that there
are these amazing teachers who are stepping outside
the comfort of their classroom to make things
better for the children in mine,
And and I just wanted to be a
champion along with them for for children and
teachers in our profession.
And by by
watching the example of leaders within my within
the Salt Lake Education Association, Utah Education Association,
resisting in a deep red state policies that
were not
moving public education in the direction that it
needs to, I I I recognized,
1,
it's it's hard, but we have to. And
2,
in in recent years, it's gotten particularly bad,
and I started looking around at my friends
saying, who you guys see what I'm seeing?
Like, we someone's gotta run. Right? Someone's gotta
run for these offices. Who's gonna do it?
And nobody else's hand went up.
And I just I I became that guy
that just said, alright. Let's go.
Yeah. I have I imagine, like, will somebody
step forward to run for state board and
everybody step back? Yeah. Seriously. Didn't hear John
didn't hear the directions.
No. I think I think that's really beautiful,
and I think,
I think it's a really powerful thing.
Before we go to a a quick break,
one one follow-up I wanna ask you is
a couple of times in this conversation, you've
referred to the policy space,
particularly the ed policy space
as as being really murky in in terms
of, like, wading out into these waters. Like
Yeah. I picture I picture, like, all kinds
of stuff floating around. You don't even know
what's wrapped around your ankle. Can you talk
a little bit about
because I don't I don't believe in just
telling people, get out there and do it
without knowing
what's waiting for you, especially if you're a
powerful voice. What are some of the things
that feel particularly
murky that you can talk about,
that folks should just kinda be aware of
if they're considering a run for any office?
Yeah. So the first thing that I would
point to
even before
looking into the Merc is just putting on
your life vest, your your water wings, you
know, making sure that you're straight before you
go out there because,
you know, I've gotta think about
I'm a I'm an employee of a school
district. I don't wanna jeopardize my job by
by posting the wrong thing, by using Yep.
My work email when I should have used
my personal email. So before before
even jumping into these waters, it's all about
making sure
I'm I'm I'm coming right. I I've I
have a principal,
not not principal in my building, but personal
principal that I live by. And
principal. As I yeah. Exactly. As I do
this work, I I teach 5th and 6th
graders,
and I am committed to making sure that
nothing I put out there,
would embarrass me in front of my students.
Like, I want every 5th and 6th grade
child, 10 through 12 years old, to be
able to read my stuff and and not
be,
shocked by it, not be,
turned off. I want them to say that's
that's what that's what captain's always told us
to do with our writing, what to do
with our words, to come respectfully,
to come with dignity,
and and also humanizing everybody that I'm talking
about in these spaces. So that's, you know,
that's that's that's my guiding star, and then
I I make sure that I'm, again, using
just my personal phone number, personal email. Right.
And then also the things, right, that will
undo campaigns
if you if you do something by accident
that can be,
that can be viewed as impropriety or That's
exact sort of, like, question. Yep. Yeah. Yep.
Exactly. I I can't use resources from my
district. I couldn't even when I film my
first political ad, I couldn't film in my
own classroom. I had to use,
a a friend's classroom in a charter school
because I that it can't be seen that
I'm using public resources to run this campaign.
You just have to be thoughtful about all
these things. Mhmm. And then And get good
advice, I would imagine. Right? Get good advice.
There there are so many people who have
already gone and done this. There there are
people out there who blaze these trails. We
just need to fill up the trails with
with with new champions. Yeah. So that's that's
the main advice I would put out there.
It makes me think of a Talib Kweli
lyric where he says, you know, make make
sure your business is straight.
Mhmm. And, make sure your cruise is tight
as you. Mhmm. Because when homies start falling
off, they're gonna bring you
down too. So it's important to do that.
It also occurs to me
that you know, and I I was just
doing a little bit of web research,
before we got on here, and
it was actually a lot of former classroom
teachers who are running for office currently.
Most notably, Tim Wall is running,
as,
Kamala Harris vice president. Kamala Harris is running.
Do you think that we're seeing
do do you think that we're seeing kind
of a groundswell of teachers who
are fed up, but not fed up like,
I'm gonna quit this job, but
fed up because
there's a world out there that I need
to engage?
Yeah. I think that,
frankly, teachers have a skill set that is
uniquely suited to
seeking public office and and and pub public
service. We're already public servants, and we teach
critical thinking. We teach analysis. We teach
children and young people how to pay attention
to the what's going on in the world
so that they can view themselves
as change makers and problem solvers.
And then at some point, we as the
adults have to recognize, ah, is it is
it practice what I preach time? Is it
is it Yeah. Is it walk the walk
time?
And and in these days, in these times
where
where where things are so challenging and we're
seeing so much
so much nonsense. People being dragged down these
rabbit holes of insanity
that that at some point, you just gotta
say, I I can't I cannot abide this.
We have to put our money where our
mouth is. I'm gonna go do this thing.
That's why you're seeing so many teachers step
up. And,
frankly, teachers who made it through the pandemic
were were built different. You know? This is
a this is this is a new generation
of of teachers that are survivors
and and who are who are like, I
taught through
online learning,
masks,
shields.
