Screaming in the Cloud - Learning the Joys of Reading and Writing with Laura Brief

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

Before cloud economics entered his life, Corey’s first true love was a good book. On this episode of Screaming in the Cloud, he’s joined by Laura Brief, the CEO of nonprofit 826 National. The organization is the largest youth writing network in the country, something that’s near and dear to our hearts at The Duckbill Group. Corey and Laura talk about why having a deep appreciation for reading and writing is vital no matter what career path you take. From offering a creative escape for kids to moonlighting as a “pirate supply company,” 826 National helps children realize that there’s an author inside all of us. So check out this great conversation, and be sure to buy one of our shirts while you’re at it!Show Highlights(0:00) Introduction(1:02) Gitpod sponsor read(2:14) The Duckbill Group's history working with 826 National(3:01) What is 826 National?(4:43) Corey's love of reading, writing, and how it correlates with 826 National's mission(10:11) The rise of ChatGPT and its impact on reading and writing(13:49) Why GenAI fails to capture the feeling of writing(22:30) Why writing education is important(24:54) The benefits of reading and writing for kids(31:39) 826 Valencia: the Pirate Supply Company(35:24) Buy a shirt benefiting 826 National!(37:15) Where you can find more from Laura Brief and 826 NationalAbout Laura BriefLaura Brief is the CEO of 826 National. Prior to joining the nonprofit, Laura held leadership positions at high achieving youth organizations including Build, First Graduate, Juma Ventures, and The Posse Foundation, where she developed the organization’s first national career, corporate engagement, and alumni programs. She holds a Master’s in Education and a Master’s in Counseling Psychology from Columbia University, and is the Chair of the Board of Directors at Youth Speaks.Links826 National: https://826national.org/Reach out to Laura: [e-mail] Buy our charity shirt to help support 826 National: shitposting.fashionSponsorGitpod: gitpod.io 

We're working towards every teacher seeing themselves as a writing teacher and every young person identifying as a writer. And that doesn't mean they're going to go off and become a writer, but it does mean it's going to be a tool to use in their lives in whatever path they choose and a tool that they can use to understand themselves as well. Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn, and this is an episode that I've been angling to get for a very long time. Laura Brief is the CEO of 826 National, which might not mean a lot to you folks, but that is the beneficiary of our regularly scheduled charity t-shirt campaigns. They are a non-profit focusing on helping youth creatively write, which is something that I think is deeply important, given that no one seems to know how to write to save their lives in most of this industry.

Laura, thank you for joining me. Thank you so much, Corey. It is such a pleasure to be here with you. We've been working with you for so many years now, and it's fun to be in conversation this way with you. This episode is brought to you by Gitpod. Do you ever feel like you spend more time fighting your dev environment than actually coding? Works on my machine issues are too familiar and the VDI setup in your organization drives you mad? Gitpod brings automated, standardized development environments to your laptop and the cloud.

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including some of the largest financial institutions in the world. Visit gitpod.io and try it for free with your whole team. And also, let me know what you think about it. I've honestly been looking for this for a while, and it's been on my list of things to try. I'll be trying it this week. Please reach out. Let me know what you think. I will say that one of the funniest parts about this is the first year we wound up selecting you as the nonprofit that we're going to be supporting, we didn't coordinate with any of you folks at first because we were sort of seat of our pants style of approach, which is kind of common for how we

do these things here. And it was just at one point we've so we've sent out the donation and then we got an outreach from you folks that was a politely phrased version of, um, hello. It was awesome. Like, what is this psychotic thing that you're doing with the sarcastic shirts and the rest? It seems to definitely be benefiting what we're doing here. But are you a dangerous lunatic or not? Well, what's the answer to that question? Exactly. I think we found out the answer to that question.

