Tosh Show - My Punk Rock Tech Teacher - Mr. White

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Daniel takes a crash course from middle school teacher Mr. White on STEM education, winning San Diego County Teacher of the Year, and acoustic punk rock. Join our Patreon for exclusive content: http://patreon.com/toshshow

I mean, listen, I've said it for years. Yes, teachers are underpaid, but yes, there's a lot of shit teachers, too. There's also some crappy podcast hosts out there, too. No. Tosh Show. Tosh Show. Hello. Welcome to Tosh Show.

I'm Daniel Tosh. That's Eddie Gosling. Hello. Do you think when you're cooking meth, and I know you don't cook meth, but you meaning just in general, people that cook meth. Do they have to alter the recipe when they cook at altitude? Like cookies, you bake cookies here, but when you're in altitude, you have to add like a little more baking soda.

I'm just wondering if altitude affects meth. Somebody looked that up for me. Not now, but, you know, just let me know in the comments. And share your family meth recipe. Oh, sure. If you've got a family meth recipe that you want to put on our, on our comments section, that'll be fine, too. And maybe what we'll do is we'll cook them up and we'll do a blind taste test.

Yeah. We'll do a meth off. Kind of a big meth cookoff. You're talking about a meth cookoff. You get the city involved. Get the city. Yeah, get the city out. Come on out, everybody.

Yeah, come on out to Malibu. We're going to do a big old meth cookoff. Malibu is great. Shindig. That's actually, it's probably an appropriate place to do it. Hey, this is, I don't know how long. long ago it happened, the World Cup. But I want to say something.

Okay, congratulations to Spain. I want people to know that I cheered hard for Spain. The whole way through. At the beginning, I cheered for Iran because I wanted them to win because I thought that was going to be funny if they won the World Cup while currently being at war with us. Again, everything in my life is about what makes. me laugh. But then I was on the phone with my good friend Sergio who built my home, who's been on this podcast. I was on the phone with him before the quarterfinals. The quarterfinals,

as you may remember, was Spain versus Belgium, the team that beat the U.S. It was in the quarterfinals that was at SoFi Stadium. I'm on the phone with Sergio about something random. I said to my, hey, oh, hey, are you going to go to the World Cup? Are you going to go see Spain? play tomorrow. And he goes, oh, no, that's, that's way too expensive. I go, I know you can't afford it. That's what I said. I go, I know you can't afford. I'm just saying you have so many, you know, fancy clients building their houses. I thought maybe somebody had given you tickets. Right. And he's like, no, no, that didn't have to go. My family has my kids and his wife had just left for Spain. They leave earlier for summer holiday. He stays and works a little longer and then travels there

by himself so he doesn't have to deal with sitting next to his kids and wife. Smart. Very smart. But anyway, so then I get the, you know, I'm like, oh, the little light bulb goes off in my head and I hang up the phone with him and I call some people. I'm like, hey, I have some tickets to the World Cup tomorrow. I'm no Timothy Shalamee. But let me tell you something about celebrities that go to sporting events. Usually they get the tickets for free, but in return for those tickets, they have to be there, they have to wave, they have to like let them know. You know, they do a little publicity.

You're basically announcing to the people that you're there. Now, if you pay for your tickets, you can just go and, you know, be in complete privacy. So I start digging around and they say there's no free. tickets, but if you want to buy tickets, we can hook you up. And my wife hears me doing this for Sergio. She goes, I want to go and your son wants to go. And I'm like, not. I was just going to give Sergio a pair of tickets. Now I'm going, I've never been to SoFi Stadium. I'm bringing my wife and kid. And we're bringing Sergio. So I call Sergio back up. This all takes me 45 minutes to pull this off. Do I get great seats?

Amazing. Why did I bring up Timothy Shalamee? Because he was 10 rows behind me. Ha. I'm like, I'm just a few rows off the field. My wife and I were cheering for Spain. My wife dresses up, you know, like a Spain soccer player. She's putting the face pain on her and my son.

And whatever. So I call Sergio back up. And I say, hey, Sergio, I got his tickets. And this grown man, he almost begins to weep. He can't believe it. It's amazing. He's like, this is amazing. He starts sending me a playlist of songs we have to listen to to get ready.

And my son started to go, my son goes, this song is quickly becoming one of my favorites. That's how my kid talks. And I'm like, what? And the song is like, Spain, Spain, rise again. from Champions of Europe to World's Best Friend. It's just the dumbest song in the world, but my son loves it. We keep playing it.

We're still listening to it, you know, months later. Why am I even sharing this story? Because I'm basically, uh, with the success that I've had in my career. I want to give back, but I don't want to give back to the needy. I want to give back to people,

uh, that I'm friends with. Mm-hmm. And that's probably not the right way to do it. I'm basically like make a wish, but minus the depressing sick kids. Right. Yeah, I do it with my, like Sergio, a builder. So we go to the game, we have a great time.

We're cheering. Spain wins. They go on to win the World Cup. I'm telling you, since this World Cup has finished one month ago, Sergio calls me or text me every two days. And he's just like, that's the greatest thing I've ever experienced in my life. he's like thank you so much i'm like no problem it's great it was great for me too just to watch him oh yeah you know the emotions he was just so he's like to say that i was at and the world cup

when they came to america and spain won at all he's like you know he goes to see this team in person so close he's like it's magical anyway i was like uh yeah That was a good afternoon for me too It's fun Not that big of a deal But whatever I mean I liked it I kept wanting to leave early

Nobody was doing By the way You know you know SoFi Stadium is amazing And it's It's built like Underground The field is like way below

You go in at level 7 And then you go down Okay so I'm way at the bottom I'm on the field, basically. So when the game ends officially, we've got to run all the way. My wife's like, don't stress out. We're never going to get to our car before. As soon as the game ended, Spain wins.