I'm not scared of nothing. I'm I'm ready
to step up in ways that we were
not ready to before,
but that's also not to to discount
all the teachers who have who have run
for office even before these hard times. Yeah.
Absolutely. It's a legacy. And Mhmm. I think
that I think that's,
something I hear in in your message is,
you know, we you know, this is something
that has been normalized, and we continue to
normalize it.
Mhmm. And, yeah, we are built kinda different.
There's a type of resiliency,
I think,
that some of us who came out of,
that that really difficult period in education
Mhmm. That can be said.
So when we come back,
we're gonna talk a little bit about,
issues in Utah. And so don't fast forward,
though, y'all, because they're probably gonna sound a
little bit familiar Yeah. To what we're dealing
with in other states.
We'll talk a little bit about issues broadly,
and then,
future
member of the Utah State Board of Education,
John Arthur, is going to, share with us
top five ways to be involved in these
policy spaces. But first,
I just wanna take a minute and shout
out,
Tori and Alex.
John, when you started teaching, were you
were you thinking about,
cool. Now I can start building generational
wealth.
No, man. I I started teaching, I taught
kids there are 2 things you could do
with money, either save it or spend it.
It wasn't for many years I recognized, oh,
invest as well. That's a thing that we
can do.
I mean, for some of us, like, I
just remember sign like, signing my first contract
and, in 1999,
and, like, I was gonna get paid $25,000
a year. I was like, oh my god.
This is awesome. I can go out now
and buy clothes and get haircuts,
and then you learn very quickly that 25,000
is, like
it's just not a great place to start.
So,
so for a lot of us, there's also
the the lack of an understanding,
first of all, that investing was a thing
and also not enough money to really do
it. And, you know, I've I've heard a
lot of folks say, I mean, the best
way to
build generational wealth is to be born with
it. Like,
but,
John, I got good news for you.
Tori and Alex Sierra from,
Seterra Investors,
they're doing some dope stuff, bro.
Nice. Like, what?
They're doing yeah. Oh, see. I love how
you picked that up. So good.
This is why you've guest hosted before because
you know. So they have a subscription
based plan that,
doesn't require that you're investing a ton of
money in order to make money and start
building that wealth. And you can start at
any point.
I actually have started doing some work with,
with,
Tori and Alex,
even though I'm fairly close to retirement because
Alex actually knows a lot about state retirement
systems. And,
retirement because Alex actually knows a lot about
state retirement systems,
and he just loves teachers, man. I mean,
who doesn't love teachers? But he loves teachers,
and he wants to be sure
that teachers have a way to start saving
that money and start building that wealth, and,
you don't have to have a ton of
money to do it.
If you,
go to the website that is in the
show notes,
and that would that I shared with you
at the top at the open,
You can get 25%
off of their subscription based services
simply by using the code 2 dope.
Click on that link. Check it out. And,
shoot, John, maybe there's maybe there's generational wealth
for our kids. Like, that might be a
thing.
Let's go, man. My wife is more successful
than me. The she's their best shot. But
Yeah. I'd like to I'd like to be
on the team. I'd like to contribute.
No doubt. Yeah. Exactly. Well, we don't yeah.
We we like, Mary well is a good
thing. And then if you can't do that,
you have Tori and Alex.
I think,
it's funny you say that because I, like,
I feel like there there were times when
my spouse was working in finance, when people
would be like, wow. Your house is so
nice. I'm like, this is not a teacher's
house. This is Mm-mm. This is a finance
expert's house.
But Tory and Alex are gonna change that
for you. So head over there to their
website, Cetera Investors
out of beautiful Pasadena, California. Congrats on Renewbaby.
And, yes, start building that wealth today.
Alright, man.
So let let's get into the nitty gritty
as it were.
So what are some of the issues
that
are education
related that you will be positioned
to address
once you're elected to the Utah State Board
of Education?
And I guess I I guess maybe for
those who
are less,
you know, kind of informed as to what
a state board of education even does, maybe
give us just a quick overview of what
is it that the state board of education
in Utah does.
Yeah. I I like to use the metaphor
of an hourglass.
Right?
So in Utah, as in many other states,
you've got your your state legislature at the
top. And they they write laws. They pass
bills.
And,
you know, related to education, those bills will
then
rain down as laws upon the the children,
teachers,
schools, districts down at the bottom of the
hourglass. And that choke point in the middle
is the state board of education in Utah
and state agencies of education across the country.
That's where the bills go, and they will
get turned in our state into administrative rules
and policies
that the the state board will then send
out to districts so the districts can say,
hey. What is it we're supposed to do
with this law that was passed last session?
The state board is entrusted,
with with
providing that guidance. And and in Utah,
it's in our state constitution that the state
board of education has general supervision and control
over public education.
So that's that's the body that I wanna
join. I wanna get in there so that
as these bills,
for better or worse, come down, I can
I can use my experience and expertise from
the classroom
to help craft policies,
that that will benefit those who will receive
them down the line? And, also, our state
board determines,
standards, the standards by which all kids are
taught, the the the levels
of mastery that we hold our children to,
the proficiencies
that we expect from our teachers, licensing, all
those
those organizational
pieces, the state school board has some
role in affecting.
