Bem-Vindo (welcome, in Portuguese), Spencer Lagosta (capoiera nickname), an enthusiastic and motivating capoierista and music teacher in the public school system. He is growning a capoeira school around which a vibrant community is nucleating! He has lived around the world and brings that perspective to his music education. He weaves a melody of the various aspects of life, such as activities, community, and environment can harmonize educational experiences. We rhapsodized on the transferability of skills, eg, classroom focus, music, and movement! Check out his school if you’re in the neighborhood.
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Transcript:
keevin bybee 0:01
Welcome to the one school podcast. This is keevin Bybee. I’m a family physician speaking with experts and people with experience who might help us figure out how we could turn local public schools into something like a 24/7 365 community center. Today, I have the pleasure to speak with Spencer goad, or aka Langosta. He is a music teacher and coupled with Easter, and he, his experience brings a confluence of things that I find super exciting music, education, martial arts and community. So Spencer, thanks for joining us today. And we’d love you to kind of introduce yourself and tell us why you think this is a neat project.
Spencer Goad 0:45
Well, thank you so much keevin. I super appreciate it. And I appreciate the invitation to talk about these things. I’ll talk about who I am for a second. I’m 35. Just short, I think a week and a half of my 36th birthday. I’m about to be a parent and I am in my let’s I think its 18th year of working in schools. So hourly, for a long time in working in lots of different environments. And then a certificated classroom teacher. This is my sixth year. I have taught K through 12 Primarily my mic my certificated being an actual school teacher years have been K through eight music teacher. I’ve also taught high school I’ve also was a community college professor for two years teaching music history. I’m a music teacher. And I started helping teach After School Music when it was still a senior in high school and was a gigging musician for 10 years and then also did martial arts for 10 years five to 15 When I was a kid, doing Taekwondo and mixed Japanese martial arts and then restarted when I was 25, doing Brazilian capoeira. Which is like that dance fighting thing, or the Bob’s Burgers, I think it’s episode four, as most people know it, and things that I have seen with schools, I’m very interested in what you’re talking about, because I already feel like schools are working their way towards that. And I think in a lot of some other countries, where they have a little bit more of us, like social infrastructure, social socialists sort of support that they’re there a few steps ahead. And whether we think that we are headed there or not, we are already doing it. I think so without maybe tipping my hand too much, I’ll let you ask your question so that you can lead it the way you want to lead it so?
keevin bybee 2:33
Well, basically just that, you know, as a family doctor, I see a lot of challenges that befall people from all ages, and it just compounds year over a year. And I thought that in terms of where we might have the most leverage and best return on investment, as much as we don’t want to make it all about money. Sometimes that’s the language that gets us what we need, would be to, you know, solve problems before we have them meet meet young kids as needs and as comprehensive a way as possible. And, you know, local public school seems to be kind of a good place to start with that.
Spencer Goad 3:13
I think I’d like to talk about how schools have changed. So I’m 36. I went to high school more or less, 18 years ago, 20 years ago. And we I went to a high school that had 2000 kids in it, we did not have and I grew up in an affluent area. And I would say that affluent schools still have the same problems. And I like to jokingly say, we just have more expensive drugs, you know, sorts of things. And that’s not a lot of thing. That’s not something people like to hear, but it’s the absolute truth. And we have all the exact same issues, it doesn’t matter what your socio economic issue situation is, you will have less instances maybe of homelessness, I would think that’s a big one. But like domestic, domestic abuse and things like that, I don’t think that those numbers change that much. I would say the one thing you probably see less of is homelessness. Now, I do work in an area where we do have a number of kids who live in shelters. And especially I work at a K through five school and a six through eight school every day. I’m split between two schools, and at our middle school with 600 kids, you know, and I don’t feel like it’s inappropriate for me to say any of this because it’s all public knowledge and it’s public school. We have a school psychologist, we have a we have three counselors. We have also a social worker. And so the social worker is in the school is becoming a place whether people realize or not have wrap of wraparound supports. And even when I worked for one school school district in Southern California, we didn’t necessarily have a social worker, but we had enough teachers who knew what their what was going on. And so we had a family where they were living in a car If they were living in a garage, they got thrown out of the garage. Well, they not thrown out. But like the city found out that somebody was renting a garage. And so then they were living in the car. And and so we, the school rallied and figured out through their PTA of how to pay rent, subsidized the rent for them for two years in a house and get them in a house. And because they were sleeping in a car, and we set up Christmas for that family that one year, and that’s even in a school where and I’m sure people were doing this for a long time beforehand. I mean, that’s even as in a school that didn’t have the one school school district the means to have a psychologist and a social worker. Now I’m at a 600 kids school. It’s title one, but it’s barely title one, and it’s losing title one next year. We have a broad socio economic spectrum, we’re gentrifying, but we still have a social worker and finding and making sure these families have what they need. And connecting dots, because a lot of times these are families that are overwhelmed, and they don’t have the ability to like, you know, like, I don’t know how we’re doing Christmas, and I’m not there yet to mentally think about it, because I’m trying to get through this week and in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So then when you have a social worker who who does that and pulls in, fears out these things and gets in talks to the parent directly says like, Hey, do you need this? Because we have this? And apparently I was like, oh, yeah, of course, we need that I don’t even have mental capacity to think about that. And also a school psychologist who’s somebody catching things, that’s referred up to from the counselors, counselors, or people checking in with kids on the ground level, psychologists get bounced off that next level. And then like psychologist is like mental health and things like that. And then the social worker is other larger things like, Well, can we get you in an after school program? Can we get you in a Can we get? Do you have food? Do you need food stamps? Do you do you need transportation to and from school? Do you need? Do you need to fill out this paperwork? Do you need this? Do you need that? And schools have turned into that? That being said, schools are open eight to four, Monday through Friday, nine months of the year, and what are you doing the other those other other couple months or years and those other hours of the day. And
