 Summer Learning Association. This is going to be on the final exam. I'm telling you now, but it's a shorty. There's multiple choice. So I'm J. Fidel. This is Think Tech, and we're talking about community matters, more specifically education on a national level. Carl Ackerman, formerly a Punahou, and an expert in Eastern European history, which we're not going to discuss today. It's okay with you, Carl. Aaron Dworkin, the National Summer Learning Association. He's the CEO. But for a proper introduction, I'm asking Carl to introduce you. Carl? Yeah. Aaron Dworkin is someone that really has a handle on what's going on in terms of summer learning, that broad topic, whether that's a camp, that it's a school, that's an association, that's the arts, et cetera, all across the United States. And he just came back from a huge conference in Washington, D.C., staying at that wonderful hotel called the Mayflower that's so historic. Everyone should look it up, the Mayflower Hotel. And being a guy who is low-key, I'm, of course, joking here, he had two secretaries from President Biden's cabinet, that is Secretary of Labor and Secretary of Education. But really the true key speaker at this event was Thomas Friedman, who really gave an eloquent speech about summer learning. So there's one person in the United States who knows a lot about summer learning, and that's Aaron Dworkin. And it's no accident that when the Secretary of Education and the White House wants to know something about summer learning, and especially Jill Biden, she turns to Aaron. And so it's a really special treat to have him here in Hawaii, on Think Tech Hawaii, run by that everlasting mensch, Jay Fidel. Well, with that, welcome, Aaron Dworkin. You want to do a rebuttal on that? No, I'm going to send it to my mother. So thank you, Carl. That was very kind of you. I could say equally nice things about you, and I could tell Jay as well. I'll say nice things about Jay when this is over. Thank you. So Aaron, what is summer learning? We really need to know, because all of learning is of value. In fact, one of our motto points here at Think Tech is always learning. Sure. Well, I mean, that's really what it is. So summer learning is a metaphor for three things. We talk about summer learning, but it's the three different things that we're talking about, really. One, it's about promoting educational equity, which means summer time is the most unfair time in education in America. We, by law, educate all kids, some of them drop out, but it's a requirement to go to school. And we educate them typically, let's say, September to June. And then in the summer months, we stop. And middle and upper middle class families who have resources and have access to great programs, their families without blinking or thinking, happily pay lots of money for them to have great experiences that can keep learning and growing and thriving in different ways that benefit them. And they do well coming back to school. And then for millions of kids, especially the most vulnerable low-income kids, they do not have those opportunities. And the research of my organization going back 30 years, National Summer Learning Association, was to show that these gaps grow most dramatically between higher-income kids and lower-income kids in the summer. So first of all, it's how do we close these academic equity issues. The second thing that summer learning represents is about opportunity. And so you can learn in lots of different settings and in lots of different ways over the summer. So you could be in school, you could be at a camp, you can have a summer job, you can have a summer internship. That's a form of summer learning, right? You're growing, you're learning about a career. You can learn tech skills. You could be an apprentice to someone you could do lots of, you could travel, you could do lots of things. Again, so how do we create more opportunities for more kids so they could see what's out there for them themselves? You know how many colleges are running programs for high school kids to learn about the SATs and how to apply and all these different experiences? Again, if you have resources, you could go. If you don't, you miss out. So it's about equity. It's about opportunity. The last thing about summer learning that makes it really special and effective is it creates these smaller environments that build community. And so I represent an organization that serves more than 15,000 entities from school districts to nonprofits, Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, the largest national groups to the smallest grassroots groups. And then youth serving government agencies, libraries, parks and rec centers, public housing authorities, summer job programs. All these groups are trying to fill in the gap the best way they can to serve kids over the summer months because they know it's important. And the thing that makes all good programs stand out and have the results that everyone's impressed by is that they build a sense of community in their program where the staff and the adults care and know the kids and the kids feel ownership for the what they're doing there and they want to come and it builds a sense of community no matter what activity they're doing. So that's what it is. Summer learning is about equity, opportunity and community. It has had a huge moment right now in the last three years. My phone has not stopped ringing since COVID started because if Jay, if you let me, I'll just explain this context piece, which is if you go back to March 2020, if you can remember that far back when COVID shut down the world, most conventional wisdom said, oh, kids will have to be out of school at the most for three months. So everyone who cared and worked in education said, who has research on what happens to kids when they're out of school for three months. That was my organization because that's what we track what happens over the summer. Then the second piece of conventional wisdom was, well, now every kid in America is going to