A Gen Zer Warning - A Bee Interview With "Hollowed Out" Author Jeremy S. Adams
On the Babylon Bee Interview Show, Kyle and Ethan talk to Jeremy S. Adams about working with the Gen Zer student, the warning about this new generation, and anxiety in kids. Jeremy S. Adams has been a teacher for both the high school and the college levels. He thinks that teachers have a front row seat to America's decline with Generation Z. Kyle and Ethan find out why everyone should read his book Hollowed Out and why this warning needs to be heard by everyone. Check out BetterHelp.com/BabylonBee for 10% off Kyle and Ethan take some time to get to know him by playing some ice breakers before finding out why this Generation Z is going to have a tough time in the future. Jeremy gives Kyle and Ethan the questions that the publisher gave to every interviewer and asks a surprisingly great question. Jeremy goes into the anxiety he has been seeing with the kids he's been teaching. Jeremy tells all about why this generation is different from all generations before it. In the Subscriber Portion, Kyle and Ethan get some cool stories out of Jeremy like when a drug deal happened in the back of his classroom or when he hurt himself as a young teacher. Ethan finds out what Jeremy's favorite tv show to show his classes. They also find out about Jeremy's favorite depiction of a teacher in the media. As always they ask the ever great 10 questions.
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Ryan Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
If I may, how double dare you?
This is the Babylon Bee Interview Show.
Two empty halves of a coconut.
A fallen log in the forest.
It's hollow.
A Christmas tree ornament.
Like an eggshell?
Yes.
The cookie jar.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's brain.
The taunton laying in the dead taunton.
In Hoth, on Hoth.
What do these all have in common?
They're all hollowed out.
Hollowed out.
And now we're going to talk to apparently the expert on things that are hollowed out.
Like the brains of American youth.
Exactly.
Now, this is Jeremy S. Adams.
Jeremy is a teacher.
He's from Bakersfield, California, and he's writing a book.
He wrote this book about America's next generation and how they're hollowed out.
They're just husks.
Very husky.
Not like me.
I was called Husky as a child, but it's a different kind of husky in this generation.
He, this guy Adams, man, he's appeared in Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Washington Times, New Discourses, C-SPAN, the Daily Wire, or Caller, We're Not Sure, and numerous national education podcasts.
So he's worked his way up.
He's here at the Babylon Bee, and we're going to...
You have seen all the crazy TikTok videos of teachers screaming about social justice and pronouns.
You have seen the teachers pledging allegiance to the pride flag with their kids.
Is that how bad it really is?
What's the state of American education?
Find out right now as Jeremy S. Adams is here in the studio with us right now.
He just arrived from Bakersfield.
All right.
Well, thanks for joining us, Mr. Adams.
So you're a teacher, so you haven't worked in the last year and a half, is my understanding.
How's vacation been?
How's vacation?
It has been pretty awesome.
I mean, pajama teaching is the best.
I love it.
I mean, you know, the kids don't want to turn on the camera.
I figure, why do I need to?
So, you know, it's just been this lovely, sonorous voice for the kiddos the last 18 months.
It's been beautiful.
So you've been teaching Zoom, yes?
Most of last year, yeah, until April.
And then this whole year, I'm in week five, and it's been in person behind a mask.
So, you know, my voice is pretty much dead.
So it used to be beautiful.
It used to be like, you know, some kind of DJ voice, but now it's permanently damaged because I'm screaming all day.
I was going to say it's pretty bad.
Yeah.
So do you have any cool stories about teaching on Zoom?
I do.
I do.
If you can tolerate my voice, I would love to tell it to you.
Yeah.
It's a great thing.
Yeah.
Just make sure you tolerate.
So one of them, well, first of all, two stories really fast.
I know you only asked for one.
The first one was sometimes, you know, very few of them ever turn on their cameras, right?
So it's just, I'm talking to a wall of just, you know, you have their name and it's a black screen, right?
But sometimes, you know, they'll forget to mute themselves so you can hear what's going on in the background.
And so, you know, I'm like 20 minutes into my lecture and I, you know, I like to think that I get pretty enthusiastic.
And all of a sudden, I have no, I'm like, hello?
Hello?
Somebody needs to mute themselves.
And of course, they're not going to mute themselves because they're asleep.
And so I'm trying.
So we go about five minutes of somebody sleeping, literally sleeping through class, can't figure out who it is because I'm not good enough with the technology to figure it out.
So yeah, I think that was maybe the highlight.
Or the other highlight is I had my oldest daughter in my class.
And we got into a little fight in the middle of the middle of class and everybody got to watch it.
So that was a delight too.
So yeah, there's some kind of the twin peaks of my 2020-2021 school year.
Yeah, it was wonderful.
It was awesome.
Wow.
So they should give you like a shocker or something that you can hit a button that connects to each student and just zap them.
It seems like you don't have enough control if you're just having to yell at a monitor.
Yeah, well, especially since you don't even really know if they're listening to you at all.
So I mean, even the even the, I thought a bullhorn might work.
We can just direct it through the speaker, you know, and I just, you know, right there to kind of wake them up.
But you're right.
I mean, if they're not listening, that's not going to work either.
So maybe electrocution.
I don't know.
I don't know.
But something tells me I would probably have to go to training if we tried to do it.
You'd probably set your coffee on it and forget about it.
Yeah, exactly.
I need to electrocute myself.
So I'm going to have to probably give that a hard no, hard no on that one.
So sorry about that.
Well, we don't know you, and we would like to get to know you.
So we prepared a few icebreaker questions.
Yeah, we feel like that's a good way to get to know somebody.
So they do an icebreaker.
Just like, yeah, you're on a date and you want to pull out some.
Can I tell you what this feels like?