when kids like we explicitly have to push the kids out of the school, because if you want to now I’m this I am the son of an attorney. And so I grew up my entire life, like, like your doctor and your parents and your kids grew up with, like, the mentality of my dad’s a doctor. And he’s always said this every five seconds of my life, I grew up my mother as an attorney saying liability, liability liability. And so I grew up like, you know, with all this, it’s like, absolutely at 345, we kick the kids out, because we don’t want them you know, like doing stuff on the school, because who’s watching them, we’re liable. Technically, the school is, is liable for a student all the way until they get a walk in their front door of their house. From this moment they leave school that is the technical liability of the school. So all those things we’re responsible for. We are in the front lines of things I have had so many, I’ve had a number of situations I you know, catch a kid mid puke, catch a kid passing out, catch a kid having a seizure, having an absence seizure, and it was only caught because I caught it, catching kids who were eating, catching kids, because they didn’t have stuff catching kids who weren’t bathing, because mom was not paying attention. I have personally caught that one too. And, and just all these other things. That’s where are these other sets of eyes, we are literally that’s that silly expression of like it takes a village to raise a child. We are that village. And I all those things I have just described are the things that are very normal. I am looking at kids, you smell like cigarette smoke. Like is that because you’re smoking? Or did you borrow a jacket from somebody? And that was the situation that the kid borrowed a jacket from somebody by smell cigarette smoke in the kid. So I have to ask, I have to play 20 questions without the kid realizing I’m playing 20 questions and, and things like that. That’s that’s what we do. We are these. Yeah, we are the wraparound support structure now in terms of 24 hours. That’s a wonderful idea. And I know that in some countries in Europe like no, I I have grown up my whole life playing music and doing martial arts. And as a as a teacher, I have routinely said you should do one sport and one art and if your kid doesn’t like arts you should do to sports and kid doesn’t like sports or should do to arts but this helps make a really balanced kid in my 18 years of seeing which kids are successful in which kids are not so successful. And and I literally had a parent teacher conference and we didn’t talk anything about music. It was my kid is so shy. You know, what should I do? Like he comes in like wants to he’s like in middle school and wants to come and sleep in my bed with me still and I’m like, I’m like, come on. And he’s like, he’s got no friends. I’m like, well, your kid needs to go get knocked into You know, it sounds really terrible, but like, he needs to fall down, he needs to learn how to fall down and get back up. And it’s like, well, let’s look at soccer. Let’s look at martial arts. And so they were looking at a kung fu school near them, and things like that. Now in Europe in some places, and I started talking about this, and I got off on a tangent, some of these martial arts teachers who are like me, the state pays for subs pays for martial arts or activity programs, physical activity programs, and so like they the flat rate, you know, like they pay, like, the teachers like $30 an hour, or like, you know, per head per capita, per person. And then these are just and the, in the government has rec centers, and you can take classes there, and you take, like, your stipend that is assigned to you from, from the government, and you go, and you pay, and you just, you just, it’s like, it’s almost like food stamps. And, but it’s, it’s athletic things, because it is part of social health care, that’s like, Hey, if you’re working out, you’re probably less less obese and have better health. And I didn’t read an article, I just heard an anecdotal thing. And you would know this more than me. But you know, and this is me just talking about an anecdotal thing. So it might be hearsay, but like, there’s a higher correlation between unemployment and obesity. And like, if you’re not working, you’re probably also not moving. And maybe you’re maybe it’s becoming a vicious cycle, back and forth on itself and, and things like that. So, to have a school that could be I mean, here’s a building that’s already being used. Now, you’re not going to use classrooms, probably for a lot of things, you’re probably going to you can maybe use classrooms, because I can tell you, as a person, as a, as a school teacher, I have my room set up the way I want it. And I don’t want anybody else in there, screwing up the stuff because I have hung all the children’s stuff neatly on the walls, and it looks beautiful, and I have created an atmosphere. And I do not want somebody’s after school program coming in and tearing all the stuff down. And so there’s, we at our school, we have the Latino network comes in and does afterschool programs, and they go, and there. And then again, if there’s 185 days that the kids are in school, I’m just gonna throw a number out there and say that maybe 130, that the after school program exists, so they’re not even in there, maybe 50 days a year. And they’re watching kids four to 530. So that’s just getting them to the end of the workday. And I also really liked that my school, I have a late start school, we start at 850. And we released the kids are nine, and we released the kids at 345. So it’s, it’s closer to matching the work day schedule, which I think is a good design. I like that because when your kid gets out at 230, and you work till five, that’s rough, and especially days, schools that do have days, like I my first school, we let the kids out one day a week at 1215. And that was a lot, you know, like to let your kid out or 115 or whatever we did it. And and so and then, you know academically like one of our teachers called it a waste of waste waste of a Wednesday because we saw the kids for like 25 minutes you know sort of thing they just came running through. So like if you have a complex that you’re already heating and cooling, because I can also tell you from an H fac standpoint, my father was construction my mom or my mother was an attorney, but she was a construction defect attorney, my my family’s construction, they’re not going to turn the heat off on a building, you will turn the temperature down 10 degrees, but the if you dip that temperature too low, you spend too much energy spent getting that back up. So if you build a larger complex in half and like all the common areas are continued to use, like a gymnasium, like a cafeteria, like like all I know it sounds ridiculous, the hallways, you know those are all the things that are going to be the bathrooms, you know all those things, and you’re paying for custodians. So even during the holiday and even during the summer, the custodians are coming in and maintaining the building. So you’re overlapping costs that make a lot of sense. Now you have to double probably the size of the building almost. And you could still even use those classrooms for you know, like, evening classes, you could have part of the building like okay, here’s your classroom but you share it with the evening school teacher, you teach adult classes you teach blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you have if we look at what kinds of classes are offered through a Parks and Rec system, you know, you could have like cooking cooking classes and and and and sewing is a huge one we had a sewing club at my at the as an after school program at my first school and kids love that. And it wasn’t even a thing that it was primarily girls, but there were a couple of boys that would take it and I would absolutely I you know if I had the time as an adult I’d sit there and just do it with the kids because it’s just fun. And and it’s a great skill to have. But it makes perfect expense, if you have this building, you have to use these, you have to keep heating and cooling these these common areas you have custodial and, and maintenance staff that are there, you’re gonna, you’re gonna get more bang for your buck. But then now we’re talking about a huge over bureaucracy. And in as you know, as you like, let’s combine school bureaucracy with more city bureaucracy. And I’m sure that everybody can talk about how it takes forever to get a stop sign replaced, or something or, or a speed bump put in. I’m sure you know, all this stuff. And in my city in Portland, we restructured a bunch of our schools and in the southeast part of Portland. And that was a whole huge, we asked too many peoples for their opinions. And then we probably should have not asked people just told them like, like, this is what we’re doing, and then just let them all be angry and moved on, because we asked them all what they wanted. And then they were angry anyway. So I have talked to a bunch. And I think I’ve expressed a lot of my big ideas there. But maybe you have something else that you’d like me to talk to?
