TrueLife - Natasha Skoberla - Sparkyou

Episode Date: December 19, 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://sparkyou.org/Natasha Skoberla, is the owner of SparkYou.org who loves science and kids. Geek at heart but I also like playing beach volleyball & tennis. Since 2018 I teach STEM for grades K-12. I have worked in Aikahi, Ka’ohao and Waimanalo Elementary Schools and tutor kids from all over the island. I hold BS degree in Civil Engineering, MS degrees in Biochemistry and Chemical Engineering. I have extensive background in drug and vaccine development subjects due to my past, long time employment at Merck, KGAA. My goal is to keep your kids safe, curios and entertained during their time away from school. I am fascinated with little brains and how they work. I love watching kids get curious about not only science but just the ordinary life. I believe social interactions with other kids and lots of time outside on a fresh air is the best we can offer our kids. 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, furious 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 an incredibly intelligent, compassionate, and lovely woman, Mrs. Natasha's Skorvola. How are you today, Natasha? Could you introduce yourself for the audience who may not know who you are? Sure. My name is Natasha Skobberla and I am a teacher, science teacher at the moment. I originally come from Poland. I see a big map behind you there. I wonder if you could even find Poland in there. Probably right now everybody does. Not for the right reason. But yeah, I originally come from

Portland and I've been in United States since 99 and in Hawaii since 2018. Very nice. And you have a you have a background inside. You got a BS in civil engineering and MS and biochemistry and chemical engineering. You're familiar with this whole idea of vaccines and making drugs. So you didn't start off as a science teacher. Maybe you've always been a science teacher, but what were you doing before you got into starting your own company and and becoming a science teacher in Hawaii. Yeah, so thank you for bringing up my education. I don't really bring it up, but I did.

I have a chemical engineering degree in biochemistry, and before I opened my company to teach kids science, I actually worked for Merck, the German Merck, in their drug and vaccine development department, managing flu vaccines with different companies and some really cool drug development for cystic fibrosis and things like that. So I worked for pharma since 2003 till 2018 until we moved here. And then it became very apparent that staying up all night because both of my teams were in Germany

and in Ireland, so I had to be up all night long conference calls, meetings, you know, and it just was not working for my kids, for my husband, for my neighbors, because I didn't realize how close everybody lives here, and when you talk all night long, people can hear you. So I said, okay, I'm just going to have to figure something out. There was really no pharma business on the islands. So anything related to that kind of a job, I would have to travel out, which I didn't want to do. So I decided, okay, let's do science because my kids were already in school by the time.

And I noticed that they don't really have strong program, at least in their school. Some schools do offer STEM as a part of curriculum. My kid's school did not have it as a separate additional curriculum offering. should just build into their curriculum, which, you know, I mean, if you teach everything, math, English, science is not something teachers want to focus on. So then I talked to a principal of the school, and I asked him if I could open a program, after school program with science for kids. And he said, sure, if you're going to get a teaching license, insurance, registrar company, you can show me all these things, then I'll let you do it.

And I think maybe he wanted to discourage me. And I'm like, okay. So I got the license for being a substitute teacher. And then opened the company, got insurance and went back. And he couldn't say no, pretty much. Because I complied with all the requirements he put on me. And we opened the program. And it was small at the beginning because people were like,

who is this person, you know? So I had, like the first class, I had five kids. And then it gradually kind of grew, and then parents would be like, oh my gosh, can you do something in the summer? Because there's nothing really around Kailua. We always have to drive far for anything. I said, well, I can think about it. So that's how it kind of spiral down to opening a science discovery camp for kids,

which is just learning through. mostly discovery on observing. It's not meant to be, you know, sitting down with the protocol, following instructions and doing, because that's how I see my kids get discouraged, doing learning anything. If it's boring and following steps

that they might not understand, they're just not going to get into it. So when they see and they ask questions, why it's happening, that's when you know, that they really are into it and are interested. So I know when you saw us, we were at the university because I happened to have my best friend who I studied with at Utah State

for my biochemistry degree. She is here at UH Minoa in chemistry department. And her boss actually set up this fun, you know, chemistry. Everything blow up because, of course, It's always going to see things blow up. And as a regular teacher, you can. You don't have the license to buy the proper chemicals. So it's like, okay, we can do it.

