The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – When Mongrel Dogs Teach by William J Burghardt

Episode Date: November 26, 2023

When Mongrel Dogs Teach by William J Burghardt https://amzn.to/49SFyZY What happens when a 45-year-old Baby Boomer goes back to teach high school and finds the students are more in touch with reality than his colleagues and supervisors? In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand At the mongrel dogs who teach Not fearing I'd become my enemy In the instance that I preach -- Bob Dylan, "My Back Pages"

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go, folks. Welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate you guys being here.

As always, for 15 years, we've been bringing you the smartest people, the CEOs, the billionaires, the Pulitzer Prize winners, all of the brilliant people who write the most amazing books and stories that can improve the quality of your life and help you bask in what we call the Chris Voss Show glow. So as always, we've got three to four new episodes a week 15 to 20 new uh episodes coming out all the time so that you can really enjoy the show and learn so much from our guests that we have we had amazing young man on the show today he is the author of the book when mongrel dogs teach september 21st, 2020, it came out.

William Burkhart is on the show with us today. Did I get that right, William? Yes, you did. Burkhart. There you go. Wanted to make sure we got that right on the money there. And he's going to be talking about his latest book. He's the author of two produced plays, Just Before the Snow Melts and Shadowstock.

The next book, Walking Backwards in My Father's Steps, is set to be published later this year. A former journalist and theater critic, his articles and reviews have appeared in several Chicago-area publications, including the Chicago Tribune. And he's the winner of the Peter Lisigore Award for Outstanding Journalism, an honor bestowed annually by the Chicago Headline Club to candidates in the seven-county Chicago area. He's an actor, director, and former radio host for a theater-related program at Chicago

Area Radio Station. Welcome to the show, William. How are you? I'm good. The new book is following in my father's footsteps, but that's okay. That's okay. Sorry, I was reading the bio that was sent to us from the PR agency, so it's good to have that correction.

Let's talk about your current book that you have out, When Mongrel Dogs Teach. Give us an overview of what's inside this book and what it's about. Okay, well, as you discovered in my intro, I'm an actor. I'm a director. I'm a theater guy. I'm associated with community theater that's been called the best community theater in the suburbs of Chicago. I started there in 1978.

So not that I'm making a living at it, but I was doing this. And after a while, you know, I was laying out pages and, you know, I won the award and, but I wasn't making the money. So I decided to go into teaching. And, you know, I've been to parties and things. I don't know if you, people go to teachers that, you know, they, all they do is work nine months. They get the summer off. They make all this money blah blah blah you know and i was there yeah but then i thought well why not do it i mean it sounds you know like a great gig yeah so i you know found out that because i was 44 i was coming in at the low end of the pay scale and i had all this worldly experience i was a. I was coming in at the low end of the pay scale.

And I had all this worldly experience. I was a director. I was a journalist. You know, the local principal said, I'd hire you in a minute. So I headed off to, I had to go back to school to pick up a few classes to get endorsed. I mean, I'm sitting there January 30th at a newspaper. February 2nd, I'm at college. I'm in a class called

Music of the World and everybody's stoned. And I'm like, what have I done to myself? I actually started to tear up. We were studying the Nepalese or something.

Yeah. I had to take a multicultural class. The religions of the world was not available. So I ended up with music of the world. And I'm thinking, what is going on? Anyway, I get through that. I do my student teaching. I do classes in secondary education, which, by the way, I would like to say,

my book, When My Old Dogs Teach, a great audience for it are people who are studying to be teachers or people who are teaching people to be teachers. Because it's real-life stuff that to me uh with some exaggeration and i you know put that in now let me start i go in i got an interview a good school and the guy goes would you take a skills class and i go what's a He says, well, you might have to go a little slower. You know, I go, okay, I could do that, you know. And I get the printout of my class, and there's 17. Now, that's great, because I was told there was a minimum, or 30 is what you normally get, and I had 17.

Well, when I got there, it took me three weeks to figure out that every kid in there was behavioral disabled. And it's all of them. I had two, what they call them, BD classes. But I'm supposed to teach them, you know, the Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Anyway, every day was a fight. There was food flying.

I had a pen thrown at my head. One day I just took the podium. It crashed into the floor and said, what the fuck is wrong with you people? And all these kids go, oh, we're just, know teachers teachers i just sat there i just sat there and looked at him you know well i went around i got to the dean i showed him my list of students they go all these kids are in the same class because they knew him and And I go, and I'm a first-year teacher. And the person just cried. I mean, just, and this is somebody high up.