have to go to some form of summer school and who has the expertise about how to set up a good summer program. That was also my organization. So no matter what, now both of these things proved wrong, but I will just share that what did prove correct and sadly is, and last week, they called the NAEP, the National Standardized Test about Kids Reading and Maths Course, came out and you saw the headline and all our fears have been confirmed. COVID and Zoom learning was not good for the majority of students in America and we have gotten the lowest scores that we've had in decades. We knew that probably was going to happen, especially if you were low income and you didn't have access to technology and parents who could help you and all these other things to navigate. So here we are and there is up to $30 billion in the Federal American Rescue Plan to be spent across the country by school districts and state education departments on how to help kids catch up, especially leveraging the summer months. So that's the moment we're in and that's kind of what summer learning has become a national priority. Yeah, a couple of questions and thoughts about that. What's the difference between summer learning in a school setting, the same school that you went to the rest of the year, and summer camp? Because when you start talking about community, the kind that lasts, the kinds that builds lasting relations, if I think of summer camp, which was in itself a tremendous education. What's the difference between summer camp? And I have a feeling Carl is going to comment. If I may, then Carl can jump in. I'll say two things on this. One, sometimes my joke is if summer school and the academic goals of summer school, teaching kids math, reading, science, STEM, they call that, had a baby with summer camp at all the arts and the enrichment and being in nature and running around and having leadership skills and community skills and team building skills, if they combined, you'd end up with summer learning. We don't want you to only have one or the other. And the moment we're in requires a combination. And so it's getting people to reimagine. And this is important, Jay, for people who don't know, who might be listening. Summer school traditionally in America has been a punishment. It's been remedial. You just learned what you already learned and didn't figure out. It's been in a school setting just like you were in. It's had no athletics. It had no enrichment and had no, you know, health and fitness had nothing else. And kids didn't have a say in what they got to learn. Just a kind of punitive required experience versus. And so people historically have not wanted to go to summer school if we're just honest about it. Teachers don't want to teach it. Kids don't want to go in it. And people could be forced to go and participate. Summer learning was a reimagination of what that could be. And it could be the exact opposite. So it's not a punishment. Actually, you make it so fun that people want to go because you can learn so many new things and you don't need to make a requirement. You can make it voluntary and people want to come. And you don't just learn the things that the school required. You now have a chance to learn new things. You want to learn how to be a podcast producer. You want to learn how to write a TV script. You could do that in the summer. You can, you know, you could kind of reimagine. And so it doesn't have to only be a punishment for kids who failed. It could be also an option for kids who want to accelerate their learning. And gain further credits or gain new career skills and all these other trips and experiences. And it doesn't only have to take place inside the four walls of a school building. It could be at your museum. It could be at your aquarium. It could be at your college campus. It could be at a private school that you don't get to go to during the year. But now they're opening up their gates and letting you learn there. So that's what we're seeing. It's a huge variety. It depends on a lot on partnerships. That's how I would say it's really this merging of the best of summer camp with the best of academic learning. But Carl led a great program for many years if he wants to weigh in. Oh, I do. Carl, you know, talk about your program and summer learning through your program at Putahoe and talk about your participation in the conference in Washington. Well, let me, let me begin and just echo some of the themes that I'm a thank you, that Aaron just talked about. The Pueo program took kids, all of whom were on free or reduced lunch and in the great middle academically and gave them a summer program that was number one fun when they first came in. They came in in fifth grade and they had robotics classes. And they also had one of the best classes I think that's been taught forever, anywhere, a magic class. And the kids were hooked. And, you know, what they did is they stayed in the program for seven years. And in the older years, they had four credit, and that's really important, four credit DOE classes. We had a partnership with our statewide DOE between Putahoe School and the statewide DOE. And the kids took Hawaiian history, they took English, they took a variety of, you know, SAT prep, and, you know, they got credit for it. So by the time the kids left when they were, when they were senior, they had, they, they actually had six credits that they could apply toward their high school graduation. So that was the key really. And, you know, not remedial stuff, which is, you know, what Aaron was talking about. But it was more, we were more interested in kids getting credits and actually even getting dual credits, which the current superintendent, Keith Hayashi, has pioneered at Waipahu High School. And so our kids were getting not only credits for high school, but also getting credits for UH. So it put them up on the ladder. And that's, that's really the key. And just to conclude about the conference, what impresses you about the National Summer Learning Association