DOD94: What Subjects Should Be Mandatory In School?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's got some things to learn. I'm Tom Curry. I've joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:37 Eli: Hello!

0:00:38 Thomas: Hello. I just want to say, Tom, last episode was your best show. It's all downhill from there.

0:00:43 Eli: That's right. You You better come up with some real good screaming advice this episode. Damn it.

0:00:50 Tom: That's it. There's really not much reason to wake up in the morning now. This is it. This is I've peaked at 45, and that's the thing. I got another 40 years of downside.

0:00:57 Thomas: This

0:00:52 Eli: That's true. But Tom, Tom, do, Tom, you know the only thing worse than having peaked as a younger person whose talent was eventually wasted and left to dwindle and rot on the air? Years and years, decades and decades. Why, it's the auto ads, Tom, the missed Broadway audition edition of podcasting, and you can avoid not going to tap dancing classes by going over to patreon.com/dearolddads. Give us as little as a dollar and you'll get an extended parenting story at the end of every episode. Spoilers for last episode, I solved it, was a, it was a problem-solving episode last week.

0:01:18 Thomas: Is revealing a lot about Eli.

0:01:39 Eli: Because I solved the hardest thing in Tom's life, right? Right then and there on the air.

0:01:38 Thomas: Yeah. This is real.

0:01:46 Eli: And Tom changed an essential core thing about himself. Unfortunately, we're recording these episodes in a row, so we don't have the results yet. But in the coming weeks, listen up. And if you're a patron, you already know that Tom's life has changed forever. Thanks for that parenting story. Patreon.com/dearolddads.

0:01:46 Tom: All right,

0:01:50 Thomas: Yeah. Big news.

0:02:07 Tom: Guys. So I sent this to you guys in our little chat. It's just some one of those like, you know, stupid fucking social media images that popped up. It stuck with me, though, because I thought some of the stuff on here was really interesting. And I think there's a broader conversation, too, about non -academic and life skills sort of subjects that should be taught or should they be taught in schools. So very briefly, I want to read the infographics so the audience knows what the hell we're talking about. Let me kind of chat a little bit about each of the, I is it, 12 items on here. So this is subjects that Should Be Mandatory in Schools. I'll read through them before and then we'll comment. Taxes, coding, cooking, insurance, basic home repair spelled with an E at the end of repair.

0:02:52 Eli: Yeah.

0:02:52 Tom: I don't know why. That's not right.

0:02:52 Thomas: Spelling. Spelling, not on the list.

0:02:54 Eli: I guess that's why they didn't put spelling on there. Weird.

0:02:57 Tom: -defense, a big pin in that one. We'll just set that off to the side, shift that to the left.

0:02:59 Thomas: Yeah,

0:03:00 Eli: You can beat up Lydia if you want to, we get it, or we don't need to do two episodes on this

0:03:04 Thomas: The the self-defense icon, like, the the art that's with it looks like a burglar who's learning self-defense like, they have like a ski mask on

0:03:09 Tom: It's very confusing. It.

0:03:14 Eli: The Is a burglar doing a perfect high kick into what I assume is like an old lady's throat, so a of follow-up questions

0:03:22 Tom: Yeah.

0:03:23 Thomas: And he's like I'm so glad I learned this at school, this is amazing, we're kicking old ladies for years though, yeah.

0:03:24 Eli: Yeah

0:03:29 Tom: Burgler is also wearing two different colored shoes. I just want to point that out. He's mismatched his shoes.

0:03:32 Thomas: Well the ones is kicking foot, so you gotta

0:03:34 Tom: Yeah.

0:03:34 Eli: That one's already covered in blood is what's happening, the blood of his victims

0:03:34 Tom: Oh, Yeah right.

0:03:38 Thomas: Old lady blood, by the way. Yeah, just to make sure we all know that. Oh,

0:03:39 Eli: Yeah

0:03:42 Tom: Survival skills, social etiquette, personal finance, which it feels redundant to other items on here, but public speaking, car maintenance and stress management. So, we did kind of chit -chat about some of these before. We old episode where I had my own list that I had created about, you know, here's some things that I wanted the kids to know before they turn 18 and go off into the world. This is suggesting that these be subjects that are mandatorily taught in school. And I like some of These a lot.

0:03:44 Eli: Racism, yes, social

0:03:58 Thomas: Yeah, that's right I I have an opening question for you guys. Unless, good, I want to ask you folks, what do you think is the worst one on here, like, just to open up the discussion, what's the one, one where you're like, this is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen.

0:04:12 Tom: A Yeah.

0:04:22 Eli: Etiquette, social speaking is the funniest one because that is absolutely not a skill everyone needs and is literally torture to a huge percentage of the pop. That would be like having your penis stretched too far should be one of the mandatory school things. And social etiquette, 99.99% of the time, is just, I would like black people to talk like white people. I know that's not true for

0:04:22 Tom: What? No, you're insane. No. No, that's.

0:04:29 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

0:04:48 Tom: Jesus Christ, I don't think that's true at all. I strongly disagree.

0:04:50 Eli: The members of this podcast, but if you ask anyone who ever says, I think kids need to learn social etiquette these days, and you say, what behaviors do you dislike, they make it four tenths of a sentence in before they're like with the pants dropped and the fucking do rags and the rap music in there, I think Tom's gonna fucking tell us Tom

0:05:01 Thomas: Yeah their pants are down too low. Yeah yeah yeah pretty much. I like is even the good version of that if there were one? I don't even know what it is. Yeah oh

0:04:52 Tom: That is. Wow. Wow, Oh, yeah. I think social etiquette, a thousand percent should be taught in schools.

0:05:20 Eli: You're teaching the social etiquette class, let's go over your syllabus, yeah.

0:05:22 Thomas: My god. Lesson

0:05:23 Tom: I it's enormous value in social etiquet.

0:05:23 Thomas: Lesson one, turn down your rap music, day one.

0:05:26 Eli: Give me the Tom syllabus, right.