This feels like I'm rushing for a fraternity right now.
I got to say, it feels like you guys are, you know, testing me.
Let me know if I'm going to get the secret handshake a little bit later.
I don't know.
Yeah.
It'll happen.
Maybe not.
Here's our icebreakers.
Number one, what is the yuckiest thing you have ever smelled?
The yuckiest thing I have ever smelled is probably when my dog ate another dog's feces and then threw it back up.
That's pretty disgusting.
It sounds like a bad YouTube video.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was gross.
That was gross.
Yeah.
That's from my childhood.
So you know that it echoes in my consciousness because it's been a while.
Nothing's ever topped that.
Yeah.
No, no, I don't think anything's ever topped that.
No.
I'm just kind of wondering if the process of eating it and then varping it makes it smell worse.
Yeah.
You know, it might not.
Oh, it is.
Well, they go to their own vomit.
So it would be him going back and then eating that again.
It might also be a little bit in my brain that it's automatically worse if it's been vomited up.
So maybe it's, you know, I'm projecting that onto it.
I don't know.
Maybe.
You're onto something, maybe.
Yeah.
So far, who do you like better?
Me or Kyle?
Well, Kyle's the only one who's been beating me up.
So you by far.
I mean, there's.
There's nothing on here.
It's not even a question.
Now, we'll see when we get to the end here.
But yeah, absolutely.
I mean, again, I'm just, you know, when I was in college, I went through the fraternity process.
You know, I would never rush at a fraternity that had, they had pledge masters and then the hardcore fraternities had hellmasters.
You guys look like hellmasters to me.
So I'm a little nervous right now.
I don't even go to college.
I'm only five minutes in on that.
You guys look like hellmasters.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Heckmasters.
Heck, yeah, we prefer heckmasters.
Christian.
Excuse me.
I'm sorry, everybody.
Heckmasters.
Yes.
How many hugs do you need every day, preferably?
Well, you know, I've been married for over 21 years.
So I don't need the hugs as much anymore.
And I'm a public school teacher, so I don't get them there.
Let's be very clear.
I don't hug my students in any way.
I do have my oldest daughter just left for college.
So, you know, I'm kind of a little sad about that.
So my son is 11 years old, and he's kind of a huggy fellow.
So, you know, I'll take one when I pick him up every day.
That kind of nurtures the soul enough for me to be happy.
I feel like we're touching on a sensitive area.
Yeah.
We've really hit on something.
I'm impressed that an 11-year-old hugs.
I don't know.
Well, he's going to be off hugs soon.
I know.
It's funny because when I used to pick him up, I would like, I would go out to the playground and I would kneel down and open up my arms and he would come running to me like it was a Hallmark movie or something.
And now he waits until after we kind of get outside the gate and he kind of does that like a half arm hug.
But I'll take it.
I'll take it.
It's food for the soul.
Yeah, you take what you can get.
Yeah, you're right.
That's going to be gone very soon, too.
Do you think the ice is broken?
Or is it still not broken?
I don't know how it works.
I don't even know why you need to break ice.
I want to know if I'm getting in the fraternity.
That's all I want to know.
Your chances are not looking good.
Well, I've got 40 minutes of hazing left, so I'll take it.
Absolutely.
He did write a book.
Is that what we had him on?
Like a book?
I guess.
He's got this book called Hollowed Out, A Warning About America's Next Generation.
And it's got a statue that's been spirally hollowed out with some kind of strange.
It's like gone through a spiralizer.
And then it's wearing headphones with a nice little drop shadow there.
Okay.
You want to analyze that Photoshop, Ethan?
Could you have done a better job?
Ethan is our Photoshop.
Okay.
No, it's good.
I mean, you know, well, the only weird thing is the headphones don't show up on the other side of the hollow part.
Where are the headphones over here?
Maybe we need to.
You know, a lot of kids nowadays, they just wear one.
So that actually is pretty consistently the young'ins.
I didn't know you could just snap off half of a Dr. Dre headphone and listen to that.
It's the 4.0 version, so yeah.
You just destroyed his book.
Destroyed.
Yeah, I'm done.
I'm done.
Besides, you have the wrong guy.
I was People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive.
I don't know who you're talking about.
So you got the wrong guy in here.
So you're a teacher.
I try to.
I try to teach.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You looked at me, but he asked the question.
Oh, okay.
Yes, yes, yes.
I try to do.
I guess we're going to tell everyone.
Your voices are just morphing into, you know.
We are one person.
Tell us why we need to buy your book, and you have 60 seconds.
Well, I think you need to buy the book for one reason, and that is that I think most people, if you're not in the classroom every day, you have no idea the kind of changes that are taking place, especially in the past five to ten years.
I've been teaching for 24 years.
So what I'm a little tired of is I'm a little tired of people saying, well, the book's just a get off my lawn book.
It's just a grumpy curmudgeon.
First of all, I'm way too young to be a curmudgeon.
I'm only 45 years old.
And I'm here to tell you that there are profound, colossal, titanic changes that are taking place in the lives of our young people.
And it's going to have profound implications for them in their lives and also for the country itself.
Done.
Oh, they have time left.
He's got like 30 seconds left.
Oh, wow.
What do you want to talk about?
How do you get your hair to stay up like that?
That's what I want to know.
I mean, it looks like a finger in the light socket a little bit.
I don't think I can.
It sleeps hanging upside down.
Yeah.
Yeah, because I see I'm losing it in front.
So I just look at your hair.
If you're wondering why I don't have eye contact, it's the hair that I'm mesmerized by.
This is the I put hair gel in yesterday.
Woke up late this morning and rushed into the office.
Well, it looks better than when I do this day of.
So, yeah.