Yay, we all cheer. Yay, I got video. We're cheering. We're all screaming. Run. Let's go. Let's go. And we run to our car.

I drive out of Sofi Stadium in three minutes. I'm gone. That's crazy. It was easy. People, those Europe. Europeans, they don't know about leaving early. They're still in their cheering. Yeah, singing their songs.

Yeah, I'm like, we're gone. My wife, oh, I have to bring this up. I don't know if this is new or not, but man, does it irritate the shit out of me? You always hear petty things, and I've gotten used to most of them. She's not as organized as I am, but this is a new one. Whenever we have a bottle of something in the shower that you, A body wash, let's say. Let's just keep it simple here.

You open the body wash up, you pop the top off, and you squeeze some in your hand. Okay. My wife, when she does this, will snap the lid back on before the air comes out of the bottle. So it's just permanently squished in for no reason. It just looks dumb. She can't let the air out to let it. It drives me. Nuts.

I just, I know that I know this is so petty, but I'm like, can't you just wait one second for the air to come out so it returns to its normal shape before you set it on our beautiful marble shelf? No, it's just, uh, apparently the incredible Hulk lives here. Squeez. Squeez. Me smash cans. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Yes. My gosh. It's just a dumb. It, give me that water bottle. imagine I'm going to have a sip of this water and I'm just like oh that's what she does that's how her life

that is a symbol of how she lives her life if I saw my pilot sitting behind a bottle of water like that I'd be like no you'd be like no you don't do that oh but you had a squirt in your mouth so like let it I just

I don't understand it and I know she would just be like what I did that oh I must have done that once no you didn't you do it every single time and every single time I walk past the shower. I'm not even showering. I go into the shower. I open it up and I return things to its normal shape.

You better breathe. I hate her. And you can say that. You can love someone unconditionally and still hate them too. That's a passionate response. You can love them but not like them. No, I like her. I like her.

There's no one I'd rather be around. But I hate her so much. She's wonderful. She's the best thing in the world. But man, is that stupid? I mean, and she, listen, she gets it. It's not like, oh, I married some bimbo. This was the valedictorian.

She is a nerd about everything. All she cares about is school, learning things. Yet if I ever try to teach her anything, like, hey, you know, if you let the air out of that, What? Stop trying to be my dad. I'm like, I'm not trying to be your dad. Maybe today's guest could teach her something. Enjoy. My guest today believes that children are the future, but understands that technology is probably more important. He loves punk rock. Please welcome middle school STEM teacher and last year San Diego County teacher of the year, Kevin. Kevin, how are you? Excellent. Thank you so much for having me. First question. Do you believe in ghost? Obviously, yes.

You do? Yeah. Why is it obvious? There's just a lot of spooky stuff out there, man. Well, sure. I'm not against being scared of things, but actual ghost. Do you believe there's ghost? I think they're probably out there in some form.

Can't prove they're not there. Yes, you can. I think it's, I think you can prove they're not there. Just because no one's seen them? Well, no. I don't. All right. I'm not going to have this conversation.

You were born and bred in San Diego, went to San Diego State University, and once throughout the first pitch at a Padres game, sell me on the city, which literally translates to a whale's vagina, because I'm not a huge fan. It's a harder sell now than it was when I was a kid, because it's become obviously very expensive

to live in San Diego. But I love San Diego for a lot of reasons. It's a cool town. You've got a little bit of everything. You've got your beaches, your desert. You can go down in Mexico on a weekend if you want to. So I always feel like San Diego It's been home to me my whole life

But every time I go somewhere else I'm like yeah that place is really cool But San Diego is always gonna be home And it makes it really hard To think about like living somewhere else Okay By the way, did you grow up Jumping the border

And going down to Mexico constantly? Are you comfortable going through Tijuana? I feel like Mexico like was a place That we as teenagers like dreamt about going to When we finally reached the age Where you could go And it was like

You know, you go down there the first time It's like all right it's really fun You know You're 18 you can do all the things that adults can do. And then you go down there like two or three more times and it's like, I don't know, I kind of lose its allure. So you didn't do it constantly?

No, I think we probably did about like, you know, a half dozen runs as, you know, after 18 and that was about it. Did you ever see the donkey show? No, no. No. You'll see the striped donkeys out there that they try to pass off as a zebra, you know, right when you cross. And that's as much as I've seen of that.

All right. We booked you to be on this show because you are Dylan's sponsor. Am I getting that right? That's an unusual way to frame our relationship. I think we've hung out most of the time at family parties and there's no moment that goes by where neither of us has a drink in hand. We're usually hanging out by a pool, you know, somewhere at a restaurant, a bar, somewhere, having a good time. Okay, so how are you, you're not really related to Dylan, are you?

No, no, he's my brother's brother-in-law, I guess. I can never follow those things. Yeah, it's complicated. How old are you? 42. 42. 42. Life's just beginning.

Yeah. How long have you been a teacher? This will be my 20th year. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. When do you get tenure? Funny you should ask.

I've been teaching for almost 20 years now. I do not have tenure. I have moved around between like private schools, charter schools, all kinds of different environments. And in the past five years I've been in the same district. But we just now like started working towards getting teachers who are in my kind of position, the opportunity to work towards that. Because I teach in a unique program, we're kind of disconnected from the traditional teaching role. It's called career technical education. We're housed and funded differently. So they're finally going to start offering us the ability to work ourselves into a permanent contract,

essentially, whereas before every year, I essentially have the potential of getting laid off. Did you ever worry about it? No, I've been fairly well received so far. So how did you become a teacher? Like, were you like, no, no, I'm definitely going to be a teacher at a young age? Yeah, by the time I graduated high school, I was thinking about a couple different opportunities. Like I was thinking about maybe getting into art because I love drawing. I was thinking about becoming an auto like an automotive technician and I also was thinking about becoming a history teacher. So those are the kind of three pathways that I was kind of juggling with. And I was like, well, I feel like the most stable and most practical to pursue like university stuff for would be to

go get a degree in social science and see if I can become a history teacher. And maybe if I want to, I could do the other stuff on the side or, you know, find other ways to scratch that itch, so to speak, you know. You were practical at a young age, though. I guess, yeah. Well, somewhat practical, but I didn't realize getting into social science how difficult it was going to be to actually get a job. So that was the part that I didn't have the foresight to think like, you know, I'd be applying and be like me and 500 other people looking for the same job. Was getting the job harder than you anticipated? Yeah, because when I graduated from college, it was right after the 2008 crash. So things were, you know, the pink slips were raining down on teachers everywhere across the entire country.