conference is, I think, for me, two things. One, there are so many people there that are doing innovative things like Pueo. I mean, I was one among many. And, you know, from, from Jewish camps to people who were working, you know, after, after school areas. And, you know, it's really interesting the way people are approaching a variety of things. And also, as Aaron mentioned, you know, pulling data away from this and achieving great things and saying, hey, this works, for example. The second thing that's really important that I saw is a bunch of young people. I mean, people the age of my daughter, you know, I mean, they're in their thirties. And the, you know, there were many people who came from the wide spectrum of America. And, you know, there are people of color, many women. And, you know, it's, it's interesting when you have a community in Washington, D.C., where the conference was that looked J in many ways like Hawaii, where if you're, you know, if you're Caucasian or I was, we say in Hawaii howly, you're a minority. And, you know, in the words, I think pulling all these different groups of people together that have very different experiences in their lives, you know, and people from various different socioeconomic frameworks. And a lot of people began by talking about their particular childhood, which is, and many of them had childhoods where they were challenged economically. It was just wonderful. And it was, you know, I always came away from the National Summer Learning Conference, Association Conference, you know, upbeat. And this one was particularly good. And of course, it was at the Mayflower Hotel, where there's all this history of presidents, etc. And you felt like you walked into a history camp. And then there were sessions there. So, you know, it was just wonderful. Well, let's talk about diversity. The diversity certainly at the conference. But what about diversity in the program itself? Am I going to meet new people? You know, when I went to summer camp, we met everyone. We met new people. We, you know, learned about other groups and what they were after. Is that happening? Does that happen in the National Summer Learning Association? So just to be clear, so yes, our members do it. So we're the umbrella group. We are a coalition of more than 15,000 organizations, serving millions of especially low-income kids. It's a very diverse array of people that are being served. But by the way, a lot of, when you talk about low-income in America, a lot of low-income rural white kids, you know, it's like, it's not by ethnicity here, you know, low-income kids are everywhere. A lot of times, by the way, they would not even tell you that they know that they're low-income. It's not until someone they become much older that a lot of people will self-report. Oh, I didn't know I was considered poor or something like this until I got to college and they told me I was that. So, you know, when you live where you live, it's not a big deal. But the way we talk about poverty in this country is based on, do you need a free meal? And that's, if you qualify for the free and reduced lunch program, that's, and so when we talk about poverty for kids in kindergarten through 12th grade, we're talking about the 29 million children in America who qualify for free meals. So, with that said, yes, you know, the country, but it's a broad spectrum. We have people from Alabama, they look different than they look in Hawaii, you know, so all of that. But what cuts across here is it comes down to relationships. That's what, you know, is the special sauce of all these programs. There was a guy from Detroit who runs an award winning program. So, just like Carl, we give out national awards and his program, Carl's program one, and we also had another winner one year from Detroit called Math Corps, where it's run by the math professor from Wayne State University in Detroit. And he gets six, he gets high school kids, he pays high school kids to teach math, the middle school kids, and he pays the college kids to teach the high school kids. And then he doesn't have a staffing shortage. He's, everyone just graduates into the next role. Oh, that's wonderful. Wonderful. And he, and he had a student at our conference named Zion, who I worked with this past summer, who is now a senior at Dartmouth on a full scholarship, who got so high up in math that he got tired and bored in math. And he became a physics major just because it was more interesting. That's what happens. And right. And so he, he spoke, and he, this past summer, my organization sponsored a all expense paid congressional summer internship. It would be great to get an alum of Carl's program to come and work for Senator Schatz in D.C. Schatz, I'm not sure how do you pronounce it. But anyway, Zion came and he worked for the senator from Michigan, Gary Peters. And this is just funny because you can't make it up. This is about opportunity. So even if he had gotten in the internship, there's no way he could have afforded to come to Washington D.C. We paid for his clothes. This is what we pay for his flight. We pay for his apartment, pay for his food, got him the internship, everything. And he did a great job. It just happened. And this had nothing with us that the senator from Michigan that he worked for is on the oversight committee of NASA. And this guy, Zion, who's a senior physics major is infatuated with space and loves NASA and loves everything to do with outer space. And he was the only intern at a 30 interns in the whole office of the senator who cared about NASA. And he got to spend so much time with the senator going to every hearing and writing briefings and having conversations with the senator in a way that no one else could get. And he's going to have a lot of options right now. This is kind of like what we're talking about with opportunity. And the reason you're talking about being diverse, this comes back to your question about diversity. If you look at the staff of who works for our members of Congress