Speaker 1: I listen to your podcast every morning when I'm getting ready,
Speaker 1: I'm scrolling through trying to find one. I love listening
Speaker 1: to it, and they inspire me because when you most
Speaker 1: every person that has done something extraordinary has had a
Speaker 1: story of some kind. Rarely do you hear someone who's
Speaker 1: had this perfect life. And that's the normal people. You know,
Speaker 1: what is normal, I guess is different too, But I
Speaker 1: was inspired by every time.
Speaker 2: And then also Wilson Society.
Speaker 1: I do that as our service club here on campus,
Speaker 1: and all of them have done something in their community
Speaker 1: generally as well.
Speaker 2: And I thought we'd be inspiring for them.
Speaker 1: To listen to these and see rather than me just
Speaker 1: saying pick a podcast.
Speaker 2: This way they're getting something.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are faith based, which was again
Speaker 1: a great segue into what we learn in our class
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
Speaker 3: I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
Speaker 3: I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach Inner City, Memphis.
Speaker 3: And the last part somehow led to an oscar for
Speaker 3: the film about our team. That movie is called Undefeated, y'all.
Speaker 3: I believe our country's problems are never gonna be solved
Speaker 3: by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using
Speaker 3: big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox,
Speaker 3: but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us,
Speaker 3: just you and me deciding hey, I can help. Today,
Speaker 3: we have an outside the box episode. Really, you're gonna
Speaker 3: meet a whole bunch of high schoolers and their teacher
Speaker 3: who used an army of normal folks in their class.
Speaker 3: I cannot wait for you to meet this class from
Speaker 3: Briarqust Christian School right after these brief messages from our
Speaker 3: general sponsors. I know sitting here is a little weird,
Speaker 3: and you're probably all like, this is kind of cool,
Speaker 3: but kind of weird too. If you don't engage with me,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna make you engage with me, which is more embarrassing.
Speaker 3: So talk, engage, chill out, have fun, don't be geeks.
Speaker 3: All right? See this is bad. See see that really
Speaker 3: uncomfortable silence. We're not gonna have that sound. So here's
Speaker 3: how this is gonna go.
Speaker 2: Take your jacket off.
Speaker 3: Here's how that's gonna go. We're gonna engage for about
Speaker 3: ten minutes, and then we're going to talk about a
Speaker 3: lot of the stuff you guys have done with your
Speaker 3: assignment with the podcast. And I have some excerpts of
Speaker 3: some stuff you've written. I don't know who wrote it,
Speaker 3: so I'm gonna read it and say who wrote it?
Speaker 1: And there you go, you who wrote it.
Speaker 3: No, we'll have more fun this way. We'll say that,
Speaker 3: and I'll say, Okay, who are you? And tell me
Speaker 3: what you were doing with it? And you got to
Speaker 3: say your name. And this thing is going to come
Speaker 3: around to you. You are either a passive or if
Speaker 3: you guys are close together, you guys can pass it around. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you just pass it around, but when you speak, don't
Speaker 3: hold it over here while you're talking actually speaking to it,
Speaker 3: so it picks it up. Because there's gonna be thousands
Speaker 3: and thousands and thousands of people to hear this thing.
Speaker 3: So we need Yeah, you're special, so we need we
Speaker 3: need you to use your voice and speak up and
Speaker 3: talk with me. The other thing is, don't talk quietly
Speaker 3: to me because I'm deaf in my right ear and
Speaker 3: I really can't hear you. Are you really? Wow?
Speaker 4: I got hit baseball last year right here, and it's like.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, the reason I'm deaf is because of the
Speaker 3: same thing, except for football. I have nerve. I have
Speaker 3: nerve damage. Actually, right now I can hear about four
Speaker 3: percent of any noise, what brand whatever. My wife told
Speaker 3: me to bout hang on what.
Speaker 5: I have them too, but I don't have them in
Speaker 5: right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it was nerve damage, right, No coke, clear implants,
Speaker 3: nothing can fix it. You're deaf for the rest of
Speaker 3: your life.
Speaker 4: It's either a broken cole a bone or permanent nerve.
Speaker 3: So your official meat heead. Yeah, that's why it works.
Speaker 3: All right. I almost heard everything he said. So you've
Speaker 3: got to speak that loud or louder when you talk
Speaker 3: with me. Okay, okay, okay, thank you so much. All Right,
Speaker 3: you guys haven't been in a lot of these things.
Speaker 3: I do need to tell you one other thing. This
Speaker 3: guy's the producer. That's Alex Cortez. On some of the
Speaker 3: things you've listened to. You may have heard me referred
Speaker 3: to Alex before. That's who he is. He produces a show,
Speaker 3: he makes it happen. Everything else. One of the things
Speaker 3: you need to learn about show biz is producers are
Speaker 3: complete pain in the button. They're horrible. They're not fun
Speaker 3: to deal with. They're awful, So just ignore the weird
Speaker 3: looking man in the corner and everything will be fine. Good.
Speaker 3: I gave it to him. You see what they got.
Speaker 3: I slept those things all the way here for him,
Speaker 3: and I was again, you know, I out of kids,
Speaker 3: and I'm sorry, just setting up pictures. I don't know
Speaker 3: what you're gonna do with it. Give it your diet.
Speaker 3: He can read it to you. Is that okay?
Speaker 2: Good coach?
Speaker 3: Herring can come in unbelievable. Hold on, we can't start yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah that right there, y'all was a dog back in
Speaker 3: the day. Y'all need to know, an absolute dog. What
Speaker 3: was it twenty six, twenty seven when you got your
Speaker 3: first date? Someone actually went out with a bat? Then
Speaker 3: about then? I cat right there, y'all. Don't look at
Speaker 3: the old gray hair. He could go. He was an athlete.
