Tech in Schools with Jessica Grose

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Tech in Schools with Jessica Grose

  • Outside of Politics: Cup Management

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EPISODE RESOURCES

Pantsuit Politics Slow Book Club Reading of Democracy in America

Jessica Grose

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.  

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.  

[00:00:14]  Thank you so much for joining us today. We are so happy to welcome back New York Times reporter Jessica Gross, to talk to us about the impact of technology in schools. Big subject in my household, Sarah, and I believe in your too. And she's going to talk about the implications of that tech in schools for our anxious generation of kids, as they are frequently described.  

Sarah [00:00:51] Yes, that's also a topic where I live. Everywhere I go. The parents are at Twitter about the anxiety and the tech and the phones and the social media, and should we be following new guidelines about that?  

Beth [00:01:04] And then outside of politics, we're just going to try to get to the really pragmatic issues in our households as well and talk about cups.  

Sarah [00:01:12] Cups on counters, Beth. Cups everywhere. Cups on all the counters.  

Beth [00:01:15] Cups on counters. Cups on side tables. Cups on the floor. Cups on stair rails. Cups on beds.  Everywhere cups. I feel in the selection of the topic of tech in schools influenced by Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Sarah.  

Sarah [00:01:31] Okay.  

Beth [00:01:32] There is a distinctive critique of Americans in this book that we are so busy doing, doing, doing and chasing progress, we too rarely step back to think, is this what we want? What are we doing here? Why are we doing this? And so I think stepping away from headline news to say, hey, every single day at school, are we doing what we want to be doing? Are we chasing goals that are important to us? What are the values behind this is important? So that is just my today advertisement for the impact that Alexis de Tocqueville is having on me.  

Sarah [00:02:09] Because we are doing a slow read of this classic throughout the year, and we would love for you to join us today on our premium channels. You can hear our reflections on the next section where he does spend a lot of time saying, Americans, you need to slow all the way down, which is not a surprising critique coming from a Frenchman. I'm just going to be honest with you. And it doesn't make me feel cynical or depressed that some of this stuff still rings true. It makes me feel better. Okay, so this is something in our way of being. It's something we're always going to have to work at and pay attention to. And reading someone pointing it out during the 19th century makes me feel like, okay, so people have been thinking about this problem and it's gotten better and it's gotten worse, and there are waves of attention or inattention to these issues inside the American psyche. And so many people before me have thought about it, so I don't have to start from scratch, and that makes me feel better.  

Beth [00:03:06] I absolutely agree. And it underscores for me the reason we wanted to take this project on in a time of anxiety.  

Sarah [00:03:15] Yes  

Beth [00:03:16] We get emails every week saying, I am so worried. In a time of anxiety, it's very grounding. It's such a relief to read this book and realize we have some new twists on old classic problems. And thinking through how to describe those problems and what they connect to and how they've been handled before, is just profoundly helpful.  

Sarah [00:03:40] Agreed. So you can get that discussion that we just had on the latest section through Patreon or Apple Podcast subscription, and all the information on how to do that is in our show notes.  

Beth [00:03:51] We also have a very fun update from the other book club. We're just readers here.  

Sarah [00:03:56] We're book club people.  

Beth [00:03:58] We're homework people. So our other book club that we recently talked to you about, where we have two summer fiction selections chosen by listeners, sold through Lisa at The Bookshelf on Church in Irvington, Virginia. We have sold out of those book club boxes, and that is awesome and fun. It is also huge for The Bookshelf on Church and Irvington, Virginia.  Because our book club is going to enable Lisa to pay rent at her new brick and mortar location for six months. Our community just helped launch a brick and mortar version of a bookshop in a place that Lisa has told us is a book desert, and it really fills me with a lot of joy and gratitude.  

Sarah [00:04:49] Sorry, it took me a minute. Because I'm a librarian's child and I love books and I love bookshops, and just hearing that from her really warms my heart. Hearing her enthusiasm, knowing that this is going to just relieve the stress of like-- I have to believe-- one of the hardest periods of launching a small business. Those first six months when you have expenses and everybody doesn't know about you yet and you're just trying to build everything up. And I just know how much this community loves to do things like that. To help a women run small bookshop launch. Come on. And you get an awesome book box along with it. Like, come on, this is a win-win on every single level. And she's working on lots of exciting things so people can order more books from her. Hopefully, by our next book box, we're going to have the option that you can add on a book for a prisoner in a local prison by her so that we can push books into other places that are book deserts. So it's just incredible. That's incredible. Well done everybody. Well done.  

Beth [00:05:51] So thank you for being part in so many ways of putting good things into the river. And we're excited for you to be here today for this conversation with Jessica Gross.  

[00:06:01] Music Interlude.  

[00:06:11] We're so happy to welcome back Jessica Gross, New York Times opinion writer to Pantsuit Politics. Jessica, you write a twice weekly email newsletter that is one of my favorites. Because I feel like whatever I've just had a conversation with a friend about that we're kind of frustrated about or trying to work through, your column appears, and it happens to be on the subject that we are working through.  

Sarah [00:06:31] It is wild. Or you're like psychic or something.  

Beth [00:06:33] So you're very plugged in to my stage of life at least.  

Jessica Grose [00:06:37] I love to hear that, thank you.  

Sarah [00:06:39] It's so true. So, Jessica, let me share a story with you, if I may, to kick off this conversation. About once a month, once every two months, I get a call from my 12 year old son's middle school. And they call me and they say, "Miss Holland, Amos is not paying attention in class. Amos is on games, on the internet. We tell him not to, and then he just gets right back on the computer and it's really distracting." And do you know what I say to them, Jessica? I say, "You gave him the computer. You gave him the piece of addictive technology. And so I do not feel responsible for this. I can't stay off my own cell phone. I don't have a lot of good ideas for how to keep Amos off his. In my home, his internet usage is completely restricted. His screen time is very limited. So if you would like to take the computer away from him, feel free. You have my full and complete permission. I don't want him on it at school at all." And sometimes they go, great. The math teacher is like, oh, would you like him to have his physical textbook back? And I said, "Dear Jesus, yes, I would like that. Please do that." But I feel like it's so frustrating when I get those calls because I just want to say I don't want this, I don't want this. So I feel no obligation to fix it for you because I don't think a fix is available if I'm being very honest.  

