TrueLife - Jed Doherty - Reading, Comprehension, & Childhood development

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://readingwithyourkids.com/http://www.jedlie.com/Host & Producer of the Reading With Your Kids Podcast, Educational magician, award winning Children's Book author.Helping Families Grow Closer Through Reading – An iHeartRadio Best Kids & Family Award Nominee One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. We are here with a very incredible man. He's a producer, a performer, a comedian, a podcaster, a magician. a speaker, a storyteller, the one and only Jed Doherty?

Did I leave anything out there? No, you're embarrassing me. I hope someday I'm going to figure out how to do something good, so I don't have to do all that stuff. But you know what? I've taken a look at a few of your sites, Jedley.com and Reading WithKids.com,

and I think you figured out how to do quite a things really good. But it's an interesting journey. Maybe you could tell people a little bit more about yourself and how you got started. Sure, yeah. I came out of college thinking that I was going to be a social worker. Well, and I was for a bunch of years.

I was working with kids here in Massachusetts and the juvenile justice system. And I quickly discovered that I was pretty good at it, but I also discovered that it really is not a healthy way to live. I mean, I just, I was, as we say here in Boston, I was like wicked poor. I developed some very poor. lifestyle habits. There was twice of me back then. I just, you know, I went from being a college athlete to a social worker and, well, I became two people. And I just, it wasn't in a good place.

And I felt called to social work. I felt it was a heavenly calling that it was something that I was meant to do. And when I finally sat down and said, you know, I really can't do this. It's really hurting me just emotionally, physically. And I went back and I said prayer and I said, so I can't do this anymore. What do you want me to do? And I was literally crying when I said that prayer. And I sat down at my table and I opened up the newspaper and I'm going through the pages. And I can't see anything because I have tears in my eyes.

And the first article that I'm able to focus on was an article. announcing that Ringling Brothers Bonham and Bailey Circus were in town, and they were having auditions for clowns that afternoon. And I looked up to heaven and I said, dude, you've got to be kidding. But I listened and I went and I loved it. I was in Boston Garden, the place where I had seen so many of my heroes entertain us and win championships. And here I was in the center of this arena and it certainly wasn't packed,

but there were a couple of hundred people there. And I was making people laugh. And that felt so awesome. And at that moment, I said, yeah, okay, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I'm going to figure it out. And I did. And with the help of my beautiful wife, who I met through clowning, we figured out how to make a business out of it.

And it's something that I did for 35 years. man it's it's it's it's it's an awesome story and it seems like it's a sort of this eryodony thread that has helped you find your way through this maze we call life you know and you social work gosh i've i've been around some situations that have been very disturbing but also rewarding and it seems like sometimes those rewarding situations they come from heartache and it seems like that's kind of what that's it seems to me that's that's where laughter comes from too so sometimes. It seems like we can't have laughter is like this sort of response to heartache or it's sort of a coping mechanism. Have you found that to be kind of true in the beginning work you were doing? It certainly was. I mean, I think that I got a lot of my quote-unquote comedy shops working in detention centers and, you know, going in and just feeling in the air that something is about to pop in this place. And I am vertically challenged. And I better figure out a way to dis, you know, to de-escalate this or I'm going to have to try to do it physically. And so we did,

you know, a lot of humor. And so it certainly helped then. But also, I think being able to share some of those stories, you know, talking to kids at that time about their lives and helping them kind of figure out what went on in their life certainly has helped me as I am creating skits and telling stories through magic that aren't just silly, that they're real, powerful stories told and an entertaining and kind of fun way to, you know, hopefully inspire kids to make great choices with their lives. Yeah, that's interesting. I've always found that this idea of storytelling has been with us since the beginning,

from Socrates to Sylvester the cat. You know, it's this idea of being able to tell stories in a meaningful way is part of the human condition. And it sounds like you've found multiple ways to tell stories. And I'm wondering, can you tell us a little bit about, you know, how is it that you put meaning into this story? Because you're doing them through magic, you're doing them through performance, you're doing them through skits, you're doing it through storytelling. So is there like a certain way you have found to imbue meaning in stories?

And is it different for different methods? I think, you know, I haven't really thought about that. I know I'm different than a lot of other magicians and performers because I'm very willing to break down that fourth wall. And after I tell a magical story, will often. time say, you know, this was inspired by. And to let kids know that this isn't just a work of my imagination. My imagination isn't all that good. This is something that really happened.

Yeah, it's such a fascinating thing to be able to break through to a kid, to tell them a story or to perform a trick or be able to, convey a message to them that you know they'll take with them. And I'm wondering, as somebody who's traveled around, like, first, how long have you been doing this, this whole thing for? Full time performing 35 plus years. I've been doing, been the host of Reading with You Kids podcast since 2017, so five years. I, I, I, the pandemic was a real pain in my, my neck and all of our necks because it meant

that for a couple of years. There were no school assemblies. And I did a number of shows via Zoom. And as much fun as I'm having speaking to youth via Zoom, performing for three, four, five hundred kids through Zoom is absolutely horrible. It's true. You get, no, there's no response because everybody's on mute. You're doing the show and you're telling jokes.

I'm like, I'm going to laugh at this joke myself. Otherwise, I'm going to think I'm bomb. But yeah, so that was a long answer to a show, of course. No, it's a beautiful answer. I think it's true. I'm curious to get your thoughts on. If you felt that way through Zoom and you're trying to perform through Zoom, how do you see, I'm willing to bet the same thing was true for kids through Zoom.

Like I have a daughter who was around seven that time and she was going to school online. And, you know, it's this weird age where, you know, you kind of know, you kind of know the computer, but you kind of don't. So the parents kind of have to be there, but they kind of shouldn't. And much like you said, like there's this, there is this sort of relationship that happens when, when you're next to me, when there's this felt presence of the other. When I can see you physically, I can see your face and I can feel your emotions and stuff like that. And that seems to be gone through Zoom. How do you think that that changes education?

Like, can you see how it's changed your relationship with kids since this whole digitization has gone through? Well, one of the things it was most difficult for me is that my show is really, totally interactive. And something that I didn't realize, until my daughter pointed it out to me when she was 12, she used to come out and go on tour with me and perform with me at lots of shows. And she said as we were driving home one day, she goes, you know, you're different in that, you're not up on stage like most magicians saying, look at me, look at how cool I am. You bring kids up on stage.

They seem to do the magic trick. So you're all about saying, hey, look at this kid. Look how amazing this kid is. And while we can do that on some level through Zoom, it's not as powerful. You know, when something, you know, appears. And when I ask a kid live on stage to do something and then suddenly something appears in their hand and their friends can see this. And it's like, okay, yeah, you are pretty special. Okay.

You just lose a lot of you. You can't do that when you're doing through Zoom. As for education, my beautiful wife just retired from teaching after 34 years. And the last two years were spent, of course, mostly remote. And the thing that was most frustrating was that a lot of public schools were trying to reinvent the wheel. They were trying to take what they were doing in class and do the exact same thing through Zoom when there are people who figured out this online learning.

There's been online schools, K through 12, in colleges for at least a decade. And it's very different than the way you teach kids in class. and I got it on, you know, on March 17th when, you know, we said, okay, we're going to be out for two weeks. And then we'll be right back to normal. I understood when the schools didn't, you know, feel a need to reach out. But I was, I was pretty clear back in April of 2020 that this was going to be a long haul and the kids weren't going back to school for a long time. And at that point, still, it didn't seem like anybody said, hey, let's pick up the phone. And see how these other folks have been doing it.

Maybe we can replicate that instead of banging our heads against the wall, which is what so many people had to do. Yeah, I agree. It's a very interesting time to see how quickly the world is changing and to see the ramifications of those changes in almost real time. You know, I was, I was watching one of your videos, and I just want to share with the listening audience a little bit about, I'll try to paint him a picture here.

Okay. So Jed is on stage, and he is performing. forming this magic trick. And it's, he's got this bag and he brings up this adorable little girl on stage. And there's this bag and this bag is empty. And this girl, Jed allows her, he puts the magic in her somehow.