0:05:27 Tom: No, Well, yeah, you don't Look at social etiquete as a list of don'ts. Right. So if you look at social etiquette as a list of here are a bunch of things to learn to not do, I think that's a horrible way to approach the subject. But we teach our kids and we teach everybody and we constantly reinforce the rules of social etiquett. People who don't have good social skills don't perform as well in their lives like Good social skills are massively beneficial. I was thinking about this. I knew you guys were going to disagree with me.

But, you know, when my company, for example, in my workplace, good social skills are the difference between success and failure. I'm talking about like for people who just produce widgets all day. They produce widgets on a computer, but they produce widgets because as is often the case, what happens from time to time is you get to a place where you've got to reduce staff. You've got a handful of people who are all at roughly the same skill level, and who keeps their job? The one who you say is a better part of your team, it's

0:05:31 Eli: Yep.

0:05:54 Thomas: Oh, yeah, yep, not

0:06:27 Tom: Yeah, it's the person who's like, "Oh, this guy actually fits better into our team, he's he works well with others, he's a good team player," that sort of thing. Good social skills.

0:06:24 Thomas: Me okay Tom Can I squeeze by

0:06:26 Eli: No

0:06:36 Thomas: By being completely, you know, like, I'm not a pain in the ass, I'm I'm a

0:06:40 Eli: Those are the easiest people, people to fire.

0:06:40 Thomas: Oh

0:06:41 Tom: Well that that person is the easy, it's exactly right because you don't think, think about them

0:06:42 Thomas: Damn it no

0:06:42 Eli: Yeah the assholes are actually in second place to the guy you've never met

0:06:48 Tom: Yeah

0:06:48 Thomas: That's true that's absolutely true, I think it depends on the workplace, I, some workplaces I can find where it's like, okay, I do get away being by invisible, but I think you're right, the majority of them it's just like, no, fuck that guy, I don't even know who he is, fire him.

0:06:49 Eli: Right

0:06:58 Tom: And here's Exactly, and here's why I know this is important, because how do you guys, you guys make your living, you make your living by building social relationships, we understand that, like, I mean, listen, Citation Needed is a great example, right, Citation Needed has a Patreon that exists despite not having a whole lot of patron-only content, we have some, but we don't have a lot, what have

0:07:20 Eli: Of My Immortal is on there, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, I don't shit on your Patreon because

0:07:24 Tom: It is good, but by volume, we don't have a lot. We

0:07:28 Eli: We can't afford Ian to do a fucking skronking it livestream every three seconds, whatever the fuck you guys do, Noah had a heart attack buying him vitamins now.

0:07:36 Thomas: Sorry

0:07:34 Tom: We, we make our livings building social relationships. Like we know the value of social relationships and these are skills, right? These are things that you can learn and be taught. And I think

0:07:46 Thomas: Do we have the same job time, what the fuck are you talking about, I talk into this thing by myself all day, it's great, you should get that job.

0:07:50 Tom: Don't I think it's fantastically important and I think that a lot of the reason people don't like this idea is because they've never been taught social skills, they're just expected to know them, and that's the real problem. Like we're expected to know that, we're judged when we don't, makes us feel shitty and insecure, and the way to solve that problem is to, like, it in a systematized way, in a formal way. It's part of the reasons I write my blog to my boys, is to teach them these kinds of social skills, I got a long blog, I'm like, hey, here's how to be likable.

0:08:06 Thomas: Yeah oh

0:08:23 Eli: Me, me, ask you this question, um, that's a perfect transition, do you think social skills are learnable, because I don't know if you ever had this moment in school, this is what I'm going to relate it to, do your teachers ever do popcorn with reading, right? Where they'd be like, Steve, go and then Eli go, yeah, and then everyone would read, right, and then you would get to the kid who wasn't as good at reading, and

0:08:38 Thomas: Yeah yep Yep. That was Lydia's favorite thing to do ever.

0:08:39 Tom: No.

0:08:48 Thomas: And then they get bullied by the literal teacher until they cry.

0:08:51 Eli: Right, and the teacher would be like, Ryan, go. And he'd be like this is the thing I'm worst at. And you've made it a show for everyone else. But also somehow You're mad at me and they're mad at me, I would worry about that with social skills. Right? Because I know there are people who like have to be like, I'm picturing the social skills quiz, right, where it's like, have a disagreement with another human being, and I love deeply several people who would get an F minus on that quiz an F

0:08:52 Thomas: Yeah. So crazy.

0:09:15 Tom: Yeah.

0:09:21 Thomas: Oh, I think you're underestimating some of those people's ability to the right answers on tests. That's all I'm saying. That I'm not saying who I,

0:09:26 Eli: Sure yeah

0:09:31 Tom: Well, Let me offer this. We don't avoid teaching subjects in school just because a minority of people will struggle and not be good at them. There right, are people, have like dyscalculia. Right, that means that they are going to struggle with math no matter what. There are are people who have other challenges in learning. I'll raise my hand. Like, know what I hated, fucking art class. Art and gym class, fucking hated It was the most miserable fucking two hours of my life that I ever had to spend. I literally hated every moment of it. Didn't, it didn't mean it wasn't valuable socially for us to embrace, and I absolutely support the arts and support their teaching in school, even though I loathed every minute of attending those classes. Same.

0:10:09 Eli: Oh.

0:10:09 Tom: Same thing with gym class. I think we should have gym class, physical education's valuable. Does everybody like it? No. Does everybody thrive? Absolutely not. Will some people hate it? Absolutely true. Is it still valuable? Yeah, it's still valuable.

0:10:21 Thomas: I just want to know, Tom, to me, there's one that screams out is obviously the dumbest fucking answer to be the mandatory in schools, and it's not even close. Yeah, what is yours, Tom? Oh. My, no. That's like in the top half for sure of these car maintenance. You think car maintenance needs to be mandatory? That's the least relevant thing I can imagine. Car maintenance barely exists now. It's so specialized, everything's a computer. Like, think that has to be mandatory? I couldn't, I I actually like car maintenance, and I would never take a car maintenance class at high school. Terrible.