Speaker 3: He was a good coache. Yeah that's right. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 3: Well you are precious, all right, honey, we'll see you later.
Speaker 3: Bless his heart. All right, So go ready, you're gonna
Speaker 3: have fun. It be a bunch of dufuses and just
Speaker 3: sit there like knots on a law. What do you
Speaker 3: do to your wrist? Low cross did to your wrist.
Speaker 3: You's got to speak up. My teammate hit me in
Speaker 3: the wrist. Oh are you kidding? Yikes? Can you still
Speaker 3: play with that thing on? That really stinks, doesn't it? Sorry? Okay, uh,
Speaker 3: all right, ready, all right, here we go. Jenny Manguno
Speaker 3: is weird? How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good? Thank you.
Speaker 3: You're weird because you emailed Alec and then you emailed
Speaker 3: me and you said something like this. I've been listening
Speaker 3: to your podcasts for several months, almost every weekday morning,
Speaker 3: and I'm consistently inspired by your guest and even your story.
Speaker 3: My story is quite similar to yours. And you went
Speaker 3: on to talk about teaching a dual enrollment oral communications
Speaker 3: class at Briercrest High School in Memphis. You invited Alex
Speaker 3: and me to kind of discuss with you that you
Speaker 3: actually you made your students in your class listen to
Speaker 3: an army of normal folks. We found that really really interesting.
Speaker 3: And you're also the librarian, and you're weird because you're
Speaker 3: using a podcast in your class and oral communications, and
Speaker 3: Alex and I thought that's cool. So for those listening today,
Speaker 3: we are at Briercrest High School in Memphis with your class,
Speaker 3: with your enrollment oral communication class, and there's one, two, three, four, five, six,
Speaker 3: seven eight, there's about fifteen kids in here.
Speaker 2: Say hi, kids, they're happy today.
Speaker 3: What in the world inspired you to say? I'm teaching
Speaker 3: oral communications class. I'm going to make these kids listen
Speaker 3: to an old person's podcast, which had to have been
Speaker 3: miserable for these kids.
Speaker 1: I think they probably thought it was going to be
Speaker 1: miserable to start, but then they wound up loving the
Speaker 1: assignment they do part of the curriculum that we have.
Speaker 1: They actually did their own podcast. We have a podcast
Speaker 1: small studio here on campus, and so they each had
Speaker 1: to record a podcasts with a partner. One group had
Speaker 1: a group of three. But anyhow, they were doing their podcasts,
Speaker 1: and so I was just asking who listens to podcasts
Speaker 1: and there weren't.
Speaker 2: A lot that before this time.
Speaker 1: I said, then y'all need to listen to a good podcast,
Speaker 1: and I love yours. And so that's how that came up,
Speaker 1: as like, choose one of these, and being a teacher,
Speaker 1: I made sure it was ones I had listened to,
Speaker 1: so that I would know for sure if they had
Speaker 1: done the assignment or not.
Speaker 3: What where do you come from. What's your story?
Speaker 1: Does that mean?
Speaker 3: Oh my god? Should I answer it now? Answered? It's
Speaker 3: your wife? Answer answer on air?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, sweet.
Speaker 1: This is my fortieth year in education, so I've been
Speaker 1: teaching since nineteen eighty five was my first year to teach.
Speaker 1: So I've been doing this a long time, between high school,
Speaker 1: college and now back to high school. So doing doing
Speaker 1: enrollment gets you to do a little bit of both.
Speaker 3: So what brought you into teaching? Tell me how you
Speaker 3: came up. Tell me a little bit about you. I'm
Speaker 3: curious because you said my story is quite similar to yours.
Speaker 3: I want to hear about that. How are we alike?
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't know if the students know your whole story.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they know my whole story. So
Speaker 1: I'll just kind of share. So I grew up and
Speaker 1: I went to high school in Pearl, Mississippi, which they know.
Speaker 2: All about because I asked them.
Speaker 1: I always ask them bonus questions about my life, Like
Speaker 1: if I say something in class and their bonus question
Speaker 1: comes from that, like what was what was my high
Speaker 1: school mascot?
Speaker 2: Do y'all remember?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Pirates? Very good?
Speaker 3: See, like they remember pirates?
Speaker 2: The Pearl pirates.
Speaker 3: Yes, anyhow, so we.
Speaker 2: Use that in the class a lot. So I'm from Pearl.
Speaker 1: My parents divorced when I was nine, which is unheard
Speaker 1: of in nineteen seventy two, you know, like that just
Speaker 1: was not something happened. And then later my dad died.
Speaker 1: My mom was a teacher, and I thought I would
Speaker 1: never be a teacher. She had a very unconventional life
Speaker 1: and made a lot of poor relationship decisions that in
Speaker 1: today's world would probably be much accepted, but in Pearl,
Speaker 1: Mississippi in the nineteen seventies was a very difficult thing.
Speaker 3: But did that put a stigma on you as a kid?
Speaker 1: Oh? Absolutely, uh And I've said this often. I have
Speaker 1: one wonderful friend that I'm still best friends with today.
Speaker 1: But if I invited a friend to spend the night,
Speaker 1: it was always maybe you could come to my house instead.
Speaker 1: No one was ever allowed to come and spend the
Speaker 1: night at my house, which looking back, I don't blame
Speaker 1: those parents. I mean, I'm a parent now, and I
Speaker 1: get that.