If anyone's listening to the show more than one or two episodes, they probably figured that out. Instead of my talk with my hands, describe the vague shape of the organization. What is 826? Thank you so much for asking that question. 826 National is the largest youth writing network in the country. We work towards a country in which every young person in the United States has the access, has access to the power and joy of writing, regardless of the classroom that they are sitting in. We were founded, we have chapters now in nine cities across the U.S., and we have a free platform for teachers called 826 Digital that brings our tried and true ways to teachers

and classrooms everywhere. But we were founded here in San Francisco in 2002 by the author Dave Eggers and the educator Nineveh Caligari, and they had this idea. They were aware that writing education was not happening as it should in classrooms. And along with that, they were aware that teachers needed support bringing individualized attention to young people. So they decided to come together and to give birth to this organization that was about supporting the endless possibilities when you combine young people and writing. And we started at 826 Valencia and have just blossomed from there and serve communities deeply through our writing centers, through our work in schools. And as I mentioned, through this

platform, we serve about 730,000 students around the United States now. That is a significant scale. For those who are not familiar with David Eggers, because I certainly wasn't when I started working with you folks, he is the creator of McSweeney's Internet Tendency, which is far and away one of my favorite pieces of satire on the internet. It is just so well done.

It absolutely is. In case you hadn't picked up on this by now, a lot of the writing that I tend to embrace myself is profoundly sarcastic. And satire is generally right there. The problem is, is if satire isn't done well, it just comes across as mean. Well, I'll let you know if we veer into that territory.

I've mostly been able to steer around for that for most of the time. But it's one of the reasons that learning to write and learning to tell a story and to build a cohesive narrative is so deeply and profoundly important. And it seems like I'm going to be judgy here. I was never much of an academic. On paper, I have an eighth grade education after being expelled from two boarding schools and failing out of college. It was a fun ride. It sounds so fun. I bet you really enjoyed all of that. Oh, it was an absolute blast. My

teen years, spot on. Great experience. No notes. Were you writing when you were a teenager? Had you found writing yet? Not yet. No. And that was part of the problem is that we were mandated to go to 12 years in a grade school in the United States of English classes. And in so many cases, what the English classes themselves focused on, from my perspective, was so banal. It was, read this piece of literature that's hundreds of years out of date, and we're going to basically do everything in our power to drive you away from enjoying reading. It's like, we're going to pick one of the most heavy-handed symbolism-centric books, drop it on top of you, and then wonder why you don't like to read for funsies.

My love of reading endured despite that sort of treatment, not because of it. Absolutely. And we take a similar approach to writing. I think for us, writing isn't about the five paragraph essay. Writing is about embracing who you are, showing up as you are, and writing about the things that bring you pleasure, bring you joy, bring you sense of meaning. Writing for us is not grammar. It is not spelling. It is really the act of being able to take what's within you and put it on a page in whatever way you choose and to whatever end you choose. Just listening to your journey and your journey as a young person, your educational journey as an in-person, thinking what you were just saying too about,

I can't remember frankly, whether this was something we were chatting about right before we started recording or not, but talking about the love of reading and how some students are developing a love of reading while some are struggling to do so. And what is especially concerning to us is that reading is, of course, so important. You were talking about your daughter, your seven-year-old, who loves to read. Six-year-old, seven-year-old. Nope, she's seven now, and we'll remind you if you forget. Okay, yep, they're great at that. Your seven-year-old who loves to read and what a beautiful thing that is. My guess is she's learned to love to read partially because of who her family is, right?

And partially because of what's happening at school. What's happening at school around writing is abysmal. In this country, we are no longer defining literacy as reading and writing. We are defining it solely as reading. So you go to school and you can learn to read, but you're unlikely to develop meaningful writing skills anymore. And we have a bunch of theories about why this is. One is it's hard to teach. Two is it's hard to test for, right? So you can see, you can easily measure how a student is progressing with reading, but it's harder to measure how a student is progressing with reading, but it's harder to measure how a student is progressing with writing. The impact that that has on individual lives, but also on the course of communities and on the course of this nation, we believe is profound.