in Washington, DC, sadly, in order to get hired full time, you need to have interned in the summer. Most often about 80% of them were interns for free, subsidized. They think they did it for nothing, but the truth is someone behind them paid for them to live and make that possible. So it is not reflective of America, the staff who are writing laws and working for their congressmen and senators. It does not represent the diversity and beauty of America. And so that's just one little place where you can see the high ROI, the return on investment, if you kind of make a laser sharp focus into summer opportunities for kids. Because boom, after eight weeks, you get a job offer. Now he's a staffer. Now he's working on a NASA policy. Boom, just like that. You mentioned, you know, I want to get a track with you, Aaron, on COVID and the need, the usefulness of Zoom and virtual connection, not only in the National Summer Learning Association and its members then, because we're, you know, mostly, we're out of it mostly, but not really. But what about, you know, going forward? I suggest to you that COVID has changed our world. COVID has brought virtual connection, you know, communication and learning into our world on a long-term basis. And, you know, you talk about the money from the Biden administration on helping to bridge the digital gap, the computer equipment and broadband gap. So is this happening, you know, within the association, within summer learning to find computer equipment, to make virtual learning a long-term, even a permanent change in American education? Like, I mean, I think lots of people have different opinions. I'd say the majority consensus is that Zoom learning did not work for the majority of kids. There were some kids, they could go at their own pace, they had their own laptop already, that it worked for. And of course, it is part now, we all Zoom is part of our lexicon. Like, we know this is how we're talking today for sure. And look at the workforce return questions about who gets to come back to work or who doesn't and what's going to happen. That's for sure. But listen, there's a reason we teach and run school in person, and it is a more effective way to kind of meet kids where they are. As you get older, you know, it does not work for its little kids. Okay, kindergarten is first grade, it's impossible. You try to teach a class of, you know, 32nd graders on Zoom, impossible, does not work. So throw that out. As you get older, middle school, high school kids, you know, yeah, they're a little more self-conscious, they don't want to show up, they don't want to see each other, they want to put the camera on, the camera off, all these different things. I think it was very difficult for teachers, teachers, we're saying that the crux of teaching is building some kind of personal connection with your students. And Zoom is a one-dimensional, it's not three-dimensional, so how are you going to really do that? Let me offer this thought, you know, you have a lot of kids, a lot of people, who have no way to do it except for virtual, and if they did not have virtual, they would not do it. But for example, I get to meet you today. And I feel I'm getting to know you, everybody watching this is getting to know you. And so we're way ahead because of that. And I'm getting to know Carl better, and we're way ahead because of that. Now, if I didn't have Zoom, if I didn't have virtual, Aaron, I would never have met you. There's certainly benefits, I agree. You're saving on travel costs, we're talking across time zones. I'm not going to say there aren't utilities around this for sure. I'm just saying that if you really try to teach, there's some examples. Khan Academy, you could record it, you could go back, you could ask questions. There's a lot about what they call the flip classroom, and how now instead of me coming to school to learn the lesson, you learn the lesson at home, and you come to school, and you come with your questions. And we're just going to talk about what the problems were. Now, I'm not going to have to teach you. You can watch my recording before. There is a level of self-discipline that that requires. There's also a level, and this is to your point, you know, when they ask the question, when Zoom, when COVID first happened, this is an equity issue. They said the question was to the kid, do you have a computer at home? And maybe the answer is yes, but it was the wrong question. The better question was, do you have, and does every kid in your family have access to a computer to do their schoolwork? There might have been one computer in the house, but the mom needed it for her job. So the kid doesn't have a computer. And if there's four kids in the family, you're screwed up. So that's when you heard the stories of the kids being dropped off at the Wendy's in order to be on the Wi-Fi. There's a lot of little things like that that people don't think about. I mean, I think all the tech companies have been trying to get that. But now again, so now you have it, like, like social media is a whole other discussion you could talk about. You know, how many Zoom calls have you been on where everybody's on the Zoom call is sending emails to someone else while they're on it? No, it happens. Right? Everyone's doing it. So and then you get into this. I think there's something also, Jay, that we should lift up, which is there's the academic challenges that kids have. There's also the isolation that kids went through that have led to dramatic social, emotional, mental health challenges for kids. Suicide attempts among teenage girls went up 51% between 2019 and 2021. Okay. People were isolated. I know we're saying Zoom is so great, but at a certain level, it gets us some things functionally done. But on the other hand, kids were not allowed to eat lunch together. They weren't allowed to be on sports teams together. They weren't allowed to be on the playground together. All the things that allow you to build a relationship and a sense of community were