He imbues the magic in her and she makes this egg appear in this bag. But what the most magic part to me, like it was a great trick. And maybe I'll get you to flesh it a little bit more in a second. But the most beautiful, one of the most beautiful parts that I thought about it was after the trick, everyone started clapping. And you reached over to that little girl and you said, wow, all these people here are clapping for you.

Doesn't that make you feel beautiful? Oh, man, that was so cool. It was like you gave her the spotlight and really allowed her to understand what it's like to be adored by doing something beautiful. I thought that was awesome, Jen. Well, thank you. Thank you. I'm going to tell you a little backstory about that. That was a New Year's Eve performance in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

and I believe we're in the New Bedford Art Museum, and she was just such a beautiful little kid. And I know the cable TV, cable access TV, who filmed that, they were coming in and they were setting up after I had started the performance. And when she saw the egg that she made appearance either of it, when that appeared, her expression, I'm looking at her expression,

And I'm thinking to myself, oh, please, I hope you caught that. This is so amazing. I believe, please tell you caught that. But the, I saw that prop that I use. It's a prop that lots of magicians use is called an egg bag. And it's a classic, it's kind of like a lot of people might refer to it as a sucker trick. And the way a lot of magicians perform it is to get up on stage and, hey, reach inside the bag. Do you feel anything? No, it's empty. What do you mean? Here's an egg inside here.

And you just make the person look stupid or it's a puzzle. And I was down in Washington, D.C. at Al Cohen's magic shop, classic, classic magic shop. And I was there with my beautiful wife and my newborn son. And I walked into the shop and I said, hey, do you have something here that I might not have seen? And the man behind the counter said, yes, we have an egg bag. And my first thing is, I know what an egg, I don't, but he showed me this. And it was different because there was a mesh. The front part of the bag was made of mesh. So you could see into the bag.

You reach your hand in, you could see that it was empty. And then when the egg appeared, the egg appears in the bag. And he was demonstrating to me, oh, you can still make it make them feel silly and turn it around and hide the egg on the other thing. And I saw it and I goes, I want that. And all I am going to do is have the person make the egg appear because that for my show, that was the most magic. There's nothing. What could I have done after that girl had that expression and the people were entertained?

There's nowhere I could go after that except to say, isn't she awesome? Yeah. It was, it was beautiful. And it's, I think it was a great look into what, not only what, one man can achieve, but what one magician can achieve and how magic can steal the hearts of not only the crowd, but like that little girl will remember that forever. You know what I mean? Like those are the kind of things that I think we as older adults or people can can create memories in the lives of children. And I think you might be doing that as well with your other website

reading with your kids.com. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how that got started? Sure. Again, divine inspiration. I had been doing a podcast, a parenting podcast, and it was okay, but I was interviewing psychiatrists and psychologists and counselors. And I actually fell asleep during one of my interviews after doing it for two years. And I said, okay, time for this. But I, so I went to some consultants. And I said, what should I do next? And they're like asking me all these questions and charging me all this money. And they said, you know, you do a lot of shows in Catholic schools. And faith is important to you. So you should do a Catholic podcast. You should go out and you should, that's, you should become the Catholic podcaster and the Catholic magician and Catholic Catholic Catholic. And I was all set up for that. I had a domain set up and a website. And I was about to push the button. But I said a prayer. And I said, oh, you don't want me to do that. Okay. And, you know, and I thought a little bit more and I thought, you know, the relationship that I have and my beautiful wife has with our two adult kids was the foundation for that relationship was built when they were on our laps, when they were infants, and we were reading with them every day and having conversations with them and asking them questions. What do you think about this? And what do you think should happen? and next and what do you want to read? And I know that the fact that we're able to sit down and talk with them and spend time with them, it all goes back to the fact that we did all that reading together through the time that they became independent readers up until middle school. And then, you know, when they hit middle school, it was we shifted from books to watching

TV together and talking about and doing the same thing, hitting the pause button, what do you think is happening? What do you think is going on? Having those conversations. So I realized that that's, instead of trying to spread the gospel that these consultants thought I should do, that God really wanted me to share that secret, that reading with your kids is so vital and so important and so awesome because it just makes it's great for the kids but it makes you feel so good you're spending time with your kids your grandkids your nieces your nephews and for 20 minutes you're just there and you're in the zone together and there's nothing else in the world and you're not being distracted by a screen and they're not worrying about getting likes on instagram or

TikTok and it's just you two and that's beautiful Yeah, I couldn't agree. I couldn't agree more. And it takes us back to the art of storytelling. And for generations and probably throughout human history, there's been times where the family comes together. Sometimes it may be in a, you know, like at the Elusinian Mysteries, or it may be at the amphitheater down from your house,

or it might be in your own bedroom or your own living room, but you are participating in this human activity called storytelling or reading. And I think that you're spreading the gospel of critical thinking when you begin reading to a child. You allow them to begin making up their own ideas of what's happening. And there's something real, I bet you everyone has had this experience where you go, you read the book, and then you go watch the movie. And you're like, oh, you know what? I kind of like the book better.

There was way more in the book. They didn't do it justice. Or maybe you like the movie better. But at least you have something to compare it to. And I think that there's been quite a bit of studies. that show how much more children achieve a better future when they read earlier. Is that the kind of information stuff you looked into? There are so many benefits to reading with your kids.

You know, and again, I came in, I'm a dummy. I'm a clown. I'm doing shows. And so for me, the most important thing is growing close to your kids. And to be honest with you, I still think that's the most important thing. But there are so many studies. I mean, kids, I just discovered, I ran across this one statistic. Kids who are read to you every day earn more money.

You think, well, of course they're smart. They read. No, no. They're more empathetic. When you read, you develop empathy and you're a better teammate. You work better in a team. And so those people are going out and finding much more success in life and in, in, and in the in the professional world.

A kid who is read to every day for 20 minutes, when they get to kindergarten, they will have heard over 800,000 more words than their peers who are not read to. And that, you know, we're talking about equity these days. That's an inequity that never goes away. And because, you know, when that, kid who wasn't read to starts kindergarten when my kid starts kindergarten with this peer

my my kids just are going to add on to those 800,000 more words and that gap is going to grow and grow and I've sat down with with reading experts and people who are really fighting hard for equity and I'm like so what do we do to close this gap we don't tell parents to stop reading with their kids right and And they're like, no, of course not. But we have to figure out ways to help those families. And there's lots of reasons why some parents aren't reading with their kids. It could be that they're not able to read. I think I saw a statistic that a third of adults in the United States aren't readers,

that they don't feel confident enough to read a kid's book. Wow. You know, my beautiful wife, I sat down with her and I talked to her. I said, how can I get the parents in your school, the inner city schools in Boston, how can I get them to listen to my podcast to read more? And my wife said, you know, a lot of my parents can't speak English. They're working three jobs to be able to afford. I don't know what it's like in Hawaii.

Written in Boston is obscene. And, you know, a single person has to work two or three jobs to afford an apartment. I truly don't know how people are affording to live. So there's all these different things that are getting in the way of a lot of families reading with their kids. And one of the things that I'm hoping to do as we move forward with the podcast is to figure out ways to support those parents, to give them more opportunities to read. A lot of, you know, we talk about one of the things we discovered is that having as few as 20 books in the home, it greatly increases a child's chance of going to university.

Well, for me and my beautiful wife, 20 books in a library, that's nothing. Yeah. But for a lot of families, 20 books, $15, $20 a book. Now we're talking $355, $400, $500. That's a lot. And so we need to figure out ways to support those families. If we truly want equity in our society, and I think we do, we need to figure out ways to help those kids who aren't being read to. Yeah, that's, I see a lot of beauty in that.

Like, while it seems like it's so daunting, this continuing widening gap between the haves and have-nots, in some ways, while it wouldn't happen overnight, the idea that it can significantly close the gap by getting books in, just by getting books in the house could close that gap. Like, that seems hopeful to me. It seems good to me. And, you know, you're doing a lot of storytelling on your podcast. Like, theoretically, people could tune in. The kids could tune in to your podcast and hear a story, you know, the same way that maybe you or I would go to the library and someone would read to us when we were little. If we were lucky enough to have parents that did that,

it sounds like you're almost providing that service for kids. Well, I mean, our podcast is primarily for adults. We introduce adults, parents to authors of kids, of authors of books that they want to read with their kids. But we do occasionally have, and in fact, on Christmas Day, we have a group of authors who are coming on. They wrote an original short story.