Reading is so important. Reading gives you access, right? You can travel to worlds through your book. You can borrow someone's mind. Yes, you can borrow someone's mind, but you can't share your mind, right? You can't share your mind. Writing is how you share's mind. Yes, you can borrow someone's mind, but you can't share your mind, right? You can't share your mind. Writing is how you share your mind. It was going to be a comment from some perspectives, but I saw a comic, it must have been 20 years

ago now, that showed a picture of a keyboard and a mouse side by side. You will be remembered for this, pointing at the keyboard, not for this and pointing at the mouse. And it's, yeah, you're remembered for what you put out, not for this and pointing at the mouse. And it's, yeah, you're remembered for what you put out, not for what you consume. Exactly. So we really work on this question of who gets to learn to write in this country and what impact does that have on the course of lives and on the course of the country itself. And we're working towards every teacher seeing themselves as a writing teacher and every young person identifying as a writer. And we're working towards every teacher seeing themselves as a writing teacher and every

young person identifying as a writer. And that doesn't mean they're going to go off and become a writer, but it does mean it's going to be a tool to use in their lives in whatever path they choose and a tool that they can use to understand themselves as well. Even something as fundamental as that is difficult in a business context. How many folks have we worked with over the years that would have dramatically benefited from a remedial business writing course? I have to that is difficult in a business context. How many folks have we worked with over the years that would have dramatically benefited from a remedial business writing course? I have to communicate clearly in writing, especially in the era of distributed companies. And some folks are not particularly adroit at getting their ideas and thoughts across to the point where now we start

screening for that during the interview process. We want a writing sample. Absolutely. And you just reminded me, I was talking with one of our board members earlier this week, and she said, we were talking about writing and the power of writing. And she was saying, writing is thinking. Writing is understanding. Writing is communicating. You can't take those things apart. To write is to be able to critically think. Writing is growth. It is all, it is, writing is the product of what comes out on the page, yes, but it's also this really important process. One of the, I guess, big questions of our time right now has been the rise of AI in this space. I worked with someone who had a, what I will lovingly refer to, and he did as well, as the asshole in email problem,

where lovely guy, terrific to talk to, but everything he sent in an email made you want to strangle him as a result. And AI worked to his benefit because he would take the email he was about to send, slap it into chat GPT or chat GPD as we in-house pronounce it here. And the answer that came out was like, make me sound like less of a jerk.

And it worked. Great use case. Yeah, it reminds me of a different comic where it was a person on the one side is like, great, turn these three bullet points into a blog post. And then on the other end, like something like turn this blog post into three bullet points.

It's almost an encapsulation protocol for public consumption. I'm curious before we, I have a feeling you're about to ask me my view on it, but before you do that, I'm curious. I, in advance of this conversation, prepping for it, I heard from a little birdie that chat GPT is something that you have found really useful recently. Indeed, though I've switched to using Claude for most of it, it tends to be the better model as a result, because I have a couple of shortcomings as a writer,

and I'm fully aware of them. One of them that's probably more relatable to most people is the fact that I'm staring at an empty page. That is one of the hardest things for me to start diving into. I just need something to get me started. And the second is that I write like I think. Given my particular expression of profound ADHD, I go from thought to thought to thought to thought,

and I veer off into tangents. I have a love affair with the semicolon and parentheticals. It's like every, because every thought comes with additional bonus content. It becomes somewhat unstructured. And I found that AI is terrific at both of these from the perspective of, first, it knows who I am.

And I'll come up with a few points. In my writing style, write a blog post about topic X, making points A, B, and C. And almost everything it says is completely wrong to the point where I find it borderline offensive. So I go back and I fix the thing. But what's left when I'm done is I've written virtually every word in the piece, but there's a structure that is maintained to it at the end, which is a crutch. I'm aware of that, but it's one of my weaknesses. I usually have a different crutch in the form of a human editor that goes through a lot of this. She's a developmental editor because my grammar and my spelling and my punctuation are on point.

Mom was an English teacher and it was very important to her we got that correct. Really? Oh, yes. Oh, I love that. I didn't know that. So it's never been, whenever I've talked to some editors in the past, like, oh, okay, let's figure out, let me look at this for subject-verb agreement. It's like, you aren't going to find anything that we disagree with.