Yeah.
That's so well explained.
That's really good. Because as you kind of
explain it, I start thinking about,
you know, all the various things in our
own state that have sort of started to
make their way into school districts and BOCES.
Right? And, you know, and how those things
are operationalized.
We're the biggest
school district in the state
and I think in the mountain region.
And so we get some extra latitude because
of how many students we serve as far
as that goes. But but that's just such
a such an interesting and important thing to
think about. And so it it almost seems
like
you would be positioned
to be a buffer between even
bad legislation that's passed or harmful legislation that's
passed
because it's your job to convert it into
practice. Am I understanding that right? That's exactly
right. It's it's both a position of
of buffering, but also, you know, it's kinda
like in the movie where, like, a wizard
has their wand and, you know, spear gets
thrown and the wizard transforms the spear into,
like, a butterfly.
Right? And that's that's that's Kinda of spears
out there, so I really like that analogy.
Lot a lot of things coming our way.
But with with experience and expertise applied to
them, you you might not be able to
turn it into a butterfly, but you can
turn it into something that is hopefully blunted
that's not gonna hurt anybody. And, ideally,
transform
good bills into
outstanding
policy and and things that are gonna be
resourceful,
resources that are useful
to teachers in the classroom, to students in
their seats, and to that will uplift and
elevate the work that our public schools are
doing.
The other thing that that happens is in
our state school board so I'll take an
issue like book banning. Right? This is a
thing that's across the country. People are dealing
with it in our state.
When these laws are written around books that
get banned.
We have a
a process in place by which districts can
review
books. And this last session,
a law was passed that said that if
3 school districts out of the 41 school
districts that we have determined that a book
is indecent
material, that it's objectively sensitive material, that's the
language in our law, then then it gets
banned statewide.
The only body that could reverse a book
ban is the Utah State Board of Education
because the the idea is that this body
will be
manned and
equipped with the the the expertise amongst its
staff and then also,
knowledge amongst its board members to make good
decisions on these things to look at the
title and say, you know what? We've reviewed
it. We've read it, and, actually, it does
not meet this threshold that you've said that
it did. I wanna be in one of
those seats because right now, our state school
board is just kind of a rubber stamp,
for the legislature in a lot of ways
and for the for the districts who are
putting forward these these these book bans.
We need
more people on the state or on the
state school board that that are willing to
push back, that are willing to to apply
reason. And and in some cases, sanity, we
we have some great school board members, but
we got some folks. We have one that
just got censured,
by both the state board and the legislature.
We've got we've got some folks that are
bringing the nonsense, and we need to we
need to replace them. Yeah. A couple of
follow ups to that. Mhmm. First of all,
it's music in my ears because, as you
know,
I worked on a fellowship for about a
year with our mutual friends, Monica Washington, Tracy
Nantz, Chris Dear, Tika Nagayoshi
Mhmm.
That was really
working on combating book bans because as we
know,
so many of these big movements to ban
books
and silence educational
perspective
historical perspectives
are coming from a very small and very
vocal
part of, the electorate.
And so
that's music to my ears. I love that
you're doing that. Couple of questions that kind
of arise for me about that. So
I would imagine that in well, I'll ask
you. Is the Utah State Board expected to
be nonpartisan?
Or the Utah Department of Education, is it
expected to be nonpartisan?
I appreciate this question because it should be.
Right? And it used to be. But our
our
our state legislature has a Republican super majority.
And in
last decade, it's it's shifted further to the
right.
And they did not like the decisions that
were being made by our state board of
education because our state board of education, 15
members,
were elected
in a nonpartisan
way. They didn't put a party affiliation next
to their name. Yeah. So you ended up
having people who were elected because of their
credibility in education spaces.
They were teachers.
They were education thinkers. They were in higher
ed, and and they were making decisions that
were based on what was best for education
and for children learn children's learning.
And so in 2020, the the state legislature
finally was able to change
state school board elections to partisan elections.
And that's that's
when majority. So there was a lot of
people that were elected. Some some wild folks
in there. And, in 2022,
again, another election cycle with partisan
labels next to your name, and and we
got more folks in there who are not,
I I I'd say not awesome.
And, and so now
I I had to to
declare a party affiliation. I could have run
unaffiliated,
but, you would never win.
So I I declared as a Democrat, and
I'm running with this with this party
label next to my name, but I'm also
running in a lot of ways to take
politics out of the work of our state
school board. Right. Because good education policy
is not determined by partisan politics. It's determined
by
data,
research, what we know to be effective in
practice for our children.
And and I'm I'm running a political campaign
to to
fight politics.
And when when you say that, I I
want our listeners to, like, hear this.
Mhmm. You are not arguing
for neutrality.
No. Tell me the difference between,
you know, sort of the the state of
things where Mhmm. Partisanship,
you're you're arguing has had a profoundly negative
impact
on on education policy in the state of
Utah Yeah. Versus let's get politics out of
this. What's in its place when we get
politics out of the conversation? Yeah. I'm I'm
I'm running on strong positions
that that put forward
that that hold fast to the idea
that public education is the best,
option for all children. The I I hold
fast to the the promise of public education
that every child should have available to them
an excellent neighborhood school that they can attend,
and they cannot say no to kids.