Speaker 3: Doesn't make a sixteen year old fillony better about it, though.
Speaker 1: No, no, And by that point, by the time I
Speaker 1: was like middle school, early high school, I had a
Speaker 1: great friend. Her name's Diane, and my mom would say
Speaker 1: things like, find somewhere to go this weekend, you can't
Speaker 1: be here, and so pretty much every Friday afternoon I
Speaker 1: would just go home with Diane, and then on Sunday
Speaker 1: about seven o'clock, my sister would come pick me up
Speaker 1: and we'd go back home. And so that's who really
Speaker 1: raised me, is my friend's mind.
Speaker 3: That has to make you feel alone as a kid.
Speaker 1: I think you know, in the seventies, there was no DHS.
Speaker 1: There was no talking about this. These aren't things that
Speaker 1: you talk about. They're just it just was your life,
Speaker 1: and you do it, and dare tell someone that your
Speaker 1: life wasn't perfect, because that's not the way life was.
Speaker 1: But there was no protect there's no foster system, there's
Speaker 1: no DHS or nothing like that, so you just go on.
Speaker 2: But my mom was a.
Speaker 1: Teacher, and of course I said I would never be
Speaker 1: a teacher, but I had a teacher in high school.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've told them the story, Missus Robbins.
Speaker 1: She was my speech teacher, my most favorite teacher. I
Speaker 1: had her three years in a row, and she just
Speaker 1: she was that teacher that called you out when you.
Speaker 1: You know, she told everybody what they were doing right
Speaker 1: and what they were doing wrong, and she didn't think
Speaker 1: twice about it, and she was She made a big impact.
Speaker 1: In fact, i'm talking with Alex I told him she's
Speaker 1: she had three students who became speech teachers.
Speaker 3: That's just like you count yourself as one communications.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and all taught high school and college.
Speaker 1: It's just been af She just made a huge impact
Speaker 1: in my life. Went to college, didn't ever plan to
Speaker 1: be a teacher, and got certified just in case from
Speaker 1: one of my roommates said, I think you'd be a
Speaker 1: good teacher. You should just get certified. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll get certified. And then I did my student teaching
Speaker 1: and fell in love with teaching. Never had plans to teach,
Speaker 1: and I've been teaching now forty years.
Speaker 3: How long have you been here?
Speaker 2: I've been full time here ten years.
Speaker 3: Got it? For those who don't know, my mother was
Speaker 3: married and divorced five times. My fourth father took out
Speaker 3: a thirty eight caliber pistol one night after finishing off
Speaker 3: about a half gallon of US or Scotch and shot
Speaker 3: at me down the hallway. I had to dive out
Speaker 3: of window to save myself that night. So I was
Speaker 3: surrounded with dysfunction trauma, and as a person your age
Speaker 3: was kind of lost trying to figure out, you know,
Speaker 3: where where do I fit in this world? And I'll
Speaker 3: tell you something else that happens is when people come
Speaker 3: in and out of your life consistently, and the only
Speaker 3: thing that is consistent is inconsistency, you start to wonder
Speaker 3: about your own value. You know, why are you not
Speaker 3: valuable enough that someone is willing to invest in stay
Speaker 3: in your life? And it has a profound effect. And
Speaker 3: you can either come and be a victim to that
Speaker 3: dysfunction or you can decide to be a rock that
Speaker 3: that dysfunction breaks itself on. There's really two choices. Sure
Speaker 3: to tell you that a teacher who passed away not
Speaker 3: long ago, actually my football coach told me that who
Speaker 3: I love, did you feel the dysfunction?
Speaker 1: I think it's just one of those things where it's
Speaker 1: just your life like And again, you wouldn't talk about this.
Speaker 2: This was the seventies. There were no TV. Every TV
Speaker 2: show was you know, the love boat or.
Speaker 3: What is something fantasy island?
Speaker 2: Fantasy Island that shows the cleaver road.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just everything's.
Speaker 1: Perfect break yeah, yeah, yeah, So you just thought, well,
Speaker 1: it's just not the way I live.
Speaker 2: But you wouldn't dare talk about that.
Speaker 1: You're now People talk about the dysfunction in their family
Speaker 1: and there's ways to deal with it. But I assure
Speaker 1: you there were people who had it worse than I did,
Speaker 1: much worse.
Speaker 3: I coach and teach and do a lot of what
Speaker 3: I do because I'm still a fifty six year old
Speaker 3: fill very real about the pain ifl and I feel
Speaker 3: like in teaching and coaching you have an opportunity to
Speaker 3: maybe exact some measure of positive change on some people
Speaker 3: who may be going through maybe not exactly what you're
Speaker 3: doing too, but a similar amount of suffering, pain, questions, whatever.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like that's what draws you to continue
Speaker 3: to do this year after year.
Speaker 1: I think I think you hope that you're making a
Speaker 1: difference in some way. I mean, a teacher made a
Speaker 1: huge difference for me, So you hope in some way
Speaker 1: you're making If you make a difference in one person's life,
Speaker 1: then you've done something.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's so true. But then you look out
Speaker 3: at the people you're trying to make a difference in life.
Speaker 3: And there are a bunch of fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year old
Speaker 3: meatheads like these people out here, and you actually wonder
Speaker 3: if you're getting through you do sometimes Yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: there's this kid over here at Tucker. I don't know
Speaker 3: how you get through to that guy, this Tucker kid. Oh,
Speaker 3: you're going to act right because your dad's in the room.
Speaker 3: Now what you're gonna do. You're just gonna sit there.
Speaker 3: We're going to take a brief intermission in the middle
Speaker 3: of this. This is not a commercial break. Say what up? Coach?