It's called St. Nicholas Eve. We just recorded it on Saturday morning. It is hilarious and awesome and really heartwarming. So we do have special episodes like that. And of course, a lot of the authors who come on, they do talk about their inspirations and what the inspiration of the stories was. I was really surprised. I was at a homeschooling convention promoting the show, and there are lots of kids there. and they came up to me and they said,

oh, I listened to your podcast in the car. And I'm like, you did? Yeah. Who did you listen to? Oh, so-and-so. And he goes, that you like that? Because it was a very mature conversation. And this young, these kids were 9, 10, 11 years old.

They're going, yeah, yeah, I just loved, you know, talking about the story and that she thought about this monster that came from the clouds. And I'm like, cool. That's awesome. That is awesome. On a related note, I remember a while, maybe a couple of years ago, my daughter in her class, they wrote a story. And it was during Zoom. It was one of the cool things that they did.

So the class had written a story. And then on Zoom, the parents would come and then each kid would read like a paragraph of the story. And the story was so hilarious. It was about like this hot dog family who were cooking hamburgers in the park, you know? It was just so funny to me. And it makes me think like if kids can, maybe that's one. way to get them excited about reading is to get them writing. What do you think the relationship is between writing stories and reading stories for kids? Well, I mean, if you want to be a writer

and if your kid has aspirations to be a writer, I think they have to read. You know, it's just, I don't think you can do one without, you can certainly read without writing, but I don't think you can write without reading. And it just opens your mind up to There are different styles of writing, different voices. And so I think that that's mandatory. We do oftentimes ask authors. In fact, tomorrow's episode, it's launching. So today's the what, the 18th, 19th?

I can't. I think it's a 19th. 19th. All right. So tomorrow on the December 20th, the episode that's releasing tomorrow is Rajneille LaRefat. She is a multi-award winning author. And she's come on to celebrate her books.

And I said, can you come on and just talk about writing? Because your books are, they're not autobiographies, but they share a lot of your story. And can you, how do you do that? And the advice that she gives, now what, when she was talking on the show, she had professional authors in mind as she was relaying it. relating it but the advice that she gives it's great for anybody and her biggest thing is that when she

starts to write she starts with an emotion so if she's writing about being bullied she'll write about and remember a time at her life or in her kid's life when they were bullied and they'll start with that emotion and what that went through and put that into the writing in the story. And we've had a number of authors come on and share those little words of wisdom. Jane Yolen, who's written over 400 bucks. Whoa. You know, when I asked her where, I said, 400 books, where do you get the inspiration? And she just said, there's inspiration all around you.

You can find a story anywhere. You go. Stand in the middle of an empty street. And there is a story if you just open up your eyes and look for it. And so, yeah, so we've had lots of great advice like that. A lot of Jerry Spinelli, who's written some classic middle grade novel shared with us. You know, he said, everybody always tells you, write what you know. That's no.

Write what you love. write about what you love. And so, yeah, so one of the things that we're doing in 2023 is just kind of finding those moments and just highlighting them and making it easy for people to go. And like, if you have an interest, you have a kid who's interested in writing. Okay, here, here's the links to these episodes. You can go and listen here and here and here and here. Yeah, that's amazing.

Those are some really, I'm going to have to go back and listen to those. Those are some really good advice from some people that are clearly far down the path. You know, this idea that there's always a story somewhere, this idea that you should start from emotion. It's, you know, after hearing it, you're like, yeah, that's probably a pretty, that's probably why they're so successful is because they have these insights like that. It's fascinating to think about. I often wonder what the relationship is between emotions and stories. and meaning. It must be interesting for you to start,

if you started off as a social worker, you were probably just surrounded by emotions and maybe not the best emotions, but, you know, it almost seems to me some of the best stories start at the corner of heartache and depression, you know, and then they move their way through.

Like, what are some of the most memorable people you've had on to tell their stories? Well, by far, the most memorable for a number of reasons was LeVar Burton. It was early on in the show 2018. We might have been on for a year. But the reason LeVar came on the show was my son texted me one day out of the blue. And he said, hey, you should have LeVar Burton on your show.

And I texted him back and I said, yeah, I should have a million dollars in the bank. Neither one of those things are going to happen. But then after I sent that text, I thought, what have I got to lose? And so I did a little research and found a contact and reached out to him. And a day or two later, his wife wrote back and said yes. And he came on and he was so gracious, so inspiring. And in such a, I mean, talk about a performer. I mean, just, you know, it was my first time creating content with, you know, an award-winning Hollywood actor and somebody that I've looked up to for a long time.

And I've enjoyed his performances. I remember, I said, what was the inspiration for you? What inspires this love of literacy in you? And he just went, Chad. My mom. My mom. Every day I would see her with a magazine or book and she would talk to me about it. And I'm like, and I'm like, this is gold. And I was also thinking, this guy is good. Great story. But he also said something that was really powerful and that, you know, he said that reading was emancipating. and that when we help a kid learn how to read,

we give that kid the ability to go out and to think for themselves, to explore things for themselves, to not be dependent on somebody else to tell them how to think or what to do. Man, that is a, that's worth pausing for a moment right there. That is so true.

It's almost the keys to the kingdom. You know, it's the ability to unlock doors. It's the ability to begin to live your own life and doing so live a life worth living. You know, and I, I, man, I just have, I got to stop from it. That's beautiful. It is a very liberating thing to read. And I've never thought about it like that. Another part I've never thought about was what you said earlier about how many words a child can be exposed to fundamentally changes their future.

You know, it's, it makes sense. It makes a whole lot of sense. I heard a stat a while back too, Jed, that said, you know, when kids go to school, it's not so much the school year that that increases the gap. It's the time between school years. So if one kid is going off for the summer and they're reading or they're traveling or they have two parents at home, you know, they're exposed to so many more words. They're exposed to so much more. And then maybe it maybe like me, I was a, I had a single mom. And so my son. So my son, was probably different than other people's summers. But they said it's that gap in between. So when the kid goes from first grade, they're about equal. And then second grade, the kid during the summer learns a little more. And then by third, by fifth grade, those gaps in between the school years have become so great. It's almost impossible for the kid who hasn't been exposed to so much to catch up to the one that has. Yeah.

I'm curious, have you kind of seen something similar like that when you were doing social work? Or do you see, maybe your wife has seen it in education as well? Oh, absolutely. And it was one of the reasons why that every summer my kids had two or three what to do to keep up your skills, workbooks over the summer. And they loved doing it. You know, it was a lot of fun. You know, anytime we bought them software to use in the computer game,

all the games that they played were learning games. And yeah, there is that. Yeah. You can see the kids who, I mean, it's the same thing in sports. You know, if you have two kids who love basketball and one kid goes to basketball camp over the summit, you know, start off and they're reasonably, you know, equal in terms of talent. One kid goes to basketball camp for two or three weeks and comes back in the fall. There's a real good chance that he or she is going to have developed more skills over that time.

You know, so it just, it just makes sense. You're mentioning social work. One of the biggest regrets I have in social work is my kids had a big age range gap. You know, if I had a 10-year-old and I had a 10-year-old, my goal was to get that kid back into school. If I have an 18-year-old, my goal was to help that kid get a job. And I was told that I was pretty successful and I had great relationships with most of the kids that I work with. One of my clients, after I left the field, invited me to be his best man at his wedding. He had a very small wedding in his house, Justice of Peace, came over.

and afterwards people, you know, people giving them cards and they're like, oh, you know, open it up, read the card. And he's standing next to me, he goes, you read it. I goes, no, they want to hear you. And I realized at that moment, something that I hadn't known, he wasn't able to read. And that was not part of my mandate. But the minute that happened, I knew that the first thing I should have done with him is to, and with all my clients was to figure out whether or not they could read. You know, and so I think that that's we've as a as a society, I think we've dropped the ball on a lot of kids.