You know, we have everything we need. We have the chem club. The kids can show your kids some stuff. So I take them there quite a few times throughout the year for presentations on like liquid nitrogen and burning gummy bears. And that's when they're really like, oh, chemistry is not so boring or physics is not boring, right? can be really fun, which I find that's the best hook for them to, to stay curious, you know? Yeah, I do. I think that that is something that lacks throughout education is this idea that it can't be fun,

this idea that it can't be hands-on. And there's so obviously things got to be safe and you want to take care of the well-being of every kid. But it doesn't mean you can't experiment. It doesn't mean you can't be outdoors and it doesn't mean it can't be fun. And I want to share the story how I met you. I was at UH and I was working and I see all these kids running around and they're having a good time. And there's this like experiment thing going on at the table.

And then I see you and some of your staff. And you guys, George, would you like some ice cream? And I'm like, what ice cream? Are you kidding me? Of course I would. And so I realized that it's not just your normal ice cream that you made, but you took the kids and you made ice cream with liquid nitrogen. And there's all these kids with, they have a smile from ear to ear on their face. They have ice cream in their hands.

They're doing science. They're around kids their age. And it was such an incredibly explosively fun learning experience. I could see every kid was so happy. And I could see all the teachers there were happy to be teaching kids something they can use in their life. But more than that, I could really see that you were promoting an environment of curiosity like you had expressed it earlier. And that's so important for kids. And I, that hooked me.

I was like, oh my gosh, this one moment. and gets it. She understands what science is and she understands how to help kids become more interested in science. So I'm thankful that I got to notice that. So how long, let's tell everybody, the name of your company is called

SparkU, S-P-A-R-K-Y-O-U.org. Is that the right? Is that the right name of it? Correct, yes. Well, first of all, thank you for the compliment. I really appreciate because even though we're on the same page, a lot of parents who are very intense, they would find that this is not the right plans for the kids to be because they want them to be very, you know, and we do science, but we do it in a fun way. So no, they're not going to have report cards taken home. They're not going to have protocols that they take home

to prove what they were doing. For us, it's just, okay, you know, let's take a magnifying glass, let's go outside. Finally, let's see if we can burn a hole. How would you burn a hole? And now, okay, everybody sits down there looking for it. Well, today is rainy day. We can't do anything about it, right? Well, why? So if you're in the forest, can you start a fire if you don't have sun? No, not really.

But now, you know, also what comes with that, it's, okay, is it safe for you to leave glass? Right? Because if that glass stays unattended, what can happen? You just burn a hole in the leave. So things like that, you know, and they get so. Just like, oh my gosh, can I take this magnifying glass? No, you can buy it wrong, but no, because I don't know where you're going to leave it. And just, you know, small things like that.

When they go to university, it's the simplest thing that I wouldn't even think of. You have the hood that you put gloves in, and everybody wants to put their hand in that rubber glove and gloves, you know, and then touch something that looks, it was just, you know, amazing. me that they weren't interested in like looking at different things that the professor was trying to they're just like everybody wanted to be in that hood and touch the things so kids naturally they just want to they're very sensual they they have to touch they have to smell you know they have to see to remember and i have a 10 and 11 year old and i usually base most of my business on when i observe how they learn and how easy they can get discouraged or what actually intrigues their

attention and, you know, and it's important factor. I mean, if you're losing a child because you keep talking about science, then you're not doing your job as a teacher, right? Because this kid would never be interested. And I find that it doesn't matter if kids love science, I don't love science. If you show it to them in a fun way, they will learn to like it. I mean, they will be, you know, inspired to try to at least ask questions. Oh, really? You know, why did this happen? Or why did I just mess up my slide?