It takes like 48 hours to get the hair.
Yeah.
It's true.
What's your favorite gender?
My favorite gender?
Let me just say I would have to flip a coin to figure it out.
But that only gives two.
Okay.
So you're a teacher.
I am a teacher.
Okay.
I think we should make sure that he's a good teacher.
Yeah.
Just kind of run a few basic questions past you.
Absolutely.
Let's just make sure we know that you're one of the good teachers and not one of the bad teachers.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, first, just some basic education stuff.
What is an odd number?
An odd number is what follows an even number when you're talking about whole numbers.
What makes it so odd?
The fact that it comes before an even number.
All right.
Well, next next question.
Did I pass?
Wait, have you ever taught math?
No.
Oh, okay.
No.
You said it with a lot of authorities.
No.
Well, I feel like it's very interesting.
Because I tend to fight with some of the math teachers on campus because one of my best friends is a math teacher and I always talk about how the kids put in 70% of their time into the math class for their lowest grade.
And it's always like, well, we're just going to give you a little assignment, one through 200, even.
And there's always a little time for me to do my work.
So I get a little territorial about the math teachers.
That's probably what you're picking up on a little bit.
So you teach high school and college.
A little bit of college, yeah.
A little bit.
So mostly high school?
Mostly high school, yeah.
So this is, what is this?
Is this Gen Z?
Yeah, we're in the middle of Gen Z. Or is this like, is there something after Gen Z?
Because I don't know.
Well, there will be, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, I know there's a lot of theoretically.
Yeah, I mean, I hope so.
Otherwise, there might not.
Okay, I'm going to quiz you on some popular Gen Z phrases.
Oh, man.
Okay.
Let me know what they mean, according to you.
Absolutely.
Yeet.
Yeet is when you throw something and you say yeet.
You have to say it when you have to say it.
Usually a gesture, actually.
It's oftentimes used when you give change, like yeet.
Oh, wait.
To a homeless guy?
Or to the fast food worker when you're paying for your food?
Yeet.
Love it and just walking by a homeless guy in the sun.
I'm like, yeet.
Yeah.
I don't think you're quite right on this.
I think yeet is.
I know you can yeet like an animal.
Yeet does mean throw, but I don't think you have to say yeet.
No, but it was gesturing.
Like, you know, I'm throwing something there, going your way.
The sound is implied by the action.
It's like saying, oh, man, that guy yeeted that cat off that building.
But he didn't have to say yeet for it to be to be a yeet.
Yeah.
What about the gram?
I have no idea what the gram is.
It sounds like it's related to drugs.
Instagram.
Instagram.
Something related to it.
Mine is so.
I don't know.
I mean, we literally literally getting this off our Babylon B list of Gen Z terms.
Oh, man.
And our joke was the Gram refers to illicit drugs.
That's the joke.
You are the stereotype, man.
The boomer stereo.
You're not a boomer, are you?
No.
And I hate it when they're like, okay, boomer.
It's like, I'm not a bitch.
I get that a lot.
I get it.
Well, in the book, in the book, they're like, okay, you know, nobody read.
People who, you know, will criticize, and they'll say, okay, boomer.
It's like, I'm about a boomer.
You know, I'm a proud Gen Xer.
We just shrug all the time.
Did you want to ask him one?
With Gen X, what's your favorite band?
Pearl Jam or Nirvana?
Do you have a different person?
You know, I will be honest.
I'm going to be really popular.
I kind of like 90s rap.
I think 90s rap is the zenith of rap.
When I was a junior, we had Snoop Dogg came out with his first album.
This is, you know, The Chronic came out when I was in high school.
Tupac, you know, California Love.
You're Californian.
So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of my music in the 90s.
You do give off a Tupac and Snoop vibe.
I think it's the polo.
You think so?
Well, I also like Skelo.
I wish I was a little bit taller.
You guys are too young for all this.
You probably don't know.
I don't know what you're talking about.
You don't know Skelo.
You're missing out.
You're not alive.
Okay.
Your soul will come back if you listen to it.
I played Ski Ball.
Yeah, Ski Ball.
That's different.
Yeah.
Catch these hands.
Do you know what that is?
This is another expression.
Catch these hands?
Catch these hands.
This is a Gen Z.
Yeah.
Man, I spend hours with Gen Z. My children are Gen Z. I've never heard catch my hands.
Catch these hands.
Catch these hands.
These hands.
Are they throwing decapitated hands at people?
I don't.
I don't know.
It means fight me.
It means fight me.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Wow.
Catch these hands.
What about sus?
Oh, sus is my son.
If something is like a little suspicious, you're like, man, that doesn't work.
That's sus.
Yeah.
I know that one.
That's easy.
Good job.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Do we have a counter on the screen?
Two out of four.
Two out of four is an F, though, guys.
I'm not feeling very good right now.
All right, we'll do a few more and try to get dragged.
You got to get me up to a C. You got to get you up to a C. Anybody listens to me, it's embarrassing if a teacher gets less than a C. TFW.
TFW.
Don't mix them up.
TFW.
It's not any swear.
I know.
That's exactly.
I'm trying to figure out the W, but I know.
TFW.
Yeah.
Man, I'm slipping.
What is it?
That face win.
That face win.
Oh, it's fair.
I have his feeling.
It's face.
Face.
I think.
Maybe it is.
I don't think that one counts.
If you guys don't get it right, then I don't know.
It's like a meme.
Yeah.
It'll be like TFW.
It used to be done with the meme faces.
The feel win.
The feel win.
I think that's crazy.
I think 20 years ago, we were saying TFW and it wasn't the same.
The feels when.
I'm on record of saying that one doesn't count.
And it's like, it feels as if when you have a really good sites of pizza and they post a picture of a meme of a cat, like really happy, feeling good.