The
the
spectrum, like, the person I'm running against,
would put forward more of a market based
approach to education. This idea that privatizing more
of education is a positive move that that
we should,
look at things like vouchers
and and
diverting funds out of public education into private
schools, home schools, religious schools.
They look at that as innovation, and that
that is a track that we ought to
be pursuing, that we ought to be looking
further down that road. And I wanna draw
everybody's attention back
to to the the public education system
that needs to be improved. And in order
to do that, we need to elect more
educators into positions where we can do that,
but that we should not abandon the idea
that that a a well educated electorate
is is necessary
for a functioning democracy
and that we should have a system
that equitably meets the needs of all children.
In Utah, we're we're facing a lot of
the anti DEI
conversations that are out there. And I just
wanna remind everybody that diversity is a beautiful
thing that's necessary and makes us strong, that
equity is is necessary if you're gonna actually
determine whether or not what you're doing for
children is effective and and
having the impacts that we needed to. And
inclusion
is is, again,
necessary
because if you if you aren't being inclusive,
then you're being exclusionary, that you're leaving people
out. And our school should never exclude any
child.
And that's that's that's what I'm running for.
It's it's not a neutral position, but it's
not a partisan position. At least it shouldn't
be. It's it's a it's a position
that is that is driven by love for
public education.
Yeah. Well and and what you're what you're
seeking and what you're advocating for is common
ground. Exactly. May not practice the same religions.
We may not,
wanna live our lives in exactly the same
ways as others. But the common ground is
that a 100% of us who have kids
and there's a lot of these people who
are advocating,
who wanna make all these decisions about education,
who do not have children themselves.
Mhmm. Mhmm. You know, like, a 100% of
people with kids want what's best for their
kids.
A couple of things you said, I think,
are really moving, and I really wanna put
a pin in those things.
Public education
and, you know, you and I are here
as 2 men of color who are very
aware
of the
harms that have happened within
our education system Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Like, we're not naive
to,
to the presence of white supremacy and institutional
racism in
in these education spaces.
And I will add one thing.
An educated electorate is a free electorate.
Right?
And,
you know, and so I think that's how
we find
people actually being able to live lives as
free people. A couple of things that you
said, and I and I really wanna,
encourage listeners. If you have not listened
to my interview with doctor Josh Cowan at
the University of Michigan,
his book, the Privateers,
takes aim at voucher policies that have been
floated
ad nauseam. Like, I'm gonna have dinner with
my mother in about an hour, and this
was, like, the first education policy, like, I
learned about was vouchers, and this was in
the eighties. Right?
And what doctor Cowan shares with us is
that vouchers are not a vouchers
and privatization
is being put in front of us as
a nonpartisan issue. It isn't.
Nobody
who
they say is benefiting from vouchers is benefiting
from vouchers. We're not sending them to the
Baird School. Like, in a lot of cases,
it's little ramshackle,
storefront private schools Yep. That kids go to,
and they don't get a good education, and
most of them end up back in the
public education system anyway. And so they're so
there it the the pro and I don't
wanna derail our conversation, but the pro voucher
and pro privatization
movement
has politicized
this
by ignoring
the data.
Even Milton Friedman's people say, you know,
vouchers don't really work.
And the data is
embarrassingly
clear to the voucher movement that it does
not
result
in an advantage
for students. In fact, it is harmful.
I just wanna get on my soapbox for
that.
So you're in this sorry. Did you wanna
say something about that? Well, no. I was
just gonna say that's not derailing the conversation
at all in my mind. That's that's the
kind of conversation that leads people to decide
decide, you know what? Yeah. That's that's ridiculous.
I recognize it as such. The only way
to change it is through the the the
electoral system that we have, through our legislatures,
our school boards. If I am done being
sick of it and I'm ready to do
something about it,
then that's the path I have to follow.
That's right. That's right.
One other thing I kinda wanna ask you
about. So Mhmm.
A lot and this may be a more
technical question. So so Colorado,
works really hard. Like, it's policy for our
state board of education, our Colorado Department of
Education to be nonpartisan. Now I will say
it is glaringly
obvious what people's party affiliations
are. Like, it is it is not a
secret, but at least
that's kinda considered to be off limits as
far as, like, how we're gonna do that
thing. But we also deal with this issue
of local control,
and I feel like Utah and Colorado are
really similar. Like, you have some larger urban
areas like Salt Lake City like Salt Lake
City similar to Denver, not quite as cool,
but it is similar. No. No. I I
dispute, but fair enough.
But, like, so so you've got some Yeah.
Urban areas that are a little bit more
diverse that are a little bit more forward
thinking.
I know through family connections that Salt Lake
is very queer friendly.
It's a place where a lot of LGBTQ
folks feel that they can,
like, be there, and, you know, it it
does not feel like a threatening place in
the sense of And then at the same
time, we have
we have more rural areas. For us, it's
a western slope, which I guess would be
the eastern slope for you all. But for
the for us, it's the western slope where,
we have our best friends from,
the US House of Representatives
who represent those areas where there's a lot
of conservatism, and there's very strong
feelings around,
education.