Well, you probably put too much activator and what is this activated? Well, I contact solution. And what's in eye contact solution? Well, let's read the label. Right? And things like that. So I've learned, it sounds so funny, but, you know, working. for someone used for pharma, I've never really thought that kids can ask better questions than adults

that make you like, hmm, well, let me think about it because I don't know the answer. And I'm not afraid of, you know, to tell them, hey, I'm sorry, I don't know the answer. Let's try to figure this out together, but at the moment, I don't know what to tell you. there's some pretty interesting questions that come out with all these trips we take and we also do a lot of fun trips so I take them everywhere around the island I either rent a big van 15 passenger van and I have two of mine eight-seaters and I hire teachers mostly for my business because I found that they have the understanding of you know how to look for safety

and what kids can do. And that was also, you know, a learning curve for me because everybody wants to work for fun environment, but not everybody knows how to look out for kids. So I found out the people who work in the OE system, they are aware of what kind of ideas the kids can come up with and what we have to put our eyes on when we're traveling. So when we travel, we go like I said, eye trampoline,

and they're like, well, what kind of? science is here? What kind of science do you think it's here? When you jump, what kind of science is that? Big astronaut will not necessarily, I mean, maybe they jump, but what else? You know, so they're like, you just kind of probe them in physics, right? So they do, and they have fun. I mean, you can't really drag on for six hours talking about science because no kid can take it. And I couldn't probably. We take it, but when you break it down with other things, and then while you're doing fun things, you explain to them, hey, this is how that works, you know? It's fun. It is fun.

Sometimes I have friends saying, what kind of science are you going to teach them when you take them to eye trampoline and they play in an arcade? I said, well, they jump in there. We talk about aerodynamics and, you know, how this happens. What makes you jump? And then, I mean, arcade is just a fun part after. You can't be talking science and let them play a few games. It's not going to, you know. It's true.

And I think it promotes an environment of, you know, sometimes our greatest insights come to us in environments that are not even of that same field. You know, you can, like if you're at eye trampoline and all of a sudden you see something bounce on the trampoline. It's sort of like an apple fallen from a tree, you know, what kind of insights came from that, you know? Like there's so much that can come from an environment that maybe you're not surrounded by science. And another point I think is very interesting too. When it comes to teaching, be it science or math or whatever it is, you can find something in any environment to teach, you know, whether it's science, whether it's math. And I think that that helps teach the children that, you know, to be curious, like it's all around you. Science is all around you.

Math is all around you. Whatever you want to learn is right around you. Sometimes I think that it's not so much the learning process as it is something being revealed to you. Like everything's all the answers are right there if you're willing to look. I think that the information and answers get revealed to you as much as you learn them. And the way you're explaining the process of learning, especially in different cultures, sometimes we have this idea that you have to sit in a classroom and you have to have someone and tell you what to do and you have to get a pass to go to the bathroom.

And it's just this authoritarian structure. And I think that that almost isolates learning in a way. I think it's so much better when kids can get up and they can move around and they can ask questions and they can be part of the environment. I think that there's something to be said about whole body learning that helps us do that. And when I see these programs that you're taking the kids on, like I see that environment. I see the kids asking questions. I see the kids naturally curious.

And I see all the teachers and yourself and the aides there that are right, they're willing to help them. And like you said, when someone has a magnifying glass and they learn how to put a hole in a leaf, they are doing their own scientific experiment right there. And like, I think that builds so much character for them. And it builds confidence for them. And I just feel like we've gotten away from that in the majority of schools today. And it's so refreshing to see you bringing that back.

Where did you, is that how you learned? Did you have a mom and dad that were taking a little in a time? posture around and showing her all this stuff? How did you learn how to do that? So no. So it's an interesting question. So I was born in communism, right? Poland, the 80s.

We, you know, we have schools from 8 to 4 every day, and we had to go to school on Saturday. So there was no money for any elaborate, you know, fun things to do. So, you know, you would get a hammer and, wood and a picture and the teacher will say, okay, I want you to build this house for birds. There's a couple different options here. You can come up with yours. This is your nails.

This is your hammer. This is your wood. This is your saw. Be careful. Don't cut your fingers off, right? And then it takes us four hours. You have four hours to do it, right? Or, you know, they would take us to the forest and we had to on Saturday's plant trees because

that was the communistic help. in nature, right? So we were running in the forest. So it was like my schooling was so different than I, my kids are schooled like. And I really, you know, I try to do it with kids in in my camps, but it's so much harder for them to be creative, to be, you know, to do something without being helped. And if they do, it's really, like, you can tell how happy it makes. It makes them. So I usually bring a bunch of lasagna macaroni and they have to build a bridge out of that using either, you know, a glue gun or rubber bands. And that bridge has to hold enough to go from one or two another and there's a car that's going to drive on it. And most of them are like,

what? What do you want us to do? Well, build a bridge out of macaroni? Yeah, out of macaroni. And, you know, but I don't tell them how to do it. Well, you got to do it. You just figure something out. If that, you know, if your grade would depend on it or your life would depend on it, you would have to build it. So try to figure something out. Some kids are more brave.