How about this is sending me?
This is sending me?
Yeah.
See, all the laughter in the background makes me think it's perverted, but you know, because a bunch of guys giggling is a bunch of, you know, it's a perverted giggle.
That's Patrick.
These guys are perverts.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
That's just Patrick.
Yeah, he's the only person.
We hire a lot of perverts here because it's cheaper.
So minimum wage for perverts is it's below the California.
Yeah, these can't get hired anywhere else.
You get a nice rebate from the government browser history.
Of course you do.
Give it to me one more time.
This is sending me.
This is sending me.
Context.
You're watching a TikTok video and you go, oh man, this is sending me.
Maybe it's like you're getting a strong emotional reaction to something.
This is sending me, man.
Kind of.
We'll give you half credit.
Okay.
I'll take half credit.
It's making you laugh.
Okay.
It's got to be laughter, though.
It can't just be an immediate.
It's because it's sending you into a fit of laughter.
I got you.
This is the joke.
I got you.
Okay, last one.
Netflix and chill.
That means come on over and we're going to.
Yeah.
That's actually in my book.
That's in my book.
I know what it is.
Too much Netflix, not a wee real.
Yeah, right.
Okay.
I love, by the way, how the you guys opened it up that the publisher's like sitting in the middle of it.
I'm like, wow, I'm not feeling great about, you know, I'm not getting a lot of questions about the book date.
That's okay.
Oh, wait, there's questions that come with it?
Are they any good?
Are these good?
They're definitely not questions about like, do you know what Netflix and Chill is?
That's not what's in there.
It is in there.
We're just talking about the hollowing out of teenagers.
We are.
And isn't that closely connected, all these stupid things they say?
That's what you're really talking about.
Hey, a lot of people lament the devices and social media usage of young Americans, but aren't cell phones just this generation's TV or Walkman or Nintendo?
Wait, you don't like it?
Are you just reading from Nintendo?
That's the question.
This is questions for the author.
I'm asking them.
You know what's funny is I don't think anybody in two months asked me that question.
Not a single person.
That's a great question.
It's a pretty good one.
Actually, I think it's a good question, though.
You know what?
No, it is different.
It is different.
It is a little annoying when people have this.
Well, you know, when we were in our kids in the 80s and 90s, we just watched TV and we listened to the radio.
No, because young people, they literally live on social media.
I mean, think about it this way.
So like when you were a teenager, you would have loved to have had a room in your parents' house where they couldn't come in, right?
You could do, you could say anything you wanted to do.
You could do anything you wanted to do.
And it was a room that had a lock, but mom and dad didn't have the key.
Only you knew about it.
And that's essentially what young people have done today.
And one of the arguments in the book is that young people have done something that young people have never been able to do in history.
They've aspired to it, but this generation has done it.
And that is that they do have a space.
They do kind of have a digital ecosystem where they can express things and say things and look at things that, quite frankly, would shock even you guys.
In all seriousness, it would shock you.
There's a great quote in the book by a dean.
I think he lives in Arkansas.
And he says, you know, I confiscate phones all day.
And if you guys knew the vulgarity, the pornography, the violence, it would shock you.
And so, I mean, it is an important question because I'm sorry, no, it's not the same.
And not only that, by the way, a lot of kids, you know, you don't interact with radio and TV the way that you do with social media.
A lot of young people have profoundly serious mental issues because of the fact that they get a lot of their sense of worth and their sense of self by what people say to them, how much they like or retweet or any of those things.
And so, and you can never leave it, by the way.
You know, when I was growing up, you had a problem at school.
You left school, you had, you know, 18 hours without having to worry about it.
It's not the case anymore.
It follows you.
So, no, it is different.
Yeah, when I was growing up, like, I mean, you had to, you know, spend like a good eight-hour day working hard, climbing up through the woods behind your friend's creepy uncle's house to see pornography.
You know, are you speaking from personal experience?
Yeah, he's getting a lot of details here.
Yeah.
Actually, there's a specific tree.
Randomly find a buried magazine.
Yeah.
It's just there now.
They don't have to work for it.
And then also, you know, the radio would just tell you what's good and what you should listen to.
But nowadays, there's an algorithm telling you, like, trying to figure out that it thinks you already know what's good.
So it's like thinking based on your history as like a 13-year-old that you have great taste and it's going to keep feeding that taste.
Imagine the horrible taste that this generation will have because of all these algorithms.
Well, I mean, the other thing they kind of, you know, I was.
Have you written a book, Nathan?
Because I would read it.
We're going to co-write a book after this one.
You're going to team up.
Instead of hollowed out, it would be filled in.
Hollowed.
You'll do the opposite.
Is that what you're saying?
Kind of like a sequel.
Double sequence.
You're going to one-up me a little bit here.
I see how it is.
Well, you hollow it out and then you can fill it up with whatever you want.
But the thing that annoys me is, and this is what I've also noticed, a real change.
When I first started teaching political science 15 years ago, the students, you'd have these discussions about issues, which don't really do that anymore because you don't want to offend anybody.
But you don't want to get, you know, nowadays, you know, if you have an unpopular opinion, they feel like you're harming them in some way or another.
But kids would have an opinion and they would, you know, quote their mom, their dad, their pastor, their friends.
Nobody talks about mom and dad.
Nobody talks about anybody in their immediate circle.
It's what they're looking at online.
It's a YouTube sensation or an Instagram influencer or a Twitter trendsetter.
They're not talking about the people in their lives.
And so, I mean, I deal with this in my own family where my children, they'll watch these videos and you know the algorithms.
You watch the same thing over and over and over and over again.
And they say the zaniest things.
And I see it in my classroom all the time.