Jessica Grose [00:08:01] I feel you on so much of this. I personally just deleted TikTok and Threads from my phone yesterday because these technologies are meant to be addictive. They are for all of us and they do a very good job. And I think my overall sort of thesis on tech in the classroom-- so I wanted to learn about from teachers and parents granular detail about how tech was being used because there is actually a paucity of research on this, especially up to date research. We just don't know exactly how it's being used there. So many classrooms across the country, every district has a different policy. So I launched the survey through my column, and a thousand people answered, and I read as many of the responses as I could. And my overall take on it is this has been happening for a long time, but it really went off the rails in 2021, when our children had to have screens to get even the barest semblance of an education. And when the kids went back to in-person school, whenever that happened for them, tech was not always reintegrated thoughtfully. So, again, it's hard to make generalizations because it's totally different in every school district, in private versus public and charter versus private. There are many different sort of philosophies and uses, but often the default is just to use a screen; whereas, before maybe it wasn't. So for example, I've heard from many teachers, "I would love to have a physical textbook. I prefer that, but the district has decided that all our curriculum is going to be digital only. And so even if I wanted to give a child the textbook, I couldn't." So at least you have that going for you. They still have the math textbooks to give. And so, I talked to not just teachers and parents, but lots of experts who have studied this for a long time and also flagged how little research there is. So I talked to academics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who did research on apps for kids, pre-K through age three. And they told me that when they did a literature review-- and there are hundreds of thousands of apps in App Stores that are tagged as educational. There are 36 studies. So considering the amount, the flood of these apps-- and those studies weren't always even about things that were on the commercial market, some of them were on apps that were developed by educators just for the study.  

Sarah [00:10:36] And that's apps. Forget YouTube, forget anything else, this is just apps.  

Jessica Grose [00:10:41] Right. We don't even know if this tech works, or much less if it works better than having an analog version. So after having all of these discussions and really thinking through the ethical implications, I mean, that's something I find is really under discussed. And I find, honestly, the most frightening for my own children is their privacy. In many public schools, you cannot opt out of doing things like Google Classroom. There's just no alternative. And so the kids can't sort of meaningfully consent to their data being used in whatever way it's used. And those sorts of rules and laws are incredibly opaque. So I find that to be really troubling and something that I don't think that we've fully thought through the impact of or thought through what children deserve and what their rights should be for their own data. So that's like an entirely separate thing, not just are they learning? Are they distracted? Is this the best method to teach the things that we want them to learn? And so your experience is just very typical. It's happening everywhere.  

Beth [00:12:02] I'm having a hard time almost formulating my next question, because my brain is also in the 7000 layers of this that just present in my life. And I know that my life is just one life. I think I want to push back against my own brain a little bit and ask you, as you sorted through those thousand responses, what did you hear from educators as the advantages for them of using this tech in classrooms? How did we get here?  

Jessica Grose [00:12:28] So, look, there are certainly advantages, and I think that I am somewhat persuaded by the idea that we need to make kids into good digital citizens. They are going to use these technologies. They are integrated into all of our lives in deep, deep ways. And so we can't have zero tech. Or they're never going to learn how to responsibly use these things and integrate them into their lives and their work lives, and to develop the skill of of paying attention even when there are these digital distractions. So I think that is sort of a con. Again, that doesn't mean we should let it be used in the somewhat unfettered way that it is being used now, but that this is a skill that they need to learn. So I don't know if that's a benefit, but that's a really compelling reason for some tech use. For children who have various disabilities, physical and learning disabilities, tech can really be a game changer for kids with dyslexia, dysgraphia, just being able to communicate better, better to overcome differences in the way that they're processing words and numbers. Tech can be incredibly useful for that population and really has changed the game and to what they are able to learn. And there's really clever uses of it often. So I talked at length to an English teacher-- he's a high school English teacher in Indiana-- and he was saying tech has allowed him to ask his students deeper questions. So he talked about how he used to just give vocabulary quizzes that were just the words. You had to memorize the words and their definitions. But now he lets the kids have an online dictionary, and the quizzes are about the specific meanings and the nuances of usage, which is sort of a deeper thing.  So he still requires them to understand and learn through repetition what these words mean. But what he's quizzing them on is sort of a more complicated thing. So in an ideal world, we could use this tech to sort of do rote things. So things like learning your multiplication tables, learning vocabulary. Yes, I think an app can definitely help. I see it with my daughter who's learning Spanish. She uses Duolingo as a tool. But it is not replacing the typical classroom experience. So it was always like things that were additive or allowed for, like a deeper learning or understanding of a concept. But it was unusual for me to hear stories of total replacement of previous ways of doing things. So one example that is coming up a lot now because AI is just the newest wrinkle of all of this, is AI tutors. Well, 10 years ago there was MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses.  

Sarah [00:15:27]  I remember that. Yeah.  

Jessica Grose [00:15:28] Ten, 15 years ago. All the rage. They're going to replace college. You weren't going to need to go to a traditional college anymore because you could self-pace through these online courses, and you didn't need human contact or any of that to really learn things. And they have not lived up to their promises at all. Most people don't finish the MOOCs who take them. There are these traditional ways of imparting knowledge and the sort of human connection that is involved in imparting knowledge that's still not replaceable. And it is sort of depressing to me that that wasn't one of the major lessons that we learned from 2020 and 2021. I mean, school is not just about the academics really. The academics are super important. I care a lot. I'm not like a hippie who hates grades, I love grades. [Inaudible]. Graded harshly too. I want them to really try. But I think that if we came away from that moment in education and all we learned was test scores dropped, we have lost the plot. We are not learning the really important lessons which are school is about socialization. School is about learning to work with people that you know are not exactly like you, and to navigate situations that are not catered to you every second of the day. And just so many things that our kids are navigating in their day to day. And so, that was the takeaway of the last piece in the series, which is about solutions. All of these solutions need to be kids centered, and they need to be pro-social, and they need to be involving educators in the introduction, in the adoption, because too often the mechanism is that the tech companies offer the products to the schools and then the schools figure out how to use them. And that is not how the relationship should be going. It should be the schools evaluate what's happening, and then they bring in whatever tech they think is necessary. So that's sort of the overall feeling that I have.  

Sarah [00:17:41] We're not recording live, but I can feel the teachers in our audience screaming, yes. I don't know how good we are at learning lessons like that in education because there are so many constituencies.  

Jessica Grose [00:17:56] So many.  

Sarah [00:17:57] You have federal legislators, you have state legislators, you have counties, you have superintendents, you have administrators, you have the teachers and you have the parents. And I think like-- look, on paper, of course, it looks good. Tech always looks good on paper. It always looks like it's going to change our lives. Like when you were talking about the grades and there's this really great conversation about grade inflation. And I would like to do a study where I bet you could track grade inflation for when we started using tech to let parents track grades. I bet it would line up nicely because it sounds great, doesn't it? Like, we're going to put it on an app and you can see how your kid is doing in school. And it's a disaster. It's a complete and total disaster. My school uses Microsoft Teams. And in theory, I guess the kids should be able to see what's missing and we can see the missing assignments. But I go to my child and I say, we have a missing assignment. And they go, well, I turned it in and she hasn't graded it yet. Or we did it in class, but then we changed it. And there's always some reason and it's  impossible to figure out the truth because it's so buried beyond and below all these tech solutions that we're supposed to fix everything. And it really does feel like a real live experiment. I told Beth there are not a lot of things in parenting where I felt like-- my oldest son is 14, my middle son is 12. And so I always feel like I'm in a good space where it's, like, we've just about figured out something's bad just in time for me to go, "No, we're not going to do it that way," and change course. So my 14 year old doesn't have social media. That kind of thing. But this is the one where I feel like my kids ages are just totally in the middle of a social experiment. Like, we're just trying to figure it out. The analogy I use all the time is about how-- gosh, it was closer in time than I probably want to think it was. But it was like five years, 10 years before I came-- it wasn't ten, y'all. It was later than that. There used to be a student smoking section at my high school.  

Jessica Grose [00:19:50] Same. It went away as I was in high school.  

Sarah [00:19:55] And we look back on that, we're like, oh my God, can you believe there's a student smoking section? And I truly believe in five to 10 years we'll be like, wow, remember when we were giving all these middle schoolers and elementary school kids laptops? That was wild. Why did we do that? It sounds maybe because the problems in education are so complex when a 'solution' comes along, everybody's like, this is it. But it's not-- I mean, it's almost never it because of all those reasons you said. It's too complex. It's too decentralized. It's got to be individualized. And it sounds like tech should be able to solve all those individual problems. And I think that's the best application, like you said, that sort of individualization to kids with learning disabilities or special needs or whatever. And that's all we want in education- is what we say. Everything should be individualized, meet the child by need, all this stuff. But, dang, it wasn't individualized in its application. It was just rolled out, and then Covid was like a complete accelerant.  

Jessica Grose [00:20:50] So this academic from the University of Colorado Boulder named Alex Molnar, I just really love talking to him because he has been studying this for a long time. He was really no BS. And what he was saying was the proponents of this will always be like, well, the toothpaste is already out of the tube. We can't put it back in. Tech is here to stay. And I just think that that's such a failure of imagination and a failure of thoughtful implementation. So, again, all of these things are just tools. They're tools. They are  morally in most cases neutral. Although, like I said, with the data collection I just I'm really appalled. But a lot of that is working in so many different ways. Forget schools, there's so many aspects of our lives where it's just like we're being surveilled. Don't get me started on this. I will sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat. I just think most of these things are just tools, and we need to figure out when we need to use them and when is the best time to use them, and that they shouldn't just be the default or considered superior because they're more expensive. I think, understandably, for a long time this was discussed as an equity issue. And I think I love to see that schools are providing high speed internet for some of the families in their districts to allow them to have the same advantages that other kids have when they're doing their homework. Because if my kid has access to Wi-Fi and a laptop to do her sixth grade homework, she is at an advantage in terms of the ease of that work compared to a kid who wouldn't have that. So I think, again, it's always the devil's in the details, right? So I think there just has been too little scrutiny.  

[00:22:40] And I talked to a superintendent of a school in California where the parents were really dismayed at what their kids were watching on YouTube, and lobbied to have YouTube taken off the kids devices. And he said to me, like, this just wasn't top of mind. He was glad that the parents had brought it to his attention, because there's so many other things that these superintendents have to deal with day to day. And my heart really goes out to them. I don't think that they have bad intentions. But especially coming back from those pandemic years, mental health is such an issue. Learning loss is such a huge issue. All the social and emotional stuff. There was just a big study that came out from Pew Research that showed that American teachers are not happy. And they're not happy because they feel that they are not just responsible for teaching kids, they are also responsible for the kid's mental health, the kid's poverty that is totally unequal in this country. And we cannot expect teachers to fix everything that is wrong in society. And so I feel like this tech usage is just like one other thing that we're piling on top of just too high a plate for teachers, for schools. But, again, I don't think that the way to handle it is just status quo. Just like whatever we're doing now, we'll just keep doing it and not think too hard. Thoughtless use of tech. Tech that is not implemented in a rigorous way, in a way that is saying what is best for these learners at the cognitive levels that they are at. I mean, that's the other thing that I found really upsetting, it's like there are iPads for everyone- one to one. The whole district. It's like, well, what's going on developmentally for a second grader is not what is going on developmentally for a 10th grader. And that there wasn't always sort of real thought put into what is developmentally appropriate for kids at what ages, So, again, what I'm saying is not burn them all,  it's that it has to be done thoughtfully to express the needs of the district and the kids within it. So another positive use case that I heard about was from elementary school teacher in rural Oklahoma.  

[00:25:04] And she was telling me the parents maybe 45 minutes to an hour away from school, kids are traveling really long distances to get to the school. And she has found that being able to communicate with the parents virtually has really allowed them to feel more connected to this classroom that is physically extremely far away from them, and that they don't get to be sort of part of this community on a day to day basis. Their kids are being put on a bus and they're traveling really far distances, and that made total sense to me. And she also told me that she has author visits zooming in; whereas, I live in New York City, we have children's book authors that come to talk to my kids public school all the time, and they love it. It is really engaging for them. It gets them really excited. They feel like they're getting  a celebrity coming, which is adorable. And so why shouldn't a kid who lives in rural Oklahoma who will never get-- or it'll be real unusual for a children's book author to make an appearance. Things like that. I'm like, yes, that makes sense. That is additive. You can see the benefits. So those solutions and those needs are not going to be the same as for my kids in their Brooklyn classrooms. So it's just being really like every teacher, every school saying, is this necessary? Is this good? Is there a different tool I could use that could have the same or better outcome? So I just think it's just asking a lot of really hard questions. I think, again, when we came back into the schools after Covid, it was just like there were so much going on. I do not blame the schools. I do not blame the teachers for not always having a handle on this. It's hard. It is not easy.  

[00:26:48] Music Interlude.  

Beth [00:26:59] The volume is, for me, a reason why it's difficult to imagine how you put the toothpaste back in the tube. I went to a couple of school board meetings a couple of years ago, and at one of those meetings a budget was being presented. And one of the school board representatives was asking about software programs in the budget, and you could feel the room get very defensive because this was just right as we're coming out of Covid, everybody's on edge about everything. And he paused and he said, hey, I'm not questioning the use of these programs in your classrooms. What I'm seeing is it looks to me like we have several different schools using the same technology under different contracts. And it looks to me as a district, like we're spending a lot more money for these programs than we could be if we had coordinated the use here. So sit that alongside another school board meeting experience, where they were talking about the use of Covid funds to replace chargers for all of the one to one technology. And the percentage of that budget that went to Chargers blew my mind. It almost made me cry thinking about all of the things that money can be used for in a school, and that it was going to these chargers. And I've talked to myself, like, don't be judgmental about that. Kids who don't have a computer at home probably go through a lot of chargers if they're packing this back and forth. But the volume of things and money and line items and programs in classrooms and needs, it's kind of like how do we start down the path of that more thoughtful, critical eye versus what we have right now as our new default.  

Jessica Grose [00:28:53] First of all, states need to get involved. This is a problem with technology at use large and we are so behind the times because this has moved so fast and legislation is very slow. But the stuff needs to be evaluated at the state level. It should not be left to individual districts. There should be frameworks that are passed by the state boards of education that say, this is how you need to evaluate tech in your district. Again, I am not a policymaker.  I'm just a reporter. But not all states have this. Some states used to have it and don't happen anymore. So, I mean, schools cannot be tasked necessarily to do it on their own. However, I did also talk to some folks from Montgomery County School System in Maryland, and they are the largest school system in Maryland. They told me they are creating this infrastructure in the district to evaluate everything. And they got grant money for a two year role. Now, it's sort of disheartening that it's just like a two year role. Hopefully it will be extended. But the entire point of this role is to do exactly the thing that you just said, to be the liaison with vendors and to go over these contracts, to make sure that they are meeting the district's goals. She said also that they will not even consider a contract from curriculum providers unless it is both digital and analog. So they need to provide both digital textbooks and physical textbooks.  

Sarah [00:30:21]  I really want to write that down for my school district.  

Jessica Grose [00:30:26] Well, it's that article that published today, which is April 24th. I don't know when it's running, but it has three sets of recommendations for states, for school districts and for individual teachers. And it needs to happen at all these levels, right? Because you can have all the rules in the classroom, all the rules in the state, but it really is up to the individual classroom teacher to do what they think is right. And, look, my survey is not nationally representative, certainly did not talk to every teacher in the nation. But the overwhelming sense I got was they all do not want as much tech in their classrooms because it's just another thing for them to deal with. Behaviorally, they don't think it's helping their kids learn better necessarily, at least in large volumes. They might say for specific activities, it's helping out, it's helpful. But just having it out all the time, no, they do not like it. And a lot of the teachers I spoke to who had lower tech approaches than other teachers within the same building, said that the kids would tell them it's a relief to be in your classroom. The screens are exhausting. Having 45 minutes where I am not on a device and my brain can rest, it's relaxing for me. I don't even think the kids want it all the time.  

Sarah [00:31:52] We're having this big conversation about the anxious generation and all this anxiety. And it's not just social media, and it's not just cell phones. It's having that where you do not have a quiet time for your brain at any point that builds anxiety. At my local high school, they make the kids put their cell phones away. And at first they were like, oh my God. And then almost [inaudible] afterwards, they were like, we kind of like this. Oh, you don't say? You don't say that you do like having that taken away from you. And I think that's what's so hard. We're having these big conversation about the kids individual technology. And so you can see if you're a tech coordinator, you're like, you may take their laptops away and they all have cell phones in their pockets. You know what I mean? So you have this because we have kids at the elementary school level that has a cell phone list. My my youngest son has a cell phone because he's a type one diabetic, and that's what sends his CGM sport to me. Now, I did get smart way many more months after than I should have, and I just didn't give him the code because I just needed to send the number to me. He does not need to be on it. I should have figured that out from the beginning. Heads up to any type one diabetes parents.  

Jessica Grose [00:32:48] But that's such a good point. There's always reasons. Like everything is on these phones now, so it's really hard.  

Sarah [00:32:55] You have the phones, you have the laptops. And then I really think this curriculum situation is like the simmering underbelly of all this too, that the parents really don't see it. I've started going to every one of our local school. It's called site-based decision making in Kentucky. And they were talking about this new math curriculum. And the math curriculum person told them, well, it takes one to two years to really start see the impact of this tech approach to math curriculum. Well, okay, so what happens in the brain as a human? You invest all this money, you invest two years and then it doesn't work. And you say what? We're going to lose the two years we just invested. We're going to switch to another one that's going to take another two years to really get-- you see, it's this sunk cost, especially if you used all these Covid funds for it.  

Jessica Grose [00:33:44] Also, our kids only get one go through. That's the thing.  

Sarah [00:33:49] Exactly. So the kids that are gone through this year that you're learning to use the curriculum, what happens to them? And it's like all this Covid funds, I can see the reason of, oh, okay, well, we're going to use this one time. We can't hire teachers with the Covid funds because we got to keep paying the teachers and the Covid funds are going to dry up. And so on paper, again, the tech makes sense, right? Except for it's never just a one time fee- ever. Even with a laptop. My kids break those screens. They lose them. You have to pay the staff to manage the pick up and the drop off. It was such a process to get all these new screens to the high schoolers. And you had to have a parent there. Every kid can't get a parent there. All this tech which seems like a solution, is such an investment in the teachers, the administrations. You have to hire more tech people at the school to handle all this tech. It's just such an albatross.  

Jessica Grose [00:34:43] It's a racket.  

Sarah [00:34:43] It's a racket.  

Jessica Grose [00:34:46] It's a special racket. No, I couldn't agree more. And it never ends.  I don't know if you saw the articles I linked to iin my newsletter last week. Meta is now trying to push VR in schools. Can you imagine how quickly a VR headset is going to get broken?  

Sarah [00:35:01] Oh my God, five minutes. Four to 5 minutes max.  

Jessica Grose [00:35:04] So I am very skeptical of whatever would be the benefit of them in the first place. But just like from a completely logical, practical point of view, these kids are going to break VR headsets faster than you can blink. And so just the practicality, and they're so expensive- I mean, at the K through 12 level. Maybe you could make a case for it at the college level. But even then...  

Sarah [00:35:29] I got my first laptop in my educational experience in law school, and it was bad for me. I learned less in law school because I had the laptop that I never had in college. Beth is shaking her head, you guys can't see. But it was not great. We were chatting during class and we were 20 year olds. It didn't matter. It was freaking distracting. 

Jessica Grose [00:35:50] The other thing I think is such a canard and really bothers me about the arguments in favor of it, is the workforce readiness argument. So kids do not need to be on screens 24 seven to be ready for their workforce. And obviously this is anecdotal, but I had lots of friends who ended up pursuing careers in engineering, computer science, all that. They did most of their learning in their downtime. They were not learning how to do those things in school. They were fooling around in that free time on their computers. And so the idea that you need to have screens in every single subject, at every single moment, for some vague idea of workforce readiness, or that like an 11-year-old needs to be really great at PowerPoint- they can teach themselves that it's not hard. Most of these programs are not hard to use, especially the ones used in corporate America. My older daughter, who is now in sixth grade, totally taught herself how to use Google Slides when she was doing remote school. She just taught herself. She was eight. These are not hard programs to use or to master. So the idea that we need to take precious class time where kids could be learning an infinite amount of other things, expanding their minds, learning their critical thinking skills--  

Sarah [00:37:07] Keeping their attention spans in a healthy range.  

Jessica Grose [00:37:11] Yes, there's so many other things that they could be learning, but that we've allowed the terms to be set by tech companies really about what our kids should be learning or what workforce readiness means, or what are the skills that they need to be developing in k-through-12 education. And I just reject that. I reject it. And trust me, I am a very practical person. I am not someone who's like, oh, I don't care what my kids do. No, my girls need to support themselves.  

Sarah [00:37:43] They need a jobs with salaries.  

Jessica Grose [00:37:47] Whatever they want to do, they need to--  

Sarah [00:37:50] 41k. Life is real.  

Jessica Grose [00:37:51] It's not going to be funded by us for the rest of their lives. I'm not saying I don't care about workforce readiness, I do. I just think that it is frankly bullshit that this is the way to go about it.  

Beth [00:38:08] Let me affirm that with a recent experience in my community. So our school district went through a big, community-wide process of asking, what is the promise of our school district. If you graduate here, what is the expectation? We called it portrait of a graduate. It was a million meetings and a lot of time and a lot of people, but it was really valuable as a parent participating in it. Because we sat it tables with educators, with business leaders, with families, with students, and talked about what should you come out of this K12 experience with? Not a single business leader mentioned anything that would not fall under the umbrella of soft skills. It was all about being able to have a conversation, being able to introduce yourself, being able to tolerate different perspectives from yours, being able to vigorously argue a point and then kind of back away from it when things go in a different direction and stay on board the team. It was all soft skills. Nobody was in there saying, we really need more coders. Everybody said from the business side, we can teach them what they need to know to do the job. We cannot make them the kind of person that we want to work here. And that's the baseline that we need to be developing.  

Jessica Grose [00:39:32] So can I just tell a story about something my older daughter did that I am so proud of her. And it has nothing to do with any kind of technology.  

Sarah [00:39:43] That's connection. There's reason for that, but go ahead.  

Jessica Grose [00:39:45] She lost her purse. She was distraught. She was so upset. She's a real perfectionist. So anything that she feels like she has done wrong, she just will beat herself up over. She had all her special little trinkets in her purse. She's in sixth grade, so she doesn't have a phone. There's nothing serious in the purse. There was no credit cards, obviously. She was pretty sure that she left at the deli that she walks to and from school, that she and her friend had gone to after school that day. She went back to that deli by herself multiple times, and she talked to the person behind the counter. The person behind the counter called their manager. She talked to the manager on the phone. She got that purse back herself.  

Sarah [00:40:31] Yes. Cut us off and that was the ending.  

Jessica Grose [00:40:32] She navigated the situation and I feel like I am really proud of her for doing that. And that is the kind of thing that I think is one of the most important skills that she could be learning in middle school is how to talk to people, how to navigate slightly complicated social situations with strangers. It was awesome. And she did all that stuff and we were not involved at all.  

Sarah [00:41:01] I mean, that's a cold call only half jokingly. I really feel like if I can teach my kids to leave my home and they can cold call, there's not much they can't do. You know what I mean? If you can ask an adult for something as a 12-year-old, 15-year-old, 18-year-old kid without having to be coached through every section of it, you're good. You can probably make it. You can piece things together from there.  

Jessica Grose [00:41:21] Exactly.  

Sarah [00:41:23] I'm just glad she got the purse back.  

Jessica Grose [00:41:24] I know, me too. She was so happy.  

Beth [00:41:26] And I don't think you can acquire that kind of confidence through technology- I just don't. My third grader is really excited right now. She's making a website about sinkholes, and she is fascinated by sinkholes. And she is in love with her website, and she's carefully selected pictures and written copy. And I think it's great.  

Jessica Grose [00:41:45] I love that.  

Sarah [00:41:46] I don't because I think sinkholes are terrifying, but I'm excited for Ellen.  

Beth [00:41:49] They are terrifying. I don't know how she sleep at night now, but she's really into it. I think that's great and a super appropriate use of technology. Developing skills in her that she will use in her life. This is the thing kid, though, who when I recently invited her to come on to the podcast with me and ask her what she'd like to talk about, she said stress. And it was all about the number of units in her online math and reading programs that she has to do every week. And the pain point of the stress for her-- I promise I'm going somewhere with this-- is that she needs to get those done on Thursday because if she gets them done on Thursday for the week, then on Friday she gets free time on her computer to play games. The rest is also on the screen for her. And I'm not mad at her teacher. Her teacher's great. I'm not mad at her school. Her is excellent. But I saw during spring break this kind of coming to fruition because when she got tired of playing at the pool or the ocean, she wanted to come back in and have free time on her iPad. She's learning that the rest is on the screen too. It's the source of stress, and it is the relief.  And that's the thing I'm trying to escape all the time as an adult. Don't scroll your phone, Beth. You're tired. Don't think Instagram has the solution for you. But she's dealing with that in third grade, too.  

Sarah [00:43:18] That's because we put the TV on the phone, y'all. I'm telling you, it's a problem. TV is now on the screen. That's where we watch TV.  

Jessica Grose [00:43:27] That is why I am very strict about internet use, but I am not super strict about TV.   

Sarah [00:43:34] TV was my sibling. I was an only child. TV was my other sibling. My only sibling I had.   

Jessica Grose [00:43:40] My children are elderly. They have elderly tastes, which I don't mind. We did a whole Gilmore Girls watch. We watched the whole series and now we're starting it over. What else? They really love 30 Rock, which is like, I'm not mad about it. My older daughter especially is a very old soul and I joke with her. I'm like, what gen Xer died and was reincarnated as you. Because all of her tastes-- like she likes to listen to music with my parents. Like they're listening to Carole King.  

Sarah [00:44:11] Listen, me and my 14-year-old are rewatching The Sopranos. Follow me for more parenting advice. I don't think there's is anything bad to watch TV to relax.  

Jessica Grose [00:44:24] Yeah, I love TV.   

Sarah [00:44:26] TikTok is just TV. That's all it is. We're not interacting, it's TV, we're watching things. We're just watching, watching, watching, watching, watching, watching. And so now we've like put watching in so many places, so there's so much watching going on.  

Beth [00:44:36] We're watching things that do not have a beginning and a middle and end.  And we're watching them alone instead of together and talking about them. Well, Jessica, I really appreciate your research in this area and you continuing to dig into the things that are things in my life that I feel like I don't always have an outlet for. So it's very helpful to me, and I hope you'll continue to come back occasionally and tell us what you're working on.  

Jessica Grose [00:45:00] Thank you so much for having me. And it's just fun to vent. I want to be more profane, but as I'm always told, this is a family newspaper. Sometimes I just get very passionate about these things. And so I appreciate that I can come.  

Sarah [00:45:20] Listen, I love the New York Times. I get the Sunday New York Times mail to my house in Paducah, Kentucky.  

Jessica Grose [00:45:26] Love a print subscriber.  

Sarah [00:45:27] Listen, I love it. But Jessica, there's not a lot of times in the New York times where other things are-- like Beth said at the beginning-- anticipating things happening here in conversation [inaudible]. I'm not saying that that's like a half an experience. So the fact that you have accomplished that, where we feel like we're over here in Kentucky and you're capturing our conversations across the country, is a real testament to your work.  

Jessica Grose [00:45:53] Thank you. That really honestly means the world because that's always what I'm trying to do, is talk about things that are complicated and national and summarize them in a way that makes people feel like what they're experiencing is reflected. So, honestly, really made my day. Thank you so much.  

Sarah [00:46:11] You do a great job.  

Beth [00:46:12] Thank you.  

[00:46:13] Music Interlude.  

[00:46:23] I know, Sarah, that you are always in pursuit of a better mousetrap.  

Sarah [00:46:27] Yes. Yes.  

Beth [00:46:28] Not to sell to other people, but in terms of processes to institute in your own life.  

Sarah [00:46:34] Yes.  

Beth [00:46:35] We both have children, which means we have cups everywhere. And let me confess too-- many people know-- I like to have multiple beverages available in the course of a day. So I too can create a graveyard of cups in my wake. And you have developed a solution in your house that is working for you. Why don't you tell us about it?  

Sarah [00:46:56] It is working and I have tried so many things. I remember when they were little, I saw on Pinterest where somebody had taken like plastic cups and hot glued magnets, so they just stuck on the fridge. They could just pull the cup off the fridge and put it in the water dispenser and then go ahead and then just stick it right back on the fridge. And because I don't do other drinks-- I should say that. For my children they drink water. That is their available beverage. Obviously not baby diabetic, he has to have juice boxes. But before that, before Felix was diagnosed with type one diabetes, there was no juices or anything. Because I don't want to clean up those messes. If somebody spills a water, that's just a little extra cleanup. If somebody spills a milk or a juice, like, forget it. No. Or a soda, God save us. No, that's a big old mess. So I believe in the water dispenser. You can get it yourself. Whatever. Okay, so I feel like the water dispenser on the outside of the fridge solves a lot of problems. And if you just tell them that's the only beverage available. Your kids don't drink anything else but water, do they?  

Beth [00:47:54] They occasionally will have a Sprite Zero. And then with breakfast, they will sometimes have orange juice. We don't drink anything other than water outside the kitchen.  

Sarah [00:48:03] There you go. Okay, so that makes sense. Okay. So that's the baseline we're working with here. But then there were still cups. Beth I can't do it. First of all, I have designed my kitchen to have very little counter space on purpose because I think counter space is the source of all suffering inside the American home. Personally, that's the decision I've come to. Okay. It just collects bullshit. That's all countertop does. That's just like it's whole job in life. Would you like me to hold some bullshit for you? I would be happy to. And so I designed my kitchen. I took out countertop. And so there's a small space, so you have to clean it in order to cook, which Nicholas does. So I can't have the cups. I can't have the cups on the countertop. I don't want to do it. I'm the one who picks them up and it fills me with rage and resentment. Do you understand what I'm saying?  

Beth [00:48:51] I completely do. I'm a little distracted because I love counter space, because I cook, I entertain often.  

Sarah [00:48:58] We do too. I'm telling you, you don't need it as much as you think you do, people.  

Beth [00:49:01] I frequently have my entire counter space covered with hot pans from the oven, so I really struggle with eliminating counter space when I feel that I would always like to have more. But I get your point that surfaces collect things. It is hard to have a surface that doesn't collect, and it is hard to convince people that the kitchen is not the family landing spot for things.  

Sarah [00:49:25] Because it is. That's the problem. I had a run up countertop right at my garage door, right as you enter before I re-did my kitchen. Can you imagine? Can you just think like all the things mail, school things, books, packages. No. And the compact space-- listen, we've hosted Thanksgiving for my entire extended family. And, look, every bit of counter space was taken. Legit. For sure. But it just forces you to clean as you go. It's a little bit more work when you're hosting. No doubt about it. You have to be very intentional. Like this has to get cleaned up. This has to get put away--  

Beth [00:50:00] Which I do. I'm a clean as you go person. I believe that's the way. .  

Sarah [00:50:03] Yeah, you got to do it. And we definitely have a run up counter inside my laundry room and we call it the Messy kitchen. It's a little cabinet, but we just stick stuff in there [inaudible]. But in the every day, if you come in and you drop something on the island, like school work or whatever-- and my kids to school work in our kitchen-- you got to pick it up. If Nicholas is going to cook, it just has to get put away. And so I like that. I like that forcefulness. Like you have to do it. It has to get cleaned up. Okay. So the cups were messing with that, that's what I'm saying. And so I tried a couple things. First I tried everybody having their own water bottle. Obviously we've done that. Do you guys have your own water bottles.  

Beth [00:50:40] Oh yeah. We all have multiple water bottles. We have a lot of water bottles here, but for the most part we each gravitate toward one regular. This is my water bottle. 

Sarah [00:50:51] So we all have a water bottle. I tried that, but then guess what I'm picking up? The freakin water bottles. Then the water bottles are just all over. That's not solving the problem. I do not enjoy that either. This is the breakthrough moment. And I did this with the water bottles for a while, and then I've gone through one more evolution. I started picking up the water bottles, refilling them and putting them in the fridge.  

Beth [00:51:13] Okay.  

Sarah [00:51:15] So we have a drawer right inside the door. Almost like where you keep the milk, but we don't drink milk. So that's the water bottle draw.  

Beth [00:51:22] Do you keep milk for cereal and things? You don't do cereal? There's no milk in your life?  

Sarah [00:51:27] No. No milk. We have almond milk. Does that count?  

Beth [00:51:30] I mean, it does. We have almond milk and regular milk. Always. So I'm just picturing what I would do with that space of milk we're it not a part of my day.  

Sarah [00:51:37] Yeah, I mean, a gallon of milk tastes up so much space. Okay, so hilariously, the other thing that is held in this drawer shelf is hot sauce. That's what we have a lot of in our fridge, a lot of hot source. So the water bottles go in the drawer. And it was just something about they had a place that wasn't like where they were kept to be cleaned, because that didn't really work either. Because also I don't think water bottles need to be cleaned that much. Now, you have to wash because sometimes you'll take a water bottle and you're like, oh my God. But so we put them in the fridge. That really helped. It helped me because I like my water cold in my worthless fridge, which I hate, and I will replace when it breaks, obviously, but I'm not going to replace before it breaks. The water line is not refrigerated so the water comes out like room temp. It's awful. Anyway. And so putting them in the fridge, that seemed to really click everything into place.  

Beth [00:52:29] Are you using insulated water bottles?  

Sarah [00:52:32] Yes. But then see, here's the next evolution. Then we ditched the water bottles. Because here's what was happening to me with the water bottles. They were getting taken to school, which is fine. So now we've moved to like a cheap Stanley situation because obviously I didn't buy Stanleys for all my children because I don't want to sell a kidney. But now we have these water glasses with straws that seems to be the final evolution that I was looking for because they don't really take those out of the house, you know what I mean? They don't feel like a thing you would stick in the car and take somewhere with a straw, you know what I mean? And so they stay. Now, I still sometimes have to fight Griffin because he'll take them up to his room and he'll be like, it's upstairs and he'll get a glass. And I'm like, do you love me, child? Do you love me at all? And he's like, I love you, mom. Whatever. So that seems to be that. I think I've done it. So now even if the three glasses they have are around, it doesn't bother me as much because I know exactly what to do with them. Do you see what I'm saying? Like I'm not putting them in the dishwasher. I mean, I got a dishwasher full of glasses that got used three times. Three times maybe, let's be honest. And then maybe, probably just three drinks is probably more accurate description. But I have the water bottles. That's Felix's job at the end of dinner to fill the water glasses back up and put them in the fridge. They're there. I know where they go, and I don't feel like they're having to be circulated every time. Does that make sense?  

Beth [00:53:54] It does. It also bothers me enormously in this respect. I'm kind of moody about my beverage vessel. You know how you are about mugs.  

Sarah [00:54:02] But listen, I do what I want. This is for the children, do see what I'm saying? 

Beth [00:54:06] I do, but I also respect their moodiness about their drink vessels. For example, Jane is very attracted to the cups that Chad brought home from the Masters.  And I understand why. They're interested in cups. We don't have anything like them here. And so in the mornings now she wants to have her water in the Master's cup. She also will take three sips and be done, and there will be an entire glass of water just sitting on the counter.  

Sarah [00:54:29] See.  

Beth [00:54:30] But I'm trying to use this as a teaching moment because I have said to her, "Now we know that dad does not want these cups in the dishwasher. And I will personally not be hand washing your water glass every morning. So what I need you to do as soon as you're finished is go ahead and wash that up and dry it and put it away." And I think opportunities for her to meet the sink and the Dawn and the scrub brush are good ones, because she does not like to help clean up. I think opportunities to say, "You're going to go up to your room now and collect all the cups and load the dishwasher, and then you'll be unloading it," those are good moments for me. So that's my tension about it.  

Sarah [00:55:10] I haven't unloaded my dishwasher in years. I don't do that. That's what I had children for. Are you ready for this?  I'm about to really blow your mind. This morning a child-- Amos or Griffin, not sure which-- did use a plastic cup, clearly put ice water and took three sips. You know what I did? Dumped it out. Put it right in the drawer.  

Beth [00:55:29] Okay.  

Sarah [00:55:30] Did it. Don't even care. Because, honestly, we're talking about a 12-year -old and a 14-year-old boy. It's going to dry off. I'm probably going have some biologists email me and say, that's disgusting. And perhaps it is, but it's like they're all up in each other's business anyway. Do we think there are some germs that they don't already share? Do we think there's just some microbe monstrous situation happening on the rim of a cup that they took three sips out of. I kind of rinsed it off a little bit, but now I'm not doing the Dawn and the whole thing because you took three drinks. I'm sorry, I'm not. I'm just not going to do it. I'm not doing it. We're family. We share germs. And I can't believe I just admitted that on the internet. But it is true.  

Beth [00:56:12] True. I'm going to just need some time with that. I'm just going to need some time with it. I am obsessive about things being clean in my kitchen, like to a point that is probably unhealthy. I wash my hands constantly. I'm brutal in that space. But, again, like our conversation about throw pillows, I make no apologies for that. It is a space in which I am operating in my preferences control and that is fine.  

Sarah [00:56:40] Well, I'm hardcore about food safety. I mean, the truth is, that's why I don't cook. I cannot make myself comfortable with raw chicken. I cannot do it. I cannot lose the anxiety about raw chicken or raw pork. And Nicholas is hardcore. He's going to be like, you do what with those glasses? But, to me, it's like, this is not a foodborne pathogen. This is freakin Amos taking three drinks from a cup. I'm going to rinse it off and put it back. I'm just saying.  

Beth [00:57:07] I'm always going to use it on.  I go through a lot of Dawn here.  

Sarah [00:57:13] And let me add one more qualifier to the putting it back in the drawer. The drawer I'm putting it back in is cups that only my children use. This is not going back into the the glasses like I would serve to company. I do want to clarify this. This is the plastic cup drawer from which they pull to fill a glass, drink three things and then never touch it again. Does that help anything?  

Beth [00:57:35] No, but I see your point. I see how for a normal person that that would help things. Here is what I am really struggling with right now. It is the school water bottle. Because I to observe that my water bottle stays relatively clean, so I rinse it when I refill it but I am not scrubbing it every time. The school water bottle, however, is never clean under any circumstances. It's almost like the second I put a drop of water in it, it attracts all of the world's dust and pencil shavings and God knows what else. And so Elon has made this even more complicated. The schools here ask us to send in clear water bottles because people are bringing not water and spilling it and it's gross. So the clear water bottle is enforcing some compliance, which I totally respect and get. So I get the clear water bottle. It's been a great water bottles, very cheap. I got on Amazon. It's the first water bottle we've ever given her that's lasted all year. She hasn't lost it somewhere, left it somewhere, broken. It is amazing. She has however covered it in Taylor Swift stickers. I also respect this. I am not here to dull her sparkle. But for the longest time I told myself that the dark spots I was seeing inside the water bottle were the sticker residues. And it's confusing now to clean it and know that it's clean because there is some sticker residue, but there is also some filth. And so I'm really working on how frequently do we need to full on put that guy through the dishwasher for it to actually be clean? Ellen seems not to care about this. I can take a paper towel to the inside of the top of this thing and pull it out and show her what looks like soil all over the paper towel. And she's like, hmm. She's not disturbed by this, but I really am.  

Sarah [00:59:34] My kids went through phases where they had water bottles, but nobody carries a water bottle school anymore. I don't know why. Felix really should because of his diabetes, but he doesn't. So they just drink out of it. Might be a boy thing. They can't keep up with it anyway, so they just gave up. I don't know. I think where I am on that sort of black stuff you find inside water bottles, the pieces of it, it's so gross. I'm just going to be honest, obviously this is probably already abundantly clear by what I just said about the water glasses. I watch these Instagram where people are going to hotels and re-cleaning the bathrooms, where people are like cleaning everything all the time. And I think, guys, this is bad for us. Your body has to work on something or it starts working on itself. And so clearly this black sludge that's probably in half the water bottles in America is not-- we're not all vomiting our faces off. Like, it's clearly not that harmful. She's not sick all the time. She'll having some gastrointestinal distress. Again, maybe I'll get a biologist who's like, now, this is what it meant.  Did you see the one that went away round about Arby's ice machines and how gross they are? And he, like, grew something from that cup he got it. I'm like, just stop. Yes, we're all exposed to nastiness all the time. It's okay. Our bodies are meant to fight that stuff. I think all the time about the guy who freakin cured his colitis by walking through the belly of Africa and getting a tapeworm, because then his body just had to pay attention to the tapeworm and stop beating itself up. This was like an NPR story. Please don't ask for link. I heard it like 10 decades ago, but it's just never left me. And so, yeah, I just think, like, it has to have something. You have to have some dirt in your life.  

Beth [01:01:21] I totally agree with that. I am not cleaning anything in the hotel.  

Sarah [01:01:25] Have you seen these?  

Beth [01:01:26] I have. Post Covid I'm not wiping down the airplane area. I feel dumb that I did during Covid, but now that we know what we know about how it transmitted. So I'm mostly pretty cool. I can remind myself we used to live outside. It's relatively new that we can wash our hands easily at all. So I try to remind myself of these things. But then when I see the water bottle, I think, in this little sphere of the vast, chaotic universe, I do have control over this, and I don't want this for myself.  

Sarah [01:01:59] I would just push it through the end of the school year and then be, like, we need a new bottle for the summer.  I mean, you can see it, we can spit on the last day of school. It's right there.  

Beth [01:02:07] Yeah. And it's fine. The water bottles in great shape. It just gets really dirty at school. I don't know if she leaves the lid open when she's not drinking out of it, but I don't know what's going in there. But it is gross in there.  

Sarah [01:02:21] I bet that is the least problematic germ she's exposed to at school. 

Beth [01:02:24] I'm certain it is.  

Sarah [01:02:27] So cups obviously are really just a vessel for us to talk about germs too, clearly.  

Beth [01:02:34] Organization, germs control. Teachable moments a lot wrapped up in the cups. So, instead, I'm sure we're going to get a lot of cup feedback. We welcome it.  

Sarah [01:02:44] I hope I'm not the only one that just rinses the cup back and puts in the drawer.  

Beth [01:02:46] I'm positive that you aren't.   

Sarah [01:02:48] I feel like I won't be. All of my people out there who just rinse it off a little bit, throw it back in the door, hit me up. I can't wait to hear from you.  

Beth [01:02:55] You will in droves. The lesson of making this show for me is that in all things, we are never alone.  

Sarah [01:03:03] True.  

Beth [01:03:03] In all of them. So thanks for being here and for reinforcing that message to us always. Thank you to Jessica Gross for joining us. We really hope this episode was helpful to you. We would love for you to share it with the people in your lives who are also thinking about their children's technology consumption, or their children's mental health or relationships with other people.  

Sarah [01:03:22] Cup usage.  

Beth [01:03:23] Cup usage, whatever. This would be a great episode to listen to with a young adult and get their thoughts on it. So thank you for sharing it with your people. And please don't forget to join us on our premium channels where we are continuing to discuss Democracy in America. We'll see you there and we'll see you back here next week. Have the best weekend available to you.  

[01:03:42] Music Interlude. 

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. 

Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. 

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. 

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

Alise NappComment