Anything that we're going to disagree with is stylistic more than it is substantive. Like the Oxford comma, I have strong opinions that sometimes differ from other people with a different slash wrong strong opinion. It belongs in the sentence. Great. But that's just the way that the world works. And that's fine. But what I would never do is have it write something as me and then try to pass it off as me. Because what am I going to say about that in defense of it when someone asks me a question about it, when they deconstruct it? It's monstrous. I mean, I've done the numbers on this between the podcast version and the written version of most people's reading speed. In my normal weekly newsletter, I'm taking roughly a year of human time to consume it. So it's always been

top of mind for me to be worthy of that time that people are putting into it. And AI generated slop is not something that is respectful of that. Okay, I have a follow up question, if that's okay. Please. So you write these beautiful, expansive things, and then AI helps you structure it, if I am hearing correctly. Yes. Or alternately, it winds up giving me a structure, and then I fill it with those beautiful, expansive things. I've gone both ways. And honestly, I find that having it edited, it feels more in my voice initially when I do it that way, but I also don't like a lot of its edits. Well, whether you're going with path A or path B,

do you feel like your skill set for structure or your toolkit for structure in your own writing is being strengthened by interfacing with it with that prompt absolutely because i see what it's changing and it makes sense especially when i tell it to focus on those specific things that's handy the idea of not using it at all and pretending it's not there feels incredibly remind indicative back to math teachers who said oh you have to be able to do this all with a paper and pencil because you won't have a calculator and future. Now, in practice, of course we do. We have ambient calculators in the room. Say the right wake word, ask it a math problem, you'll get an answer. The real reason you need to know how to do this is so that you understand what

a sane versus not sane answer look like. It's, okay, what's my tip? 15% of $80. Oh, $45. That sounds right. You want to be able to understand how this works as you step through that process. That, I think, is the important lesson for the kids. But pretending these things don't exist, that seems myopic. Yep. So, Corey, it sounds to me like you are using Gen AI in exactly the way that we are wishing, wanting it gets used in the future, not just in the future, actually, in real time in writing education and in classrooms and with students as they're doing their work. You know, you look at, it feels like there's, and maybe it's just working in my field, but it feels like there's a headline every week that is talking about the end of writing,

right? Or the end of human creative expression because of AI. And there's so many people worried that this is either they really nailed, put the nail in the coffin of writing education. At 826, we're not worried. We are not worried about it. We know that writing is very much not just about the product that ends up on the page, but about the process and about the transformation that occurs in a writer when

they go through the process of writing. While we fully embrace generative AI as a tool to help students become writers, we would hate to see it replace them having the opportunity to learn those skills themselves. So we really, we think writing is an irreplaceable tool. And we think that there's some really smart, careful ways that teachers can use it and young people can use it to deepen their writing skills, but that now is still a good time to write. Now is forever going to be a good time to write. Now is forever going to be a good time to write. This is no replacement for the human capacity to write. We're not worried about it. We're very mindful of it and we're working with it. And we spend a lot of our days

talking to people about it, but we're not worried about it. One thing that I've always struggled with is I write the last week in AWS newsletter, which aggregates not just news from Amazon's cloud stuff themselves, but also from the ecosystem surrounding it. Folks who have written pieces about how to use these things. And I don't know if what I'm seeing is AI driven or just shitty writing that doesn't seem to understand the subject material. And I don't particularly care because neither one of those merits inclusion. I read the things that I put into the newsletter, not just the title that flies across my desk. It's a curation question. And I have to believe a lot of this is AI generated. Now,

am I not picking up on things that someone did generate with AI? Possibly. But if it's good enough content that it passes my reasonably high technical bar, I find myself not particularly caring because there's an explicit endorsement that I have stamp of approval, if you will, on everything that I put in the newsletter saying, I believe this is worth your time to read. And if I don't believe that, it doesn't go in. And again, there's a size and other constraints as well. So if people are like, well, I sent you a thing and you never included it,