keevin bybee 16:07
Well, I mean, one I resonate, you know, highly with just about everything you said, the idea of activity vouchers would be extremely valuable, rather than just whatever physical education that the school is limited to offer. So yeah, that was absolutely something that I was thinking about. And the idea that also, from an economic standpoint, where when kids go to school relative to when parents work, those don’t align very well. So as much as we hate to talk about the capitalist nature of making adults work, so that they can pay their taxes, it would also save the system money, if schools had more flexible hours, either before or after, so that parents could work when they needed to, and somebody would be there to watch their kids. You know, if you I can only imagine if you lump in what people are already paying for daycare, how that could fix any overhead for the school. And so yeah, I just really appreciate that you’re touching on a lot of the same ideas that I’ve been brewing with
Spencer Goad 17:14
work before you ask your next question. I can say one more thing is that we have a brand new school that was just built to and finished two years ago, they completely under built the performance, the stage area and the gymnasium because they tried to save money, because it’s insanely expensive when you’re building a building that has to meet the highest standard of codes, because it’s working with children, and it’s the government, they’re going to the highest standard of the codes. Our gymnasium has one basketball court. bleachers on one side, when you open the bleachers, they cover half the basketball court, because one the opposite wall that the bleachers open up to is a wall that is retractable, a million dollar very nice million dollar soundproof wall that opens up and is the stage where all the concerts are put on. So the gymnasium is also the auditorium. It’s like a gym at torium. And so now it’s because it’s a school, and it’s only a one functioning thing. It’s only a school, we have to try and make everything work as much as possible. So we have the gymnasium is now also the auditorium. And so here’s another thing is how are you good. How many PE classes can you run at the same time? If you have a gymnasium with one basketball court? So if a class has 30 kids in a basketball team, is it seven on seven? I can’t remember? Yeah, seven, I think it’s seven on seven. And I was Googling it. And it’s pretty sure it’s seven on seven. So then that’s 14 kids. And if there’s 25 Kids, I mean, are you gonna have two classes in there of 50 kids? And then how are you going to use that space productively. So then the gymnasium is waiting to build because we do have two PE teachers trying to teach at the same time. And then we’re in Portland, Oregon, and there are a lot of days here we can’t use outside. And so now we’ve had we’ve tried to crush all this stuff in one space. And so every time we now also have a concert after school, we cannot have the after school. We do have after school sports clubs coming in using but we have to kick them out of the space every time they have a concert. And if we have a play, the play is over several nights, you know sort of thing because it plays a very, very big production of the high school. They have a dedicated theater and they have a huge gymnasium complex and like that, where it’s like I think they have to to at least two or three basketball courts indoors. And so that’s a high school 2000 2000 But even a middle school where they don’t have at least a separate space or two are enough to have two PE classes run at the same time. It’s pretty it’s pretty hard. So if you are going to ramp up this and make this space more usable, then you could have more commitment to building dedicated spaces like we would have really loved to have had a separate band room, a separate choir room, a separate dancer and a separate drama room. Instead, we have one room that the drama of the dance use, and we have one room that the band and the choir use. And so now we’re competing for space all the time. And we’re and all the classrooms, like they didn’t build us a big, they didn’t build us a, a conference room. So we meet in a large open area on the third floor, where like, it’s completely open up to this to the stairwell that’s open up to the on the top that goes all the way down to the first floor open to the cafeteria. And we don’t really hear stuff, but we’re sitting in basically a large hallway, you know, like, where they have like a table setup and stuff. And it’s supposed to be meant as a flexible workspace, but it’s a hallway. And the custodians come rolling through their after school with their squeaky cart, you know, because they’re also doing their job, you know, sort of thing. So
keevin bybee 21:04
the forethought into architecture is important. Architecture will influence how you act, therefore, how you think, therefore, how you behave and outcomes. So
Spencer Goad 21:16
having a daycare there, I mean, having blah, blah, blah. So if you had a one, and then why not even group high schools and elementaries. And in middle schools and daycares all in one? Larger complex? I know, it’ll be a traffic nightmare. Yeah. But you haven’t face out on four sides, you take the block. Yeah. And then And then, you know, if there’s overlap of stuff, you have the high school gym, you have an elementary driven, you have a middle school gym, and then you have three extra venues, oh, well, the the things built up, you know, like filled out that night, you know, the middle school could go use the high school’s auditorium, or have one really nice auditorium, you know, that they can all share, and you can find enough dates, you know, or even to like a small auditorium and a large auditorium. And like, you know, if you don’t have any parents are coming, you can use both, and they have all of that as a complex, and then you then you put some city services there, you know, then we start talking about the next level stuff. Because a lot of schools we even did food banks and things like that. And, you know, they become places of focus and energy and community and have a really nice park there. You know, in that, I mean, if we’re talking about I believe, a high school in town that was recently remodeled Franklin high school, I think there’s some some stuff they put in there for some skateboard stuff. And so kids are using it all the time. And, and I’m thinking about this park, I love that it’s really underdeveloped. And I’m like, I would love to have a skate park there. You know, that’s something that kids use all the time. There’s nobody using the tennis courts, that’s not really a thing. That’s I mean, Pickleball is coming back is coming up. But um, but nobody’s using our tennis courts. And we have a lot of empty space. So