Wow. And then, you know, they say, call home. You know, I'm filling out referral sheets. Call home, call home. Yeah, and the parents are going, can't you do anything with him? I go, it's your kid. You raise him. I'm not raising your kid. I'm trying to educate your kid. Anyway, the principal came in and observed, says you got to call these kids' mothers every night.

And I'm thinking, this is not what I signed up for, you know. Anyway, the last day comes. We finish and the whole class gets up and assassinates me with silly string. Oh, wow. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, that's silly. And I, of course, I freak, but then it's silly string, you know. Yeah.

And so I go to the principal. He goes, that's the only way they could thank you. That was the only way. You did reach them. And I thought, okay, fine. Anyway, when I interviewed, I wanted to teach either journalism or theater. That's what my background was in. In fact, you have to get endorsed.

I was not endorsed in journalism, even though I had been a professional award-winning journalist. So I had to go take, you know, intro to journalism. I was teaching the class. But finally, they came at the end of it, and the teaching job opened for drama. The lady just left, in fact. And all the kids who knew me went down to the lady in charge and said, hire him, hire him. So I went in and they go, what's your experience? Well, I pull out a resume that makes it look like I've been, you know, Laurence Olivier.

I mean, it's this long. Granted, it was a community theater, but she didn't know the difference between Steppenwolf, Goodman. So I went in at the highest level. They give you a stipend. Like the cross-country coach gets an extra stipend. Band leader gets a stipend. Well, the drama guy gets a stipend. And I came in at the top.

So now I'm making some pretty good money. I got the theater. We do a play called The Laramie Project, which is based on the Matthew Shepard murder in Laramie, Wyoming. Gay student. They tied him to a fence. I don't know if you... Oh, yes, I'm familiar with that story. And so the kids jumped

all over it. Now, this was like about 2001. Okay? And they were all afraid. They won't let us do this. Well, I happened to show it to an administrator. He said, not only can you do this, you have to do this. Turns out he was gay.

Okay. And he wanted to go ahead and educate. So we did this. We were a big hit. Went downstate to the University of Illinois for Theater Fest. They only take about 20 schools. And you can only go every other year. I went four times in eight years. I took them down.

So I was kind of, you know, a hot commodity in the theater area. And that was the best thing. Now, here's the problems. I wanted to talk about the problems and the difficulties I had in education, which is reflected even now with what's happening in Florida. And you can't teach this. You can't teach black history, whatever. And the kids came to me one day and they're doing these college entrance exams, you know, and I'm sure you've been through that. Ours were, they put all students in alphabetical order in all different classes. You have to watch them. The counselors wear uniforms of, like you see on the street, green and orange, and they're carrying the tests around, and everybody's got to be in order this goes all over the school and i'm not in my you know and it's a big deal and i'm i being i'm going

well yeah i can proctor a test i read the paper they go you can't read the paper the people from the test act set whatever they walk around and if you're not doing your job then they you know they go all over you well this so the kids are going why do we have to take these tests and i started to think about it why do they and why did i and why and the worst part of it was the kids began to identify themselves with their score you know and I said look all this test does is quiz you on certain problems that a certain test maker wrote on a certain day that gave to you on a certain day and you got a certain score and that's all it's good for it's not you know it's it doesn't tell you what college you can go to.

It doesn't tell you anything. All it really does is allow you to save your bedroom. Save your bedroom? Save your, yeah, right. What? Save your bedroom? And I go, here's how it works. All right?

You live in a house in a town and everybody takes these tests and it's all very official there could be nothing you know and if i say i'm with boeing and i'm going to transfer to chicago the first thing i go is where are the good schools well they go to these test scores and look at them. And, you know, and if you can afford a high test score town versus a shitty test score town, that's where you want to go. And I tell the kids, this is what these tests are all about. They really have nothing to do with you. They have all to do with money and class. And I go, so if you don't want to lose your bedroom, that is, if you have to move to a smaller house in a different town, because that's all you can afford because your scores are down,

you have to do this. And of course they're laughing and I'm laughing. We had a school in town, one problem, and they threw out all the tests, and the whole school had to redo it again. Wow. And I'm like, I'm mad. I'm going, what? Is anybody home? And the counselors and everybody are, you know, they're dressed up like cops. Some of the questions are just awful i ran into one well i don't want to get into that question right now but that is one thing i found that was not

cool there's rubrics okay rubrics i don't know if you heard them of them. It's like a matrix. And it says, you know, theme, transitions, paragraph development on one side and across the top is not good, maybe better, whatever. And then you circle the box. Okay. And I go, what does that do? Well, it allows the teacher to give a grade and show a parent, look, your kid got an 81. Here's the proof. And the parents buy this stuff.