I'm not saying your writing is terrible, though maybe it was. It's just that week, maybe there was too much of an overemphasis on a particular thing. Maybe it just didn't make the cut for a variety of reasons. It's sort of a random grab bag. But something I found is that by reading what I,

finding things I don't like, it makes me more tuned into what I do like. And I start writing in that direction myself. I have another question for you, if that's okay. Oh, you're always allowed to ask me questions. So like I said, we think a lot about the impact that learning to write has on a person and then the impact being able to write has on the person. And as one of our students at 826 Boston said, which just struck me, is that when we were thinking about AI, the conversation around AI and writing education, the student said that when they're writing, they feel like they're writing their imagination page by page, which is so beautiful, right? That doesn't happen by typing in a prompt, right?

And I'm wondering, when you're writing, how does writing make you feel? Depends. A lot of the writing that I do that I find myself being the most freeform is when I'm writing conference talks. I write an awful lot of those. And invariably, I'll build my slide decks out of a script,

more or less, to become my speaker notes, usually the night before the conference while I'm crying. But that's neither here nor there. Procrastination is a way of life. Ask me about it later. Yeah, the problem that I have with that is the time pressure. But other than that, being able to cast aside, cast about and figure out whatever it is that I want to write, that's freeing in a lot of different ways. What I find fun is when I'm just writing for me and I don't have to worry about publishing it or anything else. The grammar is still impeccable because that's the way I was raised. There's nails on a chalkboard. I can see the typo on the page and almost nothing

else when it's glaring at me. But it definitely lets me exercise a sense of whimsy that I feel like in corporate life I never really got to. And of course, my career has been whimsy for the last eight years. So I kind of run with it. Thank you for sharing that with me. I recognize that I was just thinking about too, well, it's clear to me that you view writing and the capacity to write as important, even with this tool available, right? That can help us put words on a page. And we clearly at 826, we believe that. I'm just clear that people listening may not feel that way, that some of your listeners may feel like I've had many conversations in which people are relieved

that this tool exists because they don't have to work. Oh, I'm relieved. I want to be clear. In some cases, I will use it myself as ways to remove work. For example, I will write a one-line sentence, like turn this into, I'll do it myself, turn this into a polite email. Now, I have the good sense not to send the one

that makes me sound like an imperious jackass, but there's a, but that is, I will delay on doing that. Just turn this into something nice. And I still have to edit it so it sounds like my own voice, but that is a time saver because it gets me unblocked. One area that I would love to edit it so it sounds like my own voice, but that is a time saver because it gets me unblocked. One area that I would love to use it if it's even applied to me anymore, which for better or worse, I've gotten to a point in my career where it does not, but I was always terrible at writing resumes. AI has got to be perfect at that because it is, resumes are fundamentally

bullshit and these things are a bullshit generator, but it's a stylistic bullshit that the resume demands. Honestly, at this point, I run a company. I don't have to be looking for work in the traditional sense anymore, which is kind of lovely. But people will ask me to help them with interview practice. I've got that on lock. I was very good at passing interviews because I was also very good at getting fired from jobs. Whereas help me with my resume, it's like, I can't even help myself with my resume. These things are terrible. Find someone good at that, please. But that stylistic approach, yes, absolutely.

Very often I will use it as well to just throw something together in a letter to a representative for some topic that I care about where I don't want it to look like the same every other form letter, but I really just want to register my opinion on a particular topic without necessarily, like, I don't believe it to look like the same every other form letter, but I really just want to register my opinion on a particular topic without necessarily,

like, I don't believe that there's a chance, a snowball's chance in hell, that my senator is going to pick mine out of the gargantuan mail pile from California and pick that one to read. But instead, it's like, okay, another one in support of Proposition L or whatever it is. Great. Awesome. I don't know what Proposition L was. Please don't yell at me, San Francisco local politics folks. Have they even had an L this year?