keevin bybee 23:02
second, and third order effects of having a community hub where most of the important things or the like having opportunities for people to bump into each other and interact. I mean, it’s sorely lacking in a lot of urban architecture these days. Like there’s no city center, like you’re familiar with a lot of Europe or other countries where there’s the center, the downtown is actually a downtown and people gather and we a lot of American urban architecture kind of lacks that. And so wouldn’t it be neat if we use something like the educational hub and spoke network as a way to reinforce community.
Spencer Goad 23:43
We just did a band concert in October where we did it in the cafeteria, not on the stage. And we had everybody bring milk and cookies, essentially what we did, we did conscious and Mexican hot chocolate conscious is a type of sweet Mexican bread from Southern California. And also we have a I work at a Spanish Immersion Middle School. So there’s a lot of population there that could support the idea of that. And then the idea is we did a very short concert, very informal, we did it in the cap we did in the cafeteria, we moved all the tables. And then the point was everybody was supposed to sit around and socialize afterwards. And it was just this kind of half thought half baked idea I had it worked way better than I had ever imagined and then all and then my administrator came over. It was just like, oh my god, everybody’s like talking to each other, like and we just come out of the pandemic and nobody nobody had gathered you know, and so everybody was so excited to just like talk and like oh your kids they’re so your kids that Oh, I do we do this level. And then like I had so many conversations that had nothing to do with music, sitting around talking parents for for an hour after we played for 25 minutes, you know, sort of thing. And it was very informal, very short concert first thing off in the year so and I let the kids you know, it’s around Halloween so we’d like work costumes and it was very silly and I dressed up as a magician and wore cape. You know, silly stuff, but a community center. And then also, if you’re thinking about that now we had a very from, I’m from a city called 1000, Oaks, California. And we had three or four, like community centers. And we have one that was called the teen center, it was in the center of the city, it was attached to the Senior Center, like, it was not a it was not it was not as keep seniors live there, but it like a Senior Activity Center, and then the library, and then the teen center, and then a park and it was a complex, and this thing was open as many hours as they could keep the teen center explicitly is open ping pong tables, indoor basketball courts, bat like skateboard ramps, in the back classes, everything is, you know, like a little like the the massive library attached to it. And like, it became a lot and they would do separate dances, and separate blah, blah, blah. And, and it was kind of one of those things where I didn’t utilize it. But my little sister’s two years younger than me, we would utilize it. And she’s like, well, I’m going to the teen center, and it was just called the teen center. And in their staff. They’re like until 10 o’clock. Oh, they have movie night. Oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah, oh, we’re doing this, oh, we’re doing that. And that’s a that’s a big thing that could that. That was in my city, like I feel comfortable. My kids going to the teen center. There’s at least five adults there. And you know, in, in, somebody’s watching my kid. And I know a lot like people, I if I don’t have a brother, I have three sisters. But if I had a guy, who if I had to choose, it would be my brother, the German guy, and he’s actually a school principal now. But he talked about the difference. And we knew each other when we both lived in China. I lived in China for four years. He said it’s weird, like here, like I don’t trust my kids walking around the street. We were living in Shanghai, Shanghai. And it was, you know, it’s a massive city like living in London or New York City. But he’s like, Yeah, my kids, we just let our kids walk out on the street. Because culturally German people that I’m quoting him, we just, we just know that all the adults are looking out for all the kids all the time. And like, that’s just normal. And so that same effect was kind of with that teen centers like, oh, I don’t worry, because my kids go into the teen center. I know, there’s like four or five adults there at all times who are like, CPS,
keevin bybee 27:22
exactly. There was a Newark, there’s a high school that did late late Friday nights. But the I just love that we’re thinking about how to have flexible spaces. And if What if every high school had was open till I mean, like I said, my goal was 24 hours, but later and later, and there wasn’t just one teen center, I think scaling is really important here, just being able to reach all the people who might not be within geographic proximity of a teen center. And like you said, high schools already exist, high schools already have a gym. So the more that we can turn those into the local teen center than people who wouldn’t have nearby access to something else, at least would be close to their school.
Spencer Goad 28:10
Now, there’s lots of action sports going on. But like more stuff, like let’s have a social thing, let’s watch a movie, let’s belong somewhere. You know, that’s, that’s the next steps. Absolutely.
keevin bybee 28:21
And the capacity for the environment to be a little bit of a sandbox to where the they can use the space to do what they want to do, rather than have to be boxed into some narrow set of these are the offerings available, right?