Malcolm Mitchell was on my show. Malcolm Mitchell was a former New England Patriot, World Champion New England Patriot, well, not yet. But he was on one of the Super Bowl winning teams. And he came on the show. He is now a literacy advocate. and a children's book author. And he told me that when he arrived at college after, you know, great career in high school and then he gets to college and he's recruited,

he has all these scholarships. And a big man on campus, big guy, not afraid of anything. He sits down on this class and the teacher starts asking kids to read aloud. And he becomes terrified because he remembers at that moment that he can't read. Wow. And here he is in college. And he went back to his dorm and over the next year or two taught himself how to read by reading kids' picture books. And thankfully, he did that for himself and, you know, he changed the trajectory of his life.

But it shouldn't have happened. He never should have gotten, he never should have arrived at high school without somebody saying, this kid can't read. Yeah. We need to help him. How does that happen? How do, how is it, is it, is it because we don't want to admit that the education is it, it's not a funding in education?

Is it because we, we're, we're lying to ourselves? Like, how does that happen? How can a kid even get into middle school without being able to read? I've, to be honest with, I, I've, I've, I've no idea. I know that school systems, there's a lot. lot of pressure, you know, from state governments, from federal governments, a lot of mandates that are not funded, a lot of mandates that aren't thought through. You know, I know that most schools are loathe to keep a kid back. And in some cases, they're not able to keep a kid back.

And so we have in a lot of places, what's called social promotion. And kids are just, oh, you're 12 years old, you need to be in fifth grade. It doesn't matter that you can't read or do math. Just go to fifth grade and just be quiet. We'll push you through. And I don't know why that's happening. I, you know, teachers are heroes. They're working really, really hard. Even the ones who were paid well aren't paid enough. Then they have all sorts of pressure on them. I, if, if I knew the answer, I'd share it. I'd wave my magic wand and make things different, but I don't. Yeah, I, well, it seems that in some ways you are waving a magical wand because you've decided that doing nothing is not an answer.

And you're going forward and you're doing stuff to try and address this, this problem of reading and education and caring about people and making the community better. I wanted to touch on. I've been noticing like this new, my daughter plays, her school works with some developers to develop apps and stuff. And I know that technology kind of gets a bad rap, but I don't think it's 100% bad or 100% good.

She's got some new games like these math games where you can go on and it kind of gamifies the math equations. And they're really interesting. And they have the same thing for like word games. And I think that there's some good to this. Obviously, I think it should be held in relationship to actual class learning. I think that they have to go together. But it seems like there is some really good technology that's helping kids maybe learn

and maybe even accelerate learning a little bit. Have you noticed some of these? Yeah, and we've had a lot of the developers come on the podcast to talk about that. We have over, we published over 1,600 episodes since 2017. There's a lot of content. That's a lot. That's a lot. And so we've, yeah, I mean, I think that there is, as I mentioned, I mean, my son played learning games, you know, on, on computer way before there was streaming games.

There were no Mortal Kombat and all. I don't even know the name of the games. When my son was growing up, it wasn't about shooting and Mario Brothers. It was, let's do this learning game here. And I think technology can be fantastic. And I think one of the things that I think parents have a responsibility is to become and help our kids become more media literate. As parents, we should know what kind of media our kids are consuming. And that doesn't mean that we ban certain things because you try to. to ban something, they're just going to experience it somewhere else.

But if there's something that they're really interested in and that you find problematic, then you can talk about it. And maybe you experience it together. You know, if your kid is really wanting to play the Grand Theft Auto and, you know, run people over in the street, I don't, I mean, you know, maybe there's a way of, to, all right, we'll play this together and then we'll talk about it. And if you want to play this game, then I also want you to play this other game. And I want you, let's see if we can develop some skills with these other apps.

So I think technology is, it's like a hammer. You can use a hammer to build something beautiful or you can use it to smash into story. It's so true. I, you know, being a kid, this would probably date me, but Looking back to like third grade, I remember my teacher, like it was the treat after recess is that she would read one poem from where the sidewalk ends. And, you know, it's this, and I often wonder, like, maybe poetry is the purest form of communication.

Because when people read poems to you, you tend to get goosebumps, or sometimes your face will get flush, or you get flooded with emotion. And that was like my first introduction to poetry as a kid is like, where the sidewalk ends. There's all these forms like the haiku and there's these different things that, you know, I forgot the guy, Silverstein. I think his name was Silverstein. Yeah. You know, there's all these particular methods he used. And in some ways, I think maybe exposing kids to literature that most people think may be over their heads,

whether it's even Shakespeare or even if it's just poems in that form. I think exposing kids to that particular form, you know, it allows them, like you said, to not only see more words, but to see more of the structure of language. And I think that that structure, I think kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. And if we just expose it to them, I think that they can take that structure and begin plugging stuff in there and coming up with a lot more complicated ideas than we're used to. Is that crazy to think?

No, not at all. And there are lots of studies that show that kids are able to listen to a story. on a lot higher level than they're able to read it. So if you have the fifth grader and your fifth grader reads at a fifth grade level, they can certainly listen to a story that was written for a high school kid, especially if they're listening to it with you. We have opportunities to stop and ask questions. One of the great interviews I had was with Father Greg Boyle,

who started Homeboy Industries out in, Los Angeles, the largest gang intervention program in the world. And he wrote a couple of books. One was called Barking to the Choir, the other was tattoos on the heart. And their true stories about experiences he had with these gang members. And a lot of the stories are heartbreaking because you see the trauma that these people went through that led them to joining gangs. and then they're trying to get their lives and change their lives and get out of their gangs. And a lot of times halfway through, they're killed.

And this is certainly not a book that most parents would think a 13 or 14-year-old or 15-year-old would want to read. but I think Father Greg's message of radical kinship in seeing that we're related with everyone and that we have a responsibility to love and care for everyone is powerful. So I had Father Greg on the show and it just so happened. We were nominated for the IHeart Radio Best Kids and Family Podcast Award. And so I was out in L.A. at the time I was trying to set up the interview and he said, do you want to come here and do the interview live? And I said, dude, absolutely. And I went and I saw Homeboy Industries and it's an incredible place. It's, you know, I was sitting there in the waiting

room and there's all these people that had I seen them on the street, I'd probably be kind of frightened. But in this one place, there was so much love going on. And so that's a message that, a 14 or 15 year old can hear, especially with a parent. They can understand that. And that's one of the things that Father Greg and I talked about is that, yeah, the language is rough, especially when you're listening to an audio book and you realize that this is a Catholic priest reading that. But, you know, but the message is real and it's powerful. And so I, I really encourage parents to, especially as your kids get older, to grab audiobooks and listen to those audiobooks together and talk about them. It can really spark some very powerful and meaningful

conversations between you and your kids. Yeah, it sounds like it really has the ability. A lot of times as a parent, I'm sorry, I shouldn't say a lot of times as a parent. As for me, as a lot of times for me as a parent, I think I have all these great answers to these questions my kid would probably ask. But then my kid will ask a question that I had no idea that they were even thinking about. And those seem to be like the real questions that are burning inside of them. And I could see how reading a book like The Homeboy Industries or having a, it's such a interesting mix of almost of God meets. situations that are almost horrific or are horrific in some ways. And in that story, there's a lot of beauty to see healing being done.

But first you've got to see the tragedy. First, you have to see the problem before you can find a solution. It makes me think that that's what another thing that stories do is they allow us to participate in other people's tragedies. And whether you're listening with someone you love or you're listening by yourself, just the fact that you could learn by someone else. else's tragedies is such a gift and it's something that we should be giving more of to our kids. And I think if maybe reading was explained that way or maybe reading is something that so many

of us have a love for it because we're able to see that in there. And I just wish we could expose more kids to it. But what do you think about this idea of exploring other people's tragedies? Well, you're mentioning the difference between reading a book and seeing the move. Okay. And I remember reading Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. And it was a story set here in Boston. It was about a dad who discovers, in one scene his dad discovers his daughter has been murdered. And in seeing the movie,

it's like the cops are at this park that hasn't seen his daughter for a couple of days, whereas my daughter's a teenager, probably with their friends, no big deal. Oh my goodness, the cops are down there. What's going on? Let me go down and see. Wait a minute.