taken away from kids for two years, two plus years. And now they're isolated. They don't know how to talk to one another. They get into fights. Fights are breaking out like crazy. They're vandalizing bathrooms all over the place. I mean, the reports of what's been going on are serious, serious. And nobody knows how to deescalate anymore. The first summer, it's gotten better this 2022 summer. But in 2021, when kids have not been together for a long time, every summer camp director reported almost anecdotally that it was the hardest summer they ever ran in their lives. People who've been running camps for 50 years. And they said, what? Because even the staff were out of practice. People lost patience with each other. They had no practice around patience. If you had a problem that normally a counselor can come and or a teacher can kind of deescalate it, it escalated in 10 seconds. And then the parents were crazy too. And everybody's jumping on each. That happens in Congress too. That's another discussion. One of the things I wanted to get to, Erin, is kids are also attracted by negative influences as Congress is, by that matter. And like the drugs is standing on the street corner, there's dealing with, you know, kids who are not good role models. There's all these negative things that, you know, that are not educational, that are bad education. And so you, you know, you that the association, the 15,000 members organization association have to have a way of attracting kids to do some learning and get them off the street, so to speak. How do you do that? How do you appeal to them? Look, a lot of, we have a lot of great examples. And so I don't want, I don't want to, first of all, there's a lot written that even gangs, when you talk about gangs, why do people join gangs? To have a sense of community, to have a sense of family. You know, if you're looking for five people to look out for you, and you want to be loyal to them, you'll be loyal to you. I'm not saying it's a great way to go about living making choices, but you could see, if you had nothing, where would you turn? And so you have to give kids other options. And I think, especially as Carl is working with middle school students, you know, your identity is up for grabs. And you're trying to learn who you are, and you're starting to do I want to go down that street and go be with those kids? Or do I want to go into a summer program that every summer is going to teach me about colleges and jobs? And I'm going to meet mentors and take field trips. And I'm going to learn all these new options that I had no idea existed. Things that you can't get to during the school year, because there's so much required curriculum that everyone's got to teach, that it's really only in the summer. So I think there's a lot about opening up people's minds. And I think when you're a kid, and I like to always talk about this, because I ran afterschool and summer programs for an organization that served 90,000 kids in 20 cities. And we always talked about how J.U. and Carl and me, we could look back on our lives and everything how you got to hear and how the Coast Guard say you back to NYU and back to Hawaii. And now the next thing you know, you have your own TV show, you know, it all makes sense how you got here. But if you're a 12 year old, looking forward, it is completely unclear how you might end up in Carl Ackerman's shoes or J.F.I.D.O. shoes. And so the onus is on the adults in these programs to kind of light up these pathways and light up these options. It's not about giving an opportunity. It's about options. And it's not about just giving a kid a chance. It's about giving kids choices. So they know what they're, you know, and so every day, every adult in America asks millions of kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? And the correct response for a kid should be, what are my choices? Don't ask me what I want to be when I grow up. I'm nine. I don't know. You need to show me a few different options here. And so there's some onus on the adults. And then what really is the key, Jay, for every successful program, when I was talking about community and equity and all this stuff, is about kids, you know, education, in my opinion, and Carl will be interested in your opinion, is about how fast we can get kids to take ownership for their own learning. Period. End of story. If you want to fail kids and force them and give them detention and require them to do this and, you know, you can drag people to graduate across the finish line kicking and screaming. But at what point are they on their own with no push from their teacher or their parent or coach going to say, I want to read a book because I want to read it. And sometimes when I do staff trainings, I would ask the staff, what was the first grown-up book you ever read on your own because you wanted to? No one forced you to. Because that's a moment of taking ownership for your own learning. I don't know, Jay or Carl, do you remember how old you were and what the name of the book was? That was a grown-up book that you read? There's so many that come to mind. I can't pick one. Carl, Carl, you know, I've got to tell you something, Aaron. You know, Carl is here. He's with us. He organized our meeting today. I have had dozens of hours of a mutual exchange of new nutritious discussion with Carl, but I have actually never met him. I have never met Carl. I've never met Carl. Do you live on the same island? I've never met Carl. Have I met you, Carl? Have I met you, Carl? You know what, Jay, I've never thought about that because we've had so many Zoom meetings and because we've had so many telephone conversations. That's absolutely true. And I could say that love does appear through Zoom because I love this man and he's wonderful. But to get back to that, I don't want to get too involved. I want to refine the point. He's way taller than you think, Jay. He's way taller than you think. I want to refine the point you made, Aaron, and that is options. Options for