Spencer Goad 28:40
Well, you’ll have to figure out what works because you might have to start with this is what we have available in but we are here. And we have this much flexibility, but this much rigidity. That’s my mom, the attorney in my head.
keevin bybee 28:54
Right, right there slider scales on how much you know, how much can they do versus how much like should we allow, but I guess, mostly just speaking to more than just after school basketball, right, and some some amount of self directed time with with open space. And you had mentioned before about the one thing that I wanted to come back and touch on is that shy kid and the we gave kids activity vouchers or the school was more flexible than those shy kids might have an opportunity to find the activity that’s going to stick to them as well, rather than the classic, you know, half dozen things that that are available.
Spencer Goad 29:39
And also maybe housing them all together. They’re all the same space and I don’t have to go to 10 Different places as a parent.
keevin bybee 29:47
Yeah, exactly. That. I mean, that’s the big part of my idea is how do we reduce friction so that people don’t have to guess where they’re going to go? They just know where to go.
Spencer Goad 29:59
Yeah, I, I spend a lot of time thinking about cuz I run a small business as martial art, you know, school is like, how do I make a flyer that is like that you will look at for three seconds and get all the information because you’re only gonna look at it for three seconds. And then how do I make an event that is the most respectful of everybody has so much stuff going on. And all the in so little time in juggling your kids. And so I make the band concert as short as possible, like it is an hour, you know, and like in your out, and you know, you just your your kid does martial arts with me your toolkit, your two sons, and very much trying to build it so that it’s never wasting your time. And that when you’re there your kids actively doing something you’re not standing around like this is dumb.
keevin bybee 30:44
Yeah, definitely make it engaging as possible. We want repeat customers. When we people are thinking about budget crunches, you know, you are involved in both music and martial arts, which aren’t usually part of the core curriculum. And so when people mentioned that we need to make things lean and mean because we need to focus on the important things like how do you respond to that statement? And obvious like, I have strong opinions that martial arts and music and those things are really important. And so how do you respond when we’re worried about trying to cut things down to the bare bones?
Spencer Goad 31:26
Well, facilities are very expensive, and using the facilities is is efficiently as possible is a great idea. So that’ll help cut down because then also, then you have overlapping things of, you know, then the custodians are going to be there. I mean, you have two shifts of custodians, one is there like seven to two, or whatever, or six to two, and then the next shift is like, or six or whatever, to three, and then you have a swing shift. So we have a early morning shift and a swing shift. So then the building is really watched from like six to nine or 10. And so you already have those people using this in those spaces that are have to be there. So there’s little let down there. And then you have the physical initial construction costs. And then the space is and then how can you utilize like when when airlines buy airplanes that every minute that an airplane is not in the air, it’s losing money, essentially. And so every minute that somebody is not utilizing one of these spaces, you know, that’s that that’s losing money. And so the condensing of like a physical space, but like an ad, everything all in one place space is a bit is a great thing. So now we’re talking about I don’t want to pay for extra things like arts. And we can show you a million studies about how much better a kid is for all those things. And Portland, put in a like a, like a point half a percent, whatever. Music tack as arts tax. And what that ended up being was 50 Elementary, or like 50 new positions were created or for arts and music teachers across the city. So the school had, the district has about 52 or four elementary schools is about 50 About 45,000 kids in it, we’re down from like 50,000 At our peak and COVID messed with everything and people moved and people did online and stuff. So we’re down about 5000 Kids, we think and I think we were at 52 and we’re down to five, so we were 7000. But I haven’t seen the numbers since last year. And those were projections. So we don’t know who actually did shit show back up because I know there’s a lot of people who showed back up after they were just like nah, like it’s better for directly with people. And so the offerings and we just shifted from a K through eight model where we had everything condensed in small on K through eight schools are really great. And I’ve worked at a K through eight school for three years. In the first few years my my teaching career as a classroom teacher, because it kept older kids younger in mentality longer. And because they interact because when an eighth grader has to interact with a kindergartener, they watch their language a little bit more. And and they don’t run over first graders because they realize they will cross the path of the first grader and I can’t run everywhere and literally knock over a first grader because they do feel terrible. And then big buddy little buddy stuff like that stuff was often awesome. Like, like we had a kid who was a total pain in the butt and then like we had to be a little big buddy to like a first grader somebody’s like, he’s won’t do anything I asked and like the teacher was like, now can you imagine like how I feel when I interact with you because you’re a pain in my butt, you feel sort of thing. Seventh grader. And you know, empathy. So K through eights are great in this regard. And even having a K through 12 school you could have more of that. However, we realized that with the K through eight model that the middle school was became so small that we couldn’t offer a lot of things. And so when you had a bank In class, and there were six kids in it, I gotta tell you that a band is not anything worth shaking a stick out until you hit around 30 Kids, you don’t have enough kids to cover all the parts. And so like my ideal numbers, 40 kids in a band class, and I have right now, like, I have a weird situation where I have 68 kids in a beginning band class, because I have too many, it should be two classes and 35. And, but it sounds awesome, because like, there’s enough kids there to really make a ton of sound. And it’s really awesome. And we realize that when you have a K through eight, a small school, you couldn’t have the offerings. But when you have a bigger school, or a bigger campus, you could even have a woodshop class, and you could bring back things that don’t exist anymore, you could have a woodshop class, where the guy teaches three sections of high school in two sections of middle school or three sections that you know, like of middle school and two sections, because generally five, five classes is generally what a teacher teaches, sometimes six, but that’s not so common. Or you could you could easily have like a drama teacher, you know, like a, you cannot say, it’s really hard to have a full time drama teacher and when in at a middle school, or a full time dancer, but if they’re split between the high school and middle school, or they’re split, you know, then you then you’re talking about splitting things. And then an art teacher, you could have two art teachers, they go one’s Elementary, and then maybe a little bit a little school, then ones middle and high school. And you know, and then they could have side by side classrooms. And you know, and they can even have share, she could and then when we’re talking about things, you’re buying in bulk, you know, and you’re buying in bulk, and everything’s going into one place to I mean, this whole dish is going to buy the same amount. But if it’s all going to one to fewer locations, that can be something so yeah, those things and then you have a and then you have enough people like maybe you can have more counselors for the entire K through 12 compound, you know, it’s compound facility thing, you know, psychologists, social workers, things like that. And then they stay in the same exact system longer, because then you’re seeing a kid from age four and a half all the way to 18. And then there’s more consistency.