That's my daughter. Oh, my. In the book, we're in his head. And we are experiencing all the thoughts that he is going through, a range of emotions. I'm mad. She missed her daughter's first communion. And where is she? I love her.

She's so much, such a big part of my life. She's great. And she's usually so responsible. But I'm so angry at her now. in what's and boy you know there's no way you could portray that the way the book does in a movie so you know I think experiencing somebody's tragedy is certainly that's certainly something that that can happen through books because I think it gives you a chance to look in at the person and it's like, oh, we're just not getting the headlines.

Car crashes into storefront kills one person. We're learning about who the driver of the car was and what was going on in that person's life and who the person who got killed was. And we're just learning about all that other kind of stuff, whereas typically we're just hearing headlines. And I think that's true today. I think that's one of the reasons we're so divided right now as a society that all we're doing is responding to headlines. And it's like, he said this, she said that.

Republicans mean are bad because, Democrats are bad because. You're on my team. Okay, I'll go with you. I don't have to dig any deeper other than the fact that you're on the same team. You're wearing the same color as me. that's why I wear all these colors. You know, so I think, I think, again, like LeVar said that, you know, when we read, not only when we learn how to read, but when it becomes a discipline, when we're actively going out and reading, we're able to look further and dig deeper than the headlines and not have our thoughts and our emotions controlled by somebody else. That is really well put.

I always go back to Marshall McLuhan who talks about the different. He wrote a book called The Medium is the Message. And he talked about hot mediums and cold mediums. And a hot medium would be like television and a cold medium would be reading or listening to something. And the difference is in a hot medium like television or a movie, you are getting the idea put into your head. You're getting someone else's image put into your head and you do not have to come up with it. When you read something, you listen to it, you're making the movie in your own head. You're coming up with your own visions of how it is.

And he says that the problem with that is that it almost creates like a digital feudalism. Because after we begin training people on television, it's so effective. It's people who, like, you can watch your kid watch TV or maybe sometimes you've watched TV and like someone comes up and does this, you know, but you're so focused on it. Like that image is just being burned in your head. But when you're reading or you're listening, you're creating your own image. imagery. And the problem with these hot mediums is it actually it circumvanced the critical thinking. Like you no longer have to put the story together. You no longer have to put yourself in the mind of the man in the mystic river. You no longer have to picture yourself missing his daughter. Instead,

you've got this nice cookie cutter image put in your head and now you know exactly what to think, you know exactly when to scream, you know exactly when to yell. Whereas if you read that story, you may find a part of the story much more offensive than I found it because of the experiences that you've been through. And it just leads us down what you said, this idea of clickbait, headlines, hot mediums. And I have to agree with you. I think that that is the problem. It's this, and it's probably the road to hell has been paved with good intentions. I'm sure that there's a lot of people that have want people to learn through television. And there's a lot of good programs out there.

But that medium is dangerous, especially when we start putting money into this idea of advertising. And so many of the cartoons went from being a cartoon to being a 30-minute advertisement for kids to watch. And so I'm wondering, what is your, you know, what do you think about this idea of maybe the hot mediums like television or even the headlines in papers? might they better serve the public if we could get the money out of that? I mean, the short answer is sure. But then, you know, as somebody who's somewhat of an entrepreneur and running something that's kind of like a business, the question is, so how are you going to do it? You know, how are you going to fund it?

And there are certainly ways to fund things. And there's a lot of reporters on a platform like Substack that are able to do reporting. And they're being funded by their viewers. But it's different. It's very difficult. I mean, I think ideally, sure, get the money out of it. But, you know, money makes some, money, money pays the bills for the internet to work. Yeah.

You know. Yeah. I do. I'm coming up on an hour, Jed. Are you doing okay on time? Well, my beautiful wife's trying to call me. Her brother is having some kind of medical, hopefully not anything. any medical emergency, but.

Well, you should talk to her. I can have you come back and we can talk about. I'm having an absolute blast and I'm a talkomaniac, so I can talk to you for another hour and a half, you know, but let me, why did you just stay there? Yeah, absolutely. I'm just going to edit this, right? We're streaming live right now. Okay.

That's fine. If you want to take a call, then I can talk to people while you take a call and you come back. Okay. So how do I shut this off? I will mute it over here, but I'm not on my side. Cool. Okay.

Ladies and gentlemen, so we are here with Jed. I wonder what you guys think. You know, I have been going down this rabbit hole of hot and cold mediums. And I really do believe what McLuhan was talking about is this idea of digital feudalism. And when I was speaking with Jed, I was thinking if you could get the money, if you could kind of get the advertising to be more, oh, I don't know, if you could get the advertising to be a little bit more responsible. then I think you could have content that will allow for a better all-around product, a better all-around service.

And so the question Jed and I were talking about is, well, how do you do that? I think it's already happening. I think what you see happening is, you know, when you have substack, when you have podcasts, when you have all these different mediums, there's a lot of people making content for free. There's a lot of people making content with 100, 200, a thousand, 50 followers. And all of these people are taking away from the giant corporations, be it NBC or CNN or Fox. And so I think it's already happening. I think that the small individual content creator is in fact kind of undermining the very giant monoliths out there.

I think we're seeing it happen right now. And you've got to ask yourself, what kind of a lunatic is going to create content for free? Well, that's a pretty easy concept, I think, because there's a lot of lunatics out there. Like, you're listening to one right now. But yeah, I think it's possible. I think that we can make better content for more people at a lower price. And I think the market wins that way. I think kids win that way.

I think that even though there is a sea of content out there, even though there is almost an unconsumable amount of things to pay attention to, I think the cream rises to the top. And I think that you'll be able to find what it is you're looking for in a better form, rather than being spoon-fed these ideas that other people are given to you. Like, you know, just take a look at the talking points that come from mainstream media. You know, it's usually the same script being read by a different face in a different state, in a different local, in a different colored suit.

But it's the same message. And I can understand how we want the country we live in to be getting the, same information. But that's not how it works. Everybody's different. Everybody's, everybody is, has a different, you know, view on things. And so let me bring back Jed here. Jet, I was just telling the people, you know, we were, you and I were talking about how would you get the money out of this and create more of a responsible type of content for people to consume? And maybe it's happening already. Like you said, you mentioned substack. There's tons of creators out here that are creating content for free.

And, you know, the guy that has 100 views, the guy that has a thousand views or 50 or 10,000, you know, these guys are all slowly knocking down the mainstream media that's just kind of spoon feeding everybody the same oatmeal every morning. What do you think? Is that too much to throw out there? I don't think it's too much to throw out there. I mean, you know, you take a look at Joe Rogan, who has a bigger audience. than CNN and MSNB, you know, like one of his episodes are heard by more people than

here like all of CNN in a night, something crazy like that. But even him is, you know, his show has some sponsors, you know, they're sponsors. And then, of course, Spotify picked them up for, you know, you can. for a awful lot of money. So I guess his content is going out there without commercials and you're paying for it, you know, through Spotify. And I think that there are going to be more and more opportunities like that. And I think a guy like Rogan is scaring the heck out of people

because I don't think you can easily put him, in a red shirt or a blue shirt. You know, one of the things, you know, he took a big hit on COVID spreading, supposedly spreading COVID misinformation. But meanwhile, where were we getting most of our COVID information was from the big three television networks on their newscasts. And all of those newscasts are sponsored by the people who are profiting from coming up with COVID vaccines.

I don't know if there's any, there's a connection. It just seems like, I don't, I'm listening to LaVar. I got to question that stuff. Yeah. Whether smoke,

there's fire, usually, you know, I, I guess it depends on, I guess it depends on who you prefer between George Orwell or Aldous Huxley or Ray Bradbury.