education. Options to pick a book and to make it part of your identity somehow. Let me add that that exact process exists with respect to life itself. You get up in the morning, look out the window, and you say to yourself, what are my options today? That's a better life. So if you teach the kid how to examine options, how to make choices, how to find things that help him create the identity, you're teaching him things about life in general, too. Jay, if I can give you an example, there's a great guy named Steve Mariotti, who was a math teacher in the Bronx, New York, for a long time and was having trouble getting the kids to pay attention to him. And he started putting dollar signs next to all the math problems he was working on. And everyone set up and started paying attention. He's all of a sudden in the same math problem, now they're thinking about talking about how to make money. And from that, he created something called NIFTI, the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, which is running in thousands of schools and teaching kids how to write business plans and teaching high level math, but through real world application. People want to learn multiplication, but hey, this is about how I'm going to make money and add the right business plans. And all of a sudden, they started treating each other nicer because they're all viewing each other's customers. And they all had to sell things to one another in the classroom. So I'm just like, there's, there's hooks into everything. I got into this work. I was started a basketball mentoring program in New York City. I was a volunteer and a big brothers and big sisters with a huge waiting list of teenage boys. And the social worker needed to find more men. And I was playing basketball twice a week after work with hundreds of men in these gyms and leagues around New York City. And I say, did not take a rocket scientist to say, could I get these men to stop what they're doing to hang out with kids? They didn't want to do it, but they wanted to play basketball. So I said, would you play basketball with a eighth grade boy and then talking about college and jobs and leadership? And they did that. And it's about finding the hook is the point. And we actually look different for every kid hook is different for every kid. That's why we have a variety of programs is why we don't have one single boys and girls club that everyone in America has to go to. You might be interested in sports. Someone's interested in music. Someone's interested in business. Someone's interested in cooking. You can get to reading and math and literacy through all these different angles. And this is why Carl was saying there were so many entrepreneurs and innovators that he kept meeting in my government because everyone is coming at it for the kids in their community and neighborhood through a different way. And you also want to take advantage of the assets and resources of your community. So we heard from a guy, Carl and I last week from the US Virgin Islands, a professor at the, I guess, St. Thomas University. And he said people from all over the world come to study oceanography in the US Virgin Islands. But 70% of the kids who grew up in the Virgin Islands do not know how to swim. And they don't get to take part in any of this huge industry that's happening there. People come from all over to study marine biology. So he had to create, he wanted to create a summer program to teach kids oceanography, marine biology. First, he had to teach them how to swim. Then he teaches them how to scuba dive. Then he's teaching them science. Now there are jobs for them. And that's something that's in his backyard that he could take advantage of. And that's why we have local control in education because people know, you know, what's working where they are, 4-H. This is an amazing organization. I'll just share if you ever heard of them, the largest youth out of the school time organization. They were created by a charter of Congress with the US Department of Agriculture, America. This is one of the more interesting stories, Carl, if you know the history of 4-H. They are a youth after school program with summer camps that was started by the Department of Agriculture in the 1800s, because our country, our entire economy back then, was based on agriculture. And everyone who ran a farm inherited it from their parents and their grandparents. And so no one was learning a new strategy or technology about how to increase production or use new tools. So the US Department of Agriculture had this idea. This is before computers, before telephones, before iPhone. How they did this, it's actually amazing. And they created the Blue Ribbon, the County Fair. They created these 4-H clubs everywhere where they got the kids in the program to teach them all the new tricks so they would come back to their dad and mom and say, hey, you got to help me grow a bigger tomato or a bigger sheep. And we got to learn all this. And dad helped me do it, because I want to win, I want to win. And then those kids grew up to inherit the farms. And that's how we re-educated and updated the skills of our entire agriculture workforce. That is a wonderful story. If only we could do that today. Carl, we have to hear from you about Punahou and how you offer options to kids and how you get them motivated to make choices. Let me begin with what Aaron just said, because I think he'll be interested that 4-H is a big thing in Hawaii. And if you go to Maui, there's a school called Lahaina Luna. And Lahaina Luna goes through junior high school and high school, and it's a working farm. And the kids came from all islands originally. And I think that this school was established in the mid-19th century under the kingdom. And what's interesting about this school is that it was a working farm. And the farm originally used to provide sustenance for the kids. It was a working farm. So the kids survived. And I think today it's still a working farm. Lahaina Luna and 4-H has always been big in Hawaii because