How does local control function in your state,
and
how how do you
feel prepared to navigate that?
Yeah. That's a great question.
Local control is at the heart of everything
in in education here in the state of
Utah. But the
the thing that is really interesting about it
is that our state legislature has really gotten
in the business of micromanaging
what used to be handled at the local
level. Think so, like, book bans, for example,
going to statewide book bans versus just letting
local communities
form committees to determine what books are and
are not appropriate for their children.
That's that's overstepping
and and taking power away from local control.
Yep. And I,
you know, I I'm very much in favor
of school communities,
neighborhoods
determining for themselves as much as possible.
And as a state school board member, I'm
excited to to try to
encourage
folks to go back to that that beautiful
system because
it's it's not perfect,
but it's a whole lot better than a
than a central authority
telling everybody in this incredibly diverse state of
Utah
what they need to be doing, what is
right for their kids.
Right. And I I
at my school, for example, I teach in
a,
you know, in Salt Lake City, it's a
majority minority district. And in my school,
you know, it's about 65, 70 percent Latino,
and then we've got African refugees. We've got,
Southeast Asian refugee population,
students from Afghanistan, all kinds of beautifully diverse
culturally rich places.
And what makes sense for us is not
gonna make sense in rural Utah or in
in places where they've got, you know, one
room schoolhouse with 23 kids k to 6.
Yeah. And and we need to be nimble.
We have to trust
local authorities to make as many decisions as
possible.
And I
I
as I look at policy at the state
board level, I'm going to be a voice,
and that's not a voice that you necessarily
expect from a Democrat.
But as somebody who appreciates autonomy
autonomy in my classroom
and site based governance in my in my
school, I appreciate
local control, and and I look forward to
championing it. Yeah. As
like, yeah. Absolutely.
You've got me thinking about how,
and the Democratic party is flawed just like
any political party is flawed.
But it's fun like, I always find it
hilarious when the
control your life. I'm like, yeah. They wanna
make sure that you have free health care
no matter Yeah. What you say about it.
Like, it's wild to me. Yeah. We think
people shouldn't starve. I don't know. Like, is
that, like, controversial? Maybe they should choose to
starve. It's the same thing. No. But I
think what you're saying is just so important
because
I think about a teacher that I met
who teaches, I think, in Nebraska. I could
be wrong about this. And and when the,
2020, in June 2020
after George Floyd and Brown Taylor Taylor were
killed by police,
I remember there was 1,
one LGBT
identifying woman teaching in a very conservative in
rural community in Nebraska, and we got into
the Twitter conversation where I was like, what's
it like out there? And she says, honestly,
like, I don't have any problems out here,
and I've got my Black Lives Matter signs
up. I've got my love wins. I've got
my
I've got my pride flag flying on my
front front porch.
You know why it doesn't matter to these
folks? It's because I go and see their
kids play sports. It's because I go and
buy their things at the farmers market. It's
because I attend a lot of the same
events and functions that they do. Like, I
think local control
is something that's been hijacked by bad actors.
I would imagine that your opponent may be
one of these people to sort of say
to that they dis they dis they don't
trust these small communities
to,
go where they wanna go politically. Because at
the end of the day,
a lot of our smaller and and I
look at I look at Colorado, especially my
my grandfather was from Antonito, which still doesn't
have traffic lights, right, in 2024.
And what you get there
can often be extremely humanizing,
like, where people
are connected and they know each other,
and
you also get curiosity about the world beyond
the borders of their town and community. So
Mhmm. It's got a lot of feelings on
on local control. Totally. I'll I'll say this.
My my opponent,
doctor Molly Hart is her name.
She is a
really smart, capable administrator.
And I I've shared this a lot. She's
also, she's also a friend. She's a kind
and decent woman. And I think that on
issues like local control,
we we wouldn't differ that much. The the
main,
like, main areas of distinction between us are
the I'm a I'm a public school teacher
through and through, and she's right now the
executive director for a chain of charter schools.
So when it comes to envisioning the future
of public education Differences. We we go we
go in different directions.
But one of the nice things that I've
I've enjoyed in this race is the fact
that,
she and I are both educators. We both
come from an education background, and this is
kind of the one
state school board race. There's there's another where
you've got a couple of educators going at
it, but,
but this is a race where our voters
are going to get to choose between 2
different educators who know what they're talking about
but who just see education and the landscape
in a different way.
And this is also what you get when
you get more teachers running for office. You
get people who are,
ready to talk issues and policy
and but who also will honor each other's
experience and expertise.
And that's another reason why we need more
people. Anybody who's listening right now who's thinking,
you know what?
I I think I'm ready to grab my
life preserver and my water wings and and
and jump on in. It's it's a space
where you can you can
you can go into it
and feel at least safe in knowing that
if you conduct yourself with
with with
discipline and honor and pride and and you
hold true to the things that you believe
idea that you might be running up against
somebody who also is is a good and
decent person, then you can have a fantastic
time running in a political race. People ask
me all the time, how how are you
enjoying this? I say, I'm I'm having a
great time. I I love knocking on the
doors of strangers and telling them, hey. This
stuff that I'm usually just fuming about alone
in my classroom,
this is really important. I'm grateful for the
fact that I'm now talking to human beings
about these issues and people in the communities,
you know, again, going not just back to
local control, but just to local care. You
know? The the school is the heartbeat
of a community,
and and it's it's a
place that is appreciated and loved by so
many.