You know, it depends on what kind of future you're in there. I, um, it's interesting. I wonder, have you ever thought about, like we look back on some of these books like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World or

or, you know, George Orwell or, you know, Ray Bradbury or some of these dystopian books or whatever. And, you know, do you think that one day, like what do you think the books out right now, people might be like in 20 years from now? Have you read any books that people might look back on 20 years from now and be like, hey, this guy got it right here? Boy.

No, my reading with the dollar, books seems to be either informational, you know, or what all old guys who are, you know, mysteries cop, no. Yeah. I have a real, I used to love, it's fun. I've shared this on the podcast a bunch of times. I was a huge Stephen King fan and horror and fantasy and all that stuff until the moment my son was born.

And I was in the middle of an Anne Rice novel. I was halfway through it. I was loving it. And I was devouring it. And we were going through it. And then my son was born. And after we get home from the hospital, I go to pick that book up again and jump right back into that world of horror and tragedy. And I'm like, I don't want to go here anymore.

Nope, nope, no, no, no, no, no. And so I put it down. And he's, he'll be turning 30 in July. I read my first or I listened to my first Stephen King novel since that time back in October as I was driving back across country. And it really wasn't all that much of a horror's kind of fantasy. And it was pretty good. And I could see myself reading another one like that, but not that really kind of crazy, creepy stuff anymore. I don't know.

I don't know if that I answered your question. Yeah. I was just curious. I was just curious as to maybe what you were reading now. And it sounds, for me, I've been, I find myself deviating into a world of science fiction when things get too rough for me or when things become too monotonous, you know, and I, I find myself just diving into a, there's this whole new world of like, not role playing games, but almost like video game books now where like they're telling stories from a, it's our people. PLG or something. Roll-playing fantasy games, something like that. It's pretty, it's like I found myself like, I first listened to one. I'm like, this is interesting. Like, they're talking about a book from a video game point of view. It's like this whole new genre. Have you read any books like that? I haven't read any, but we've had authors on who've written a number of books, a number of novels based on Minecraft.

And so those interviews are were interested, especially the first interview was interesting because I said, okay, first off, you had to tell me what Minecraft is because I don't know. I hear it. I know it's a video game. I don't, you know, and I still can't tell you what it is, but it was, it is fascinating. It's, I guess it's kind of like fan fiction, you know? Yeah, yeah. People loved watching Star Trek and then create their own Star Trek stories, novels, whatnot. But yeah, kind of, yeah, it's fun. I don't know if I could, if I can get into the video game novels because I'm just not a video game. You know, I kind of, my interest in video game kind of stopped at palm. I had Atari. I had Atari back in the day. Oh, that's hilarious.

Yeah, I, that's an interesting idea too, is that, you know, this. idea of and I this just an idea I don't I just get your opinion on this do you see that maybe there it seems to me in some ways there's like this idea of a prolonged adolescence like I don't play video games but I know a lot of guys I don't know a lot of guys my age but I know I know a lot of guys

a few younger than me to play video games like I and I I don't have that sort of bond to it but it almost seems like a it almost seems like video games have taken the place of reading for adults these days. It used to be an adult would get a book and you'd go, that's what you'd do on your off time. But now people are playing video games on their on the octaves. What is your take on prolonged adolescence and video games taking the place of books for adults? Well, I don't know about prolonged adolescence because I think it was, it took me an awful long time to grow up. And I'm not quite sure if I have yet.

Yeah, I hear you. Check with my beautiful wife about that. Certainly, I think for a lot of people, video games have replaced books and stories. They've certainly replaced movies and TV shows. They've replaced sports in a lot of ways. I am amazed that people will pay to go into an arena and watch somebody play a video game. That is mind-boggling. But probably when I was a kid, my dad was, you know, mind boggled that in eighth grade, I wanted to go watch Bruno San Martino and the rest of the guys in the WWWF. Yeah.

You know, I can't judge it. It's not something from me. I think like anything, and I think reading can also be, have the same kind of issues when one of the things we've talked. about on the podcast is technology is great as long as you are using the technology and the technology is not using you. And I think that can be true of technology. I think it can be true of video games. I think it can be true of sports. And I think reading. I think that some people get lost in reading where they're not interacting with the real world. You know, it's like, oh, I'd rather live in this world than out there

because that's scary out there. And I have a little bit more control over here. You know, my life isn't in a place where I can judge anybody else's life. I just have to worry about what's going on in my life. Yeah, that's well said. And I see a lot of, after hearing you say that, I think I can see a lot of similarities. Like in some ways, a really good video game has a really good storyline and you get to participate in that storyline with it.

The same way you could imagine yourself and someone else's shoes in a book, so too can you get to visually see yourself in a video game making real life or sort of real like decisions. So I think there's a lot of similarities there. And, you know, it's definitely difficult to beat the visuals, especially with this idea of virtual reality. or augmented reality. I'm curious how, you know, maybe, maybe there could be a synthesis of the two. Maybe, you know, my family recently went to this Van Gogh museum where you got to go into the museum and it was like they put up the pictures of stuff and they marketed it as if you were in the painting, even though you weren't in the painting.

But I'm wondering if something could be similar for like a book. Like if you played an audio book and you could have some. some virtual goggles and you could be the character in that book. You could be like you go choose your own adventure kind of a thing. And maybe you could synthesize the two. Maybe that's where we're going. Maybe we could be synthesizing video games and books. Is that too crazy to think about?

No, not at all. One of my favorite recent guests is a young woman named Nick Yulow. And she is an author and an artist and a filmmaker. and she also writes scripts for video games. And, you know, and again, coming from the world of Pong, she had to explain that to me. And it is, it's, you know, it's a fascinating world. And the idea of, you know, the choose your own adventures.

And, you know, that's kind of happening in a lot of those video games, depending on what kind of choices you make, the story goes one way or the other. Then you can play the game again, a second time a different way and it takes you in a different direction. Whether or not you're, I think for me, again, going back to the premise of the podcast, reading with your kids, if your kids are into video games instead of trying to dissuade them, one of the mistakes, I've shared this on the podcast, one of the things I'm, mistakes I with my son was he loved graphic novels and anime and I would go in and I would support that and I'd take him we'd buy him the anime and the graphic novels and if I went on the road I'd come home I'd find something and bring it to him but every once in a while I would go into his room he'd be he'd be reading and he would just devour these things and I would go in and go dude can you please read a book just once this week read a book that doesn't have pictures in it and I didn't appreciate the fact

that the stories that he was reading, there were stories and it was literature and it was some pretty great stuff. I would have known that if I had sat down with him when he was 13, 14, 15, and read those stories with him. And I think the same thing can be true if it's video games and if you kid is really into a video game, hey, let's do this together or if it's not saying you don't want to do it get, well, you play it, then I'm going to play it. And then we're going to talk about it. And I think that's really valuable, whether or not you're talking about a video game,

a book, anime, television shows, movies, music. I think it's real important to be listening to the music that your kids are listening to. Again, not to ban it, but talk about it. And if your kid is listening to something that you find really offensive, then just sit down with them and say, hey, you seem to like this, but this is what I'm hearing is, are you hearing the same thing?

Can you help me understand why you think it's okay that we're singing about this? And maybe I can get there or maybe you can see this in a different light. Yeah, that's a great point. You know, when I think of great music, I think of storytelling again. I think of like John Cougar Mellencamp, a lot of country songs where they're talking about, or even in rap songs, you know, it seems like they're both talking about their dogs and their trucks and, you know, there's probably some similarities there. But yeah, it's music, music can be intoxicating and it can be beautiful. And it can also be very thought-provoking. And sometimes this medium of a repeated idea behind music put into your head can be something that could be a little bit dangerous sometimes if you're not really cognitive of what you're thinking about.

How do you think what's the relationship between music and reading? Well, again, I mean, I think there are obviously two different styles of storytelling in messaging. one of the things that I think is important going back to a point that we talked about a little bit earlier in parents being media literate. I think it's really important that we help our kids become media literate as well. And we help our kids understand that every piece of media that they're exposed to, whether it's movies, video games, book, music. These media has been created by somebody to get us to do something. something or to think a certain way. And when we're aware of that, then we're not, you know,

then we're not as vulnerable to the unconscious message that might be being pounded into our head in a, in a song, you know, or that might be delivered to us in a subtle way through a story that, you know, hey, asking you kids to sit down and think, okay, so who created this? What are they thinking? What do you think it is that they want you to do after you read this? And is that something that you're okay with?