Speaker 3: Brandon Tucker just walked in. And Brandon Tucker is one
Speaker 3: of the finest people on the face of the planet.
Speaker 3: I've coached against him, I've coached with him, and I
Speaker 3: love him. And his son happens to be in your class.
Speaker 3: And so there's Brandon Tucker over there. Pretty good math coach,
Speaker 3: pretty fair football coach, but a pretty extraordinary human beings.
Speaker 3: Good to see you, brother, And now a few messages
Speaker 3: from our general sponsors. But first, we're thinking about launching
Speaker 3: a few local chapters of the Army this year, and
Speaker 3: if you're interested in potentially leading a chapter in your community,
Speaker 3: email Army at normal folks, dot us and Alex would
Speaker 3: love to connect with you. We'll be right back kind
Speaker 3: of give me and our listeners just a quick purpose
Speaker 3: of the dual enrollment Oral Communications class. I keep having
Speaker 3: to read it because I don't even know how to
Speaker 3: remember all that. But what do y'all do? Well?
Speaker 1: Because it's dual enrollment, they're getting college credit through the
Speaker 1: University of Memphis by taking this class, so they take discounts.
Speaker 1: They have to have a fine art to graduate from
Speaker 1: high school, so they take my class for one semester
Speaker 1: and then first semester they took music appreciation. My first
Speaker 1: semester class takes theater appreciation this semester, so it just
Speaker 1: depends on where they fall. But they're getting college credit.
Speaker 1: The hope is that they don't have to take this
Speaker 1: in college. Most of them, the seniors and the seniors
Speaker 1: will see most of those have on their senior shirts today.
Speaker 1: But we just did a what would you call what
Speaker 1: I did last week? A seminar I talk about college
Speaker 1: and try to help them learn how to do course equivalency.
Speaker 1: So if I took this class in high school, how's
Speaker 1: it going to help me in college?
Speaker 2: How's it going to transfer.
Speaker 1: So we have a lot of dual enrollment classes, but
Speaker 1: this is just one that they can take. And so
Speaker 1: we follow the curriculum from the University of Memphis and
Speaker 1: then I do a high school portion of that as well.
Speaker 1: And they've learned how to do an informative speech. Yesterday
Speaker 1: they did elevator pitches. I think that may have been
Speaker 1: their favorite. They're like, no, no, they did the persuasive podcast.
Speaker 1: Help me out what else they impromptu speeches? They're just nodding.
Speaker 1: There a lot of communications, all communications skills, all right.
Speaker 3: So in the context of understanding the class and soon everybody,
Speaker 3: we're going to talk to these kids, and I expect
Speaker 3: that's going to be fun or maybe it'll be awful,
Speaker 3: depending on how big a goofballs they are. We'll find
Speaker 3: out there's four hundred there's four million, five hundred podcasts
Speaker 3: on the face of the planet. How inside are the
Speaker 3: construct of the class? Do you decide to I'm an
Speaker 3: army of normal folks as part of the curriculum. That's weird.
Speaker 1: That's why I said you were wor you said I
Speaker 1: was weird, Well, because I listened to it.
Speaker 3: Weird in the fondest sense of Okay, okay, I.
Speaker 1: Listen to your podcast every morning when I'm getting ready,
Speaker 1: I'm scrolling through trying to find one. I love listening
Speaker 1: to it, and they inspire me because when you most
Speaker 1: every person that has done something extraordinary has had a
Speaker 1: story of some kind. Rarely do you hear someone who's
Speaker 1: had this perfect life, and I guess that's part of them.
Speaker 3: There's no such thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the normal people.
Speaker 1: You know, what is normal? I guess is different too.
Speaker 1: But I was inspired by every time. And then also
Speaker 1: Wilson Society. I do that as our service club here
Speaker 1: on campus, and all of them have done something in
Speaker 1: their community generally as well, and I thought I would
Speaker 1: be inspiring for them to listen to these and see
Speaker 1: so almost very rather than me just saying pick a podcast.
Speaker 2: This way they're getting something.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are faith based, which was again
Speaker 1: a great segue into what we learn in our class
Speaker 1: as well, which.
Speaker 3: Is interesting, by the way, all of our listeners and
Speaker 3: you guys in here, it is interesting that a lot
Speaker 3: of our guests end up evoking faith during their conversations.
Speaker 3: But we are not a faith based podcast. I'm a Christian,
Speaker 3: but we are not a faith. I'm certainly not going
Speaker 3: to tell somebody don't speak about your faith, but we
Speaker 3: don't ask people to speak about their faith, but it
Speaker 3: is it has become very interesting d alex in me
Speaker 3: that I don't know what the percentage is, but four
Speaker 3: out of five probably end up evoking faith in their
Speaker 3: conversation and all the time that faith is not necessarily
Speaker 3: just their Christian faith. But it is interesting to me
Speaker 3: that as we talk about a group of quote normal folks,
Speaker 3: that the vast majority of them evoke faith when they
Speaker 3: talk about the work that they do to serve their community.
Speaker 3: Which it's interesting you picked up on that, and it's
Speaker 3: not it's not part of the context of the show,
Speaker 3: but it almost invariably comes out, which I think is
Speaker 3: interesting when people talk about themselves. I think it speaks
Speaker 3: to the power of faith in what we do in
Speaker 3: our lives. Does that have a component of what you
Speaker 3: do every day?
Speaker 2: Yes, so our career.