0:10:31 Tom: 1 ,000 % it's taxes, yeah. Dumbest one, but I think card maintenance could be and is in my kids' school. It's incorporated into their driver's ed, it's just part of their driver's ed, and it's just a handful of basic things, like, alright, here's how you change a tire if you get a flat. Right, someone's got to teach you that. The first time I got a flat, it was 3 o 'clock in the morning and I got to flat and didn't know what to do. I'd never changed a tire. Nobody showed me how.

0:11:13 Eli: You tried not being poor and calling your insurance. You call, and then you're not poor, is what you are.

0:11:16 Thomas: You just call whatever now. Yeah, you just call.

0:11:16 Tom: Well, but not Everybody has that choice. I mean, like everybody has that option.

0:11:20 Eli: Yeah. I'm sorry, that fucking Liberty insurance, that guy who sold you your car insurance on the street corner didn't include tow service insurance?

0:11:28 Tom: Like, it's a handful of things, you should be able to, like, change your headlamp if you need to change a headlamp.

0:11:31 Thomas: That's not a class. That's like a five -second pamphlet.

0:11:33 Tom: I But I didn't say it was a class, and it could be incorporated in driver's ed. You could just, like, have it be a part of driver's ed, and that's how they're doing it now.

0:11:37 Thomas: Okay. I mean, all right. If it was, but that's not really what, if the thing said driver's ed, then okay, maybe. Yeah, sure. But I just think if there was a car -maintenance class, like if that was like required class, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

0:11:44 Tom: Yeah, so. I agree with you, I think most of these would not be a whole class, but there are things that could be mandatory in school, right?

0:11:50 Thomas: Okay. Am I mistaking what this is? Oh, really?

0:11:57 Eli: Class. Damn it, I want a full fucking class on whole life. I, I say, I think the most useless one here, and I'm gonna, I'm going to caveat, I think most useless here is coding, because while I think computer skills is a very good class and an important one, and I would agree that it should be maybe not mandatory but like offered and deeply encouraged, coding is like, I think everyone should be able to cook. Yeah, well, I think everybody should be able grow wheat. Right?

0:11:58 Thomas: Yeah. Interesting.

0:12:00 Tom: Same.

0:12:07 Thomas: Yeah.

0:12:26 Tom: Yeah.

0:12:26 Eli: Like, I'm not saying it's not useful to be able to grow wheat if you want bread. I'm saying it is not a necessary part of the process. It's

0:12:26 Thomas: It's like okay for sure yeah yeah These

0:12:27 Tom: Yeah Coding is, is dumber than dog shit on here. Well,

0:12:38 Thomas: This fucking graphic really should be subjects that should be available in all schools, then I would agree with a lot more of it. What?

0:12:45 Tom: I think most of these things, because, and part of why I thought this was a good topic, is my kids, and I don't know about your experience in school, but I'm curious, like, my kids have, uh, like, family and consumer science as classes, and they have, I didn't have any family and consumer signs, or home ec, or

0:12:57 Eli: Home

0:13:00 Thomas: Is that really? Oh. So it's not like. Yeah.

0:13:01 Eli: Home ec, they home ec, 96 times since we were kids, because it used to be called like women's skills or whatever, the fuck it was.

0:13:05 Thomas: Yeah Same

0:13:09 Tom: Like, Donovan in high school is taking a class that teaches him, them all about personal finance. They learn about insurance. They learn about like loans and interest, and you know, they learn all this stuff. Didn't have any kind of stuff like that when I was in school. It, if you were on the AP or the honors track, which is what I was, your course was sort of laid out for you.

And it was all like, you're going to take math, you can take English, you take history, you're going to take social studies, or you know, whatever it was, they're all core classes that filled up your whole day, right? It was all AP and core classes. There was no room to learn how to be, be a person and, like, go out into the world with any skills.

And I'm grateful because my dad certainly gave me many opportunities to learn these skills, like, my kids are learning how to, like, cook a meal. Finn knows how to cook a handful of meals. Donovan will learn how to cook a hand full of meals. I didn't learn how cook unless I learned to cook entirely on my own.

0:13:59 Thomas: Okay.

0:13:59 Tom: And I know adults who got into the and they're they don't know how to fucking boil pasta. Like Like, it's, like, insane. They have no life skills whatsoever. Kind of am like, yeah, some of this stuff, we could squeeze this in around the margins. Like, they don't all have to be a separate class, but, like... personal finance? Like, yeah.

0:14:15 Thomas: I guess I was taking that to be different. I was thinking like these need to be classes, but maybe that's me being dumb. I guess if you're just, yeah.

0:14:21 Eli: Mandatory Yeah, is the word that makes a lot of this poster stupid.

0:14:25 Thomas: Well, also, if are just thinking like, oh, we could squeeze it in, then that changes your answer a lot. If it's like, yeah, you could do one hour out of a school year on this, it's like, okay, yeah, fine. That's fine. You know what I mean? That's why I was kind of taking it to be like, which of these need be things that everybody needs to, like, study in depth in high school.

0:14:40 Eli: I just want to talk about the taxes one for a second, because for 99% of people, I know it's not actually that number, but for a vast majority of people, you need a class on taxes? Taxes, I, like, look, if you want to itemize your deductions, you probably need a class on taxes, but then you should hire an accountant for

0:15:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:15:00 Tom: I know.

0:15:00 Thomas: No, that's Right. Right, I think it should be the meta class of here's what you need to know about why you shouldn't do your own tax, you know, like that kind of thing, like if you make less than X a year, you don't need to fucking worry about any of this

0:15:01 Tom: Yeah.

0:15:06 Eli: The yeah the teacher shouldn't walk around and lightly slap all the stupid kids on the forehead and go, you're never going to need more than the standard deduction, get out. If I just slapped you in the the forehead, you can leave. Your your taxes will be one sheet. It

0:15:13 Thomas: Okay

0:15:26 Tom: How is tax and insurance not fall under the personal finance category?