So, no, it's a different generation.
It is uniquely bad.
I'd put it that way.
One question.
What is a Walkman?
A Walkman came out in 1982 from Sony.
And it's when you take a tape set and you put it in and you push it down and you play it.
It has headphones in it, right?
Huge headphones, by the way.
You know, not that Dr. Dre.
No.
It's a little misleading.
Yeah.
I mean, I was, I was, I mean, I'm older than you guys, but I remember when I was a teenager, if I wanted to hear a song, you could go to the record store and buy it.
But I used to have like a blank tape and, you know, and you'd wait for it on the radio or you'd call the radio station and you'd press record and that's how you got to got to listen to it.
So, I mean, it's a profoundly different era when it talks about what you want.
I mean, the ability to get anything you want immediately, I do think that it has a psychological effect.
I mean, because there is no shortcut.
And to be serious for a second, there is no shortcut to greatness.
There's no shortcut to achievement.
There's no shortcut for being a good person.
There's no shortcut for being a good teacher or a good citizen or a good father or a good Christian.
There's no shortcuts.
It's not easy.
It takes sacrifice and diligence and words like fortitude.
We don't use the word fortitude anymore.
We never talk about strength anymore.
We never talk about those kinds of things.
And I think that when you grow up in an era where you can have anything you want easily, it's literally available on your device.
I do think it changes your worldview and not for the better.
As a Christian, you know God's always there for you, but sometimes things in this life can feel downright overwhelming and you just need to talk to someone.
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You're not going to get that with an atheist counselor.
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I mean, like, isn't the philosophy of our time right now?
It used to really be that like the greatest version of yourself is out there for you to find and we all help each other get to it.
But now the philosophy is the greatest version of yourself is in you.
That is.
And so that's why it makes sense to have all these algorithms that feed whatever you're feeling at the moment.
And so it's kind of exactly right.
And I will tell you that you like me better than Kyle.
At this point right now, yeah, because I mean, that is an extraordinary insight because I will tell you that that really has infected.
I'm just watching TikTok videos.
It has infected education because, like you said, you go to college, you go to school because you have a sense that there's something possible within you.
If you read certain books, if you learn from certain teachers, if you have certain experiences, there is a refinement of your sensibilities in your mind that you can self-actualize.
And like you said really well, it's out there.
Like the best version of yourself is not right now.
And great teachers are not simply giving you curriculum.
They are artists of human transformation.
And they don't tell you what to think.
They allow you to think for yourselves.
They don't tell you where to go.
They show you what's possible.
But you're right nowadays, it's all therapeutic.
It's all, you know what?
Like these colleges, it used to be you go to college and colleges will tell you, I'll tell you a quick story.
The first paper I ever wrote in college, the professor wrote me back, gave me an F and said, you're intellectually constipated.
I mean, there was absolutely zero affirmation of me, my feelings, my thoughts.
No, you are raw.
You're a piece of clay that hasn't been molded yet.
Get to work.
There is very little of that.
We've gone from being academic figures to therapists.
And I think your world is infinitely smaller.
I mean, that's, I mean, the book is called Hollowed Out because all the things that give your lives a sense of meaning and purpose are not there in the lives of young people, including this epic sense of possibility.
So you're absolutely right.
May I read a quote from Nikki Minaj?
The task of the modern educator.
You do know who Nicki Minaj is.
Yes.
Okay.
The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments.
By starving the sensibility of our pupils, we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes.
For famished nature will be avenged, and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.
Is this the collaboration she did with Doja Cat?
Is that where you're getting this from?
Right.
Okay, very good.
Oh, it's actually C.S. Lewis.
It is.
Okay, I was going to say Edmund Burke, but okay.
The abolition of man?
Yes.
Correct?
Yeah.
Agree or disagree.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I find myself, I don't have the guts to disagree with C.S. Lewis on that.
Yeah, sorry.
I teach at Bakersfield High School.
He teaches at Oxford.
So, yeah.
But he kind of makes the point that Ethan is making that he tries.
C.S. Lewis.
C.S. Lewis agrees with Ethan and expands upon Ethan's point by saying that there is this objective standard that used to be out there.
And the whole point of an educator was to say, you have something bad in you, and you need to adjust to align with the real world.
And now it's the opposite where we just affirm whatever it is.
You have to discover yourself and your existentialist identity.
That's exactly right.
I mean, in fact, you know, when you're talking about the abolition of man, he goes after that, I think, the very first page of the abolition of man.
He's talking about that, how the textbooks reflect that.
And I would actually take a step back and explain it a little bit differently, which is, you know, differently than C.S. Lewis.
Differently than what you're saying.
Saturday disagreement.
No, no, no, no.
I agree.
I would just come at a different angle.
Maybe from a Greek standpoint.
You know, there's a big bust of headbust, to be clear, of Socrates in my classroom.
And I always say that I think we were clear.
Not a big busted Socrates.
You know, you guys tell me there are perverts behind the screen.
I want to be very clear here.
I'm not slobbering like Reinhardt.
But being immature, tell us about Socrates, Big Busters.
He was in Govhead Shuckling Mac there.
But Socrates is broadly considered by a lot of people to be the greatest teacher of Western civilization.
And he didn't care about your feelings.
The reason why he was popular is because he'd go around Athens and he'd intellectually joust with the people who claim to know more, the elites of their day, the mainstream media of his day.
And he would just absolutely destroy them by asking simple questions.
Because the one thing he knew is that everything I've been given has been given to me by forces of chance, who my parents are, when I was born, where I was born.
And I need to ask these important, difficult questions.
And what worries me, and I told my students this, is that you can't really teach Socratically anymore.