Some kids are, like, discouraged because if there's no directions, they can't go. So you have to help them and say, okay, so let's just sit down. See what you can just let's just draw it first, right? But those are the projects that, you know, I was a kid. And, you know, we, I remember we had to knit a bear once out of, not a band-aid, but the gauze, you know, that goes around the wound. Because we didn't have yarn in commune. So the teacher is like, okay, this is what we, you can, everybody can buy this. We're going to cut it to pieces.

We're going to make a string first, make a yarn, and then you guys are going to knit a bear. And everybody has to follow me. and we were sitting for I think three or four days at school knitting a bear and nobody complained and everybody took turns telling stories or something and now kids don't even have patience like I tried to knit with them

before that was the most frustrating lessons that we've ever had because they lose so much patience and they're like I keep doing it! Well let's figure out how, you know, they break those things.

But I try because it's important to have patience. It's important to sit down and figure out not everything is given to in life. You know, you have to kind of figure things out on your own. For some kids, it works. For some, it takes a long time. Some need encouragement from other kids, not from adults. So I have learned a lot of, you know, I don't have an education in like early childhood development or anything, just purely technical and scientific.

But I sign up for like a teen and preteen life coaching just because my kids are getting to that age. And now I'm learning a lot of things in there, which hopefully would help me even more, you know, why they lose the patience, what's happening and how to redirect the focus. But at the same time, you know, I have a huge range. So my camps are six to 12 years old, right? So some parents are like, well, how is this going to work? You know, my kid is 11 and you have a bunch of six years old.

And it does. We kind of run it like a Montessori. And we have a very strict rules on bullying, on, you know, being kind. So we drill those rules to them every day. They need to know them. So there is three simple rules. You have to be respectful. you have to be kind to others, the teachers, and the things you use.

And the older have to help the younger. And it works because sometimes the older actually really enjoy helping the younger. And the younger, you know, they need that help, kind of like a Montessori system. Right. And I have not had a kid who would not. We had one child that flew in from, I think, San Antonio. and he said he was too old and this is too boring and he's too independent. He wanted to go home and so we'll just give it one day, you know.

And you see him, we'll just put him in charge of small group and he, you know, changed his mind. But it does. It can be pretty, you know, it can sound boring when you're like 12 and you're hitting that age of. puberty and knowing everything on your own, what am I going to do with a bunch of seven, eight year old, you know, but it's been working so far. Now what? Yeah. Have you noticed, like, I'm curious, like, we live in some very interesting times right now. And I'm curious if you have noticed, like, when I saw like this whole COVID thing go down, I got, I got really worried because my daughter is nine now and she was about seven.

when it happened. All of a sudden, all this learning went online and people are sitting in front of screens. It made me realize I'm a big fan of people of being able to touch and see. And I think there's something that happens when you sit down next to someone and it's like the felt presence of the other. Like, I can see your face and the teacher can give you a look and you know there's consequences, you know, and there's all these things that actually happen when I sit next to you, especially when you're learning how to learn, when you're learning how to communicate, when you're learning about all this up in here and your face and the eye movement and the hands. And so when, when this interesting situation with COVID happened and it's kind of moved through, but it's changed

us a little bit. Have you noticed any difference in kids that, I guess it really hasn't been long enough, but do you think that there could be some long-term consequences from this sort of distance learning or what is your take on this whole distance learning versus actual learning? So, yes, actually, you can see the difference as a teacher. And I can't really speak for all the teachers, but just for, you know, the experience I get in either my after-school classes and I don't spend a whole day with them, only with the kids when I'm going to sub in certain schools, but those are the kids I don't see every day. But kids are, I would say, angrier.

You know, frustrating factors kick in much faster now. You know, they're just not very inspired to do any work, I would say. It takes much more work because they all kind of seek, refuge and comfort in screens and we don't allow it we don't do it in our you know camps the only time they watch a screen is when we eating lunch so they are allowed to watch some in a movie or we watch some science videos or you know things that they they can request and the only game I let them play is you can dance and it magic, that game does magic.