0:15:30 Thomas: I wanted to confess something. I thought you guys were making a joke when you said insurance, I did. My ADHD was like, I did, I missed that one. I didn't know it was like. Yeah.

0:15:38 Eli: Deleted this from your brain

0:15:40 Thomas: I was like, well, that's fucking dumb, that can't be insurance, what's a a class on insurance? What is

0:15:40 Eli: It's look, and let's be real, this this meme was created by someone who was like, what are the things I don't know, but that people have on a pretty regular basis. Said, how did you fuck up your blank? Let's see, uh, well, I did buy my car insurance from that guy on the corner that

0:15:52 Thomas: Yeah. Well,

0:16:02 Tom: Right.

0:16:00 Thomas: There's There's a thief who attacked me, and said, how did you fuck up the self-defense, man, I came at you with a noodle, it wasn't, I didn't even have a weapon. Survival,

0:16:08 Eli: Asked that little boy to carry my groceries and he told me to fuck myself, so social etiquette. I was in court and I told the judge that I was rounding for a pounding, so public speaking. And Mario Brothers stole the tires off my car, so car maintenance. The, I'm also describing the pictures in our visual yeah

0:16:29 Thomas: Yeah. We'll put the uh, graphic in something in the show notes. Oh.

0:16:31 Eli: Yeah survival skills for the graphic for everyone just again, again, you'll see it, it appears

0:16:38 Tom: Everybody's

0:16:36 Thomas: Man. I love the graphic, I was Almost gonna Do A half hour on the over

0:16:38 Tom: It's So Good Everybody's

0:16:41 Eli: To be every one fighting over the last Life Preserver which is being held by another hand from

0:16:43 Tom: Competing Yeah.

0:16:47 Thomas: Which this Life preserver is the size of a bracelet.

0:16:48 Tom: Right. Here's another way to to look at that is the guy with the hand is actually she joined to that life preserver From The other six Hands.

0:16:55 Eli: The Yes, yes.

0:16:56 Tom: He's like, fuck you. I got survival skills, bitches.

0:16:58 Eli: Yeah.

0:16:54 Thomas: Oh, oh, I though you were gonna say, no, this teaches you how to be the guy with the hand. The guy, You want to be, look around the room. If you don't see the guy handing out the life preserve, that's, no, the opposite of that. This

0:17:03 Eli: Yeah.

0:17:12 Tom: But Look, I will say like basic home repair without the E I would go without the E at the end of repair. That's something that would have come in absolutely handy. Like Like we said on the show, not that long ago, like you buy a house and it's like well, here it is. And you're like, I don't know how it works. And it's like, well, guess you're fucked.

0:17:26 Thomas: Shows The generational difference, Tom, because nobody can buy a house now so this is useless, you don't need it.

0:17:32 Eli: This Is That Doesn't Make any sense.

0:17:32 Tom: That's true.

0:17:32 Thomas: Yeah. As Well. Be model T Repair. Cool. Yeah, I don't know.

0:17:33 Tom: That is true.

0:17:36 Eli: But But here's my problem with basic home repair. My home repair is fixing what the guy Who I bought my house from Thought

0:17:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:43 Tom: Because he didn't have a good class. He didn't Have a good Class.

0:17:43 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:44 Eli: What, that's the thing is like, I don't think there's a class that could teach you basic home repair, right? Maybe like, here's how to dump the water out of your boiler. Right. I'm talking to that. But like this person in this photo is putting up tile. Nobody, but an expert should be putting up tile. Nobody experts only. Otherwise I Right. Or Tom is a child. Otherwise, I buy my house and the home inspector is like, yeah, these are all fucking tilted. Did a guy whose job it wasn't just try to do this as a job for fun? Yeah, sorry, sorry, absolutely.

0:17:51 Thomas: Yeah. Or Tom As a child And

0:18:02 Tom: Okay. All right.

0:18:19 Thomas: You know that guy thinks you did it, you know, and you're your... Oh, the last homeowner.

0:18:22 Eli: Yes. Of Course every Time I get my house repaired, every person looks at me and is like, so, uh, and I'm like, I did none of this. I did non of This It's Fine. Talk All The Shit you want Oh,

0:18:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:29 Tom: Yeah, I know. You feel embarrassed for it. Like, sold my first house, I had done so much work on that house. And I didn't know how to do any of it. And there was no YouTube because I'm old. So I just was winging it. And I made a lot of mistakes. And I looked online not that long ago, maybe five, six years ago. And the house has since been resold in the pictures. They had ripped out all the work I did in the basement.

0:18:51 Eli: Yeah.

0:18:52 Tom: And I looks at it and I thought, yeah, I'd have done the same thing.

0:18:54 Eli: That's Good, that's good. Now look, this person has also written stress management, and so I have a Lot of questions. Okay, the first is about the picture. It has a man with a gear in One hand and a heart in the other, so I don't think the person who made this graph has ever felt stress. I don't think they understand I

0:18:55 Thomas: Yeah, do they mean like Mechanical stress? Like the gear Is Got To

0:19:18 Eli: Think They're An Alien Who's viewed humans

0:19:19 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:20 Tom: Maybe that's like he's trying to to figure figure out the settings for his heart. Like, I don't know. Like, yeah.

0:19:23 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:21 Eli: Right. Yeah. He's Like I Know that on my iPhone, I click general and then stress, so Is there one of those? Because also, this person's version of social etiquette is carrying groceries for old people, so I feel like they're Not going To Be extremely Open To like letting go of the id and cognitive behavioral therapy.

0:19:28 Thomas: Fuck. Old People That's My social Etiquette. Oh.

0:19:42 Eli: You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't think they're going to be willing to talk about their thought distortions with Dr. Brooks.