If somebody says something outrageous or silly and you challenge the idea, they don't see that you're challenging the idea.
They see that you're attacking me.
You're trying to hurt me.
You're not making me feel supported.
And John Adams famously said that facts are stubborn things.
Well, I was always told that you have a right to your opinion, but you don't have a right to be right.
Well, in the era of feelings being sovereign, you do have a right to be right.
And I think that's very difficult to teach in that kind of a situation.
I mean, again, talk about a sense of hollowness.
I mean, when you believe that ipso facto, because it's you, you're right.
You can't teach somebody who thinks that way.
And it's a worldview that they've inherited, and I think it's toxic.
I could do a C.S. Lewis quote.
Shout out to my haters.
Sorry that you couldn't phase me.
Oh, that's actually Nick Minaj.
Okay.
I see what you guys are doing.
I think we got our documents.
You guys almost got me here.
Yeah.
That must have been the space trilogy.
I couldn't quite finish that hideous straight.
Yeah, that was some of the screw tape letters, right?
You disagree.
Oh, yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
That was all Uncle Screwton.
The demon rap battle.
Right.
At the end.
Definitely read that and get to that part.
So do you hate all your students?
It sounds like you hate all your students.
No, no, not at all.
In fact, I really dislike.
I shouldn't say dislike.
I'm very frustrated with the adults in our society.
Kids are kids.
They can't control the world they're being born into.
It's kind of upsetting to me because the one thing that kind of gives me hesitation about the book was I thought, you know, I hope my students don't think that in any way I don't have a great deal of affection and hope for them because I do.
It's the fact that we've bequeathed this world to them where they are completely untethered to adults for most of their lives.
I mean, adult values, adult expectations, adult role models.
They spend nine to 10 hours a day on their cell phones.
And what are they looking at?
They're looking at other kids with kid values and kid behaviors.
You know, they're not around their parents like they used to.
They don't eat family dinners like they used to.
They don't go to church like they used to.
One out of five millennials say they don't have a good friend in the entire world.
Half of all 18 to 34-year-olds don't have a romantic partner.
I'm sure that's not you guys.
But it's seriously a life that is untethered to models of how to live a good and substantive life.
And it's and so, no, I'm not, I, if you are a teacher and you don't like to be around young people, get out of the classroom.
Because I know people like that.
It's like, why are you being a barista if you don't like coffee?
Get out.
Get out of Starbucks right now.
And there are people like that, by the way.
So, no, I have a great deal of regard for my students.
Here's the other thing is, as somebody who teaches American civics, it's hard for me not to be romantic about this country because I don't teach a bunch of privileged kids.
I teach a lot of students who don't come from privileged background, who are one generation here, who haven't gone to the best schools, who have deal with poverty and abuse.
And yet, you know what?
They believe in themselves.
They work hard in school and voila, magical things happen.
You don't have to go to Disneyland to see the magic.
You come to the American classroom with kids who believe in education and they work hard.
The magic happens.
And I've seen it too many times to be a cynic.
So no, I don't dislike my kids at all.
We should add music when he's saying that part.
Like an American flag.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Like something from instead of a B, you could have like Uncle Sam.
Yeah.
We'll just say something from like the good part of saving Private Ryan when not when everybody's dying, but like when people are living.
So I have anxiety.
And I'm trying to think of what part of that movie you're talking about.
It's probably a good part of it.
I mean, people are dying the whole time.
There's got to be a part where they're like carrying a guy and like everybody's like, oh, yeah.
He's saying the triumphant triumph of the score and not like the dark parts of the score.
Yeah, it shouldn't be like anxiety.
I have a lot of anxiety right now.
I think I might have to end the podcast prematurely.
Do you think anxiety is a multiple choice question?
A, a total fraud or B, completely valid all the time?
You have one.
A and a half.
Okay.
Is that okay?
Is that okay?
You know, I will tell you that that is the word that we hear all the time.
And I'll be honest, I used to maybe be a little skeptical about it, but I have teenage girls and I know that we joke around a lot, but in all seriousness with my daughters, I mean, I think the pandemic has, when you isolate kids, you take them away from the relationships and the people that kind of support them and give them a sense of self.
So the best way that I can explain this is, you know, when you look at boxing, you know, every round you go into the corner and you have, you know, two or three people there and they're, you're resting.
They're telling you, you know, here's what you can do.
You can do this.
They give you water.
They cut you open or whatever they need to do.
But the point is, you're getting support.
You know, after you've gotten beat up for three minutes, you go into the corner and there are people there and there are resources there that kind of help you to go back into the ring.
And I really want people to understand that there are a lot of young people when they go into the ring at night, there's nobody there for them.
Right.
Or sorry, when they go to the corner at night, there's nobody there.
I mean, they go to school.
I mean, think about when you guys were in high school.
I know that wasn't that much longer.
That wasn't very long for you guys ago.
But for me, it was a long time ago.
For him, it was.
Okay, but I'm telling you right now.
You tell me much younger than anybody else has ever been a long time.
But, you know, high school, high school is hard.
I mean, you get beat up emotionally.
You have a lot of work.
You have to be around people you don't like.
You have to do work you don't want to do.
And you go home and you just kind of want to, you know, kind of essentially, you know, have a sense of, okay, I can take a breath.
I can feel supported.
I can go back in tomorrow.
And a lot of those kids just simply don't have it.
And it is a problem.
And, you know, as somebody who believes in a basic level of equality of opportunity in this country, I do think we have to recognize that that anxiety is real because they're not getting the water.
They're not getting the support.
They're not getting the, you know, I believe that you can go back in there and do well.
So no, it's real.
So I guess A.
Okay.
What's your answer to the whole public, should I send my kids to public school?
Should I homeschool them?