Speaker 1: I mean all we teach is faith based here, you know, everything,
Speaker 1: we want everything to come from a Christian worldview. So
Speaker 1: hopefully when these seniors leave that they they're solid in
Speaker 1: their faith and they know what they believe, and they
Speaker 1: believe it because they believe it, not because their parents
Speaker 1: believe it, and so when they get out into the world,
Speaker 1: they are able to make the decisions that are going
Speaker 1: to support their faith.
Speaker 3: Okay, So the assignment was listen to pick any episode
Speaker 3: off of the catalog of an army normal folks, listen
Speaker 3: to it, and then do.
Speaker 2: What write a essay about it.
Speaker 3: Okay, So the first one, I don't know who did what.
Speaker 3: I just got a bunch of students looking at me,
Speaker 3: and I have a small piece of what each of
Speaker 3: you wrote. So I like this one. This is what
Speaker 3: was part of what was said. We're going to go
Speaker 3: over all these, but I'm going to start with this
Speaker 3: one because I think it speaks to goofy sixteen, seventeen,
Speaker 3: eighteen year olds. I went into this project not wanting
Speaker 3: to do it. I love that, but I came out
Speaker 3: enjoying it. I've learned that podcasts do not have to
Speaker 3: be strictly business. Talking about stuff that the average person
Speaker 3: can relate to makes it more enjoyable for the listener.
Speaker 3: I honestly did not know this is who wrote this,
Speaker 3: but I guess it fits. So who went into this
Speaker 3: not wanting to do it? East I love the honesty
Speaker 3: admitted that they didn't want to do it. Uh, oh,
Speaker 3: speak up, No, it's on, you got to speak Okay,
Speaker 3: who is.
Speaker 6: Mem Hudson Tucker?
Speaker 3: What Hudson Tucker? Hudson Tucker didn't want to do this? Okay,
Speaker 3: so before we go on to what Hudson had to
Speaker 3: write about, who else in here? Honestly raise a hands.
Speaker 3: Really didn't want to do this.
Speaker 1: The whole class, Okay, their seniors and out bloom them
Speaker 1: and tomorrow is their last day of school.
Speaker 3: They are not wanting to being a senior in high
Speaker 3: school and classes ending. You're getting college fever. You're thinking
Speaker 3: about where you're applying to and what's next and everything else.
Speaker 3: And then you, uh, you got to listen to some
Speaker 3: old dudes podcast. What were you well, you actually like
Speaker 3: rolling your eyes and at your teacher, going come on,
Speaker 3: it's late in the year. This is a bunch of
Speaker 3: crud pretty much.
Speaker 1: And they're long too, just so you know, they're not
Speaker 1: like ten minutes long. That was that was their other complaint.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we make them, we know how long they are.
Speaker 3: We have to listen to these things. Yeah, so you
Speaker 3: didn't want to do it?
Speaker 6: Huh, I did not know, sir.
Speaker 3: But tell me what you found out. What would you
Speaker 3: listen to?
Speaker 6: And I listened to God's million dollar Company and how he.
Speaker 3: Donated Alan Barnhardt fifty.
Speaker 6: Of his profits. Yes, sir, and then I really enjoyed.
Speaker 6: Just like at first I didn't want to listen to it,
Speaker 6: and then as I started listening, it was just like
Speaker 6: it wasn't like it was all business. You were just
Speaker 6: having a good time, just talking about life and how
Speaker 6: he kind of was able to use his platform too.
Speaker 6: Everyone told him wasn't going to work, that he was
Speaker 6: going to lose money in the end, but he ended
Speaker 6: up just like trusting in God and having faith and
Speaker 6: he was able to actually give money to a lot
Speaker 6: of people to help him out.
Speaker 3: Hudson, would are you a senior, No, sir, I'm a junior.
Speaker 3: You got one more year left, yes, sir? All right.
Speaker 3: Did listening to that podcast and that episode in any
Speaker 3: way make you think more deep deeply about what you're
Speaker 3: gonna do in your life or how you're gonna approach
Speaker 3: your life.
Speaker 6: It kind of made me just like realize that like
Speaker 6: God has a plan and then like it's not gonna
Speaker 6: be my plan, like he everyone was telling him that
Speaker 6: it was not gonna work, not gonna work, and then
Speaker 6: he kind of just had faith in God and then
Speaker 6: it all worked out for his good. And so I
Speaker 6: just think that going into my senior year and then
Speaker 6: going into like the job search, that it's just gonna
Speaker 6: work out. Just got to keep living in him and
Speaker 6: the right path be made.
Speaker 3: What do you think about a guy that has a
Speaker 3: business that does a billion dollars a year in sales
Speaker 3: and still doesn't pay himself much more than one hundred
Speaker 3: and six thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 6: I think that's, uh, it's pretty impressive. Definitely, not too
Speaker 6: many people that would not give themselves a lot of money.
Speaker 6: And I think it speaks as him as like a man,
Speaker 6: mister Allen, and like how he really cares about other people,
Speaker 6: and how his whole life is just revolving around other
Speaker 6: people and people around him.
Speaker 3: Do all you guys know the story that this guy
Speaker 3: built a business from nothing, decided with his brother that
Speaker 3: every year they were going to give away fifty percent
Speaker 3: of their earnings, and only a couple of years ago
Speaker 3: his business did a billion dollars, y'all, and he gave
Speaker 3: the company away, didn't take one Dollar gave it away.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, so name, My name is Lance Bryant, but
Speaker 4: Alan Barnhart, that name popped up. I didn't listen to
Speaker 4: the episode, but my dad is in a group called
Speaker 4: C twelve. It's a Christian CEO group, and Alan Barnhart
Speaker 4: is actually in it. So my dad has actually told
Speaker 4: me a lot about him, and so I thought that
Speaker 4: was really cool that my dad is in a group
Speaker 4: with a guy that you did a podcast with.