And it was a really hard time to get in, even as just a substitute. Like the substitute pool was full. And were you a substitute for a while? Yeah, I did subbing for a few years. Yeah, it was, and that's a challenging job. Sure. Yeah. Because that's a free day for kids.

Like, that's time to party. You see a substitute in there. What was your favorite class growing up in school? Depending on what age I was. I liked doing hands-on stuff. I really liked when we got to actually go in the shop, auto shop was a lot of fun. I liked doing stuff where, you know,

we were working on simulations and social science courses. That's what really got me into teaching. You know, any form of like simulations, projects, collaborative work, I love that. The automotive classes. Yeah. That was always a certain type of person. when I was growing up.

Yeah. That I never felt comfortable with. We didn't gel that way. So while I would have loved to have learned that information, I never felt like, no, I can't, I can't take that. There was like a stereotype about, about those guys. And it was just guys. Now, are there girls doing this stuff now?

Yeah, especially in my level one class, like girls who were coming in in sixth grade, it's a pretty even split. We're pretty close to 50-50 in my STEM classes. But then after that first year, a lot of them matriculate and they move on to like a lot of the girls you move over to music or theater type or i should say like um band type stuff whereas like the i tend to retain a lot of the upper achieving boys to move on to my level two class what is the exact class that you teach it's called gateway to tech so think of it like um it's a STEM course which i know for a lot of folks that don't even know it like STEM is like science technology engineering and math and sometimes we'll throw an A in there to make it steamed to add an art component but i think it's implied like anytime you're doing all those things there's an artistic component. it to it already. So I kind of like that I kind of like steam. Yeah. I kind of like steam better. But it's a project-based course where students get to do like hands-on design process and design

thinking challenges. They get to build things, create stuff, use technology. And hopefully they become empowered to move on to a career that employs those skills. Just so people get a sense of who I'm sitting across from, you're looking at the 2025-2020s, San Diego County teacher of the year. Does that honor come with a pay bump or a free vacation or anything? I'm still waiting. No. I think. Congratulations, by the way. That was last year. What did you have to do to receive the honor? So your school nominates a winner for that school every year. So like there's one teacher of the year at each school site. Okay. And then that teacher has an opportunity to get recognized at the district level you apply through an application with a bunch of essays and you write these essays about your class,

culture, the school community and how you contribute to it, and then they move on to the district level. From the district level, you do it again to get to the county level. So it's like you keep reapplying every time you get the next award. And so I went through the school site, then I went through the district, and then I went to the county level. And that's as far as I applied to the state level. And I only made it as far as the first interview. And I knew after the second question, I just, I just floundered like crazy. And I was like, that's it. I'm out. Well, that's a good run. Yeah. I mean, it's a big state. I mean, who wants the whole state? way, you know, it's a lot of responsibility.

Is there a teacher of the year in America? I feel like there is a national, yeah, like a national teacher of the year. I don't know why we didn't get them. Yeah. Dylan. Walk me through the process of building an electric guitar and why you guys do that. And what do you do with all these electric guitars afterwards? The kids take them home.

Oh, you get the key. They build them, yeah, yeah. If they finish a guitar, I think there's only been one, maybe two circumstances where a kid actually finish the guitar and either didn't want to take them. at home or for whatever reason wasn't able to give me the replacement kit to take it home. Is there a world where that person, like a household that I grew up in, wasn't allowed to listen to rock and roll and maybe they couldn't bring it home because of that reason? I kind of did get that vibe from one of the parents once, yeah.

It was like, you're teaching them to make these devil instruments. Right. They've got horns and everything, I mean. I can remember the first time my dad found out I listened to ACDC. He was just like, his head was going to explode. All right, okay, go ahead. Let's hear this. Yeah, so the whole project started because I play guitar.

I've been playing guitar since I was in community college many, many years ago. And I've always wanted to learn how to build a guitar. But I never went through like a professional training that shows you how to make a guitar. But I did get proficient enough with the software that we use. It's on shape. It's a CAD platform. It's cloud-based. And on-shape, they designed the guitar on a computer.

Some preliminary sketching, but 90% of the work is done on the computer. They dimension everything, every pocket, it, every spline curve, everything is dimensions. And once they get all those dimensions right, I proof it. You put it on the machine with a piece of wood, and it subtracts and cuts down with a router. So think of like a regular drill. Like you have the bit that goes down. Well, it makes contact with the wood and makes one pass, very shallowly.

It goes down a tenth of an inch more. It makes another pass. And it keeps cutting down into it until it subtracts enough out where you have the entire guitar body. How long does it take? The cutting part's about two and a half to three hours. And how many of those machines do you have in there? One? One.

Okay. So it takes 50 guitars, so it takes a long time. I started earlier than ever this year we started in December, and I was still cutting kids' guitars into the last weeks of May. You have some of the guitars here that some of your kids have made, or are these ones that you are working on? The first one that's actually, like, mostly built down here. This is like a-

Bring it on up on this table, okay? But if you scratch my table, so help me. You'll 3D print you a new one. Okay, this is a real guitar. But yeah, but this is the... This is from a student? No, so this is our proof of concept. The ones that they make are actually much nicer.