Should I send them to private school?
Should all Christians, conservatives pull their kids out of school because it's a horrible Marxist gulag?
It's not a horrible Marxist gulag.
But you know what?
I really, there is, I would never propose to tell somebody, some parent what to do with their kids.
It's 100% their decision.
I do think that sometimes what people who talk about the Marxist, you know, all of the critical race theory, you know, what I think. you guys would be surprised at is it's not really top-down.
Like my bosses are not telling me you need to go be reading, you know, Hegel and Marx and all of the illegal theories from Harvard in the 1970s.
It's actually bottom-up.
It's coming from the kids.
It's not coming from the adults.
It's coming from the kids who watch these things.
And they have, I think, a ridiculously cynical and negative view of the country because of it.
So it's really not top down.
It's bottom-up.
So if you have a kid who's going to be influenced a lot by what the other kids say, yeah, then send them somewhere else.
But if you have the kind of kid who needs to hear other perspectives, but knows what they believe, who believes in verbal jousting, who believes that we all have elements of truth within us and we can have meaningful dialogue, then send them into the arena, like Teddy Roosevelt said.
But, you know, the thing that really, what I'm noticing the last few years is that this, you know, the not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, that it's, you know, it's very hip to not sing the national anthem.
And one of the things that I'm really trying to hit home to the kids now about is this idea of just how profoundly unique a liberal democracy is.
Like, you know, your blessings, you didn't do anything to have the freedom, the opportunity, the security, all of the extraordinary life that you have.
It's the exception to the rule of history.
It's not freedom.
It's oppression is the rule.
It's not wealth.
It's poverty is the rule.
And those things happen because of institutions that were created by people who sacrificed extraordinarily.
I mean, last week we were talking about the Second Continental Congress.
And that's the meeting in June of 1776 where they decided we're going to declare independence against George III.
And I said, you know, guys, for all you guys who think this country is rotten to the core, they were committing treason.
Okay, these were young men, by the way.
Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old.
John Adams was only in his early 40s.
Washington wasn't even 50 years old.
And they knew what they were doing.
And they did it anyhow.
And you benefit from that.
So don't sit there and tell me that this country was founded under the most evil and pernicious of ideals because the record of history is very clear in their speeches, in their writing.
I don't think there's an event that has a greater source of kind of epistolary resource than our founding.
So yeah, it depends on the kind of kid you have.
Now, if they have me, if they have me, take him to high school.
I don't know.
We need some kind of... Battle Him of the Republic.
We need Battle Him of the Republic, yeah.
Which should be the national anthem, by the way.
Star-Spangled Banner are way too difficult to say.
Maybe it could be the Battle of Them of the Republic, though.
The Battle of what?
Them.
Battle of Them.
He laughed like a boomer.
Total boomer joke.
Gotten what the boomer joke.
I am not a boomer, everybody.
I am not a boomer.
I am not a boomer.
I am the forgotten generation.
I have a question.
When you look at the clock, does that mean I'm not doing well?
Doesn't mean you want to get out of here?
What's going on?
Yeah, just like, I'm dragging on.
10 more minutes.
Holy crap.
No, I just, yeah, I'm shocked at.
Really?
I thought that, man, it feels like it's...
It's like five minutes.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like fine.
Well, you've given like two long, inspiring speeches.
Sorry.
Sorry.
No, I mean, in a good way.
I feel like I'm watching Braveheart or something.
The more long speeches you get, the less work we have to do.
Okay.
I'm feeling the lack of AC right now.
Let me tell you, I'm starting to get in that glow.
We'll turn it back on before the lounge, just for sure.
So a lot of my friends that have gone into teaching were very conservative.
And then when they became a teacher, they went very late.
They started going very left.
What do you think, what causes that?
Is it the teaching culture or is it the effect of being around these kids all the time and needing to relate to them?
Or like, what do you think causes that?
I think two things.
One of them, you're right.
I'm smarter and I'm dumb.
No, no, that's definitely that.
Well, that couldn't possibly be it.
But I do think the first one is right.
Is that like, you know, you kind of absorb the values of the people you're around and with the unions and teachers tend to be more of a liberal group of people.
But I do think that the other one is the fact that you do see that a lot of young people come from backgrounds where, through no fault of their own, they don't have a lot of support.
You know, they don't, I mean, once in a while, this comes, just hits you like a sledgehammer.
There was a male student of mine a few years ago, great student, and he was gone for a few days.
And finally, he came back and I kept him after class.
I said, are you okay?
What's going on?
He said, I had to stay at home.
I said, well, why?
He says, well, you know, because my mom's boyfriend, if I wasn't there, I thought he was going to beat her up or beat up my younger sister.
I had to stay there and make sure he didn't do that.
And I think that when you hear story after story like that, and I think that a lot of us are insulated from that reality.
One of the things that, you know, when people go on and on about income inequality, frankly, income inequality doesn't bother me as much as the lack of social mobility in this country.
That the number one predictor of being poor is that you're born poor.
Denmark should not have more social mobility than we do.
And that's why I'm a teacher, as we all know that the best door to the American dream is a high-quality education.
But at the end of the day, you also have to assume a posture of humility as a teacher and realize that most of their success or failure in the classroom happens because of what happens before they get to you.
I mean, were they read to as children?
Do they come from a background where mom and dad make sure that they have good meals and make sure that they're doing their homework and saying you can do it and saying if you want to take piano, we'll pay for the lessons.
And I do think that you are exposed to a very, very difficult reality when you teach a lot of young people.
And it is shocking.
It is galling.
And I think that you are a little more sympathetic to having a little bit more government assistance.
I mean, I'll be honest right now.
I mean, my school feeds three meals a day to our kids.
Three.