I don't know. I just picked a letter out of a hat. Leave me alone. Well, if it's okay with you, I realize that in this conversation, I'd like to make the case for why writing education is important. Please do. Because it's something I've internalized so strongly that it doesn't occur to me that there's an entire side of the world that does not agree with that.

Which is okay. I naturally assume people share my point of view, which is a dangerous mistake. Yeah. I mean, I think lots of people do feel that way and I think it's okay. And I'd love the opportunity to help them see it differently if possible. You know, writing, as I said before, we really believe that writing is as much about the process as it is about the product and that writing is transformational because it helps students and not just students, but adults as well, shape not only their stories, but their

futures. And writing allows people to put complex emotions and thoughts into words to reflect on who they are, where they want to go to discover what matters to them. And it's a tool for personal growth and a tool for, you know, professional or academic growth. And in our programs every day across 826 across the country, we see students discovering what's possible for them through putting their pen to the page. And they can go on to use it in a variety of ways. You know, some may go on to be software developers, some may go on to be authors, but they are discovering themselves in that page. Writing is very much a come as you are. Writing accepts you for just how you are and allows you to be just who you are. And I think that we have,

as Amanda Gorman, a 826 board member and also- The National Poet Laureate. Yes, exactly. She puts it, which I find so beautiful and which hopefully I'm going to look at so I don't butcher it. She says, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predict our hopes and dreams towards survival and change. And that is very much how we see writing. It's this intimate personal tool that can transform your understanding of yourself, but then it's this big, loud public tool, right? It can be a tool for democracy. It can be a tool for social change. It can allow people to reflect

on their communities and what they want from this country and be able to articulate that. It can also be this personal, right? And we are in a place in our country where young people across this country are struggling with mental health like they have never before. I think it was this last year, maybe it was even this year, the CDC reported that 40% of teens are experiencing feelings of hopelessness and sadness, which is profound. And we know that writing is a tool that the data shows us, our lived experience shows us that writing is a protective factor when it comes to youth mental health. Being able to express yourself in writing helps you find a way through it, helps you learn how to sit with your feelings, helps you learn how to express those

feelings. It is in that way and in so many ways, such an important tool for a young person to have in their toolkit. And then we also think that writing, learning to write creates not just these intangible things that we're talking about, but it creates measurable change. It changes how students are able to express themselves and their ideas. It changes the sense of pride that they feel around their own stories and their own voices. And I think it gives them a sense of agency, a sense of my words matter. My words can go anywhere. My words belong anywhere. And that is incredibly important as we're investing in this next generation of young people in this country. One of the, I guess, big challenges, I think,

is that we have an entire generation of folks. Maybe this is a human experience or that particular age group always, but a feeling unheard, a feeling disenfranchised of you're spending your entire day, dawn till dusk, being told what to do, how to do it, why you're wrong, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. For me, it wasn't so much writing when I was a kid. It was reading. Reading was my escape. My parents moved around a lot and I struggled to make friends.

This did not get easier in adult life, by the way. And so my friends were books, which led to a rich inner life, but very much a, like I would be called on in class and I would just be sitting there reading a novel because it was what I did in English class, of course. And like they would try and catch me off guard. And I would just answer the question without looking up and keep reading. And it was infuriating because I was right, but it was disrespectful, quote unquote. That sort of is an encapsulation of my entire personality, right? But disrespectful. Yeah, we'll clean into that. I don't pretend to be a mental health expert. I historically shy away from talking about the subject on this show, specifically because if I give people advice on what database to use, great, and I give bad advice, oops-a-doozy, we'll figure it out. If I give you bad mental

health advice, the consequences are significantly more dire than your website falling over for 10 minutes. So it's one of those, I try very much to stay in my lane. But this is an area that you are a professional in. You hold dual masters in education and counseling psychology. You're a former therapist for survivors of trauma. You're one of the few people I'm comfortable having this kind of conversation with on the air, just because it does not have the high propensity to do harm that an enthusiastic amateur can do as applied to other areas of pursuit.