keevin bybee 37:05
Those are the exact things that are really important to think about, that I think are kind of getting missed, I hadn’t really thought of the continuity for mental health and counseling that might come from, you know, k, k 8k 12. So
Spencer Goad 37:21
working in a cage school, you know, we had a we had, you know, like when your first grade teacher shows up in your sixth grader, and you’re in trouble. And they’re like, Timmy, what in the world like, you know, you know, like, you know, this, this kind of extra social pressure, or something, oh, my god, here’s my first grade teacher who I loved. And they’re staring at me, because I messed up, you know, like, there was, there were elements of that, that absolutely happened working at a K through eight. And I don’t know that people know, to know that because they weren’t working there. But that absolutely. And then your fourth grade teacher comes in, like, oh my god, I’m so proud of you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, and because we had a fourth grade teacher, who would be like, I want to see the test scores of the kids, I want to know, how are my kids doing, you know, like, three years later, eight years, you know, four years later, and and all these things, and I still have kids who are from my first job in California, they I made I made the cheerleading team and has nothing to do with I taught them trumpet, you know, but like, there’s the sense of community because they went through this K through eight school.
keevin bybee 38:22
Yeah, I never even thought about it from the teachers perspective. i That’s pretty cool. And from a developmental standpoint, you know, if we go back to hunter gatherer times, there weren’t age, age divided cohorts, on a industrial bell ringing schedule, right? Everybody was mixed age engaged in the same activities, you’re simultaneously a learner doer and a teacher, depending on the moment, depending on the day, depending on the activity. And I think that being a little bit more flexible about how we put people into a learning environment, you know, not all six year olds are the same developmental tracks, or why should we assume that they’re going to progress, you know, on the same nine month schedule, but if we have a little bit more flexible of a school environment, then they’ll progress as they need on their own particular trajectory. And they’ll get social interaction skills up and down the developmental chain, right.
Spencer Goad 39:29
Yeah, and also another thing talking about the K through eight, I used to work at the family’s views viewed it as an institution, not a school, and like, Oh, I’m putting my kids in there because all my friends put it there like and like and then as they’re like, wrapping up kid number two or three or four, it’s just like, yeah, we it was the greatest thing. This was a cornerstone of our of our lives was this school, you know, because we were so invested here for so long and we are so wrapped up in this community and all my kids have these teachers and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, I mean, I don’t know, if you’re gonna get 2000 kids were, you know, if a high school is 2000, there’s 500 kids per grade level, I don’t know, you’re gonna have 500 kids per grade level all the way down. But, you know, you’re not gonna have every elementary there. But it could be an oversized Elementary and a standard middle school, or maybe a middle school. And then maybe there’s a high school middle school complex in one place, but then a middle school elementary complex in another place, and then still elementary or spread out. Another thing I can tell you about the way Portland Public Schools is, the vast majority of the elementary schools are about 300 kids two to 300 kids, and specifically spaced out as much as possible to avoid buses. Because if you live within one mile of a school, they’re not busing your kid you live within walking distance or a transportation that they consider that you can get to the thing that saves a lot of money. And so there is some thought process about that, that they that they did do that. But I can also tell you, there’s some things that are terrible. Like there’s the guy who only does the painting, and there’s the guy who only does the spackling. And there’s the guy who only fixes doors, and the guy who only fixes doors, like will park come in, fix one door and then run out and go to the next building. And so he’s spread out a lot and there’s the guy who’s painting who added a wall spackled over and fixed, like a like there was something that took off in the in the whatever that’s back, I’m using the wrong word. But um, was cracked, drywall was cracked and so they had they fix the drywall but then there’s the painting guy is six months behind. So then I have this wall that’s not painted.