Is that, you know, are the values being put forth in this commercial, this music video, this video game, this book, are these values that are important to you? And or, you know, are you not sure? and you're open to having your, you know, your mind changed about your values or are your values different now that you've sat down and you've read this? And it's because you've really thought about it and you've thought about the, you know, had a deeper thought about what your values are and now your view of those things are changed because of the arguments made in this book or were you manipulated somehow? Okay, so this brings up a fascinating point, did that I think

that you're uniquely qualified to talk about. Oh, my goodness. Okay, so that sounds like a magic trick to me. Like, if you show me a magic trick and I go, wow, that's amazing. But then you show me how to do that trick, I probably don't want to see it a whole lot anymore because I know he did it. And the same way with what people are doing with exactly what you said, hey, this person wants you to think this.

But once you show them the trick, hey, they want you to think that. Now it kind of wipes away the magic from it. And that's not good for a magician, but it's great for people that are trying to get us to do things. Is there some similarities there? You hit the nail on the head. My beautiful wife, when we first met married and I started my career, we would go to a lot of magic shows. And she would sit in the audience and she'd go, how do you do that? And I don't keep secrets for my wife.

I would just say, do you really want to know? And she would say, yes. And I would say, okay, this is how it's done. and she would always go, damn it, don't tell me that anymore. And so I don't. She also doesn't ask anymore.

But yeah, unless you are, you know, an aficionado of magic and of technique or whatnot, then, yeah, when you learn the secret, it's like, oh, okay, it's not so much fun anymore. I think when we arm our kids with that knowledge that, hey, this person just didn't wake up one morning and decide to just write this and, you know, fill the world with flowers. There's a purpose behind this. You know, this publishing

house decided to publish this book because they thought that this topic was hot and they could sell a lot of books and make a lot of money out of it. That's okay, but just be aware of that. Yeah, what I would I would love to see the performance art of Jed lead and this may go against the code, but I would love to see that performance of here's a piece of, of literature or an advertisement. Here's a magic trick. I'm going to show you the magic trick and I'm going to show you what the advertisers want. I think you could just blow kids minds by getting them to see how the magic behind. advertising isn't really that magic. And it's, you know, but I wouldn't want to tell you don't want to take it from the magic, though.

Maybe that's not a good idea. Yeah, I don't know. That could be above my pay grade. I'm not sure. But certainly where, you know, I, when my kids are growing up, I was all about, you know, like, you know, when my kids would ask me, why, why do they do that? Well, they want to sell tickets to this movie. They want to get you in here.

And, and again, that's not. not necessarily an evil thing, but be aware of that. You know, you're being, you know, the person who created this wants you to feel a certain way. Going back to Rajne and her advice of like when you start writing right with an emotion, she wants people to feel that emotion. She's a wonderful author. She's a wonderful person. She's a physician here in Boston.

I don't think that she has any, you know, um, mal thoughts in, you know, in, in her head or, or in intentions. But she does, you know, when she's writing a book, she wants you to feel what it's like. And that's fine. But it's important for your kids. I think it's important for all of us to just understand that. It's, you know, it's being literate. Yeah. So sometimes I put on my, my, my, um, sometimes I sat when I went, my daughter first started going to school. I had, sat down with the admissions officer and she had asked me what I thought about modern day education and what I had thought about what kind of environment I want my kid to be in.

And I had to think for a minute. And I had told her that, you know, I was aware that, you know, when industrialization happened, our country sort of turned towards raising and educating obedient workers. And we had set up this model where the kids would sit in a room with a figure with a, you know, a authority figure. And there would be bells and whistles, sort of like Pavlovian dogs. And you would need a pass to go to the bathroom. And they, they, according to the Prussian school model, they had set up this system that was training people to go and do a workforce and build products. Because that's what we needed at that time.

And I think that we still see echoes of that in today. public education system. And, you know, there are some great schools like the Montessori schools or the Reggio philosophy where kids are doing more hands-on stuff and they're spending time in groups and they're learning relationships and they're doing different required reading and that they're learning through different methodologies. I'm wondering if, have you seen that in the school system? Like maybe some of the school system we're still using is a little bit outdated. it. Well, I think that there's a lot that can be done in school systems. Again, I think, especially if you're talking about public school system, I think that in a lot of ways, certainly individual teachers, their hands are tied as to what they can and they can't do. One of the really simple things that my kids attended Catholic schools, and it was a simple thing, it wasn't innovative. It wasn't innovative. It was.

was something that happened when I went to school, went to public school. But the eighth graders would come down and be reading buddies with the first graders. And there would be one-on-one relationships and, you know, they would read to the kids and listen as the first graders read back to them. They would develop a friendship. The first graders loved it. The older kids loved it. It really made a bond within the school, made it much more of a family setting when the first, the kindergartners, the first graders would go through the hallway and they see their reading buddies, the big kids, they'd, that's my pal and wave to them. And it was, it was a wonderful thing. But it can't be done in most public schools because we don't do that. We don't have time for that.

We need to do, you know, this and this box and that and that box. So I think I think one of the answers is giving parents more choice as to, you know, what kind of schools their kids are going to. We were really blessed in that we could make a choice as what kind of schools my kids attended as they went through kindergarten through high school. A lot of families don't have that choice. And they might be in a community where the school that they are, sent to based on geography is really failing. And it's failing for a number of reasons and there's no one directly to blame, but there's also no real solutions in the foreseeable future.

Maybe it's going to change after 10 or 15 years, but what's going to happen to those kids in the meantime? So I'm just giving you these long-winded answers to simple questions. No, I love it. Like, those are great answers. and I admire what you're doing and I admire how you think and that's why I'm asking.

I find it fascinating and I think we share some similar passions on building a better future through education and reading and I guess since we're going down this philosophical mindset I happen to believe that there's a lack of spirituality.

Not everybody believes in the same type of God whether it's Akua or Muhammad or God or Buddha. There's so much beautiful lessons people can learn when you have a connection to spirituality. And I, you know, talk about different scriptures. There's so much you can learn from different books. And sometimes it seems to get a bad rap in education, especially maybe over the last 20 years. But I have found, and this is just my personal opinion, that there's almost an emptiness without spirituality and learning. And I think it's this idea of spirituality that runs like a thread through all.

the different subjects. And it kind of, you know, if you look at the spiritual angle, you can see the spiritual angle of English or language. You can see the spiritual angle of science. And I really think that spirituality shouldn't be something we're afraid of, but should be used as a something that can tie everything together. And it doesn't have to be in your face or, you know, evangelical. But, you know, I think that there's a place for it. And I think that because it has not had a place in so many, or it's been pushed out, I think kids are lacking that a little bit in my opinion. What do you think about that? I can't disagree with you. And I agree that there are, there's wisdom in all of the different scriptures. And I'll share this

with you. Yeah, please. My kids, again, in Catholic school, one of the parents there, my kids are very involved, especially in high school in church and in the services. And one parent came up to me and said, oh, you must be so proud. Your kids are up there and they're involved. They're like, yeah, I'm proud of them for a lot of different things. And that's cool that they find some meaning here at church. And she said, I'm so worried because, you know, my daughter's going off to college. And that's when they start questioning their faith.

And that's horrible. And I said, no, it ain't. It's not at all. And going back to something that Father Greg wrote, if your faith can't stand up to questions, then you're in the wrong faith. I encourage my kids to ask questions. And we had a lot of conversations about different things that went on in our church. I've done extensive study of various world religions just as a hobby, something that I did, especially when they were in their faith formation years in high school.

And, you know, when they were coming home and they were saying, oh, the teacher told us X, Y, and Z and that you can't question anything in the Bible. And I'm like, I'm going, well, let's sit down and talk about that. Let's see. You know, the Bible was actually written 90 years after Jesus died. So like no one that read the Bible was actually hanging out with them. So let's just get that straight. And, you know, but I wanted my kids to understand that, you know, there are things.