I'll show you the other two. Okay, but this is... You're the horrible noises that are happening in your class are producing this piece of art. That is amazing, huh? This was like just me making a shape and testing it to see if we could even build electric guitars with the tools and the things that we had. And I got it to work and it's a functional electric guitar, although right now it currently doesn't have strings. But we've come a long way since then because you can see there are some mistakes. There's some unfinished parts on there.

And then now they're going for like, you know, kids like, hey, can I design a fish guitar? I'm like, yeah, I don't see why not. Let's, you know, get your sketch out. Let's see what that's going to look like. And they sketch it on paper. Then they turned it into a 3D file. This was a student? Yeah.

So that's, yeah, that's by a student. Wait, wait, the fish is this? Yeah, yeah, it's that way. Yeah, the eye is actually... The left-handed guitar? Yeah, it's a left-handed guitar. Oh, man. And the eye socket there is actually the input jack.

So that's where the guitar would plug in. And the other parts are where the different pickups would go. Do you ever go, oh, no, no, don't, don't carve out that piece of shit. I had some students that designed some guitars that were so peculiar and abstract that I knew it was going to take forever, but I've never tried to truly discourage them from expressing their creativity through the form of making a guitar. I think it's the coolest thing that I've ever done as a project. Can you think of some of the projects you made in school and how garbage they are compared to what these kids are doing? Absolutely.

Spice rack. Yeah. I took Homeck and I made three pillars. that said, dad. I had to make, like, shorts. Why do I make pillows, throw pillows for my father? Here you go, Dad. There's no chance he wanted it.

I love you, Dad. Thanks for the free trash, son. Well, now, this wasn't completed? Yeah, so in some cases, it happens where a student transfers out. I work at a school where we have a huge military population. So we do get students who start a project and they could leave things behind because they got to move or their parents get to put. Or because Trump just starting random wars.

everybody everybody nobody's nobody's at school today yeah how do you grade this guitar at the end of this yeah so we have like a project-based rubric where basically they're they're proving that they went through a design process so as long as they collect evidence of the different steps of the design process that they went through if they have all the evidence of the design process and they have a finish deliverable which is an actual guitar or at least minimally in the computer program a guitar some students don't even want to cut it how often does that happen oh you'd be surprised like there's probably like 10 to 15 kids every year were like, I'm good, I'm not gonna cut it. They're like, I did the computer version, that's fine.

I'm gonna work on something else. Which is weird to think that. Orks. Some would pass up on that opportunity, but there's always a few. Would you respect a student that cut it, that you graded it, an A grade, and then just immediately smashes it and it's like, fuck you, I'm out. I'll tell you what, if they could actually shred and do a performance on that guitar, and it justified like, yeah, I rocked it, I'm gonna smash it.

I'd be like, that's punk is all. Yeah. I mean, if they smashed it fresh off the press, that's a pretty bold moving class. Okay. Have any of them been like, oh, that's actually a beautiful guitar? Yeah, yeah. I've had a couple that have come out so good that, like,

I posted pictures of them online. They're very comparable to what you would see on a shelf in an actual music shop. The one part that we're missing that I would like to be able to get to in the near future is getting more professional level finishing stuff for, like, painting and glossing them and stuff like that. Because we have, like, you know, we do a bees wax coating. We've had some that have painted them and done like a urethane polish on top. But very limited few have gotten to that point where they have a professional finish on it. Most of them get to the point where they finish the guitar, it's up and running.

And that's as far as they get. They're like, I have the guitar, I'm done, you know. What about a double necks? Anybody doing that? I strictly prohibit double necks and hollow bodies for a reason. What? Are you kidding me? I want some prints thing.

What about just some, I just want some big spirals coming off of this thing? All right. I do encourage them to get wacky with it and have fun with it. But, yeah, there are some constraints and limitations. Does the school board give you free reign to do whatever you want? I wouldn't say free reign, but they do give me a great degree of freedom to make sure that, like, I'm happy teaching what I want. The students are happy learning. So if that's the context where, like, I'm happy delivering, they're happy receiving and the learning has evidence that they're actually making progress and they're able to articulate what they're learning, then they're not going to question anything.

They're very happy with what we're doing. We're making industry connections. Students are learning, you know, very advanced technology skill sets that people in universities and, you know, if you go to the colleges to take the exact same type of guitar course, like where you build an electric guitar, you're usually like just building from a template. These kids get to customize their own stuff. So in a lot of cases, I feel like we're pushing things pretty hard to the advanced level that they're not going to question much of what I ask.

Well, how are you paying for all this cool shit? Are you making these kids come in with a check from their parents? They're like furious? Sometimes it's through grants. I probably got, you know, six or more. grants throughout the past five years that have contributed either dollar amounts to specific initiatives for like 3D printers for different machines hardware robots drones that kind of stuff taylor guitar is the you know acoustic guitar manufacturer in san diego they're like the premium guitars

that every musician dreams of having and they were totally on board and donated thousands of dollars worth of wood to us on pallets made two trips to the taylor factory and they filled my cargo van twice so they gave us enough wood for essentially two and a half maybe three years worth of wood but it's usually grant funded or we have a whole part of our district called college career technical education and they get prop funding and other types of grant funding from the state and from the federal government to build these programs so that we have people who are ready to apply for jobs that they desperately need us to have. Have you taught multiple grades? All of them. Yeah. So I've taught everything from sixth grade all the way through adult ed universities and yeah.

Okay. And now you've settled in to middle school. Is it seventh eighth or sixth seventh grade? So I do six, seven, eight. Most people aren't drawn to middle school kids. It is just a bizarre time for both. Who's worse? You know, boys are girls in that scenario. So I tell everyone, like, the biggest challenge I have on a weekly basis is boys crying in my room, specifically. Okay.