Well, I go, it does no such thing. I asked the kids, does this help you learn at all? They go, no. So I told very vocally, people who use rubrics don't know how to teach. Oh, wow. And I had kids whose lives changed because of the way I taught. But when I started knocking the rubrics, I wouldn't use them. And that became an issue. We had a dress code.

The dress code, for the girls at least, was if they stood up, their hands, if they go down, could not be lower than their garment or whatever. I had kids, not popular kids, and they go, this is all we can find at Gap and Banana Republic. And their parents were like, so I started to write up the cheerleaders because the cheerleaders broke the dress code their skirts were too short and i wrote up the soccer kids you know and the kids are going i'm not gonna i go go to the dean and they go no i refuse and then i go good for you okay but i want everybody to know and the principal called me goes what What are you doing? I said, you got a dress code. That's either a being enforced unfairly. Or you need new uniforms. And he, you know, so I became that was like a crusade. I would go to a dean, I go, look, you know, and there's this cheerleader, write her up, you know. This did not go over well with the powers that be. Oh, there you go.

That'll do it. But I stuck to my guns. I decided the best way to do this was points. Okay, just points. And I made it, made it say 100 points any assignment was 100 points now if you got you know you did a good job whatever 92 and maybe it wasn't as good a job i would mark on the paper 84 you know b whatever then i go let's say you get a 58 i go technically that's an f plus i go has anybody got an f plus in their lives anybody how about an f minus anybody get it mrs jones your son is failing but just barely i. I mean, it's ridiculous.

Yeah. And then I said, let me give you an example. Say you turn an assignment on a paper bag written in Korea that I can barely read, and I give you a 30. All right, well, now you're way down in F minus land. But if you turn nothing in i give you a zero now a zero is you can't come back from really out of 100 points you really have to hustle so i go turn something in and then i gave them as much time as they needed to redo it. Okay. I would mark it up and I go, if you want to call this a rough draft, redo it.

Redo it. I had some kids redo it four or five times. And they would get the grade. I also had kids, because of that, didn't turn in anything until the end of the year. I had one kid come in, all the work from the whole semester on the last day. He hadn't turned in anything. So I just flipped through the papers. I'm looking at him, and I threw him in the garbage, pulled up the computer, and gave him a D-.

Wow. And he goes, you're not going to read that stuff? I go, no, I'm not going to read that. You're playing a game. I'm playing a game. You're going to turn all this stuff in at the last minute? You know, but I was, you know, I enforced and really got them to believe in give me something. Okay. I had a kid.

We read a story. Flannery O'Connor had had a condom in it, alright, it just was an incidental, so one kid who I had nothing on he goes, can I do a paper on the history of condoms, and I go, okay now I've gotten nothing from this kid, I go, go ahead, it's in the story right, so he comes back with, you know, leather Now I've gotten nothing from this kid. I go, go ahead. It's in the story. Right. So he comes back with, you know, leather skin from Egypt, which uses a condom.

But, you know, and of course, here's his parent going, what? Why is my son writing about condoms? I go, this is the only thing your son has written in the whole year. And at least I can evaluate him on that right the other thing i wanted to hit on and this is very key to my book art is howard zinn now howard zinn is the author of the people's history of the united states and i got into an american studies class where i taught English and the other guy taught history. But we were a team. And Howard Zinn is actually in goodwill hunting. If you,

Matt Damon walks into Robin Williams' office and he looks around and he goes, you read all these books? He goes, you're reading the wrong fucking books. He said, the book you ought to read is Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. That's a book that will knock you on your ass. Okay? So we taught Howard Zinn, which, man, today, I'm surprised. I mean, the Columbus passage was all about genocide. All of it. You know, nothing about Christopher.

There was another book, Christopher Columbus Navigator by Elliot Morrison from Harvard. Big deal book. Talked about how he could, you know, sail and all this. One sentence about genocide. Zinn said, I'm going to write nothing but genocide. So he focused on the underdog, the disenfranchised, and that's how we taught. The American Revolution chapter was called

A Kind of Revolution. And the reason it was is because then, look, the colonies are like a Cadillac. They're running, they're smooth, and the keys are owned by King George. So a bunch of rich guys named Madison, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, they get their buddies together

and they steal the keys. End of story. Most of the people, nothing changed. The people who fought the revolution and were promised money, many of them didn't get it. They started a rebellion in 1786 called Shays' Rebellion. That's what Howard Zinn leads with when he talks. He brings up Shays' Rebellion. Why?