And and that's why they don't mind you
knocking on their door. Because if you wanna
talk about school, they they got things to
say. There's things that they wanna let you
know. And as educators,
we're also great listeners.
And that's also why people need us to
run for office because they know that they
can talk to us, and we will not
only listen, but for you know,
as professionals, we take what we learn and
we transform it into instruction
and and new ways of making decisions. They
know that they'll get that with us.
Yeah. I really appreciate that because
as you can see,
you know, I think
it's so easy
for elections to lead us into the worst
version of ourselves. Right? Time. And,
and I love that you and doctor Hart
have a good rapport, that there's mutual respect.
There's difference of opinions. And at the end
of the day, yes, you run on your
principles, but you also
you also look at the communities that you
represent. And it sounds like both of you
are really looking at how to
at how you're gonna best represent
your communities. And Mhmm. You know, and that's
always kind of a process. Something else you
said that I've been wanting to you you
said it a couple of different ways in
this conversation
that I really wanna highlight is
so I'll take you through my,
my chain of thoughts.
Please. So you so you talked a little
bit. Right? It's a it's a wild I
love it, man. I always love it.
For well, first of all, there's just a
small aside. Like, I've known you, like, almost
5 years, and I've never seen you fume
in my life. Like, I would actually love
to see this because
I don't believe you that you fume,
but we can that can be another episode.
The
but the thing that really
stands out to me from
what you're sharing
is that teachers are really uniquely positioned. Like,
public school
Mhmm. Is one of the only places that
you are guaranteed
to have to be around people who are
really different from you. Mhmm. People that you
may never I just had my 30th, high
school reunion. Right? People who you
never wanna see again when you graduate. Right?
Or
people who you shared something with,
and and you've lived different lives. You've done
different things. Public school is, like, the only
place in these
American streets
where
you can't avoid
differing points of view. You can't avoid people
who are different from you.
I mean, you can't, but you need money
to do that. And Right. There's all these
things. But,
but, like, we've come to this place where
in social media, we carefully
curate who we stay connected to and who
we don't as a society. We go to
churches that are absolutely dedicated in exactly the
way we want them to be. There are
fewer and fewer places in the public square
where our
our opinions
and our experiences
are interrogated. And I and I don't mean
attacked, but Yeah. But interrogated
and questioned where we don't have to, like,
do this. It just makes me think of,
something that doctor Cowen said on our conversation
about his book, The Privateers,
where Betsy DeVos,
one of the things that is a guiding
principle for her and for some of these
folks who are looking
to really and, you know, again, listen to
that episode. I won't go into it. Really
do harm to public education
has stated that
school has replaced church
in people's lives, and we have to put
a stop to that. And, first of all,
it's not true.
And second of all, it sparked it it
it just, like, fires up this fear of
the unknown and the unfamiliar. And, honestly, man,
like, I think those of us who who
have been teachers,
we just know how to receive and talk
to and facilitate dialogue between very different people.
I had a kid in my class,
when former president Obama was elected
who, openly
challenged the president's citizenship and the birth certificate
and all that kind of stuff. And that
was a tough moment to
navigate because I love all these kids. All
these kids are dope, and they're amazing, and
they're 11 12 years old.
How do we hold space
for difference?
And then how do we create an environment
where when folks have received misinformation
that they're able to reflect on it and
critique it
and change their minds?
Yeah. Like and there just are fewer and
fewer spaces
where this is possible. Like, obviously, kids need
to be educated, and we need to be
able to give them a better future than
maybe what we had as kids.
Mhmm. But the bigger issue for me is
teaching
young people
how to just be with people who are
different from them. No doubt, man. And that's
why anytime someone brings up this idea that
we need to get divisive concepts out of
our schools, They don't get that our schools
are are meant to be the proving grounds
for ideas,
and and that a lot of the problems
that we're facing right now is because we
gave up on the idea
of of teaching young people how to achieve
consensus and compromise
through hard conversations, and that we, as teachers,
our job is to help facilitate those conversations,
help mediate and moderate when there are
disagreements. I do it on the daily. You
know? Whether it's on the playground or in
the classroom, I I help kids bridge gaps.
And Yeah. We have too many adults out
there who did not receive an education
where they had to bridge gaps, where they
could just turn their back on somebody they
disagreed with, and that was fine. And now
they're they're trying to lead in spaces where
they are, again, trying to dismiss
and and devalue voices,
and that's why we're facing all these problems.
That's why we do need more teachers in
these spaces. I think that before you can
become the the speaker of any house or
the president of any senate,
the requirement should be that you have had
at least 2 to 3 years of classroom
teaching experience because Some of these people I
don't want teaching. But yes. No. Yeah. But
but it's great. But it it is that
that that civic duty. Right? What are you
doing to really get to know people? Exactly.