Like, something about, like, they feel comfortable with me enough to be that emotional, but also it's never the girls. It's always boys crying. It's something about that age. They get picked on. They break relationships with friends. Their hormones are raging, and they don't know how to deal with. it so they just end up in tears because they're so frustrated they don't know how else to express their emotion. Do you tell the boys just to bottle it and bury it? I mean, that's what I did my whole

life and it works right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still haven't let it out. Yeah. Just I shove it down. My son will cry at the drop of a hat and I'm just like, I love it. I think it's fascinating, but I just know that I didn't have that experience with my father. What's the policy in middle school of making out Oh gosh. I busted a student. Are you allowed to make out? No, not really. Can you kiss goodbye before your class? I think most teachers would, they could care less if it's just a peck to your significant other.

I didn't French kiss in middle school. No, no. But I did do a peck. I did a peck. Oh, yeah. I think I had a peck. Yeah, I think I had one peck in that age. I was scared to French kiss, though.

That was too much. That's just funny that you have to watch this on a regular basis. And it's so gross watching children make out. I mean, it's not, let's be honest, it's not really flattering watching adults make out. But it's so sloppy and just their bodies are all like unformed. So they're just, they look like children who are almost becoming adults doing nasty stuff. It's just gross. You shouldn't.

It's just gross. Do you prefer public school over the private sector? So I've done the private school thing. I do see in some cases where private school could make sense for a certain type of kid. The majority of students I still feel like public education is going to, work out great. You know, I've done charter school, private, public. I've done most of the different grade levels across that spectrum. And I feel like, you know, the traditional public schools, especially in Southern California, we seem to somehow be doing okay, despite the fact that, you know,

we don't fund at the same rate as East Coast schools. We're much lower funding rates for students like per student. And I feel like we're doing the best that we can and somehow we're achieving outcomes that are pretty spectacular. At least in San Diego, I know that we're doing very well. Better than L.A.? I think so. I think so. How many kids are in your class? typically. 34. 34 is the max. Yeah.

We have, and I get to lock it down because I have exactly a certain number of PC computers that we use for my class for technology purposes. So they can't really exceed that because that's what I'm at. When I was teaching history at one point,

I think I had 39. You have to learn all their names? Yeah, yeah, plus kids for club, plus kids who just dropping at lunch and want to say, you know, hang out. That's a lot of kids going through there. Yeah, and it adds up to like 170 kids all at once, you know, throughout the day coming through.

I wouldn't mind teaching in middle school revisionist history. Is that, is that subject? available. Very popular with the current political climate, yes. Oh, it would be good. Do you have to do, and this is a serious question, active shooter drills. Is that a thing? Yeah, I mean, we have every kind drill you can imagine. Do they call it that? Yeah, but the kids know this is an active shooter. You just call it a lockdown drill. Okay. The lockdown's a pretty simple, it's a simple scenario. You kind of, you know, lock the door and get out of the way and hide if you need to. Every time one of these horrible tragedies happens in our country, do you second guess your decision? You're

decision. Because I always feel so bad for teachers that it's like you have a hard job to begin with and now we're going to throw an unthinkable on top of that. Yeah. It hasn't turned me away yet, but it does have me wondering like, hmm, I wonder what I can use in here if there is, if things go down. What am I going to, what am I going to grab at first? If things go down, your class is probably one of the better classes to be. We've got lots of, lots of sharp objects and dangerous things in my class that I have to worry about on a daily basis. So that'd be the one scenario, it would be like, fortunately I am in the dangerous room today. Another thing the teachers do that I could never do is I'm sure adults rub you the wrong way

and you're just like, that's just not somebody I'm going to jail with. I'm the same way with children as an adult. I'm just immediately like, I don't like that kid at all. Like to my son's friends, I'm like, no, that one's horrible. Yeah. And how do you just do that to where you're just like, no, I'm going to help all 120-some-odd 30 kids every single day? Yeah, I feel like I have to give him a pass. I'm like, they're just a kid.

You have to remember that you're trying to shape and mold them into what you want them to be, and they're coming in with all kinds of other stuff. But you get them for an hour, and they're already affected by their douchebag parents. It's true. Yeah, yeah. You got some wild card stuff to deal with on a pretty consistent basis. But see, on the opposite, I look at adults, I'm like, how are you an adult and still acting that way? You know, whereas kids, I'm like, you're still learning. You're figuring it out. Hopefully figuring it out. What about swearing in school? What happens when a kid swears?

I never swore until I became a comedian. It's so funny. I didn't swear in school ever. I wasn't a kid that cussed. Are kids their potty mouth? Yeah, you've got the potty mouth occasionally. I feel like with my sixth graders, they're just starting to feel comfortable experimenting

with controversial language. Whereas by the time they hit seventh grade, it's just like every other word. But when they come in the classroom, most of them realize they're in an academic setting and they at least tone it down a little bit. Every once in a while, you've got kids who just like it's it's almost like it's part of who they are it's like

their identity is just like they discuss all the time and I got constantly talk to you know pull them outside like hey I know you don't realize this but you like you said this word five times in class today like you can't be doing that I got to talk to your parents now you know that kind of thing but that's pretty rare talk to parents is that is that terrifying or fun or like just a part of the job I hate it absolutely hate it I think every teacher hates it but you do at a certain point you realize that like it does pay dividends to actually talk to the parents and spend the five or 10 minutes or sometimes longer on the phone with them telling them all the crazy things that their kids did. Once the parents get involved, a lot of times the behavior does change.