If you have questions, ask your questions. If something is more attracted to you, it speaks to you. Go for it. And I think this thing that's difficult is, that when we don't have a religion or a faith or spirituality, there's a void and it's going to be filled by something. You know, and a lot of parts of the world that was filled by communism. You know, not saying communism, I personally am not a big fan of it.

I don't seem to do it well. But, I mean, you know, on paper, communism is wonderful. It just hasn't worked out. And, you know, there's going to be something that fills that need for people. And so I think, yeah, I don't exactly know how you do it in a public school where there's supposed to be a separation between church and state. I know that separation is greater on the coast than it is in the Midwest. I have this trick that I do when I go out into the audience and I'll hand kids little green beads and we're going to do something magical with those green beads. But before that, I want you to tell me, while you're holding that bead, I want you to think about something that you're thankful for.

And most schools, and my son, when I came up with this, he was in middle school at the time. He goes, Dad, you can't do this with middle school kids. They're going to say all sorts of inappropriate things. And no one has. One kid said he was thankful for pizza. But other than that, it's been really, it's been I'm thankful for my mom, I'm thankful my family, my friends, the ability, my teachers, all the kind of stuff. In the Midwest, it's, I am thankful that I have a relationship with my Lord's Savior.

And I'm like, okay, you can't say that, can you? And the teacher like, oh, that's fine. I'm like, okay, fine. So I don't know how you do. I mean, I don't know how you do it without kind of influencing, you know, someone, a teacher up there like, oh, I, my brain just kind of stopped thinking here. I apologize. It's a tough question.

It's, it's, and I don't think anybody has the answer. Otherwise, we would have solved the problem. Yeah. And maybe it's a, you know, maybe it's not. a question for the country to decide. Maybe it's a question for each individual to decide. And so there is no answer. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's definitely a question for parents and something parents should want to talk about. And I was very much, the high school that my daughter attended was an international high school. And one of the things that they did, they did have a world

religion course there. And I was very excited about that because I wanted her to know about Hinduism and Buddhism and Islam and all those other faiths and religions because I do. Again, I think that there are truths in all of those those scriptures. Yeah, I once I forgot where I read it, but I once heard that the great scriptures of yesteryear, are like fingers pointing to the moon, but everybody gets caught up in the finger instead of what it's pointing at. And like being in Hawaii,

I was born and raised in Southern California, and I kind of lived over in Caucasian acres. And so when I moved over here to Hawaii, I was just, you know, I was submerged in a myriad of different cultures and, you know, the Filipino culture and the Japanese culture and the Chinese and the Hawaiian. And all of a sudden, you know,

I turn out being the minority. And one thing I've learned by, traveling and putting yourself in situations that you're foreign to is that you learn a lot about who you are and where you're from. And I got to learn how much I didn't know. And there's so many different cultures that, you know, you had mentioned about your child, you know, not questioning some biblical texts. And then you had mentioned, well, this was actually written by so and so. And so one thing that I want to underscore there is this idea that, you know, translation means interpretation.

And we interpret things so much different. And when you translate a word, you translate an idea. And sometimes you translate a vision. And, you know, one little change up here can have radical changes way down here. And it's just, it's, it's so fascinating. And I feel so fortunate to get to be in a position where I can learn and travel or, or get to talk to cool people. And before I got to do any of that, I got to read.

And I think reading leads you down these paths of thinking. And it leads you to such a rich environment. And that's why I want to say thank you to you, for going out and helping kids read, for doing what you're doing, for being a producer, being a performer, a comedian,

a storyteller, helping kids read and traveling the country and doing it. I think you're doing amazing work. And I love talking to you. And I'm having a great time. But as I'm landing, in the plane here. I would like to know what do you have coming up? Where can people find you? And what are you excited about? Oh, I am excited about a lot of different things. Again, I'm really excited about

people listening to Rajinee LaRaca tomorrow on the podcast. It's available. You can find it on our website, Reading With Your Kids.com. We are on, as I'm sure you are Georgia, Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts and about 100 other different podcasting platforms that I haven't even heard about yet. Just get an email. Oh, you know, I'm such and such. And I'm like, I don't even know what that is. But it's cool. So anywhere you find your podcast, you can find the reading with your kids podcast.

I'm excited to be able to do some more live performing, getting back into schools. You know, I'm approaching 100 years old. So the idea of traveling around and doing three or four, you know, doing three or four shows a day is awesome and I love it. Dragging my equipment in it out of a school three or four times a day, not so much. So I'm happy that I'm going to be touring again and performing and also happy that it's not

necessarily going to be two or three hundred shows a year. It's going to be a more manageable number. I like you, I love the fact that I'm doing a podcast. It is such a blessing to be able to. speak to so many amazing people. I mean, I'm sure you've experienced this. It's like, oh, I had the woman who is known, and in my mind just went blank,

but she is known as her deepness. Fabian Cousteau, the son of Jacques Cousteau, who's a famous oceanographer. He worships this woman. And she, her team, reached out to me and said, can we be on your podcast? And I'm like, dude, yeah. And so I got to sit down for half an hour and talk to her about the ocean and, you know, and it's like, she shouldn't be talking to a dope like me. I don't know anything, but she's willing to do it. And again,

authors and psychologists and guys like Father Greg and you. And it's just, I just feel so blessed at this time of my life. I'm really excited. We're going to be celebrating our sixth anniversary in February. Oh, one thing, two, two new things that are happening in the New Year. One, we have this new companion project that is for kids. It's called Drawing With Your Kids. And it's going to be a YouTube channel.

We're also going to have a website, Drawingwithyourkids.com. And beginning in the new year, we're inviting illustrators to come on and give a quick little lesson of how to draw a character from their book. And we've already we've recorded four or five of them and they're amazing.

Nick Yulot, who I mentioned earlier, does one of them. Lauren Castillo came on and did it. We have a number of other illustrators who said that they're going to come on. As we say here in Boston, I'm wicked excited about that. Also, George, you can

probably relate to this. As a podcaster, I get stuff in the mail. People want me to check out their book or whatever. And so what we'd be doing at these, at live events, we've been giving some of these away or doing a giveaway on the podcast. In 2023, we're going to be trying to change the trajectory of some kids' lives. And so instead of doing one book here, one book there, I mentioned earlier that having as few as 20 books can greatly enhance the chance of a kid going to university, having those 20 books in your house. So instead of giving one book away at a time each month, we're going to give away a little library of 20 to 30 books to one family.

And I'm really wicked, wicked, wicked excited about that. We have a local supermarket here and our neighborhood is going to help us launch. in January and we'll have all sorts of information where parents anywhere can sign up and maybe went a little library of 30 books. And for a family living paycheck to paycheck, that could make a huge difference in someone's life. And I'm really excited about that. Yeah, those are all awesome.

And it is life-changing and it is exciting. And it's cool to be a catalyst to do that. and maybe change a trajectory of someone's life. You know, it's, it's amazing what, what a dedicated person can do if they're willing to take a chance and do it. And I am, I'm excited to talk to you, Jed. I feel thankful. And I'm truly thankful for what you're doing. And I look forward to the show tomorrow.

And I look forward to going back and listening to some of these podcasts that we had talked about. And I look forward to the future and talking with you more in the future and being a part of anything I can do to help. So thank you for that. George, thank you so much for having me on your show. You know, talking to somebody in Hawaii, it made me warm because it's like 28 degrees here in Boston today. And it ain't warm at all. And so you warm up my heart. So thank you very much for that.

Yeah, it's, you know, it got kind of cold today. It got down to like 69. Don't even say that. Don't even say that. I live in Orlando. And he does that to me. I sent me a Texas month. Oh, it's freezing.

It's 55. And I'm like, dude, I'm going to drive down there and kick me in the button. Awesome. Well, Jed, I will, I'll shoot you over all the, all the information once I get it all up. I'll get you the raw MP3 and MP4. Feel free to do with it what you like. And I'll be in touch. And yeah, thank you so much for today.

I had a great time. And I'll talk to you soon. We'll do it again. Awesome. Thank you very much, my friend. Okay. Aloha.