of our agricultural roots. So there are people, and I think my wife has even said that she was a member of a 4-H club here on Oahu through Roosevelt High School. But I have to confirm that. But going back to what Aaron was saying about culture, and I have to tell you two things very briefly. The first is, in the Pueo program, I began a chant. And the chant went like this. What group are you in? And the kids would yell out Pueo, which is our Hawaiian album. It stands for partnerships and unlimited educational opportunities. It's an acronym. And I'd say, again, what group are you in? And they'd say Pueo. And I'd say, where are you going? And the kids would answer, college. That was the chant. And I'd say, where are you going? And they would say, college. Because I think it's important in all these groups, because you were just talking about finance there, to develop a culture, a culture, an educational culture, that I bet if we asked the three of us, why did you go to college? Well, I don't think there was any choice. Our parents expected it. And it was sort of like a middle class thing to do. And maybe you guys came from upper middle class or whatever. I don't want to go there. But it was expected. And there is a culture. But I want to go back, Jay, to the National Summer Learning Association. Before we were on the air, Erin asked me, who did you meet? I remet this woman who used to work for NSLA named Brenda McLaughlin. And I want to tell you that not only is NSLA a coalition of people, but this woman would come out and offer advice, which she did in Pueo. But at one point, you know, Erin, this is for you, Jay knows this, that Putahoe and the Riso is, let's just say, well off school. I'll end there. And, you know, she could pull in, you know, the high monkey mugs and get them on the board. But what Brenda McLaughlin did from your organization is the Putahoe board had a man named Case, you know, America Online, and he had an organization called Revolution in Washington, D.C. And Brenda, before the program came to its completion of seven years, so the kids would graduate and go to college and we could have numbers, she came in and organized a study for us that could prove to donors that it was good. So we met with the Putahoe board at Revolution, Mr. Case's headquarters in Washington, D.C. And they asked questions about Pueo. I can say a bloody thing. Brenda did all the talking and the program was sold, it got financed, and that's because of the power of the National Summer Learning Association. And it was also through, you know, your longtime member and founder of NSLA, Matthew Belay. And I want to point out to you, Jay, because you're a military guy that the founder of this organization is a former Marine. So, you know, I get, you know, sometimes tired that people who are associated with, you know, good things and that might be considered liberal are always, you know, oh, but did they serve in the military and things like that? And I came from a military family, for example. But, you know, Matthew, who discovered this organization is a bloody Marine Corps member and very proud of it. So, you know, the National Summer Learning Association is just a marvelous organization. And Aaron is such a, you know, young men to be part of it. Every time I see him, I think he looks younger because I keep getting older. Anyway, I'll stop there. It must agree with him. It must agree with you, Aaron. And we're about out of time. And I want to offer you guys a moment to leave a message, whatever the message may be, with whoever is watching. And I would, I would, I would mention one word that I took out of your comments that stuck with me, Aaron. And you can say whether I'm right or wrong. But summer learning and learning in general is better done with relationships. It's like we used to say in practicing law, you know, real estate law is not about real estate. It's about relationships. As a matter of fact, everything is about relationship. What are your thoughts about that? And what message would you leave with our audience? Well, first of all, I agree. I think most things are about relationships and the success. And this is why humans run the plan. And if you read Yvonne Harari's, you know, analysis of the world is like we are not only able to build relationships, we're able to build relationships with strangers. And that has set us apart from everyone else that's ever, you know, walked across the planet. But I'll say not only about relationships, just something else that's very strategic about summer learning that if anybody's listening, if you if you can find a local program that'll give opportunities to kids, it's worth investing in. And the reason is you get a four for one deal with it. And the four for one is what I sometimes call the four eyes. I'll just tell it to you really quick. One is it's a time for improvement in the summer. It's not just for kids who improve, but the staff. And every time I want to train, you want to train new teachers on a curriculum, you want them to practice and learn it in the summer and practice in the program. So it's good for kids. All summer programs double up as staff training, what they call professional development. You know, my basketball coach used to say nobody gets better once the season starts. Once the season starts, you're as good a basketball as you're going to be. The only one who becomes all of a sudden a star next season and gets to start instead of being on the bench is the person who put in more work over the summer. So that's just hold on to that. It's really about effort over the summer that helps us grow. The second thing is about this interdependence around this idea of getting we're so siloed across America, but in education schools. If you work with kids from nine to three, you do you go over to the left. If you work with kids in the afternoon, then you go to the right, you know, from three to six. If you work with kids in the summer, you go somewhere else. We are all trying to serve the exact same kids