When teachers used to call my house, if they would call my house as a child, because you just had a landline, I would answer the phone and my parents were never home. That was, oh, I know that voice, you know, and I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, they're not here right now. Good luck. But one time my mom took the call, which is way better than my dad. If my dad took the call, I knew my life was going to be in trouble but my mom she started kind of going back at the teacher just apologizing right for my behavior and acting up but then also saying like you have them for an hour like I'm dealing with this idiot all day long I've literally had that conversation right like my mom's like just like I know it and then my mom one time said to me she's like I know that you're all I was never disrespectful to

teachers I was probably a class clown type of person but she would always be like she would tell me she's like you're i know you're acting like this constantly and you just have to be able to read the room some days it's too much for the teacher you have to dial it back so i kind of respected that she was like yeah and i did but but my father if he got wind of anything by the way back when i went to school to be the old man on the front porch i would have to get the permission slip signed uh that allowed the teacher to hit me that's how old i am i'm in And that was a real thing. They could spank us.

By the way, do you have a teacher's aide? No. No. Is that just something they stop at a certain grade? They're hard to come by because I don't teach it with like core content, I guess. I teach kind of like the fun class. They don't prioritize that stuff for like my kind of class usually. Okay.

But sometimes we have like support. If there's students who need a lot of support, they'll put someone in there for a special needs circumstance. What about like parents coming in to help? That's more of like an elementary school thing. It starts to wither away by the time you get to middle. It's funny how I'm anticipating pulling back for my daughter. I'm like, I'm not doing it.

The stuff that I do for my son, once a week I'm in his class for like an hour and a half for math every week of the year. I don't miss a week ever. My wife every single week is in the class. And how much help do they need these teachers? Apparently more than you realize. No, it's nice to have someone in the room, but also like if I could cherry pick, which parents I got to come in, that would be a huge part of it.

But there's always the parents that just want to lurk. They're not really there to help. They're just there to supervise their own kid. My thing when I'm there is I really just want to help my child, and I want to kind of help the other kids. And then I also want to get good laughs occasionally. When the teacher says something, I want to chime in. Ah, that's good.

The other day I walked into their class, and they were all doing something where they had their eyes close. And I just walked in and just screamed because I saw that they were doing some bit and I terrified everyone in the class. And that was enjoyable. I could see you having a good time with that. Should all your kids go to college? I think in our community there's a huge push to let kids pick a pathway for themselves

that makes sense for that student. And we definitely have students that know that they want to go to college. Their parents want them to go to college. They know which college they want to go to. But they also have to have a plan for what happens if you apply for that college and you don't get in. You're not going to likely get your first choice for college. You're going to get your second or maybe third.

Did you get your first pick, Eddie? Yeah. I got my first pick. I had BCC, BVarreveord Community College. Nice. That was good. Grossmont Community College. So I was the same route,

Community College to the University. Now, if I could do it all over again, I would have skipped it all. I had too much fun. I was having a great time. So I would do it again in a heartbeat. Oh, man. I would not do it all over again.

No. When people say you only get one life, I'm like, thank God. This is too much. Oh, are you kidding me? Yeah. Now, if you got to choose another time, you know. What I want is just to be able to control my dreams.

Here's my version of time travel that I think is doable. Yeah. You take your memories and you can go back and basically relive them in a subconscious like it's happening and you can slightly choose your own adventure. a little different from what you actually did. Inception. I mean, it's a little bit like inception, but not... There's a couple of movies that follow that.

I just want to go back. And mine's only related to, you know, sexual interactions. Sexual and sexion. My entire life. I really want to change everything that I did. Shouldn't have done that. Have you ever thought of starting your own school of rock? I mean, I'm not that.

far from it. We have a guitar club, we have performances that my students got to do this year. We actually have some kids who have gotten the point where they actually are forming bands in middle school. So I would definitely, you know, do the Jack Black thing and rock with the kids all day. Were you in a punk rock band? I've done a few different versions of punk bands throughout the course of my life. I currently am in a punk band, but I more so most people know about like more of what I do with it. It's called acoustic revolt. You do these charity events?

Yeah. So I take like artists who tour as solo musicians or like solo acoustic performers. We call it folk punk. Is it just an older version of being punk? Yeah, kind of. Okay. Like all the drummers had enough babies where the band can't exist anymore kind of thing. And all of a sudden, they're forced into this like new, okay, I got to start strumming acoustic guitars in the corner of a bar somewhere.

And so I get these people from, essentially, it grew into the point where I've got people coming from the UK, Canada, all over the United States. And we do a show at least every month. And people come in and we do, there's a handful of places where we put. in San Diego, and I get local people teamed up with people from out of town, and we do events. Some of them are charity events. Some of them, the charity is just the musician who's playing. Do people still, how do you listen to the folk punk just out of curiosity? Yeah, it's more of like a steady head nod instead of the head banging. Okay. You're not plowing into people or anything?

Not so much. No, there are some bands that do get people moving and dancing, but it's more of like a fun spirited mosh pit than the, like, the penny wise, you know, everyone's coming out bleeding from Warped Tour. Yeah, because I don't miss those days, but I kind of still look back at my glory days like, yeah, that actually was kind of fun. I don't think I can honestly say I've ever been in a real Mosh Pit in my life. That's a huge disappointment.

I know. I don't think I ever have. Have you been in a real Mosh Pit at a real concert that warranted a Mosh Pit? Nope. Did you go to Metallica and stuff like that? There wasn't like Mosh Pits there ever? I mean, there probably was, but I wasn't in it. I don't remember seeing it. I don't need it. No,

I didn't go to cool concerts. I didn't know what music was cool. I mean, I was a douchebag in Florida going to raves. You know, that was... No, I can say I've never been to a rave in my life. That was my world. I was an 18-year-old, you know, all they let... Yeah.

You're a product of your environment, you know? Another one of your class projects is to design and cut skateboard decks. The irony that schools have famously been so anti-scapeboarding. I mean, when I, you know, you know, You could never skate. They just never want skateboards on campus. Yeah, they professionally make signs that say no skateboarding.

They, because of schools, they created, you know, every rail has a nub sticking up to discourage you from doing something awesome. And you guys are pumping out decks. Yeah. Who's giving you the wood for that? That comes from career technical education funding. So we get that. And some parents have donated to. We've had some parents where.