Because in 1786, the year dates were one year from the Constitution. What happened was some guys rioted. They locked him up and told the militia to go down there and, you know, discipline. Well, it turned out it's all their friends. Oh, wow. And they go, I'm not going to do this. So the next time the militia came, it was a guy from Georgia, a guy from North Carolina, a guy from Vermont in a central army.

The Constitution in 1787 was created because of Shays' Rebellion. Wow, that's amazing. And that's how Zinn teaches it, okay? Now, can you imagine this in Florida right now? Probably not. No, probably not. But that's what I'm concerned about. Okay, and what is that exactly?

What are you concerned about exactly? Well, we teach your children we're teaching them things that are not true we are running away from the truth about race in this country and race in this country is absolutely necessary. And they're trying to get rid of, they were trying to get Huck Finn. They wanted to get rid of Huck Finn. I loved Huck Finn.

Yeah. My problem is 240 N-words, okay? And the black students, they were all afraid we were going to riot if we taught Huck Finn. And I said, no, no, there's a way to do this. And people were going, I can't teach Huck Finn. And then I said, well, then you're a crappy teacher because there's a way to do this.

Because it turns out that Huck Finn, at the end of the book, who has been taught from his first days that if he doesn't turn Jimim in he's going to go to hell no and and and this was set in 1850 twain wrote it in 1884. now if you are a kid at that time and told you're going to go to hell means a lot different than today because back then you were going to go to hell. And Huck says, all right, I'll go to hell. He rips up the note to turn in Jim, and he's the one who changes. He's the one who represents humanity and seeing and overcoming the burdens of what he's taught because he's been taught wrong and the same thing is going on today there you go so what do you as we round out the hour let me ask you my final question what what do you hope people come away from reading your book well what i hope they

come away from is one if they're going to be a teacher they have to understand certain things. And I have questions at the end of the book about, for example, if you're in a school and they tell you, you can't use this book, find out. If it's a book you want to use, find a way to get it in. Assert your rights, but be aware of what districts are doing and try to change. The most important thing to come away from my book is that teaching changes lives. I had parents calling me saying, my son is reading your book he hasn't read a book ever and he's reading the great gatsby at night i go into his room and what did she go he goes my teacher really makes this book come alive i think i want to be a writer and the mother who was a third grade teacher thanked me and she said and i've been trying to but somehow

the way you teach uh really got this child inspired and i had i've had many many incidents of that that's awesome that's awesome we've got to round out the show so thank you for coming on give me your dot com so people can find you on the interwebs and get to know more about you. Well, the book is with Amazon. It's rated there. I didn't understand what you said. My comms? The comms you have?

Any webpages that you have that you want people to go to? Just go to amazon.com and type in my name. Right now though, I am working with Blackstone. Yes. And that's why I'm with you actually. And they're, they have an idea and I'm with them to try to maybe get it into colleges get you know people either colleges

or people who are studying to be a teacher you know that is what this book would do there you go one other thing may I this is a wind-up.

I have to do this because it's a miracle. When you have a miracle, I think you've got to tell it. In 1986, I was watching some evangelist on TV. I was drinking

wine. One of these who goes, put your hand to the TV and tell me what you want and it'll come through. So I said, okay, I want a job in my county that pays me $50,000 a year that has something to do with theater. And I switched the channel. Okay. Next day, I got a call to review for the local paper. Then I got a job laying out the local paper. Then I got the entertainment editor job. Then I got the features editor job. Alright. Then I got to cut school. And then I got the teaching job in theater.

And by the time I finished, I was at fifty thousand dollars. And since I retired, that's about. My benefits. So praise God. I mean, I I'm a testimony that God is real. And that was my dream. And I actually, I want to say, Chris, I complained a lot. They tried to get me fired on a lie, but I love teaching. I love kids. I had more in common with the kids than I did with the administrators. And the reason that is, is because there's some people who join teaching to get the summer off. They're not interested in kids. The people who are interested in kids, I call the other ones climbers. They want to climb up the ladder,

but I want teachers who are invested in the children. You've got to change their lives. And that's why, and that's my wind-up. Thank you very much for coming on the show, William. We really appreciate it. Okay, thank you. There you go. Folks, order up the book wherever fine books are sold, When Mongrels Teach

by William Burkhardt. Thanks to Monis for tuning in. Be good to each other, stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.