And, like, do you know how to manage
these conversations? I watched the house of representatives
at the national level as well as here
in the state house, and it's like,
man, we need somebody who like, we need
a class
teacher to hold that gap. We need we
need somebody who has, like, helped
children, like, in my case, 11 12 year
olds navigate these kinds of conversations so that
they can help these adults Yeah. See through
the nonsense and and appreciate each other's opinions
and and then and then work from there.
And, you know,
one one point that I just wanna make
on what you were saying there is
one of the the things I also appreciate
most about teachers who get into these political
spaces, and I found this very true from
my run, is we don't tend to run
against things. We don't work against things. We
can be disruptive. We can be revolutionary. I
love it. But we are running for,
in this case, public education, or we're running
for the freedom to read good books. We're
running for
beautiful inspirational
ideas. We're not we're not we're not alienating
anybody. We're exactly. We're not trying to demonize
anyone. We're not running against
anybody. We are running for our children, for
each other, and and that's the kind of
vibe, that's the kind of energy you get
when public school teachers become public servants in
office.
I love it. I love it. And, you
know, just like you don't you you teach
the children who are assigned to your classes,
You represent the people who are in your
district or in your community.
I'm gonna get you out of here in
a second.
John Arthur, few soon to be
state board of education member, John Arthur.
Let can you share
so I'm so, obviously,
after this conversation, people are gonna be so
fired up, and they're like, I wanna get
involved. Mhmm. From your perspective, both as
a Utah teacher,
as an educator that was on that was
in the national conversation around education,
and now for someone running for statewide office,
what what would you say are some of
the best ways that teachers can become involved
in because I think to your point,
so many
teachers are sitting in their classrooms or sitting
in front of the couch or sitting on
social media when,
like, stuff, like, goes sideways, and it's just
like, the powerlessness
and the rage is just so paralyzing.
So
what are some ways that you would say
folks can get involved?
Yeah.
The first one I'm gonna put out there
is just
if you if you are not a member
of your local education association
or union, I would recommend
signing up. You know, it's not for everybody.
I know that people have different feelings about
things. But if you are looking to turn
your one single voice into part of a
a collective that has power,
the best way to do that is to
join
the the, you know, in my case, Salt
Lake Education Association or the American Federation of
Teachers. Whoever you want to join hands with,
more power to you. That's that's that's a
great way to get involved. And I would
add to that. If you're in a state
where you do not have a union, that's
why you need a union. Yeah. Yeah. And
Utah's you're not on public with us. Yeah.
Exactly. Utah has a right to work safe,
but we still are union strong. We we
make it happen. So work with work if
you don't have a union, work with your
people to to unionize. You know? That's right.
That's this is this is a beautiful moment
for it. The second thing I would say,
you know,
given the fact that I'm I'm on the
the dopest podcast and, you know, this is
gonna be shared out on social media. Get
engaged in social media. It's not my natural
habitat.
I I I came in a little bit
kicking and screaming about the time that that
I first met you,
because that was just kind of part of
the deal that that you had to, like,
start to you had to create these profiles
and start to engage with people. Interview process
was, like, how good are you on social
media, Michael? Yeah. Exactly.
And my my answers were not strong. And
I was, like, I'm I'm good at Facebook,
you know, but but that was about it.
And but I've I've been so,
I've been so much more effective at moving
the needle on things that I care about
as I become more engaged on Twitter. It'll
always be Twitter to me. Instagram, all these
faces. I just made a video last Monday
on a very Utah specific thing, constitutional amendment
a. Silent. And and it has nothing to
do with anybody outside of our state, but
it's it's I just made a minute and
a half video explaining why this constitutional amendment
is bad for education.
It's it's very wonky. I used a couple
of of props, you know, visual aids as
teachers do. That video's got, like it's it's
almost like a 100000 views now. It's at,
like, 93,000.
And and that's
hopefully, I don't know how many votes that's
gonna translate into against this amendment that I'm
I'm feel very passionately
needs to fail.
But that is something that whether I was
running for public office or not, is impacting
the future of public education in my state.
So get involved on social media. Get engaged,
but do so right. Do it respectfully.
Use all the best tools in your teacher
toolbox to do it, and people respond to
that. They're like, thank goodness a teacher entered
this conversation
because this is a reliable, valid source of
information.
The third thing, the classics. You know?
Write op eds for your newspapers.
You know? Go deliver those,
public comments in in board meetings, legislative meetings.
Nobody can stop you from sharing your perspective.
And if social media is not your space,
go do it in the spaces
where where some of our more traditional leaders
end up listening more anyways, our newspapers, in
our in our,
boardrooms. That's that's a good place to get
That's right. To just drop a seed that
might flower into something beautiful in the mind
of a policymaker.
The the 4th one, especially for teachers, like,
really get to know your local school board.
Get to know who's on it, where what
part of your community they represent,
where they grew up, how they are connected
to your school,
and and start to build personal relationships.
Because local school board members, if you reach
out to them and you say, hey. I
teach 5th grade at Meadowlark Elementary,
and this thing
has really become a problem in my community.
Or this is this is something I wanna
celebrate and I want to scale and take
to other schools in our district,
then then
a school board meet a school board member's
gonna be more likely to say, let's go.