We've got to get a skateboard company, though, that just needs to flat out. Say, yes, we'll do this. Yeah, and living in San Diego, I tried to find some, and I'm struggling. So what we do is we buy what I call it. It's a shaped maple veneer. So it already has the shape of the skateboard, but it's not cut yet. So it has the tails, it has the folds and bends and everything. But then they get to design the cutout essentially around that.

Nobody's making cruisers then. We got a few students who have done some kind of in-between cruiser-style, you know, traditional skateboards where it's kind of like a hybrid, I would say. But now no long boards. No long boards. No, we could potentially do some long boards, but, Wood prices are, you know, plywood's expensive. Listen, I know it's expensive.

That's why I'm thinking we've got to get somebody to donate this for free. This is for children, for goodness sake. I mean, listen, you're still going to spend a fortune putting trucks and wheels on these things. I guarantee you're not coughing that up. I would have knock on a little Tony Hawk's store, you know, maybe Birdhouse can help us out and hook us up with whoever their vendor is. You still skateboard? Oh, gosh. Every once in a great while a student will look at me and like, I'll be watching them skate and they'll be like, show us a trick.

I'm like, I'm just, it's a broken wrist waiting to happen. Like, I'm just like, I'm not going to do it. But I think it was about like maybe eight years ago or so, a student asked me if I could do anything. I attempted a kickflip and actually landed it, which is one of, I think, three kickflips in my life I've ever done. I somehow landed like at 30 something. But yeah, I think that was my retirement move. I'm out now. I'm finishing on that note.

We'll be right back. How much time have you spent in the metaverse? A ton. One of the classes I offer at San Diego State is I teach other teachers how to make virtual environments and design virtual reality experiences for their students. Teachers, teaching teachers versus teaching sixth graders. Yeah. Who are the better students? What blows my mind is that you do get one or two teachers who are just such a pain every semester that, like, it makes you wonder, like, how you can be an adult and teach kids and be the worst student, you know?

Sure. And I do see it almost every semester. I've got one teacher who wants to, like, submit all their work the very last week. And they want to, you know, try and schedule office hours on days when I don't offer office hours. And, you know, they're just being the lazy, bad student that drives them crazy. They're being that. I mean, listen, I've said it for years. Yes, teachers are underpaid.

But yes, there's a lot of shitty teachers, too. There's great teachers. There's tons of great teachers. There's also teachers that are like, eh. Yeah. I'm not sure you're the best teacher in the way. There's also some crappy podcast hosts out there, too. No.

You and your brother slept in bunk beds until you were 23. When did you two become orphans? Were you a top or a bottom? I'm a bottom. You're a bottom. Listen, we all know you're a bottom. I like the darkness down there. Is it an older brother or younger brother?

So he was older than me. Uh-huh. Yeah. Oh, well, listen. Yeah. But it's more embarrassing for him. but slightly. It's a terrible situation.

Did you guys watch Step Brothers together and just enjoy it? I feel like we did, yeah. Yeah. Did you ever put your feet up on it and lift it off of its... Yeah, I mean, they weren't even bolted down. I think I've injured some friends doing that, yeah, yeah. That's good stuff. You just launch them off and then sleep, yeah.

We met after one of my stand-up shows. the audience how it altered your life. It was the first ever live comedy show I'd ever been to. So I'd never seen live comedy before now. I was the first one. First one, yeah. You were a fairly new artist to me, but I'd heard your stuff, and it was hilarious. But like seeing the energy of a live comedy audience and like the explosion of laughter after each joke, like it did like make me wonder like, I wonder if I could do this.

Oh. And I can't so I became a teacher. That's usually what, as to quote Domerera. always what you want. You want people to watch you perform and go, I probably could do that. It looks easy enough, right? When did I meet you? I estimate, because the album says 2005, and I know we had just bought the album when we were going up to go see you, so it would have been 20 years ago, roughly. Okay, let me see, let me see this. This is my true stories I made up. Kevin, I'm sorry. And if you open up the fly, I said, it says, this album is dedicated to Danny

via my rock 1975 to 2005 this is my best friend and I implied that he died and then it says for more information on getting tested please visit I was so confused by that

is it a joke? Yes it's a joke but like this is the type of humor that's not acceptable today you can't imply that you had a lover that died of AIDS and there's a website to get tested

he's not dead No. No, and I'll be honest, I don't, he doesn't have AIDS. I'm sure he'd be doing fine if he did, but, uh, it's just absurd the things you could do and they didn't care back in the day. Everybody's on the show gets a gift. Now you, oh man, do I have some gifts that you're going to, uh, not care about? Yes, the first gift is just something dumb. It has stem, it has stem written on it. It was a gift given to my son. I don't like these things in the house. I don't, I don't trust him to follow direct. and he's just going to get stuff messy. So I'm just handing that to you.

You give it to somebody else. Lovely. Thank you so much for the science magic kit. Get that off my desk. Hand me this big thing leaning against the wall here. Okay, this is just a... Yeah. I need...

I've seen these before. Well, sure. It has all the pins in the back. Uh-huh. And you're supposed to put... I got it for myself. I'm like, oh, we'll put all the pins where you've been. But then I got embarrassed.

I'm like, all the places you've been are so fucking boogey. that I don't think this is a good, it's like I'm bragging with a map. So I was like, I don't even want to put this up. And he's like, so what are we going to do? I'm like, we'll just, we'll learn where you've been. You just give this to another teacher, whoever needs a word. It's a nicely framed, by the way. It's lovely.

It still hasn't been here. And all the pins are in the back. Okay. Oh, you're going to love that. Now, the next gift, because you once, you know, road escape where I was like, oh, this is a perfect gift to give you. Even if you don't use it. I started with my son going to these dirt jump courses, not mountain bike courses,

not BMX tracks, just dirt jumps. And they're crazy. And they have these huge jumps. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to kill myself. I mean, it's like X-Ga. I know, yeah. Right. But then they have these pump tracks where you're not even supposed to pedal.