libraries, parks and rec schools, public housing. Somebody has got to bring us all together. No one has time to work together once the school year starts. But in the summer, you could actually get all these partners to work together in a real tangible way. And if it works, then those partnerships carry on into the school year. The last two quickly is about innovation. Jay, if you have a new idea to start a summer program this coming summer, you could do it. If you want to start a school tomorrow, that would be harder. But if you want to start a summer program with Carl's help, by help, but not too much money, you get some kids, you get the right partners, you can innovate, you could create something you want to teach kids how to work in the Coast Guard and become a tax lawyer. You could be, you know, if you could find some kids who want to do that, you could do it. And so it's the lowest bar to entry barrier to entry for being innovative. And there are tons and tons of examples. Kip Charter School started out as a six week summer program. Harlem RBI was a baseball afterschool program that now has seven schools around Manhattan. I mean, they're just example after example of national organizations, entire school systems that started out a summer program. So it's a time of innovation. And the last thing is about impact. And Jay, you know, you strike me as someone who has a very good memory and so does Carl. And I think all successful adults can look back to one summer that changed the trajectory of their lives. And, you know, it's at a national level, we need, you know, to invest in summer because we got to respond to COVID and we got to help kids catch up across the country. But at the most personal level, the impact is huge. And it's the difference between finishing high school and get, or getting credits that send you off to college. And it's about, it's the difference between having a job that pays you a minimum wage or a summer internship that leads to a career. And so this is what we get to invest in by investing in summer learning opportunities. And that's why I'm passionate about it. That's why I made it my career. That's why Carl, who I think is trying to retire, but has seemingly no ability to do so, and is writing books and keeps working and still coming to conferences for fun, because this is something that changes people's lives and has a real impact. And so I thank you and your audience for taking time to listen to us. But I think it's something they can actually get involved with themselves locally with kids in their community, finding the right partners and being supportive. Oh, wow. Carl, I think you should probably thank Aaron for coming around and try to summarize the essence of what we've been talking about here. Well, you know, Jay, I'm very grateful for Aaron getting off a plane and going to his hotel room and getting online. That's really quite remarkable. And I've done it and I know you're like trying to fight going to sleep and things like this. So it's remarkable. But what he said and what is remarkable about Aaron is, you know, he mentioned Zion, this kid. And, you know, Jeffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone has always said this, that our focus should be on children. And, you know, of course, summer programs is really all about this. But today, I was reminded of this when I walked into Safeway in Manoa, near my house, and there was a Pueo student, Natasha Piapilao, who has her own business, is working in the bakery. And it made me think of another student, Precious Totten, who came from a foster family, who's now a vice principal of a school in Hawaii, and another student who after she went in Pueo, Christie Wong, she graduated from Princeton and now is an accountant in New York. And she was one of the accountants that uncovered some things in the Washington, D.C. public schools that weren't necessarily kosher. So she did good work there and her four siblings followed her. And the point is that I put it out, and by the way, Jay, I was so complimented by Aaron's organization that they put my book, A Success Story in Public Education, between Thomas Friedman's book and Malcolm Gladwell's book. And I said, oh, my God, I've died and gone to heaven. And that was just wonderful. But let me end with what Aaron and you both said, which is about building relationships in the summer learning program. In my book, A Success Story in Public Education, I said that you build partnerships, but these partnerships turn into metaphorical marriages. They become so strong that you can lean on one another for your help. And I think just by doing this session, Jay Fidel, you ubermensch, we have become sort of brothers in spirit here. And I think that's the true thing. So I think not only Aaron, but you know, you're always your generosity, Jay, and I hope that this session will prove useful for the viewers, but also useful to Aaron in his future talks about what it means to be the CEO of a national organization that is so powerful, NSLA. I want to add one thought with way over time here. And that is this, you talk about summer learning and summer school and summer camp. And my youth was punctuated by that every year for all the years that I could think of that counted. And I enjoyed summer camp a lot. And it was about community. It was about relationships. And it was about perspective. I had 10 months of the year in my regular thing at home and school, going through the New York school system and all that. But for a couple of months every year, I could turn around and get some real perspective. I could see it more clearly, because I had time to think about it in another environment. And that was extraordinarily valuable to me. And my brother as well, because we went through the same process. Well, thank you so much, Aaron. Thank you. Thank guys. And I'm very envious about your life choices to have settled in Hawaii. Well done. I'll be shoveling snow and you enjoy yourself. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.