Because they're like, I'm going to dance. And by the end of the week, everybody is dancing and fighting for the remotes, right? And have their favorite song and who they want to compete against which teacher and scores. But they move, they dance, they have to, you know. So that's the only game they're allowed to play. Because I realize that addiction to screen is, you know, I mean, even my own kids, When COVID started, I didn't. I mean, I opened a homeschool, so we had a homeschool in my home.

And I had mostly kids from nurses and doctors that didn't have any place to place them, would drop them off my house. And we were just, you know, I live in a gated neighborhood, which was nice because we could just go outside and sit on a tennis court. And, you know, nobody was really sure of what's going to happen if the kids can't even mean, but nobody wanted to help anyone, which is so surprising to me. You know, I was very appalled, like, how many people are actually dropping more trouble on others than helping in a situation like this, because even in my own complex, I got in trouble

for bringing kids from nurses and doctors because they can bring it here. I'm like, listen, if I would have a kid and I'm a doctor and I have to go to work, I don't want to lock them somewhere in somebody. I don't know in Waikiki in a hotel because that was their option. And, you know, you can do whatever you want, but I am helping these people. Yeah. So, but it was, you know, like I found that being raised in communism, we were always thought how to stick together when times like this come, not against,

but actually fuse together. But it's not the case in here. When danger comes your way, everybody seems to shut the door and don't come close. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I thought it would be different here because Hawaii has such a strong, you know, culture, right? But it wasn't.

Everybody was just there. I agree. It was, it's an interesting experiment in behavior. and I don't love what I saw. I don't love, although there were bright spots, like people like you. And I know a handful of people that were willing to go out of their way to make things more comfortable and embrace people rather than embrace fear. And I think that, I think as difficult as it was for kids and people, I think we got to learn a lot. And if you look back at it as a, as a opportunity to learn, you know, I think that the majority of teachers that I have spoken to were validated in their worry.

And so I think moving forward, we can, we can see programs like you have. I think that we can really see how people it is to get back to a type of learning that is hands on. I think we got to see how important it is to get to a spot where we can see, you know, kids can really learn complicated topics if we just, if we teach it in a different way. Maybe that's a takeaway from this. Maybe a takeaway from what we went through is the idea that we don't need all this technology to make our kids smarter. In fact, we can go back to the ways of learning hands-on. And maybe this is an opportunity for us to recalibrate what education can be, right? Maybe it can be this more Montessori where the older kids are teaching the younger kids. And maybe it's going to take us away from there.

And I'm hopeful that it does. I think that there's a lot of promise in that. And in some ways, I think education is changed forever because of COVID. And I see that as a positive, even though there's some negative aspects of it, I like to see, okay, here's what happened and here's what we can do moving forward. And I think that this idea of teaching STEM and teaching the next generation science standards is maybe COVID could be a catalyst for that. And that's kind of what I wanted to ask you about. What are the next generation science standards?

What does that mean? So those are a number of different science and math related subjects that are appropriate for age group, which I personally do not like any standardized way of teaching like this because, you know, it does not mean that six years old kids cannot learn something that you're teaching to a fourth grade or fifth grade because their curiosity level might be at a different stage, but, you know, there was at some point somebody who put standards together because that's what everybody was doing for standards for ELA, standards for math, standards for STEM, and that is for the schools who have

a curriculum to implement, which makes the teacher's job easier, especially if you're not a science teacher, you have the standards, you know what to teach. They will tell you exactly what lessons to teach, what subjects to teach, and then you can find materials to teach it. but again I mean for my business I would not use any standards because the kids they are a different level of you know being involved in science liking science or disliking science you can't really put a standard okay this is what we're going to do but it is helpful for school curriculum because if you don't have a specific teacher in your school who would help you teach science

then at least you have the standards you can look through. Of course, a lot of reading. Some of them can be very confusing still, even for teachers to read, you know, because it's written with a specific language. But that's to follow. And, you know, I mean, the higher grade you are, the more complicated the standard will be, including math, engineering, and regular science.

It's sort of like a fast food of curriculum. Like this is we're going to take this off the shelf. Everybody should have this Big Mac. It's the same at every McDonald's. So we're going to teach it this way everywhere. But that, it seems to me like that kind of limits children's ability of what they can possibly be. Like, yeah, you could be the standard. But do you really, I don't know anybody that wants to be standard.