keevin bybee 41:37
Yeah, definitely personnel logistics and the backstage to making a place run, that’s all going to need to be well thought out and certainly above my paygrade Hopefully, I’ll get a superintendent on here one of these days,
Spencer Goad 41:51
but the bigger the places the more centralized and more cost effective that is because then you do have one guy who’s not a custodian or handyman, or the plumber, the plumber electrician, you know, for the building complex
keevin bybee 42:04
24 hour aspect is challenging. Earlier in the podcast series, I spoke with one of the homeless youth shelters and having the school house kids can be challenging but it would actually might be easier for them to be on call kind of foster care network and the more engaged the family is in the community that families that are engaged in the school community, the more likely you will have a sufficient number of on call foster families available for the kid who is homeless or the kid who is fleeing some dangerous situation and doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
Spencer Goad 42:44
Well, I think that that’s a very difficult thing to do. But I have a solution for that is government housing that like if you’re going to be a foster parent, you get that you can stay in this house and it is part it is adjacent to this complex and here we’re and we’re centralizing so then you’re thinking about a city is buying up like two blocks or of stuff you know, sort of thing and I’ve always run into foster families and I’m just like, oh you foster okay, I’m doing anything you know, it’s like I used to always know that those people have the hugest hearts and are going 10 different ways and going being pulled in 10 different directions. And so like what can I do to make your life easier your kid goes for a run of the line you know is in my opinion if I if I know that a kid is a foster kid if I know that a kid has a homeless kid they’re there I don’t tell them I don’t I talked to the parent I don’t they I don’t let the kid ever know but the kid get that kid gets first. But like if you had adjacent to these complexes, government housing that like was these like we talked about vouchers for Title eight or so I can remember what it is but like low income but like foster do the same thing. It would be an awesome thing. And we have some private things like I know that not so far from my home. There’s a place that does interventions for families, and I think they have eight apartments and on camp on their on their campus. And they and their families who are transitioning. It’s called path home. It’s math dash home.org
keevin bybee 44:20
Well, I don’t want to eat up too much of your valuable Christmas break time. Any anything else that you’d like to plug? Can you tell people how they might learn more about copper Wira or your copper with a group or anything else that you think it’d be important to leave us with this afternoon?
Spencer Goad 44:38
Well, I was gonna say just like all arts and I think that the thing I said earlier is like a really balanced kid in my experience is one art in one sport. A kid needs to learn to fall down. Kids need to learn to fall down and get back up. A kid needs to learn how to like express themselves and playing a band instrument is is the exact same skills as public speaking. It is it is not, you know, it is obviously not the exact same thing, but it is the same thing. And, and putting yourself out there in trying yourself because kids developmentally, like they learned fear about the time of middle school, like, they’re just going to try things like a lot more freely when they’re younger than that. And I always, I always love to pick on your oldest son because I was like, he’s never met a bad idea. He didn’t want to try it three times, you know, sort of thing. And I’m like, Hey, you go first. And he’s like, he’s like, Why me? And I’m like, because you’re willing to do it if I really, really like, Okay. And then he always goes, your kids a little bit of an exception. And, but having kids be out of their comfort zone is a really important thing. And it doesn’t matter, like what it is that you do. I like I like the martial art, I do a couple with it, because it’s a martial art, but it’s also gymnastics, and it’s also music. But and it’s a very interesting, there’s a lot of cultural things. But that’s not to say that any other sport is not really great, too. And the community that you build up with it, and you want to look a lot of times that like, you know, what, what are the what are the families look like? who go there, like, can you connect with those families, can you become a part of a community, and I talk a lot about Big C church and little c church, and I’m not raised, I was not raised religiously, but I talked about the idea of church is the place that you go, that makes you want to be a better version of yourself, and that you also uplift other people. And it’s a place that holds you accountable, and you help hold others accountable in a good way. In. So I like to think that my what I do is little c church. And, and ironically, we actually teach class in a big C Church, which is also funny, too. And, and they’re wonderful people, and they and they explicitly wanted me in that when I contacted them. They charged me less money, because they saw what I was cuz they we talked about it. They’re like, Oh, you teach kids classes? Well, we want this to be a community center. And we want more services like that in our thing. And so like because I teach a bunch of kids classes, they gave me a cheaper rate, you know, and things like that, because they’re also on that same mission. And so now, are we part of a larger thing? Are we building like, No, we’re my martial arts school is a piece of their puzzle. And then my music program at the middle school is a piece of the puzzle for the art our we do clusters in Portland, sort of part of the Franklin High School cluster. So how are we supporting the elementary schools? And then how are we supporting the high school and so that was the high school supporting us and vice versa. And so all these like symbiotic, some symbiotic relationships and stuff. So we go to the high school a lot. Nice, what comes down to us, and it’s all really growing to be something that is a larger, right now six through 12, continuous progression. But in in hopefully, the biggest thing is, you know, a K through 12 progression of how do we hand kids off? And things like that? Those are the conversations that we have a lot of talk about. So
keevin bybee 48:12
yeah, wonderful. I love the interdigitating communities and the opportunity to develop both for the individual and for the organization’s like you said it’s self reinforcing when good people do good things together. Everything is just more awesome. Well, yeah, really appreciate your time really appreciate what you’re doing. Really appreciate your thoughts. And yeah, I was gonna say any which is there, you want to leave people with a way to get in touch with you if they want to learn more.