And I remember when the pandemic hit in March of 2020, no administrator was talking about, man, they're going to miss out on the latest Calc lesson, but they were worried about the fact that they weren't going to be fed.
And I think that that's fine with me.
That's what we call wraparound services.
I'm happy that we do it, but I think it's sad that we have to.
Let's put it that way.
So, go ahead.
Why do you live in Bakersfield?
I ask myself that question when it's 106 every single day.
So, you know, there's like other cities in California.
I do.
I do.
You know what?
I'll be perfectly honest with you.
I was born in Bakersfield.
Oh, there you go.
And then I went away to college in Virginia, had a great four years at Washington and Lee, which is right in the middle of the state.
But honestly, my older sister had passed away.
And my niece, I was very close to her.
And I felt like I wanted to be a good uncle.
I wanted to be there for her.
And Bakersfield is a remarkably, for all the Johnny Carson jokes and the fact that it is the dirtiest air in the country and there is no culture and we have low education and it is ugly and it's 130 every day.
There is a sense of we will support the people who come from our community.
I mean, I'll be honest, my writing career, I never, ever, ever could have gotten a big book published like this had it not been because I had the support of my community time and time and time again.
So, you know, there's a lot that's wrong with Bakersfield, but it's one of those places that you grow to love it.
It's not Fresno.
And it's not Fresno.
Yeah, absolutely not.
Yeah, Fresno is the, you know, that's our mortal enemy is Fresno, for sure.
So when, just to test, what year was the country actually founded?
You want a short answer because I could go on for a while because you guys kind of make fun of my audience.
The answer is 1787, is the correct answer.
Not 1776.
That's when we became, we stopped being subjects of England.
But 1787 is when we wrote the Constitution.
You're about 160 years off.
Yeah, you're okay.
In the span of history, you're close.
Yeah.
Of world history.
1619.
Ancient history.
It's 1619.
Sorry.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Got it wrong.
I thought they had all the teachers taught now.
Is that happening in your school?
Are they trying to get the 1619 thing going?
Not yet.
Not yet.
I mean, and again, I'm pretty insulated in the sense that, you know, they, you know, I teach most of my career I've taught AP.
So the curriculum is written by somebody else.
So I don't, you know, I don't get a lot of say over it.
But no, that's that is actually incorrect.
That is incorrect.
Oh.
What should children blame all their problems on?
You like all children on Ethan?
All children for time and eternity.
All on Ethan Nicole.
All on Ethan.
I'll take it.
I'll take it on me.
Bear the burden.
Yeah.
Share the load.
I will carry it.
You know, you buck up and unhollow yourself.
I thought the answer was the boomers.
You just have to blame the boomers for everything.
It's the boomers.
It's the boomers.
Do you have any boomers who, by the way, who work here?
Does a single boomer work here?
Do we have a boomer?
No.
No, we got no boomers.
Well, I'm thinking about all the, like all the.
Do you have anybody in my, I mean, do you have a Gen Xer like me?
I'm a Gen Xer.
He is.
You're not a really old millennial?
He's a really young Gen Xer.
Yeah, I am kind of on the there's some that say I'm like a cusp of the millennium.
I'm 1980.
I was born.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
See, I would always call you Kim Lakami a really old millennial because I'm 76 and I'm kind of at the end of the Gen X.
But, you know, if you think about it, it bothers me because we don't have, I mean, like, who are the great, well, not great, but who are the famous Gen X politicians?
Paul Ryan.
Keep on going.
I mean, there's not a lot.
I mean, there really is a kind of gap there because, you know, I think we're not, we're not.
I don't care.
Yeah, it's kind of the shrug.
And the other thing is, is that I remember my generation when a BMW or a Mercedes, a nice car drove by, it never occurred to me that, oh, well, you owe that to me.
My thought was, man, I hope I work hard enough and I'm successful enough in my life to have something like that.
And that mentality of, well, you owe this to me because I'm not really in control of my own life.
That's another thing that drives me crazy.
It's what I call American fatalism.
This idea that all of these different variables impact me in such a way that I don't have agency.
I can't make choices.
And I mean, what's the point of education if you really believe that?
So I think Gen Xers are maybe the last generation that really believed in that idea of a fluid hierarchy, the idea that I'm primarily in control of my own life.
You go do polls in Europe and like 60 or 70% of them will say, yeah, my life is pretty much the consequence of things beyond me.
We Americans don't believe that.
We're Jeffersonians that way.
And I hope that we maintain that.
But I see that that's a really pernicious, attractive idea because you escape responsibility for your own life, for your own failings, for your own screw-ups.
Well, I didn't have any control.
I don't blame this person or that person or these larger historic structures of power.
And I think that the Gen Xers really, that wasn't something that appealed to us at all.
So I guess I'm a product of my generation a little bit.
I'm a millennial.
I have nothing to say to you.
I don't know.
All right.
Well, are we ready to jump into our subscriber lounge?
Yeah.
We can ask our hair down a little bit.
Let our hair down.
You need to let it down a lot.
It's really up there.
Get some crazy, more crazy school stories.
I would love to hear more.
Sure.
And we're going to learn all about it.
We're going to ask what his pronouns are.
Hey, if you want to join us, if you're on YouTube, you can click that join button and join us.
Or you can subscribe to BabylonB.com slash plans.
Thanks for coming, Jeremy.
Thank you so much, guys.
Let's jump in.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
Have you ever confiscated any drugs?
No, but there has been a drug deal in the back of my room.
What's your favorite movie to make your students watch when you're going to phone it in for the day?
I actually, you guys are going to be mad at me, but I do love the word.
What's your favorite teacher in like movies and TV?
John Keating.
John Keating.
Who's that?
Oh, my.
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