0:19:49 Tom: Can we circle back to public speaking? Because I know you guys were bagging on public speaking so hard, it but did was it not required in your college? Yeah, it was absolutely required in my college. Was I on the speech team myself. So, yeah,

0:19:51 Thomas: God. Not Oh, College. Oh, uh, No. Oh,

0:19:55 Eli: No, no, no. I genuinely think that is one of the cruelest things. Like the to me dodgeball on Eli levels of cruel. The times that I have seen kids be forced to public speak when the rest of the world should just be like, hey, man, not your thing. I bet you're great at like a party with a couple of friends.

0:20:02 Thomas: College. Yeah.

0:20:17 Thomas: Okay.

0:20:19 Tom: I don't. The counter to that, because I understand what you're saying. I know it's like the the most common phobia. Right. I get that. But like there are things that can be done to reduce that fear. And like is not uncommon for people as they like move around in the business world, for example, to have to give an oral presentation. And can't tell you how many times I've had like people who were absolutely petrified but they still have to present financials, they have to represent some kind of presentation on a on whatever because it's just part of their job and they've had no training on how to do this. They're absolutely petrophied on how to do it and it holds them back. It does hold them back for sure.

0:20:54 Thomas: You think that's something that can be even taught. Cause

0:20:56 Eli: That's exactly my, that was going to be my question.

0:20:57 Tom: I do. Yeah.

0:20:58 Thomas: Here's how I learned most things in my entire life. And I know I'm a fucking weirdo, how I learn to public speak. And you know, I'm not a bad public speaker. I'm no Eli Boston, but I'm pretty good. I've done that stuff. I hate it. I I have a heart attack when I do it. It's literally the hardest thing to do. Cause my, anxiety response is can be controlled by any technique. It just needs drugs.

0:21:21 Thomas: That's the Like when I'm sat in that class, which I did take in high school, it was an elective, I think, but I took it, the speaking. See the people who are bad at it and I go, oh, I don't want to look like that. And so like how I've learned everything in my life for the most part that I care about is like, oh. When that person stammered and couldn't get out a sentence or way too fast in this first, you know, I look perceiver of this am looking and saying that looks bad. So to be good at this, I would need to try to do things that aren't that. You feel like you, if you're, can do that, you can. And if you can't, you know, like, what's the lesson?

0:21:33 Eli: No,

0:21:56 Thomas: Lesson one on public speaking, tell me, Tom, what is it?

0:21:56 Tom: Yeah, Well, I don't know. I'm not a speech teacher, but I do know that absolutely can be taught. I mean, I had certainly my public speaking skills got better and better over time. And took I took speech in college and then I took a second speech class and I joined the speech team. And I'm an outstanding public speaker. I've made it a big part of my career. And it's like done like it'S massively important as you move up the ranks. I will say If you can't do it, like won't get as far as people who can do it. And in college, more and more presentations, oral presentations are a bigger and bigger part of group projects and other things. So I think if you incorporate public speaking and even incorporate some CBT and some like exposure therapy as part of the class to try to reduce that fear and build those skills, you're going to turn out more people. Not everybody. Right. Just like gym class isn't going to be for everybody, but you'll turn out mehr people who will have that skill than less. Makes sense.

0:21:59 Thomas: Oh. Okay. It

0:22:20 Eli: I agree. I Does make sense. It does make make sense. I always viewed it sort of like a very cruel things to do, right, to people, because I I didn't think people got better and sort of viewed it in the same vein as art class from earlier, right? Which is like, I loved art class. I didn't mind art class, but I was viscerally aware that because my best friend in elementary school was and is one of the most gifted artists I've ever met. And so we would sit next to each other and she would just be painting and drawing these incredibly beautiful things. And I was like, I also see the flower and I also want hand to make flower. My flower, bad.

0:23:02 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:21 Thomas: I love those people. Yeah. Tell hand make flower. Tell hand makes flower.

0:23:32 Eli: Your good, right? And it wasn't even the part where they were like, right, because when you do that, someone's like, hey, look up a drawing book. And you're like, okay. And then they're like, make a cross on a face and then you can draw and

0:23:40 Thomas: I know. They always start with like a draw a circle and then it's like a triangle in the face and then it's a portrait of Benjamin Franklin perfectly. And you're like, I don't, what? How?

0:23:44 Eli: Then it's a drawing. Yeah, that I I always thought public speaking was like that. Right. The reasons why I refuse to teach acting in lower grades is they just make kids do acting who don't want to be actors. And I'm just like, oh, this isn't a thing you can just make children do.

0:23:50 Tom: All

0:24:03 Thomas: I want to Yes, and you so hard, Eli, because here's what, I've taken two public speaking courses. I took one at high school, one at college. And here's what happens, conversations with the people who aren't good at it, do a bad, awkward job. And then the teachers, because they feel bad and aren't going to like shame someone for just being nervous or not being able to do something, just grade them kind of on a curve. And they're like, "Hey, good job, you said this." And things that they critique are kind of more like incidental. It's like more about writing than it is about speaking, you know, because nobody wants to be like, "Hey, you can't sound like you're having a heart attack. Don't sound like that." You know, no teacher's gonna say that.

0:24:41 Tom: Right, so here, this gets into an interesting conversation, and I think that there is a, like, what I would think of as the myth of talent versus skill. And We too heavily, I think, and too often ascribe success to talent rather than skill. Skills are things that that can be learned, and most things can be learnt, can't be learned. So like for me, for example, I hate doing art. I don't enjoy it. So I put virtually no effort into building that skill. It was not a natural talent that I had. And I quit as soon as I possibly could because I loathed doing it. Right.

I know for a certainty that if I had stuck with it and applied the same kind of diligence into drawing, for example, that I put into writing, I could be mediocre, I could increase my skill level, um, horrible to barely mediocre, I could move that needle right.