I don't know how to write code like that, but I'm going to try it. And then we all laugh at the failure. It's like, I'm going to screw up a generation of kids. And now we're all going to laugh at that. No, no one will be laughing. That's terrible. Yeah, it's clear that there's a every generation loves to complain about new technology is applied to the kids.

This happened 100 years ago with newspapers. It was making people on the train antisocial. There were op-eds and screeds written about it. We're seeing it now with technology in varying forms. My kids are the iPad generation, though recently my daughter discovered the love of a Kindle e-reader. So it's, this is fantastic. Keep going.

It's nice to be able to see the glimmers of hope. And the reason she got into reading lately is because one of her friends is into reading and dragged her into it, kicking and screaming, and wants to get me to read her same series. It's like, oh, great. How many books? Oh, my God. There are 28 books in the series. Okay. I'm not saying it's bad writing. Clearly, she enjoys it and it's a good narrative, but the characters are not deeply complex. There is no mystery as to whether good or evil will triumph in the latest Dragon War. It doesn't hold my attention in the way that it needs to, but that's OK. Part of what I learned with all those terrible English classes growing up is that not everything is written for me. It's true. But Corey, the more that I get to know you, the more that I think when you were a young person, you would have loved 826 and that you probably would still love 826. When you were talking, I forget what you just said a moment of how you said it just a moment ago about school and the rules and all whatever you that's that reflection on school and how that environment made you feel

it made me just reflect on on 826 and we maybe it was probably nine months ago 11 months ago something like that good morning america wanted to do a piece on 826 and we went to we brought them to 826 chicago where it's our our writing center is hidden behind a secret agent supply company. And we brought in these incredible young people to talk to them about who they are as writers, what they think about writing, their experience with 826, all of this. And the reporter said to one of the students, I think he was maybe 11 years old, what's your favorite thing about 826? And he said, I don't have to raise my hand to go to the bathroom. And that might sound minor, but to us, that is by design. And that is huge. I've worked with interns before who had to ask permission to go to the bathroom. It's like, what are you going to do if I say no? Just get up and

go. Yeah, this is a workplace. Teaching norms is important. But yeah, yeah, bathroom. It's like, what are you going to do if I say no? Just get up and go. Yeah. This is a workplace. Teaching norms is important, but yeah. Yeah, exactly. There's certain norms at school and those norms are important, right? And then there's norms at home and then there's norms at 826. We're a third space that really are intentionally built to be silly, to be weird, to be whimsical so that students can be their authentic self, whether that's silly, serious, weird, wh be whimsical, so that students can be their authentic self, whether that's silly, serious, weird, whimsical. And they know when they walk into that space, both by how it looks visually and by what the rules, quote unquote, rules are, that this is a space that is different from any other space in their lives. And this is a space just for them. And so when

that kid said, well, I don't have to ask to go to the bathroom, while the reporters might've thought that was funny and minor for us, it was such an indication of, yeah, this space is outside of the writing component. This space is creating the context that it's supposed to create in which that writing can occur. We also work really hard to bring imaginations to life in a way that sounds like you would have enjoyed when you were a young person. We met your partner, Mike, earlier this morning at 826 Valencia, and we were showing him around our original 826. And it was founded back in 2002. And Nineveh and Dave found a space that they thought was perfect. It was on Valencia Street and it was near the heart of the mission, near so many of the students that they hoped to serve. They found this perfect

venue and they learned that it was zoned for retail only. And in 826 fashion, instead of giving up and moving on, they looked around and they said, well, this looks like the hull of a ship. Let's turn it into a pirate supply company. Yes. So far, San Francisco's premier and only pirate supply store. Exactly. 826 Valencia, of course, is the local chapter. I've talked to people who, about 826 National, they had no idea what the hell I was talking about. And then two or three minutes in, they're like, wait, is this like 826 Valencia? It's, yeah, I need to start remembering to mention that to locals when we get into that topic.