You're supposed to pump. It has a skateboard biking and except. But I'm like, I'm still going to kill myself. I'm like, I gotta get rid of this bike because my son is starting to encourage me to do things that I'm not capable of and I have this ability where like if he pulls my chump card

I'm like I'm gonna fucking go for it anyway so here give me this bring me this over here. It's a bicycle right but it's met for like Are you shit? Okay, I had a red line stolen from me when I was a teenager when I was a teenager. This is not the model

this is a much nicer model Listen, this bike, I'm going to be honest with you. You're going to need to put a little grease on the chain. I've only written a couple times. It was a bad investment. I was going to get, but just for tooling around, I mean, what? Oh, that's great. I just can't have this in my garage anymore, though.

Oh, I will ride it. You're going to love this bike. Thank you so much. I mean, I was expecting like a candle or something. Like, this is amazing. Oh, listen, you deserve a huge map of the world. Yeah. You deserve the world for teaching these children.

able to afford to go. You had teachers that influenced you growing up. I always feel like that's where I missed out. I look back at my school, it was Florida public schools, not the greatest. And I hate, if any of my teachers are listening, I apologize. None of them had a huge impact on my life. None of them believed in me. I never got a teacher's like, oh, you're going to do great things.

That never happened. Yeah, I feel like I just got lucky because a lot of my high school teachers were fairly young. So most of them were like late 20s, early 30s. But relative to like where I'm working now, like we're almost all 40 plus. There are not many young people getting in the teaching profession anymore. The United States ranks 31st in the world in K through 12 public education. Why do you think we're so low? Is that low?

I mean, there's a lot of countries. Yeah. We're 31st. And yet we always scream we're number one. What are we number one in? I haven't yet figured it out. Confidence. That's number one in confidence.

That's the right answer. Yeah. Yeah. We're number one in confidence. Yes. Suck on that. How long are you going to teach? I'm in it for the duration. So I'll be in the world of education until they kick me out, basically.

They'll finally do a background check. Yeah. No, I think, yeah, at some point in the next probably 10 to 15 years, I'm sure I'll do something that's like analogous to teaching where I'm still in like the world of education, but maybe like, you know, working at a district office or something like that and maybe like, you know, teaching other. teachers more or something but well we need you we appreciate it thank you very much for being on the show thank you daniel all right kevin it's been a pleasure oh pasha daniel uh yes thank you i want to thank kevin for being on the show very polite of you well you got to raise your hand when you talk to a teacher we should we should have done that the whole interview oh question for every question i should just raise my hand you think you would have got annoyed that's good he'd have been a cool teacher to have

as a kid. Yeah. Somebody that's skateboards, punk rock, builds guitars. Yeah. But I do encourage his students, at least one of them, to smash that guitar the second they're finished. It'd be so funny. Uh-huh.

And then just take their shirt off and walk out of class. Thank you, Toledo. Toledo! Toledo! I had a dream last night, Toledo. You guys know what we're doing? No. It's Tommy Lee.

when he built that stupid roller coaster drum set that went upside down and he's like, Toledo, I had a dream that I could drum upside down. Anyway, it's something dumb that Eddie and I remember. Before we do the plugs, let me send a special thank you to Sebastian, my sandwich guy,

who also makes a world famous cheesecake. and I've been told this is the greatest cheesecake in the world. And Pete tried to, I told Pete, I said, hey, Pete, have him make some of that cheesecake. And as you, if you may remember on the podcast, he was like laughed at it. I was like, you know, that takes a long time. I don't, I don't just do that. Anyway, randomly, he made me an entire cheesecake and had it brought to my house. And it was, I was just like, oh my goodness, it was the best thing ever.

That's great. It tastes like a custard. It was so soft and, oh my goodness. It was unbelievable. Thank you, Sebastian. That's nice of you. All right. Our plugs, we got patreon.com slash toss show.

If you want to become a member of that elusive club. Right. It's a gang. I think if you have Patreon, you're allowed to share your password with one other person in your direct family. Is that true? Yes. family package okay that's a family package okay good you're but you are if someone has the

patreon account and they're seated in front of you on an airplane and happen to be watching on it and you have a splitter for the headphones you can listen in or no you cannot you can i'm told you cannot listen in oh that's interesting my first farewell tour guys the third leg is going on sale and by going on sale i mean it's been on sale for six months but now it's actually you know in the near horizon. It's happening. We're doing it. Pensacola, I can't wait to party with you guys.

I'll be getting a blackened fish sandwich somewhere. Toshoshostore.com. Get your merch. Now, hit the music. Time for they love me. They love me not. Hit me, Eddie. All right.

Here's where they love me. I saw your show in Vegas a few weeks ago. It was fantastic. I was struck by how good your posture was on stage. As a tall person, I know how difficult it can be. way to go, Jesse. Okay. Some people have said I have bad posture on stage, and that's not true.

I don't. I have good posture. I walk, goofy. I have an ugly gate. I've always walked funny. Nothing I can do about at this point. It's kind of set in stone. You can't change how you walk at 51.

I don't believe so. I mean, maybe after a car crash. Sure. Okay, you're talking major surgery, possibly. Well, anyway, I'm glad that they enjoyed my posture. way to go all right this is for this is

the name's impossible to read well you just say the letters if you want to mh p mh p m h f m f m u o asl it's like you just took an eye test and failed totally failed it probably the reading comprehension part of this has a timestamp this 919 way to go daniel

shitty research okay so that means at at one of our podcasts at 919, I said something that was inaccurate. And let me just say this. If it's coming out of my mouth, there's a good chance that I heard it wrong or it's just a complete lie. And for that, we thank you. Enjoy.

See you next week.