Ascribe so often the idea that like, oh well, some people are just good at this stuff, and that's not, not true, but like if you talk to anybody who's good at stuff, like really deeply good at stuff, they are good at it, and then they also put in many, many, many hundreds of hours, and that is the reason that they are at this level. The idea of something like this would be to get people to move the needle from horrible

0:24:48 Thomas: Hmm. To become mediocre essentially

0:25:57 Tom: To mediocre. Right. And I think that being mediocre at public speaking would give a lot of people a leg up. Like a lot of people aren't going to have to do any public speaking. I get that. Right? But a lot people don't have to play fucking dodgeball after they get out of eighth grade. You

0:25:57 Thomas: Yeah. I hear you Yeah. Yeah.

0:26:09 Eli: What you think you

0:26:10 Thomas: Yeah. Wait, you don't have mandatory dodgeball every week fuck I gotta do my dodgeball this week I would put in my hours

0:26:13 Eli: Don't have mandatory block wide dodgeball to vote weird Illinois is a weird just

0:26:19 Tom: But I do think that the way we teach it is weird, because they do focus so much on the content of your speech giving, rather than the process, actually speaking in public. And I think they should focus heavily on some kinds of exposure therapies in it. I think there should be like a 096 version of speech that is primarily an exposure therapy to get people more comfortable but you know what I'm talking about, Eli, because it works, it absolutely works, the part, part of reason it sucks so much is like people get thrown into the deep end and then we're like, well, I don't know why they hate it, it's like, well, we don't make anyone face any fear that same

0:26:19 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah Yeah. Yeah, that

0:26:40 Eli: Put a spider on someone's face I

0:26:54 Tom: Way

0:26:54 Thomas: Seems correct. Think, like, I think you're making great points. So I think if that were the class, I think if, if teachers were good at actually teaching the things that would help people, for one, you don't need to give feedback publicly, that this is my complaint about most things, like an acting directors, you know, they have to make a big show, um, "What were you doing in that scene? Well, I thought my choice was to..." Know, that's not a good, why are you doing that in front of everybody who is that good for, like, that's just, you perform.

Same with with public speaking, if my experience isn't, you know, it's somewhat limited, but I feel like this is pretty universal, like most average people, they get too nervous, and I say that as someone who gets far more nervous than 99% of people, but they get nervous, and I guess they can't modulate that or anything, you know, and most people sound like, "Oh, you make people uncomfortable because you sound like you're dying." Like, you need to, you know what I mean. Like if the teachers could be like, "The number one thing you need to work on is take a few deep breaths, make sure you start slowly, or don't rush at least, and don't look, you know," and, and those things you're talking about, Tom, and maybe that exposure therapy, I think is a great idea where it's like, here's what you're going to do today, try starting your speech like four times or something. And just like from

0:27:07 Tom: Yeah yeah yeah

0:28:02 Thomas: The get go, do it until you're so used to it that you like can just start and it feels relaxed and it feel nice. And that's, to me, that's like step one. And then there's a bunch of other stuff, but like if you don't do that step one, then you, there, already lost it.

0:28:02 Tom: Or

0:28:14 Eli: But here's my issue, and I think this episode has been lacking a bad take. So here it is, here's my bad take, right, because we're sitting in art class, I'm watching my sweet friend Judy draw, and I think what an art teacher should have done is they should have been like, "Eli, do you like drawing?" And I would have been like, "It's okay, I guess." And they'd been like, "Cool, do you want to go do other stuff and not try to get better at this."

And in a speech class, right, little Nick, who's been practicing all weekend, and he wore a suit and tie, and he's like, "The history of the Declaration of Independence," and then I get up there and I fucking wake up from a dead sleep and I slam a jamma a speech about how the word Kris Kronkle is real. I feel like someone should should be like, "Hey man, you saw how good Eli did out of a dead sleep." Right, it's not for you, not for you, can you draw, let's figure that out. Like, I, there is a good idea underneath this incredibly poisonous ideology that I'm espousing right now, it is that I

0:28:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah totally yeah

0:29:12 Eli: I wonder if I wonder, it's let's make everyone a little bit better at these skills we think are are important, is a good idea, or if it should be like, let's just shotgun you into different activities until we find a thing that you might be good at.

0:29:12 Thomas: Eugenics no I'm just kidding

0:29:16 Tom: No

0:29:32 Thomas: Hmm. Interesting. That's well, want to have a good education could do both those things though. Like you get a lot of years, you get a lot of class periods. I feel like you'd be reasonable to be like, yeah, there's a set of things that like Tom saying that you should get from terrible to mediocre at. Um, and we can argue about what those are. They're not self-defense in my opinion. They'RE not fucking insurance, but, but But, like, there could be those things.

0:29:33 Tom: Yeah no, yeah, no way, no way but again how is insurance not part of personal finance how what What the fuck is happening there?

0:29:59 Eli: No

0:29:59 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. Taxes, insurance, and personal finance are one easy thing.

0:30:04 Tom: What are we doing in personal finance if insurance and taxes aren't part of that class? What else are we talking about?

0:30:09 Thomas: You're in personal finance class, and I raise my hand. I'm like, hey, should I get, life like insurance? Shut the fuck up. This is an insurance class. Get up. That's Mr. Johnson's class next door. Fuck you. Get out of here, kid.

0:30:15 Eli: Get out of here yeah

0:30:20 Tom: Wait, for real? It's like they were like, we need 12. Nine won't look good on the poster we made of this subject.

0:30:25 Thomas: Yeah, that's What it is. He's Like, do I deduct my fuck you that's taxes, get out of here, kid?

0:30:26 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:30:30 Eli: No, also, I tapped you on the head during that class, what did we say about deducting? You, you don't need to do that, asshole. I saw you in car repair, you do not need more than the standard. Yeah.

0:30:43 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:30:44 Tom: I back to like what I think the the the like sort of like broader picture on this stupid picture would be, though, is that I really appreciate how my kids are getting life Skills, like not just academic skills. Like, I'm old, in the 90s when I graduated from high school, the mid 90s, like it was all academics. Like, I didn't do, and we had no life skills at all. I literally never took an a home economics class. I never took a how to cook or sew a button, or they give me any classes on how to live a life at all, but

0:30:52 Thomas: Okay.