Everybody I know wants to be different, unique and beautiful and fun and exciting. and all these other things. I would say want to be. I would say everybody is. Yes, thank you. You know? Because it's not matter of wanting. It's matter of being, actually.

And you as a teacher just need to embrace that, but it's hard with the system, with the educational system. You don't have time to embrace it. You don't have time to individualize kids because there is a lot of standards you need to meet in order for the school or your specific grade to perform at certain level, right? So that gets lost.

And I find a lot, especially with my own kids, that they're not inspired at school. Like, they're not wanting to learn more about language arts or social studies. It's just for them, it's a hard work, it's boring, it's not something they want to focus on. They just want to get out of school and do something fun, right? Which is sad because I liked going to school as a kid, you know, even though it was a long day, eight to four, we always, you know, we had PE every day, not once a week. You know, we had to do once a week go and help old people wash their windows or drag their cold down the basement for the winter. you know, that was the social studies. And we don't teach anything like this in U.S., which is kind of sad.

And, you know, I mean, I take the kids to Hooku Aina, right, for the tarotaches, to help, you know, pull the weeds. And the first trip, of course, they all have fun in the mud, and nobody wants to pull the weeds because it's just muddy and fun. but then saying, okay, you had your fun. Now we have to help out because this is why we're here, you know. So some people can actually have the food that's growing here. And, you know, we have to be respectful.

And they learn. I mean, I love how Hawaiians are so ingrained in like this safe, sustainable, food-growing mindset. So I try to take it a lot of, with helping the farmers, let's just do some hard work. See how those things are made, right? And so that's also part of science.

And some people might say, hey, you know, not really my kids. Clothes are damaged. It's not washable. This is what we're doing today. The schedule is on the internet. You know what we're going, and they're going to come dirty and happy.

You know, I'm curious, Natasha. Like, one thing I've noticed that is happening in society, at least it seems to me, is something that I see happening in education. And I would love to get your opinion on this. It seems that we've moved really far into this idea of specialization. You know, you have a specialist doctor that works on this part of the body, or you have a specialty scientist that works in this little area. And it seems we've gotten so specialized that maybe half the group doesn't even know

what the other half is talking about. And we really reward this specialization. Like if you write a paper on this one particular element that no one else knows, you can become really famous and make a lot of money. But you're not the only one that knows it. So specialization and experts versus a more holistic approach of like, okay, I'm not a specialist. I'm a generalist.

I know all of these things. And it seems to me when you're a generalist, you have an idea of what's happening out there. And it almost seems like that's what's happening in education nowadays, is that, you know, you have this, you just have these very special tight boxes that kids are being put in. Out there, is that just me being crazy? So yes and no, I would say,

because I think specialties came with money-making, right? This is just a money-making machine. If you were a specialist at something, that means nobody else knows what you know so for example when I was in in the school and I did my PhD in biochemistry I started with PhD and then I switched to master's because I was like I'm not I'm not going to ever get a job I'm going to have to stay at the university which I don't want to do I want to get a job but my professor would always say you are the only one who is is doing this particular mutation.

None of the members of your company know how this works. They might have general idea what you need to do, but none of them knows the details except you. So you're a specialist in this. So don't cave in into their questions and fearing that you don't know how to answer because they don't know the answer. They're asking because they're curious and you're the specialist and you need to, you know, so the specialty,

It always comes with the security of being the only one, I think, who knows the subject. And also, supposed to make you more money. Well, in a medical field, we all know that this is failing big time right now because you have people who would have heart problems and then, you know, blood pressure problems and organ liver problems. And they have to go to different doctors, but these doctors don't talk to each other. and prescribe only that medication for one particular discipline they're looking at without any consequences of what the other medication for a condition that might be related is doing.

So there is no holistic looking at a problem. It's just okay, I'm looking at your liver. This is all I'm looking at. You know, this is a thyroid doctor. You have to go to thyroid doctor. No, and they don't talk to each other, but I'm glad to see, actually, that you have a lot of holistic doctors coming on because they would look at everything, try to figure out what is really going on. When, you know, these specialties cause a lot of trouble, in my opinion. I mean, you have to have a general understanding of everything in order to be a good human and sympathetic and kind. and, you know, you can't be just doing one thing and expect that you're going to be on the top. But then you have people like Mark Zuckerberg and like, you know, Elon Musk. They're very narrow, right?