I I love this. Let's let's have this
conversation. And those are the people who will
meet you for lunch. They're the people who
live near you That's right. And who will,
like, come to your building after hours to
have a conversation.
They were passionate enough to run for local
school board. They they want to hear from
teachers.
Alright? And then the last thing I'll say
is just
as we as we've talked about these murky
waters,
do your research. Like, just just become somebody
who is truly knowledgeable
on the issues. There's a lot of stuff
that I've been talking about, like this this
constitutional amendment.
In Utah, we're one of 2 states that
uses income tax revenue to fund education, and
we have an earmark. I I was able
to share with everybody the the history of
that earmark, the fact
just after the around the time of the
Great Depression.
And it was a a a a institutional
piece that was put into place as a
legacy investment in our children's education.
Yeah. When you can do your homework, because
that's what we do, and then bring that
to these conversations,
then not only will you be proven that
you're right, but you will be informing people
who were
ignorant of of the realities and the facts,
and and in no no way is that
necessarily their fault. They didn't do their research,
but we're growing up in the time where
people aren't doing their research.
They're not going out and, like, digging into
things before they formulate their opinions and put
them out there. So we need to be
those agents entering these conversations
with the homework done with the receipts in
hand so that we can then
guide those conversations to places whether or not
just scream fest where they can be where
they can become
productive
and and useful to children. We need to
use that as our opportunity to practice how
we transform our schools from being, you know,
battlegrounds for culture wars back into playgrounds and
proving grounds for ideas in children.
Man, I'm,
so I will name that I am registered
to vote in the state of Colorado. I
cannot vote for you. Yeah. I could I
would absolutely vote for you, and I would
tell everybody I know to vote for you.
I just wanna get it out there that
I will not be committing fraud. That's not
a thing that happens, but I but this
has been,
like, such an incredible conversation with you. I
hope our audience,
really picks up the ball and runs with
it that you've kinda set down.
I think that
I kinda just wanna run through a wall
right now like I'm ready even after playing
2 soccer games.
So,
how do people support you? How do people
learn more about,
about your run, and, you know, how do
they just boost your message? Thank you, brother.
I you can
boost the the content I'm putting out there
at vote John Arthur,
on Instagram.
You can go to vote john arthur.com
to learn about me and my campaign. You
can also make a donation. Those can come
from anywhere. I'm really proud of the fact
that in this race, I have out fundraised
my opponent by at least 4 or 5
times. I'll also say that one of the
one of the most sickening
experiences that I I had
getting into this was somebody told me that
in order to win the state school board
race, I would have to raise over
$100,000.
And the idea that you have to raise
over a $100,000
to win a state school board race is
nonsense.
But this is also, again, the the reality
of the situation that at some point, you
can you can you can rage against the
reality,
and then you have to do what you
gotta do about it. And I've I've raised
over a $100,000
at this point.
My ultimate goal is once
on my way. So if anybody wants to
support, you're welcome to.
And then,
9th Evermore
is my other handle on on social media
on x Twitter
and, also Instagram. You can come follow the
not just the good works that I do,
but the good works that my students do.
I posted a video that my students made
6 years ago in 2018
after the the foreign president Donald Trump said
that,
our, our, you know, why are we letting
in people from these s hole countries? And
my students 6 years ago had something strong
to say about it. Something beautiful and inspiring.
And Yeah. I gotta go look at it.
I I hate that it's it's even more
relevant today, but it's it's it's a beautiful
reminder that our kids know what's up. And
it's our job to to clear the path
for them and and put policies into place
that will elevate their voices.
That's what's up.
That's what's up. That's an appointment. So, yeah,
and and support,
support Sunshine in his run for,
for I love that I'm still Sunshine, brother.
You're always gonna be my sunshine, bro. I
love it. Even though you changed it on
your phone, I'm like, damn. I can't, like,
just say call Sunshine anymore.
But, I mean and I and I and
I call
him this, everybody,
not just because of the joy and the
optimism and the positivity that he brings to
the room, but if you ever watched,
the movie and remember the titans, there's a
character named Ronnie Bass. If you haven't seen
it, you gotta look at it. Ronnie Bass
comes from California. He's got this long hair.
He's a good looking dude. But what you
realize is that
he's unperturbed.
He carries with him this peace.
He's absolutely assured of the joy that awaits
him every time he walks out the door,
and he's just got this wisdom and this
openness, and you just give sunshine. So you're
always gonna be my sunshine. Thank you. Hey.
Ron Bass is also a disruptor.
He he he saw an unjust system and
and participated in the work of of making
sure that it it eventually met its downfall,
you know? So I take that all day
long. Yeah. All day. Alright. So you know
how we go out of here. Right? I
ramble a little bit, and then we say
stay dope together.
Very prepared for this. You gave us so
many bangers.
You know, and the this promise of public
public education, like, we can argue that it's
that it has been unfulfilled in various moments
in life, but it doesn't mean a promise
does not remain. So
stay
fighting for something.
Stay in the conversation. Stay engaged. Stay connected.
Stay joyous just like my man, sunshine.
Stay human. Stay stay studying.
Stay informed about what's happening,
stay in the dialogue. But
more than anything else,
you know
that you have to
stay
dull.