It is exactly like 826 Valencia. 826 Valencia is our founding chapter. And from there, it's grown to nine chapters in digital. So they started with a pirate shop. We now have a hunting supply company in New Orleans. We have a time travel mart in LA. But what I was telling Mike this morning and showing Mike this morning is hidden behind this pirate shop where you walk in and you can dig for buried treasures and you get to keep the treasure if you trade it for a joke

or a song or a story, right? Well, hidden behind this shop is this writing center. And the writing center and the way we approach writing is intended to be as fun for a young person as that pirate supply company is. So we have, when students come in for a young person as that pirate supply company is. So we have when students come in for a field trip, as was happening today, we have a very, very grumpy editor named Captain Blue. So I was volunteering there not too long ago, and a group of third graders came in. Three third graders came and sat at a table with me and they said,

Oh, my God, we've heard no kid has ever met Captain Blue. Are we going to get to see Captain Blue today? That's technically true. No one, no kid has ever gotten to meet Captain Blue and lived. Exactly. Didn't say that. No, no. That's apparently called traumatizing children. And most people frown upon that. Exactly. I was like, well, you'll you'll just have to you'll just have to wait and see see maybe. And then this big booming voice comes down from the attic that says, this is Captain Blue. I hear there's children here who think they're going to write a story. Children can't write stories and all the kids are all at Twitter. And then they get, they're like, yes, we can, we can write a story. Right. And we lead them

through this workshop, right. Where they learn to write a story, they co-create the first half, and then each student writes the second half by themselves. And those stories go up to the grumpy editor, Captain Blue, for him to approve. And these faces of these young people, they sit at the bottom of this ladder, looking up into the attic, hoping to catch a glimpse of Captain Blue. And Captain Blue goes through their stories one by one and reflects back to them something amazing they see in that story and then says, approved. And the student said, bye-bye, Captain. And just the love of writing that is born in that one experience. And that's only one of our many, many programs. But that is when I think about what you were saying about school earlier and the sort of lack of finding your way into it.

826 is designed for every student to find their way into it and for it to meet that student exactly where they are as creative, wacky, smart, bold, powerful little creators, you know? What a great philosophy. what a great approach. And honestly, it makes me feel a little bad now about, I guess, the follow-up line I have for this is that we are currently, when this airs, still running our annual charity t-shirt drive.

This year features AI being force-fed through a funnel into a goose, which is how a lot of customers are feeling these days with all of the AI-centric tech marketing being stuffed into them, regardless of whether they want it or not. All proceeds, once again, to benefit 826 National. And you can feel free to get yours at shitposting.fashion, which is a URL specifically designed to be easy to say on a podcast. Again, that is shitposting.fashion.

Please feel free to grab yours. Thank you. And thank you so much for partnering with us on this for so many years. It has supported so many students across the nation. And I do have to say that this year, I don't know exactly how many years we've been doing this, but a number of years we've been doing this with you. And each year, you and Mike very patiently sit down with us and explain the joke on the T-shirt to us. And we, in all transparency, we nod. We like maybe understand 20% of what you're saying. The year of AMI versus AMI presentation with the $10 for the wrong one that Amazon used an internal one. Yeah, that's a deep cut. It requires a very nuanced explanation. Yeah, we had no idea what you were talking about. We appreciated it, knew that. But this year was

the first year that we were able to be in on the joke, too. So we appreciated that. The best jokes don't generally require a five-hour backstory exposition in order for it to make sense. Who knew? Well, it depends on your audience. We're not your audience, right? This is one of those that resonates, I think, with an awful lot of folks who are just sick of the hype. I know I am. Laura, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to find you? Yeah, our website, which is www.826, the number is 826national.org. And if it's okay, people can reach out to me if they have questions at laura at 826national.org. And we will, of course, put links to that in the show notes. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Corey. This was such a pleasure.

Thank you for this conversation and for your partnership over the years. It means a lot. Likewise. Laura Brief, CEO at 826 National. I'm cloud economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice. Whereas if you've hated this podcast episode, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry, insulting comment that never really goes anywhere because apparently you never learned how to express yourself in writing.