Speaker 3: It's pretty cool, all right. Next one Joe and Kelly Carson.
Speaker 3: I learned a lot about how easily, how easy it
Speaker 3: really is to live in a sort of comfortable bubble.
Speaker 3: Inspired me to look beyond my life and to see
Speaker 3: what the norm is for other people who might not
Speaker 3: have as much as me. I also learned that it's
Speaker 3: very possible for ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. That
Speaker 3: storytelling is very powerful way to get the message across.
Speaker 3: In a podcast, who wrote that, Oh my gosh, so
Speaker 3: tell me about it.
Speaker 4: So you know, I listened to that podcast and it
Speaker 4: really stuck with me that like their son went out
Speaker 4: and did something and it actually changed their mindset. So
Speaker 4: like he went out and he lived on that flat
Speaker 4: in Chicago for a year, and he spent that weekend homeless,
Speaker 4: and you know, it was really inspiring to hear that.
Speaker 5: Like his parents kind of realized that.
Speaker 4: Like through him, that they were kind of living in
Speaker 4: ale and their their dentistry and stuff, and they realized
Speaker 4: that God did want them to sell their business and
Speaker 4: go try to make some things happen, and so God
Speaker 4: kind of paid the path for them, and that was
Speaker 4: really inspiring me.
Speaker 3: For those of you in the class, the takeaway here
Speaker 3: is this guy not much older than you. Part of
Speaker 3: his requirement was to go to a thrift store and
Speaker 3: get some ragged clothes and with no money in his pocket,
Speaker 3: go on the streets of Chicago and be homeless and
Speaker 3: have to ask for his sustenance to truly experience what
Speaker 3: homelessness feels like. Can you imagine doing that?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 3: Do you remember what his experience was when when he
Speaker 3: was on the street. Yeah? Yes. And remember now, this
Speaker 3: is a guy who comes from a background just like
Speaker 3: each of you, a fluent, nice place.
Speaker 1: He was I believe he was a student at Baylor,
Speaker 1: wasn't he when he took this year off?
Speaker 2: You don't remember that from the that's right?
Speaker 3: So what was his experience.
Speaker 5: So this part actually really stuck with me.
Speaker 4: So he was he was asking these people for money,
Speaker 4: and this this one lady that that he had asked
Speaker 4: for money, she said, uh, you know, you go get
Speaker 4: a job whatever. And I think she actually ended up
Speaker 4: giving him to three dollars or something and she said, Oh,
Speaker 4: you're probably just going to go spend this on alcohol
Speaker 4: and drugs. I don't know why I'm giving you this
Speaker 4: money anyway, And Kelly Carson was like, Uh.
Speaker 5: She got on the call with her son at the
Speaker 5: end of the week.
Speaker 4: I think they get one call a week, and he
Speaker 4: told her about that and she started thinking.
Speaker 5: She was like, I've done something similar to that before.
Speaker 3: Like and now he met me on the street that day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she said, he met me on the street that day,
Speaker 4: and so that really got her to thinking and then
Speaker 4: she made some change from that.
Speaker 3: It's a pretty cool story, pretty cool takeaway. It's easy, y'all,
Speaker 3: coming from affluence or relative safety when you're driving around
Speaker 3: in some of the more urban areas to see someone
Speaker 3: that is slovenly and be dragged and on the street
Speaker 3: with their handout. It is pretty easy to sum up
Speaker 3: based on popular narrative what that person is an alcoholic,
Speaker 3: a drug addict, a loser, whatever. But it's a reminder
Speaker 3: that every face has a story. And since we're in
Speaker 3: a Christian school, you might remember that Christ didn't show
Speaker 3: up to a place that looks like Briarcrest. He surrounded
Speaker 3: himself with fishermen and hookers. So the question is, is,
Speaker 3: young Christian folks, who are you called to interact with
Speaker 3: if you are in fact to be christ Like. I
Speaker 3: think there's a big takeaway there. We'll be right back,
Speaker 3: all right. What I learned is no matter what someone
Speaker 3: has done to get themselves into prison, they still have
Speaker 3: aspirations and they want to achieve. I just thought that
Speaker 3: once you're in prison, that's it, and that you just
Speaker 3: have to put your life on pause until you get out.
Speaker 3: The podcast showed me that it's possible to continue to
Speaker 3: live while incarcerated, and that there are people out there
Speaker 3: that don't immediately need to be judged. Yes, hi name
Speaker 3: and loud, Hey Hannah, tell me about it.
Speaker 7: I thought it was interesting how he like didn't really
Speaker 7: know what he was doing it first, and then he
Speaker 7: just felt called to get like a degree in ministry.
Speaker 7: And then somehow I pulled into like the like jail scenery,
Speaker 7: and then like he decided to actually do something with
Speaker 7: it and not just like teach them like how to
Speaker 7: actually be something more than like just like their time
Speaker 7: like in jail, and how like that how he taught
Speaker 7: other people and that there the people that he taught
Speaker 7: like continue to teach others like it was like a train.
Speaker 3: Don't say anything, Hannah. What's your name, Zachary? When you
Speaker 3: think of the people in two oh one Poplar, I
Speaker 3: want straight talk. When you think when you think of
Speaker 3: the people in two oh one Poplar with a rap sheet,
Speaker 3: tell me what you envision quickly. And I picked him
Speaker 3: for everybody listening, I just picked Zachary out of the group.
Speaker 3: He's this was not planned By'm putting you on the spot.