Spencer Goad 48:46
Sure, yeah. If you want to learn to soak up with a C A P O eira. But it’s coming to Brazil, Portland is me. And then, you know, if your kid just there’s there’s nothing wrong with getting a private music teacher, because it’s just as I say, it’s no different than like a math tutor. It’s just another adult, sitting in your kid’s life telling them to focus up and, and in in. And it doesn’t matter what the thing is what we’re working on. I talked about in music class, we’re working on real life skills all the time. We’re working on self discipline, which is focus, perseverance, which is grit, you’re going to fail, you’re going to make mistakes, let’s get back up on the horse. Let’s keep going. problem solving skills. I really try not to give answers to kids. I try to teach them processes by which to learn something. And then when they hit the same problem, I go through the process again. And I can tell you that my second year band kids never asked me how to how to how to what’s the combination of the fingers we call a fingering to play a note because they know the system and they go look up the note and they never asked me because I we spent all the first year of like, No, I’m not telling you, but I’ll do it with you. And then like the fourth thing is interpersonal skills of how do we work as a team because a music class As a sports team without a ball, we’re all playing different positions. And we can’t all be offense we can’t all be playing defense not every kid can play clarinet. Not every kid can play trumpet, not every kid can play saxophone, we have an unbalanced thing. And then we playing sometimes the melody or the harmony, or the baseline, or the rhythmic thing. And so we’re all playing supportive roles. And one of my favorite expressions, and this doesn’t apply to music, sorry, to martial arts, but it absolutely applies to music is an expression, one of my teachers told me, he said, there are times in life when you’re important, and there are times in life when you’re not. And most of the time, you’re not. And you have to learn to be a supportive person. And then I everybody giggles when I say that. And then the more I say it to the kids, the more they get it, and the more that they really understand that and that they’re part of a team. And then the parents are always like, What in the world is did you say to my kid, and then like when they as they, as they as time goes on, they get it. And because it does cause self discipline, perseverance, communication skills, and problem solving skills are the things that you take, no matter what you do, you taking a math class, or taking the science class you take is to become an air conditioning repair guy, as a plumber, as a scientist, as a doctor, these are these things, it doesn’t mean accountant, you know, like I don’t have I could tell you if probably taught over, if I was gonna pick a random number 2000 students in 18 years, and two of them have gone on to study music at the university, and only one of them still plays music, and professionally. And I have a lot of students who have gone into other careers, and I’m just as proud as all them and some, some of them even still play music, you know, not as their as their living. But that’s absolutely something they can, they can be doing those it’s absolutely something the skills they can take to do to the rest of life. And then when I’m doing martial arts, I’m doing a lot of like fitness I’m trying to teach. I’m just trying to keep keep people flexible, instill a lifestyle, and in with the martial arts, and especially about sports. And this is what I’ll say about sports is I took some martial arts teacher training courses over the summer, it’s a long story. But the Israeli government, the 90s, made all of the all of the sports teachers have to show accreditation in, in whatever field they’re teaching in, or they were not allowed to rent space. And so the Israeli government cracked down on it. So then the couple other guys in Israel, kind of got in with them. I think boxing and military guys to figure out how they were going to make certifications and demonstrate that they were doing their own teaching and their curriculum, and develop a specific curriculum in the 90s. And so then they’ve they’ve developed this really intricate three level thing where each one was 100 hours. And if you want to teach kids gymnastics in Israel, you have to do 100 hours of training, like if anything, and now the guy who’s the head of all of like most of the couples, and all of that. He teaches just general kids safety classes for any kind of exercise for the government. So if you’re teaching gymnastics, if you’re teaching volleyball, you might take a class with him. And so it’s like a four week long process. And you like go stay at like a complex and things like that, and you do all your classes, but it’s a four week long, calm, I can put you in touch with one of the guys an American and he lives in America, he lives in in Miami. But he was actually born in Jamaica, grew up in Miami, then lived most of his life in Israel as a Jewish guy, and then his back to Maya, and then lived for a chunk of his life in Moscow, and then is back to Miami, I’ll get us information. But I did the courses with him. And so to go back to the beginning of my tangent was, as teaching martial arts is he talked about how I’m, you know, like, sometimes we’re teaching second generation couch potatoes, because parents who are in their 30s and 40s grew up in the 80s and 90s, with video game systems and even going back, you know, like Nintendo, Sega PlayStation, even Atari and things like that. And they’re they grew up doing that. So they instill that in their kids. And so like, I have families who come in, they’re like, Oh, my kid can’t do that. They can’t do a cartwheel. he’s big, he’s gonna be big, she’s gonna be big, like her parents. And I’m like, I’m like, No, and your kids are upside down on their hands. And it’s in its size isn’t is is not the like, we’re instilling this lifestyle, but also like, don’t you’re putting your own limitations your own ceiling on your kid. And so, when I when, you know, when I’m trying to teach your kid in particular keevin like to do a front handspring that wasn’t what you thought about your kid doing, you know, sort of thing, or doing running, jumping, flying kick, you know, that’s not what we initially thought we were signing up for. But like, that lifestyle, and then what’s the what’s the, what’s the carrot at the end? Because what we’re really training them about is, oh, you should be physically fit. You see, I don’t feel well right now. It’s because you didn’t go out for two weeks and you sat on the couch and you played video games. So like, you know, like when you’re telling your kid like, Oh, we’re gonna go back to martial arts. Next week, you know, as the winter break is wrapping up, you know, your kids is like, well, I don’t feel that great. I’m going over what? Well, you sat and you’ve ate chocolate and in work that you’ve, you’ve eaten more calories than you’ve expended is really what it comes. And then what were those calories sort of thing. So I’m teaching a lifestyle of I felt really good when I did this. I, you know, I don’t even do stretching with little, little kids, they don’t need a stretch, but we teaching them the habit of stretching. We’re teaching them the habit of exercise, we’re teaching the habit of living healthy. So those are those are those things. So yes, I do. Yes, I can promote well, who I am and what I do, but I think the bigger thing is promoting the culture of of like, instilling, you know, math class and English classes, great, but they don’t like arts is completely different. What I mean, when kids are in band, it’s closer to PE class physical education than it is to than it is to science. That’s what my classes I have, I am a I teach a practice. I only teach practical things. I do not teach theoretical things. We don’t pull out a book and read about basketball, we do basketball, we don’t pull out a book and read about music. We play music, it is a practical class. We don’t pull out a book and read about martial arts, we jump over stuff and kick each other in the head. And we you know, and that’s, that’s part of the fun.
keevin bybee 56:20
Oh, absolutely. I mean, that’s what we need to do. When I’m seeing all of the my 65 year olds with poorly controlled diabetes, it’s because they didn’t have a Spencer teaching them how to jump kick when they were seven. So we’ll try to figure out how we can scale this model as much as possible. So thanks for the words. And we’ll, we’ll see you back in the in the studio.
Spencer Goad 56:49
Yeah, thank you so much for your time. keevin I super appreciate you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai