Schooled: The Moth Podcast

coming to the end of the summer. And I gotta say it went by so fast. One day, you're celebrating

the summer solstice, and the next, it's time to pack up those bookbags for the first day

“of school. It's been many years since I've been a student, but I still viscerly remember”

the apprehension and excitement of a new school year. New clothes, new binders and pens, a new year, new me attitude. I'll told I've spent about 21 years in school. That's nearly half my life, but I'll be honest with you. I'm hard pressed to remember anything concrete I learned. The order of the planet, state capitals, what the mitochondria does, I know I knew these things at one point, but please don't try to ask me now. Luckily for me, an education isn't just all about

book learning. On this episode, stories of the lessons we learned, both in and out of school.

First up, is a story about learning the ABCs in a completely unique way. Kathy Geziorowitz told

this at a twin city story slam where the theme was books. Here's Kathy, live at the most.

“When I was in 10th grade, our English teacher gave us an assignment to do a project on”

communications. It was wide open, you could write a paper, you could perform a play or sing a song, anyway, so when I told my parents about it over dinner, my mom said, well, why don't you and Nina, Nina's my older sister, why don't you guys make up your own mind-alphabet book, which was it's fine. It was not an altogether original idea. Marcel Marso had just come out with my

mind-alphabet book, but hate template. My sister had been taking photography classes through the

Minneapolis Urban Arts Program for a bit and I had just started taking mind-and-dance classes. So it was actually a really brilliant idea, except for the part that Nina and I hadn't really agreed on anything since I was probably 10 when we disbanded our man from Uncle Club. So I was now 15, she was 17, but she was games, she wanted to do a project, and I didn't want to write a paper. So we sat down and made a list of, well, I mean the 26 letters, you know, were given, but we made

up words that went with each of them and like shockingly agreed on nearly every one of them, and probably because we both came from the same uncle's written home. So D like was for dying, fear, F was for fear, G was for guilty, S was for spy, T was for trapped, V was for vicious, X was for xenophobia, which was Nina's idea. So we went down to the basement, a couple of days later put a sheet down on the basement floor, and I had my blackly tart and tights on, I put on some

main, my makeup, and then against this pink stuck-a-wall, Nina took pictures while I did these poses. And then the following weekend, we spent two magical days in this dark room. She had gotten

“the key to the place where they were taking classes. And for two days, I mean, it was, she would”

develop the film and we would, we would watch things kind of come to life. And then we would develop pictures and then the bads and these photos would just appear on these squares of paper. When I turned it into my English class and I got an A, I don't want to brag, but then one of the girls in my class Robin asked if she could borrow the book to show it to her next her neighbor, who happened to own his own children's literature publishing company. So she brought the book,

the mine alphabet book to him, and then a couple of months later, we got a phone call that learner publications wanted to publish our book. And they were, they were willing to offer us a flat fee of $300, no royalties, which at the time seemed impressive compared to what I was making, baby sitting in plus. Just, I'm going to just say it as an aside, it was a terrible book, and nobody else would publish it, but I didn't really realize that at the time, but I just had

a sense that this was not negotiable. Anyway, but they had a couple of a couple of requests. We had to change a couple of the letters. C was for cannabis, which this being, you know, 1971, and E was for Eve, or I was like clutching my pubes and my breasts, and looking away from the camera and shame. Oh, yeah, wait, we also had to change R for rapier, either because it was French,

it was not a happy rescue. So, hematically, the book still really hung together. Anyway, then

“crickets until a year and a half later, and then the book was published, and there was no book signing”

or mine promotional events. It was just sort of a, here's the book, and they gave us some copies, which we gave to people like party favors, but then about six months later, we found out it had been reviewed by the New York Times. And the reviewer said something to the effect of a paraphrase, only a little bit. It takes a lot of hutspa for too such talentless girls to publish their own book.

Anyway, mean and I moved on and kind of went our separate ways, although we actually got along

really well over the years. She's now like one of my favorite humans on the planet, and just a couple of years ago, we started trading back and forth through email links to websites that

“mention the book. It's not like a cult following. It's like a cult hating or something. Like,”

what the, this is, these are, I don't know who these girls are, but they are sick. There's something sick about them. Another one is like Wofreak Worst Book Ever. It's also listed on awful library books.com, and awful book covers, and my favorite weird books.com. We are listed on the top 10 right below straight grocery cards in Eastern North America. Thank you. That was Kathy Gesiorowitz. Kathy is a former mind, dancer, and marketing writer. As a storyteller,

she's performed at the Moth, Patrick's Cabaret, the Minnesota French Festival, among many other places. Kathy tells us that she and Nina keep trying to unload copies of the book onto the

“nibblings, but so far without success. And if you feel like you need your own copy, we checked,”

and as of this recording, it is available on eBay for 25 bucks. Next up is Annie Tan, who told this at a New York story slam where the theme was Instincts. Here's Annie, live at the moment. I've been wanting to be a teacher since I was six years old, because I grew up in China town, and I didn't know English, and all I wanted was my mom and Miss Sheridan saw me, and she made popcorn with us, shook up heavy cream, I made it into butter and milk, and I knew then I

wanted my students to feel as good as I felt. So in my second year in teaching in Chicago, I was

a special education teacher, and I was like, I don't know what to do, because I had kids like, they were run out of my classroom, anytime they were startled, or had kids who were third graders, who were still in diapers, and then I had kids like Grace, and Grace is not her real name, because I'm not going to mention her real name of course, but Grace had autism, and she didn't speak. And I was like, how am I going to teach a kid who doesn't speak? And I noticed right,

I noticed her, and I heard her sing and hum this song every day. And I kind of sounded like the Fred Rogers neighborhood one, and I just realized I have to see this girl, I have to figure this out, and I asked her mom, what's the song? And she says, it's the Daniel, the tiger theme song, it's like a kids show on PBS. So I was like, got it, I'm going to find a karaoke version of this song and play it for her words, right? Not a beautiful day in the neighborhood, won't you be my

neighbor? And I realized, oh, songs, so I started putting pictures with the words in each song, and I realized I could use pictures with words to teach her, and I started giving her these tests with these laminated picture cards that I spent hours and hours on with Velcro, and she picked the right answer every time, who was causing the problem in the three little pigs, the roof. Right? So I knew this girl was smart, but I didn't know how to teach her, so I realized I got to

learn more, and so I asked my principal, hey, can I go to a training, because I had found this training

and I would make grace give me all those cards, but I didn't know what else to do, and so I asked

“my principal, and he goes to me and he just says, Miss Tan, where do you think your students are”

going to be as adults? And I was like, what? And he was like, your kids aren't going to make anything of themselves. And I was like, wow, who is this guy? I start asking around the teachers, and the teachers in the school are all terrified of him because we're all getting developing ratings, and he's fired multiple teachers without telling them, so they all got these HR emails. So this is a terrible guy, and I'm like, I got to find out if this is happening in other schools.

So I start going to the Chicago Teacher's Union, and I actually end up going to a special

I committee, and I end up running it for two years. And thank you. And I realize this is not just happening at my school. This is across the city, and they encourage me to start a union chapter at my school, and try to do things there. So I gather the teachers together and we're trying to figure out what to do. Meanwhile, I'm trying to be the best teacher I can, and I'm continuing to find these trainings. And I, the next year at school, I bring Grace's parent,

her mom to the training. And we figure out this device that might teach Grace how to speak 126 picture device. And she goes, Ms. Tan, like, I have seen my child as handicapped this whole time, and I see everything she does in school, and she's not, she's so smart, she's an individual, and I have to start treating her that way. And I'm like, all right, like, I'm making something happen, and then I find out my principal is going to retire the next year, so I'm like, maybe

something will get better. And then in May, the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week, I got an HR email. And I was like, oh my God, like, I can't believe this. Like, I were so hard to see Grace and all these other kids. Like, was I wrong to start this union chapter to fight for her to run this special eye committee? And I'm crying for weeks, but I'm not the only one crying. So I see Grace on the floor one day in school, and this is not something I'm supposed to be happy about or anything.

But she's crying on the floor. She's got her back, like, on the floor. She's kicking, and she's screaming, no, no! And the assistance and I are just crying, yes, yes!

Because Grace had said her first word, no, thank you.

That was Annie Tan, Annie is a writer, educator, and activist based in New York City. After 11 years in special education classrooms, Annie has gone on to non-profit work supporting the Asian-American community and is writing a memoir about her family and activism. After the break, a story about Lingolatna, back in a moment. I'm also Shannon Maldonado, and I'm the founder of Yawi, a singer, who has been

of Kunstwerke and Hanth-Gefertigated Objekte Specialized. My role is for Shopee-Fi, because Shopee-Fi is related to the other platforms that I tested with Ambe Nutzer. I've thought about everything before. All tools for the education of the government

“are important, for example, from a lawyer, are found directly in the dashboard.”

Start now on a cost-in-law's test on Shopee-Fi.com. Welcome back! Our next story is a favorite from the archive. Romney Negrin told this at a New York City Education Showcase, where the theme was betwicked and between. Here's Romney, live at the mouth. So, at my school, there are some kids who take Latin, we call them losers,

and some of those kids have gone the extra mile and joined the competitive Latin team. We call them pathetic losers. And I am one such pathetic loser. I started taking Latin in seventh grade. I was like, oh, it'll be fun and ancient, whatever. And everyone I knew was like,

“don't take Latin. It's a dead language. Who are you going to speak to in Latin? The Pope?”

Someday. But I started taking Latin, and I fell in love with it. And at the beginning of eighth grade, my Latin teacher was like, hey, you should join

Latin, because you go to competitions to do Latin. And I was like, sure. So, I joined the Cretamin

“team, and it's me and three other kids in the novice team. And we start practicing for the first”

big competition of the year, Yale. They have these competitions at all the big universities, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, you know, where you expect this sort of thing to be.

And we start practicing and the big day finally arrives. And we gather at Grand Central at like

five, thirty in the morning, two early. But we don't care because we're off to New Haven. New Haven Connecticut. What a town. So we get on the train. And one of my friends has brought along this ball of chocolate, this big, huge for chocolate, wrapped in the shiniest tinfoil you ever did see. And we agreed as a team that we would eat that chocolate if and only if we

“made it to semi-finals. So that's an extra incentive other than the fact that I'm inherently”

competitive by nature and there's glory and victory. So we're on the train and we're practicing, we're congregating our verbs like Porto, Portos, Portos, Portos, Portos, Portos, Portos, Portos, and we're singing our song, Roro, Roro, your emperors. And my Latin teacher is just there. And she's like, yay, we're all going to have fun. And I was like, yeah, winning would be fun. And we finally arrive at Yale. And every competition starts off with a lecture where they bring

in one of the classics faculty to give us a talk about Roman pottery to get us into the competition mood. And so that's like the start of the day and then they ask you question, oh, they ask

“you questions about Roman history, mythology, Latin vocabulary, grammar, literature, basically”

like everything. And so we go to the lecture and after the lecture they tell us that they've pioneered this fun new system, a bracket system, where for each division, novice intermediate and advanced there will be two brackets in a bracket for people who have been to a cartelman before and to be bracket for people who had no idea what they were doing. And we clearly belonged in the

be bracket because we'd never done it before. And we were like, off we go to the be bracket,

but the be bracket would only send one team to semi finals, while the a bracket would send eight teams to semi finals. Yeah, you can all do maths. So after the lecture they say, hold on a minute, one of the teams from the a bracket isn't here. Would one of the teams from the be bracket like to join the a bracket? And we looked at each other and we were like eight is greater than one. So we were like, we will join the a bracket, please. So we switch. And we're like, high five in

ourselves about this decision that we've made. And we skip along off to our first round, where we meet our first challengers, Acton Boxboro. Acton Boxboro is the name of their school. Just think about that. Five syllables. So many syllables. You know it has to be pretentious. And they were. Their team was comprised of a junior and a senior in the novice division. And we're in eighth grade. And the senior is flirting with the moderator, because the moderator's just like

a sophomore at Yale. So yeah. So he's like, oh, who's your favorite Roman poet? And she's like, I like avid. And he's like, avid. I love avid. And I'm just looking at my friends like avid.

I've never read avid. I'm still stuck on book two of the Cambridge Latin course.

A great read if you ever have the chance. So that's round one, but we actually do pretty well in round one. So round two, our fiercest competitors yet. Oak Hall. Only two syllables, but one of the syllables is Hall. So just just contemplate that. And their buzz and in before

avid of singular form of Pana? And it's like, how did they know? And the reason they know is

“because they have a coach, Adam. And Adam, he ties his long hair back in a ponytail. And he wears”

this flannel, and he stares those children dead in the eyes. And God forbid, they should get a question wrong because then Adam has something to say about it. He goes, um, excuse me, but actually in Virgil's a need book one line, 324. He uses the alternative poetic form of the word, which is the form that Kegan answered with. Kegan is your name if you go to Oak Hall, I guess. So Kegan

deserves to be awarded those points. And what is this moderator going to do? She's like 19 and

it's the middle of a Saturday afternoon. So she's just like, yeah, I guess. Um, so Oak Hall

“thrashes us. Um, but the preliminaries end. And we actually feel pretty good about our score.”

And we're like looking at each other and we're like, we think we're going to make it to semis. And we're looking at our chocolate and we're like, we're going to eat you. Um, and we're just waiting for them to post the scores. And we're waiting and we're waiting and we're like eighth place or

better, eighth place or better, eighth place or better. And they post the scores. And we were in

ninth place. I know, I know. And the worst part, the most, the worst part is. We looked at our score. And we looked at the top score from the B bracket. And yeah, you can guess, our score was higher

“than the top score and the B bracket. So how do we remain in the B bracket? We would have”

advanced to semifinals. Uh, um, and my Latin teacher is like 9th out of 18. That's pretty good. Let's get back on the train. Um, and we're like not good enough. And we're looking at each other. And we're looking at that chocolate. And we're like, oh, we didn't deserve this chocolate. But I'll be damned if we didn't need it anyway. And we swore that next time we would earn it. Thank you. That was Romy Negrin. Romy told this story when she was a senior in high school. Since then,

her Latin skills have propelled her to dizzying heights, culminating in not one, but two degrees in medieval history. Incidentally, she tells us that she is currently unemployed. Romy says that she is a prolific reader, a mediocre baker, and a terrible athlete. That brings us to the end of our episode. We hope that no matter where they came from, the lessons you learned stay with you. Michelle Jalowski is a director at the mouth, where she helps people shape their stories

for stages all over the world. Romy Negrin's story was directed by Katherine McCarthy. Stories from the education program, like Romy Negrins, are possible with a gracious support of unlikely collaborators. To learn more about the Moss work with students and teachers, please visit themouth.org. This episode of the Moss podcast was produced by Sarah Austen-Geness, Sarah Jane-Johnson, and me, Mark Salinger. The rest of the Moss leadership team includes Gina Duncan,

Christina Norman, Marina Cluchai, Jennifer Hicksson, Jordan Cardinalae, Caledonia Cairns, Kate Tellers, Susanne Rust, and Patricia Urenya. Themouth podcast is presented by Odyssey, special thanks to their executive producer, Leah Ries Stennis. All mouth stories are true, as remembered by their storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, Themouth.org.