Speaker 8: Well, I actually do know a guy that went into
Speaker 8: a one popular for getting in a street fight. He
Speaker 8: now is permanent brain damage and he lives with his
Speaker 8: mother full time.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 8: He's from Binghampton, but he he is a very kind
Speaker 8: guy now that he learned his lesson, But going into
Speaker 8: it he was angry and just probably scary interesting guy
Speaker 8: to talk to.
Speaker 3: I can forget him macro level, I.
Speaker 5: Would say, very scary.
Speaker 8: You know, well, I wouldn't want to surround myself with
Speaker 8: them life losers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you, sir, deserved what they deserved, what they earned
Speaker 3: most likely, yes, sir, you break the law, you go
Speaker 3: to jail, and when you're in jail, you know, to
Speaker 3: a one poplar people are dying in that place. The
Speaker 3: doors don't even lock. They've got six people in a
Speaker 3: cell built for two because it's overcrowded. There's not good food.
Speaker 3: Do you or people around you have the mentality that, well,
Speaker 3: that's what they get. They don't want to deal with that,
Speaker 3: don't break the law.
Speaker 8: I mean, yes, sir, I think it's you know, right
Speaker 8: that we separate them from society so that way they
Speaker 8: just don't harm it even more.
Speaker 3: But as a group of people, is it fair to
Speaker 3: say that your first instinct just kind of say too
Speaker 3: bad and look down your nose? Hannah, tell us why
Speaker 3: we have to from what you learned, tell us why
Speaker 3: we have to be careful with that judgment.
Speaker 7: I think it's because like we all were like born,
Speaker 7: like we're all the same, like no matter like where
Speaker 7: we come from, we're all human. And like the people
Speaker 7: in jail, like they didn't they weren't born a criminal, Like, yes,
Speaker 7: they chose to like make the decision to get in jail,
Speaker 7: But that doesn't like mean that they're just like forever
Speaker 7: a bad person. Like there is like redemption in that,
Speaker 7: and like I just think that there's like like that
Speaker 7: can be any of us at like any time, and
Speaker 7: like you never know if like you're gonna have to
Speaker 7: make a decision that's going to get you in jail,
Speaker 7: and like there's like no need just to judge to.
Speaker 3: Judge, Hannah, where were you born?
Speaker 7: Memphis?
Speaker 3: Where Caryville? That's not Memphish? Do you understand what I mean? Yes, sir, Okay,
Speaker 3: tell everybody who's listing that's from all over the world
Speaker 3: where Caryoville is like.
Speaker 7: A suburb outside of Memphis suburb?
Speaker 3: Right? Are there shacks out there? No? What are there houses?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 3: What kind of houses?
Speaker 7: Big houses?
Speaker 3: Are there? Hoopedies riding up down the road very often?
Speaker 7: What kind of cars like audis like nice cars?
Speaker 3: Yeah, BMW's. Are there many households out there that refrigerators
Speaker 3: are empty? No? Do most households have at least one
Speaker 3: college graduate in it? Maybe two? How many households do
Speaker 3: you think have non high school graduates, not a lot,
Speaker 3: very few. It is the police department pretty robust and
Speaker 3: doing a good job, I think. So is it safe?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Have you ever experienced a drive by?
Speaker 7: I had a gum pulled on me one time in Caryville.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, that's fird, but but in general it's.
Speaker 7: Nice, Yes, sir.
Speaker 3: What if you were born in Orange Mound.
Speaker 7: That's like a whole different area, that's completely different. I
Speaker 7: feel like I wouldn't be me if I was born
Speaker 7: in Orange Mound.
Speaker 3: What if you had one parent in the household who
Speaker 3: did not even graduate from high school, and that is
Speaker 3: what the entire block and neighborhood you lived in looked like.
Speaker 7: That wouldn't be like good, I guess like it wouldn't
Speaker 7: be like like.
Speaker 5: I don't know the word.
Speaker 3: So my question is if you were hungry and you
Speaker 3: had no future, and you had no hope, and you
Speaker 3: were just enfranchised, you think it's possible that Hannah from Caryoville,
Speaker 3: in a completely different atmosphere might have ended up into
Speaker 3: a one popular for sure. Would you want a second chance?
Speaker 7: I think everyone wants a second chance, and I think
Speaker 7: everyone deserves a second chance.
Speaker 3: So when you say you learned it no matter what
Speaker 3: someone has done to get themselves into prison, they still
Speaker 3: have aspirations that they want to achieve. Did you ever
Speaker 3: win listening to that? Try to put yourself in that position.
Speaker 7: I don't know if I tried to like put myself
Speaker 7: in like the mentality of being in jail, because like
Speaker 7: I don't want to go to jail, like that's scary,
Speaker 7: but like I think if I was in that position,
Speaker 7: like I would definitely like try my best to like
Speaker 7: act like like get on parole, I guess, or like
Speaker 7: just get out as soon as possible. And I mean
Speaker 7: there were some people in that story who didn't have
Speaker 7: that option. Then we're like in jail for life, but
Speaker 7: they still like did something and we're like and had
Speaker 7: like dreams and still achieve stuff while being in jail.
Speaker 3: So jail, after all, isn't full of society throw away
Speaker 3: zombies that we shouldn't care about. They're still human beings.
Speaker 3: Next one, I learned how easy it is to make
Speaker 3: an impact. Monica worked hard, but she framed the story
Speaker 3: in a way that was encouraging to those who see
Speaker 3: a wrong in the world that they want to make right.
Speaker 3: Who wrote that? Who wrote that?