This is what I'm doing. And that's all I'm doing. And they're very successful. So that's the skewed picture of specialties. I don't like, you know, praising kids on specialties. rather praise them on the process how they're doing things, accomplishing things, then, oh, you're so good at this. You have to be, you know, you'll be a great doctor. No, it's, I'm so impressed how you figure this out. This was incredible, you know.

It's just, I don't know. In, when I was in school, it's interesting. After, elementary school was from 6 to 14, 15, some people 15, some 14. Then you had to go to high school. You could choose either a specialty high school, which is five years, and you could be finishing it with a trade. Like I finished BS in civil engineering, or you could go to high school that did nothing except prepping you for college. But if you didn't get to college, you had nothing.

You had to wait for a year to try to get to college again. And that was, I remember the moment when you were in high school saying, okay, do I want to lock myself into being only a civil engineer, or do I actually want to study everything and then try to figure out what I want to do? And even when I was high school, there was this push, okay, if you're not going to get to college, then you stuck for a year, because you have no degree to be something instead of being nothing. That's the mentality even then, right?

So I think that I don't like that. I like to cultivate the, you know, skills that I can see kids are good at, but not trying to tell them, oh, you know, you should be this or you should be that. It's like you're really good at this. You can utilize it for, you know, keeping you confident in life. And it's hard. Kids lack confidence and a lot right now. And I deal with this with my own kids.

You know, it's tough, especially when they're like this middle school age. Everything kind of, they question everything. It's harder. Young kids, easy problems. Older kids, bigger problems. Yeah. Yeah. It's what I guess, you know, it's.

I would like the idea of complementing the process. Like, I never really thought about that a whole lot. But as you say that, that's something they can always get better at. And that's something they can always learn from. And it's something they can build a lot of confidence on. Like, once you become good at solving a problem, then you can apply that method to other problems, whether it's in science or whether it's in math or whether it's in relationships. When you become comfortable solving problems, it seems like you become a better problem solver. I'm curious if that seems to be like one thing that I've already learned from talking to you.

And you've spoken a lot about the things that you teach the kids. What are some things that the kids have taught you? What are some things that you've learned from them? Funny, that I gave up easier than they do sometimes. You know, they're like, Mr. Taksha, you tell us to never give up, But you just give up. You didn't make enough cookies, right? We baked cookies.

I'm like, oh my gosh. I just get caught on my own preaching because I'm like, and I'm like, I don't want to buy this oven anymore. So let's just finish the cooking for you. Well, this, Natasha, you just give up. You tell us to never give up. So they catch you. I mean, you teach them and they catch you back and they're like, okay.

You know, or we were supposed to do slime all day today, but we did only half a day. Well, how much slime can we do, right? Well, we're not done yet. Okay. So things like that, it's funny when they catch you because you kind of feel embarrassed. I'm like, you guys cut me again on my floss. I have them.

But, you know, it's for them, it's fun to actually catch you on something. You're the teacher and, hey, you're not perfect. Nobody is, right? But if it comes to complementing the process, you know, a lot of teachers and a lot of us, as parents, we say, oh, you know, you're so good at math. But then the child gets a bad grade and it's like, oh, my God, what happened? I'm good at math. Is my mom lying to me? You know, my teacher?

Because it's not. So I've learned throughout, with my own kids, that it's better to comment their process of getting in. to solving something, then telling them they're good at something, because we all make mistakes. And if you think you're good at something, and then so sudden you're not, that really weighs heavy on your confidence. Instead of if you're good at the process, okay, I have to go back, look at it, I mess something up, I can fix it.

You know? And I have a very sensitive child, and that was the hardest thing for me, because I was actually told to, treat my child that way, not tell all the time you're good at this, you bet at this, just complement the process or fix the process because then it doesn't stay as a, you know, it's me, you know, the confidence factor in how they perceive themselves. It's hard work to remember not to do that hard work.

Yeah, a lot of times. Oh my gosh, I love how good you disliked. you are at this instead of, you know, saying, oh my gosh, I love how you did that and how well-thoughtful, you know, process you chose to do it. It's so hard to remember saying things. Like you have to train your brain to actually say it. It takes a lot of self-repeating.