0:31:11 Thomas: I Don't need to Know how To sell a button, I'm sorry. I just Don't Need To. No, Yeah.

0:31:13 Tom: I'M just making something up. I, you

0:31:13 Eli: Well, Another bad take, I have a, I have a Pretty, I have Another

0:31:18 Thomas: Well, Like I've

0:31:17 Tom: I'M NOT YOU CAN JUST SPEAK AND THAT'S THAT'S IMPLIED. That's actually just implied.

0:31:18 Thomas: Loaded Yeah. Eli's Was Face was a loading screen for 30 seconds while you were, were talking, they was like, bad take initiated.

0:31:26 Eli: Bad Bad Take coming hot and fresh out of the oven and It's Look All My takes are bad, but it's rare that I'm like, oh, I don't like this one while it comes out. So credit the thing I don's like life skills, because when you learn academics, academics is like, look, you're gonna be a genius. You're, you're going to be a scientist who discovers a new vaccine for cancer, and you're going to write the next great American novel.

0:31:27 Thomas: Yeah.

0:31:29 Tom: All right. All right. Bring it in. Bring it in,

0:31:51 Eli: And every life skills class feels a little like, hey,

0:31:46 Thomas: Dream Big kid You're Going to be pregnant at age 13. Turn

0:31:57 Eli: Right. Every life skills glass feels like, do you ever have that teacher who tries to tell it like it is? And you're just like, Hey man, you sound suicidal.

0:31:57 Tom: Okay.

0:32:03 Thomas: The Chair Around Yeah. Yeah.

0:32:06 Eli: Are you okay? That's how life skills feel as subject matter. It feels like someone being like, I don't know, know, I think maybe it would be best for you to just, you know, be safe and well, and it's like, wow. Safe and wel, huh? That's what we're aiming for. Fuck. No, get Every eighth grader in front of Hamlet, because look, 99 out of 100 of those kids are going to be like, I don't get it, and we punish them. But the one that gets it right is me, so what, Do you want a bunch of happy kids or me sex?

0:32:18 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:21 Tom: I hear you counterpoint, so by that though, should we teach sex ed? Cause that's just life skills. That's just health and life skills.

0:32:43 Eli: Skills. Skills, sex skills, yeah.

0:32:39 Thomas: Okay. And we all know that Arlo would be that, remember Eli's example of the public speaking, Arlo Wakes Up From A cold Sleep, the teacher comes Five Times I

0:32:50 Eli: Arlo Just Comes Out With A Fucking Cleanly Licked mango skin just cleanly, not a hair, on everyone's like, what is that, is that a piece of fine leather? And Arlo's like, oh no, this is a mango that I cleaned with my tongue. And then he flaps, he flaps its dry stiff husk onto The, the floor, A plus, everyone's standing on their desks, oh captain my captain, oh captain my captain, it's perfect, it's perfect.

0:33:13 Thomas: Don't If I'm being honest, I don't remember the origin of that joke, I'm just thinking, imagining new listeners being Like, what are you talking about? Somehow the wrong going joke was, Arlo is amazing at sex, and I don't remember why I

0:33:26 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. It was because we were talking about sex, and Thomas was like, I am too good at sex, And then we turned into Arlo being Good At Sex Because Remember, you were like, like, I don't believe in talking to my partner about sex. No, we were like, that's a thing that most people do.

0:33:39 Thomas: Don' T think That's What I said, But okay, okay, no, I don't Believe People Don't Do that. Yeah. That's

0:33:52 Tom: Yeah, yeah, yeah. People.

0:33:53 Eli: And then Thomas was like, I am a Spanish lover. As I slowly oil each of my lovers in turn, and we describe their deepest fantasies that will come through on this night, they tell me, and I was like fuck, Arlo is going to absolutely destroy some pussy.

0:33:53 Thomas: Right.

0:33:53 Tom: Yeah.

0:34:08 Thomas: Yeah, there Was some other, like, joke that combined to make it Arlo. But anyway, yeah, I just wanted the, I'm Sure there's Horror In People's minds, um, But no, That's Fucking Awesome, They Feel great now, they Feel amazing now, now they can imagine that mango again and feel like wholesome and

0:34:14 Eli: It all worked out. Yeah, and I'm sure they feel so much better now. I Like that, sometimes I'm not the worst thing that's ever been on the radio long enough for a new, because some guy probably was like, Dear Old Dads, you know, I'm having a kid, I wonder if there's a problem, that one looks nice, and up until like four Minutes ago, he was like, oh, I wonder what class is, and now I'm like, he's fucking licking that puss like it's never been good, and he's in, in the car, he can't change to a new podcast.

0:34:36 Tom: Well,

0:34:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yep.

0:34:48 Eli: His hands are busy. He's going to endanger his life to get away from me right now.

0:34:49 Thomas: Yep. So Asked you guys what your worst one was, and did we get official answers? Now I want to know, what's your, what's top one on this list, did

0:35:00 Tom: My top one was actually social etiquette. Yeah, for sure. Like, yeah I think and I think I made a good case for it. I think I think social etiquette, we we would go a huge way. People would benefit from social etiquett training. I think. I really do.

0:35:02 Thomas: Wow, what

0:35:03 Eli: Oh, psych.

0:35:15 Tom: I really don't.

0:35:15 Thomas: Is Okay, I'm not being a troll, I promise, like, what's A, what's Chapter two of that, what is part of that, one of the things that people learn For that

0:35:17 Tom: I really, really do, yeah.

0:35:21 Eli: Yeah, because you also have to keep in mind that Tom's of what contains social etiquette has some fucking crazy landmines in there, right? He'd be Like, you got to shake a hand and make eye contact and never look a beaver in, in the eye, because that's how it knows where you think It plums right, like, you gotta be careful, that's the thing, also here's the risk, here's a risk you haven't considered, Tom, do you ever have a bad teacher, right, that one Weird

0:35:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:35:48 Tom: Oh,

0:35:48 Thomas: I've Been This Has been On My mind the whole time, who is deciding this curriculum, you

0:35:48 Eli: Right.