Speaker 1: You know that maybe Finley and she she had to
Speaker 1: take a test today.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, well she's fired next she had ap test.
Speaker 3: Oh whatever, she's a loser for not being here. The
Speaker 3: content was interesting as it gave me an insight into
Speaker 3: the into a life that I do not experience. I
Speaker 3: think the speakers were able to connect to the audience. Personally,
Speaker 3: I cannot relate to what they're talking about, but there
Speaker 3: are people out there who did. The student also talked
Speaker 3: in class about the alarming rate of students who can't
Speaker 3: read and cited the statistics. It made an impact. Who's that?
Speaker 3: That was me? Okay, who's you? My name is Hans Solomon,
Speaker 3: all right, tell me about it. So the Nanodkas Khalil
Speaker 3: Sweeney klise.
Speaker 9: When the main podcast was the boxing gym, that were
Speaker 9: no one boxes, which I found found very interesting because
Speaker 9: he realized that there was a need for helping kids
Speaker 9: graduate high school. Uh he was, I believe in the
Speaker 9: high school, maybe his only twenties before he learned how
Speaker 9: to read, and someone took him in and taught him
Speaker 9: how to read.
Speaker 10: His childhood growing up was very rough.
Speaker 9: He did not grow up with his parents, and so
Speaker 9: that was interesting how he realized that. I assume it
Speaker 9: was mostly young men who he was focused on because
Speaker 9: that's what the boxing gym comes in, And so he
Speaker 9: talked about how he had to find something to get
Speaker 9: the young men in there, because if he has had
Speaker 9: a reading and writing center, no one would show up.
Speaker 10: But if he had a boxing center, He's.
Speaker 9: Like, I will teach you how to box if you
Speaker 9: show up and do your homework first, which I found
Speaker 9: very interesting.
Speaker 3: He kind of had a hook, didn't he, And yes
Speaker 3: he did. Now I read your comment it said personally,
Speaker 3: I cannot relate to what they were talking about, but
Speaker 3: there are people out there who did. Has anybody ever
Speaker 3: heard of coaching for literacy? All right, Well, there's a
Speaker 3: guy in town named John Wilfong. If you were a
Speaker 3: little older, you'd remember him. He was the shooting guard
Speaker 3: for the University of Memphis back in the day when
Speaker 3: the University of Memphis was always in the sweet sixteen
Speaker 3: Elite eight. He's now a financial advisor. His son was
Speaker 3: a pretty fair basketball player, ended up playing at SMU
Speaker 3: and coming up John coached aau basketball with his son
Speaker 3: and a bunch of kids, and there was a kid
Speaker 3: on their team named Frank Big Frank. He ended up
Speaker 3: playing football and playing football at LSU. But back when
Speaker 3: they were twelve thirteen years old doing au ball, every
Speaker 3: time they'd go to a restaurant after the games, Big
Speaker 3: Frank would just order whatever john Son ordered. So if
Speaker 3: they were at Applebee's and John said, so I want
Speaker 3: the chicken figures or fries and some ranch, Frank would say,
Speaker 3: that's what I want. They thought at first was because
Speaker 3: just Frank and John were tight, but what they found
Speaker 3: out was Frank was eleven and couldn't read.
Speaker 10: They would talk about that in the podcast.
Speaker 9: I'd forgot about that until you just mentioned that, but
Speaker 9: he talked about how lonely you feel when you can't
Speaker 9: read them in you and you're going out and you're like,
Speaker 9: oh man, let's get what you have.
Speaker 10: And so I'd forgot about that. But that is another
Speaker 10: part of it.
Speaker 3: So when John found out out his son and he
Speaker 3: started this thing called Coaching for Literacy. And if you
Speaker 3: ever see a coach football or basketball coach in pros
Speaker 3: and college wearing a little lime green ribbon kind of
Speaker 3: like the breast cancer ribbon, but this one's lime green.
Speaker 3: That's a coach supporting coaching for literacy. And here's the demographics.
Speaker 3: A kid who does not read on grade level by
Speaker 3: third grade is sixty five percent more likely by his
Speaker 3: eighteenth birthday to be incarcerated third grade. They can actually tell,
Speaker 3: going unto the fourth grade by the ability to read
Speaker 3: whether or not this child is going to have a
Speaker 3: job or be in prison. So how important is the
Speaker 3: work that he's doing to teach kids to read.
Speaker 9: Uncountable. I mean, it's truly amazing what he was doing,
Speaker 9: what he's doing. And so they talked about in his podcast,
Speaker 9: but I think the age twenty one, you had like
Speaker 9: an eighty percent chance if you can read by grade three,
Speaker 9: to be incarcerated or dead by the age of twenty one.
Speaker 9: And so he talked about going back to like loneliness
Speaker 9: growing up. He was he did what he felt like doing,
Speaker 9: which could lead to prison. Things like that, because he
Speaker 9: already knew, or felt like he knew, his life was set.
Speaker 9: He was going to be dead or in prison by
Speaker 9: twenty one. And so him getting people into the boxing gym,
Speaker 9: getting their homework done. It may not be like straight a's,
Speaker 9: but you're teaching kids how to read, which is getting
Speaker 9: them into the job. Field and keeping them out of
Speaker 9: prison or keeping them alive.
Speaker 3: And that concludes Part one of my very cool conversation
Speaker 3: with a bunch of kids and their teacher from Briar
Speaker 3: Crust Christian School. And I'm telling you what, don't miss
Speaker 3: Part two. It's now available to listen to it. Together. Guys,
Speaker 3: we can change this country, but it starts with you.
Speaker 3: I'll see in Part two.