Yeah, no, it's true. It's when I see my daughter or I'm around kids quite a bit, I, you know, it's almost like a mirror sometimes because you can see them be devastating. it off something that's so small and then it reminds you of how you feel you're like oh man i know know how they feel and they're like okay and sometimes we as parents or teachers instead of at least for me i can't speak for anybody else but at least for me my initial response is like oh i want to i want to make them feel better so i would say something like oh good at this but if you

just take time to think about okay am i going to do i want to make them feel better or do i want to help them become better well i want to help them become better so then you got to stop and talk about the process. You've got to stop and take time to think about what would really make them better instead of just a word. Can you really give them some tools to become better so they don't make the same mistake anymore? Or, you know, a lot of times we just rush in with some two. But I mean, you know, I think that there are some real ideas that we can do to make them better. And the process is definitely one of them. I'm always fascinated with behavior and learning and development. And it's it's really interesting to

to see what kids can teach us Natasha I'm having an absolute blast and I could probably talk to you for like another 45 minutes but I have to go to work too and I want Before we do I know I know I know I'm really thankful though This is this has exceeded my experience

This is my work for today Look at this Oh wrong Ah And it's called Chemistry of Month So I have lessons with home school kids and they wanted to do something with monsters with chemistry. So I ordered the kid from England.

So we're doing, we're going to do some chemistry of monsters. So we'll see how that works. That's so fascinating. I'm going to have to get my daughter, Sky, over here to talk to you. So let me let's say that there's some people in Hawaii that are watching this video right now. And they're like, I want my kid to come and work with Natasha. I want my kid to be part of Natasha's group. How would they go about doing that?

So everything is on the website. When you go to SparkU.org, then we have it categorized in there under camps, after school programs, homeschool programs. So you can read and I write everything, I wrote everything about myself and there's so that people know who they're dealing with

that I'm not a teacher from trade. I'm a scientist. But I love kids. And, you know, kids do tend to love me too, which is so fun. I mean, there is no place I go that I wouldn't run into one of the students, right? Because I sub in so many different schools for science. So they can go on the website and there is a phone number.

They can call if they have questions. And I'll be always happy to answer any, you know, a lot of people have questions. Post-COVID, not everybody is trusting. And, you know, some people feel more comfortable with certain levels of, you know, being safe, I'm not and a lot of people want to ask. So but I'm working on the Q&A part on my website. So you know the most frequent questions I'm going to put them in there because you know do my kids have to wear a mask? You know, this kind of topics come up too.

You know, so go to the website, check us out. There's gallery. We also have Instagram and Facebook at SparkU Science that people can look. I post most of the pictures and videos on Instagram. because then I can shoot quick link to the parents to the kids I have in a camp and a class so they can look alive. And I usually just take them and post it there

and send them link and they can look what their kids are doing so they know we're not doing any shady business. Just blowing up things of the UH Manoa. That scores huge in my book. For everybody listening to this, I can honestly tell you when I saw the camp, when I saw the kids with Natasha, when I saw the kids making ice cream with liquid nitrogen.

Like it just, it looked like, I literally stopped what I was doing and wanted to be part of that group. Like it's so much fun there. And to everybody watching, Natasha is a beautiful person and she cares about children and she cares about education and she's good at it. And so I would recommend if you want your kid to do something fun

and you're in Hawaii or if you're watching this from somewhere else, if you want your kid to be part of an experience that is based in science and is based in humanity. It's based in love. I think that this is the program for you. So I'm going to put all her stuff in the show notes, and you can reach out to her, tell her you heard about it on the True Life podcast,

and reach out to her. She'll answer all your questions. She's got a good team around her. And so before we go, Natasha, is there anything else that maybe you want to talk to people about? Or is anything else you want to say? No, George, I think, you know, I've said everything I wanted to say. I'm an open book.

I am what you see is what you get. Sometimes it's a good thing. Sometimes it's not, but this is who I am. And I really, I'm grateful for the experience with True Life and yourself inviting me to your podcast. I really appreciate the opportunity. I'm sorry, it took me so long to get in here, but we did it. We did it. I hope to see your kid and other kids who might be bored in a summer or in a winter break.

And happy holidays, I guess. Yes. Happy holidays to everybody out there. Thank you so much for taking time spending them with Natasha and me today. So that's all we got for today. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time.