0:35:48 Tom: Yeah, well, I mean, it's like any other curriculum, right? Like, I guess you'd have to there would have to be some kind of standard, right, seriously.

0:35:54 Thomas: Bunch Of Angry Christians Take Over A school district And they tell You that Rap Music Is The, the problem.

0:35:58 Eli: Can

0:35:59 Tom: That is a danger of that. That's for real. Yeah. But I don't, I wouldn't consider that like social. So social etiquette could be anything from how to behave on a job interview, for example. Would be a useful social etiquette, how to resolve conflict fairly with words, how to, you listen to somebody in good faith. You you could have a lot of pieces of social etiquette.

0:36:00 Thomas: Yeah. Exactly, okay.

0:36:19 Eli: I teach the like dark arts Version of This class, like social manipulation, like Yeah.

0:36:21 Thomas: Severus Snape taking the thing Yeah.

0:36:25 Eli: Exactly, you and the Gryffindors can be like, how to hear someone out, and I'll be like, had a gaslight, site someone about what they just said, I'll

0:36:31 Tom: And Yeah, I actually, I did write a blog to my boys on how to be likable. And it was with this kind of thought in mind, is that there are things we can do that are things we can learn to do. And I've had conversations with Finn about these things in, like, really direct ways. You, me, I have, like, what I call like my 70-30 rule when I meet new people, which is I should be listening 70% of the time and talking 30% of the time. And it's a rough estimate to keep in your head, that like, people, when you're making new connections, you want to be somebody who's thought, who's attentive, and who's not like rolling over other people with your words. And

0:37:03 Eli: See, and meanwhile, and while over in the dark arts class, I'm like, okay, here's three funny stories that you're going to tell people, it doesn't matter if they're true. And just the minute they say a word that is in that story, you start in, and you don't listen to anyone else, because it's better than whatever fuck they're Going to say about their hobbies or whatever. It just knew that

0:37:18 Thomas: And Then At The end of the conversation, you go, god, you never listen to me, jesus fucking christ, you're always talking about yourself.

0:37:25 Eli: Person's a jerk. Gaslight him about what they said. Wow. You hate it when Jews talk about themselves. Yikes. Dark arts. Avada Kedavra.

0:37:35 Tom: And I think also you could, you could teach them how to eat dinner at a nice restaurant, for example, so they don't feel uncomfortable. That's something when I was an early twenties, late twenties, whenever I started going to a decent restaurant, I used to hate it.

0:37:35 Eli: Oh,

0:37:41 Thomas: Ooh, that's not bad.

0:37:48 Tom: What? What?

0:37:47 Eli: That's So Much harder Today, though, because, well, I guess what demands on what you mean by decent restaurant, because I think Tom's definition of that might be tragic, right? It might be like an Outback Steakhouse, you can't Blow your nose on the tablecloth, that's

0:37:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:01 Tom: We've eaten enough, you and I have done fine dining. Oh, Thomas.

0:38:04 Eli: The Thing, because, like, fine dining these days, the waiter comes over and you all have to shut up, and they're like, all right, now this is a fun little take on a Taco Bell chalupa, everyone

0:38:13 Thomas: Oh, that would, wait, what restaurant is this? I want to do that.

0:38:13 Tom: Yeah, yeah.

0:38:16 Eli: Up Up Your Picture Frame and

0:38:16 Thomas: What restaurant is that? I want this. I want it. I want a go. Fuck. I wish people, oh, that was neat. I'm, you know what? I'm going to start a fucking five -star restaurant that does that. That's my new business idea.

0:38:17 Eli: Do your cocaine, five Star Reduced Taco Bell chalupa, very

0:38:30 Tom: About like how to give condolences to someone? That's awkward when you don't know what to do.

0:38:32 Thomas: Eh, just avoid it.

0:38:34 Eli: Hard to do as an atheist, I will point out, because you got to be like I hear your dad died, you think he's just like in the void, or are you an idiot? Thanks for having us to your college class

0:38:36 Tom: It's awkward, right? Yeah, like like

0:38:42 Thomas: No, I

0:38:56 Tom: Oh, God, I think I could come up with a good curriculum, I guess, is what I'm saying. I think I could comes up with good curriculum that isn't horrible, this

0:38:56 Thomas: You know, have some good ideas there. I actually think, I agree. I think that's a good

0:39:04 Eli: Tom, when I get us canceled for my bad take that goes too far, you have a secondary career waiting in

0:39:09 Tom: Is an etiquette guy.

0:39:10 Thomas: Yeah. Well, but I gotta say, I thing my social etiquette of how to give condolences is it's unorthodox I think it's not recognized by by the, the Academy, but mine is, oh, your dad died. So like, is that good died or bad died? Are you first

0:39:24 Eli: Do you feel about that is

0:39:24 Tom: Are we happy not happy

0:39:25 Thomas: Question? Yeah, exactly. That's, I think that's an important question. Oh, happy.

0:39:25 Tom: Yeah, right.

0:39:28 Eli: Feels about dad's dying the way Tom feels about when someone gets pregnant, which is like, so what do you, what do you want to to do your dad?

0:39:37 Thomas: Yeah,

0:39:33 Tom: I was gonna bring the same thing up like what, uh, what's the play here, what's to play here,

0:39:37 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:39:38 Eli: Your choice. You know.

0:39:39 Thomas: I'm not allowed to express any emotion yet until you signal if this was good or bad.

0:39:43 Eli: You let me know how I feel about your dad die. All right, gentlemen, before we go, a Mobius strip walks into a bar looking really sad, and the bartender says, hey man, what's the matter? And the Mobius trip says, where do I begin? I

0:40:12 Thomas: Did

0:40:17 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:40:56 Eli: It was a, it was a problem-solving

0:40:57 Thomas: Old people that's