ETG - Donald Earl Collins

Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hello friends. Welcome back to eliminate the gap here. And we're joined today by Donald Earl Collins, everybody and Donald he's. He's a professor he's done some writing. We're very excited to have Donald today. So, uh, you know, Donald we're, we'd like to talk all things education with you here, but we only have a certain amount, Tom. So, Speaker 1 00:00:22 Uh, Speaker 0 00:00:22 Welcome first of all, but, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna kick this thing off, start right off with our first question here. So, so given everything education's been through in the past two or three years with the coronavirus, uh, coronavirus, distance learning, things of that nature, like what percent do you feel we are now currently back to normal? Speaker 1 00:00:45 First of all, thanks for having me, Eric. Thanks for having me Delmore. I appreciate it. You know, guys, we kind of go back away. So it's great to, for you to have me on first of all, um, on that question though, the question for me is what is normal? I mean, really what is normal? I mean, if we're talking about before the pandemic, where students were struggling with, um, student achievement issues, where people were complaining about SROs and how they all too frequently cracked down on black and brown kids, if we're talking about a period of time where, um, high stakes testing and a stressors and the mental health issues associated with that for millennials around anxiety and all those other things, then we're a hundred percent back to normal. If we go by that definition. Right? That's true. That's true. We think about it, right? Speaker 1 00:01:35 I mean, but <laugh>, if we're talking about, about where we're having an education system, that's working for people, that's keeping people feeling like they're safe, not just in terms of catching, you know, COVID 19 or, or its variance, but in terms of like, this is a safe space for them to learn, this is a safe space for them to, um, basically deal with whatever issues they're having, whether it's mental health related hunger, whatever the other issues that schools tend to have to deal with in this day and age, then we're maybe 10% normal, maybe 20. Right. So it depends on how you look at what normal is, but if normal, but if normal's been toxic, then, you know, do we really wanna come back to that? I mean, that's what I'm thinking, right? Yeah. So I think we need to think about what normal is, right. Speaker 1 00:02:30 And what normal has been normal was, has been very abnormal and very toxic for years for generations actually. And so maybe with the pandemic, we've learned a little bit about how these things can be exacerbated by having a pandemic and distance learning and online learning and all of that. But at the same time, we already have articles by people like Melinda D Anderson. Who's written a lot about this the last two years about the fact that black parents, Latin X parents feel better about their kid learning their home because they're not dealing with the microaggressions that go on at school every day. Even the majority of those kids, when they ask have said, yeah, this is great. I'd rather do this than at the school every day and have to deal with the teacher who doesn't really like me, who never calls on me when a, my hand or a teacher just assumes, I don't know anything cuz you know, they hear, you know, because they hear me speak more Spanish and English kinds of things. Right. So I think we have to think about what was normal. Wasn't really normal. I mean, unless you like this topian types of situations like going to school, I mean that's all that, that's, that's my take on in anyway. Speaker 2 00:03:42 <laugh> yeah. It, it, you know, it in and not surprising, uh, Delmar mentioned, we're gonna try to cover as many things as possible. And I think you, you brought up most of them in the first question, which is awesome. Speaker 1 00:03:54 Um, Speaker 2 00:03:55 So no, but, but in the reality is, is we, we never pretend to try to, to be the expert in, in any of this, right. What we want to do is encourage conversation to dialogue and, and hopefully for our listeners to be able to take away, uh, from it, learn something, maybe do some additional research, all of those kinds of things. That's really, uh, kind of what we're, we're here to do. Um, that said, I am gonna you a little on the hot seat. It's not that hot really. Um, and, and, and just say, I mean, you brought up so many, so many challenges, right? And honestly this podcast got it. Start from Delmar and I, and some others really talking about the need for a lot of things to change in, in education. Delmar's a high school teacher has been for more than 15 years. You know, I I've been working in and around, uh, young people for, for that long, if not longer, the reality is there are a lot of things broken. You just highlighted. So let me just allow you to, to maybe go deep on what you think Donald or co Donald Earl Collins to, to, to, what do we need to do to maybe solve one of those? What is it that we kind of need to, you know, take from your lead here and, and kind of see what we can do to improve, Speaker 1 00:05:08 Uh, you know, this is something I talk about a lot in my, in my education classes, whether undergrad over the years, or in, you know, previous iterations, um, with grad courses, what do we do? Well, you have to understand that education's just one institution, one system in a larger system known as the American society and American society has all these gaps and issues in inequalities. Right? You know, if you have all these inequalities, Eric, if you have all these inequalities Delmar, you can't expect schools to solve the problem. The super teacher to swoop in somehow change, change the lives of young people so that they go on to do whatever they're doing well, that doesn't work. If they're still hungry, right. That doesn't work. If they're still dealing with trauma because there's, their neighborhood has a relatively high crime rate and they actually know people who've been shot and killed, right. Speaker 1 00:06:00 Actually seen some of this in, you know, in their own lifetime. So really it's not just up to education, but if you just wanna deal with one problem, which is mental health, <laugh>, you know, there are simple ways to deal with this. So one of them is to not use schools as a, as a billionaires, Phil philanthropic experiment every three to five years so that they can, so that we do more testing, more time teachers to test time students, to test, to see how well they're achieving to close an achievement gap. I didn't know that that was the best way to close an achievement gap is to basically test people more, right? I thought the best way to <laugh> maybe, maybe you work with them on their weaknesses so that their weaknesses become strengths over time. Maybe sometimes less is more, maybe less testy is necessary, right? Speaker 1 00:06:50 This, all this high stakes testing and putting teachers under the putting on, of true hot seat where their jobs are on the line every year, if they don't get students scores up, even though all the research shows that they can't really get, um, students scores up that would help with the mental health a bit, I would think it won't solve all the problems, but that's a start, right? If you're just dealing with that one issue alone, right. When you're not constantly testing students all the time and using diagnostic tests, by the way, which are supposed to diagnose where the gaps are. Right. Not right. Calling them standardized tests to basically try to show that students have achieved more over time. We have a nutty system when it comes to these <laugh> freaking nutty. I mean, seriously. I mean, <inaudible>, you've been teach you just, you know what, this is like teaching me. Right. I mean, so it Speaker 0 00:07:43 Looks definitely <laugh>, Speaker 1 00:07:44 You know, does that help your mental health at all? I mean, I mean, I'm just, I'm asking a serious question. You're Speaker 0 00:07:50 You're 100% correct. I mean, man, that is 100% correct. I mean, the kinda piggyback condo of what you, what you, what you're saying there, like, that's kinda been the, the emphasis for probably the past 20 years now, at least, you know, since we brought in this whole, uh, what is the high stakes testing that we brought to our leg legislation? Speaker 1 00:08:14 Yeah. No child gets ahead. Right. I think that's what it's called, right? Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, I mean, think about it. If you have all those stressors, how well can you possibly learn? How well can you possibly teach? How well can you be feeling? How can you feel okay. In a system that basically has you under the gun all the time. Right. You know, maybe that's part of, one of the stressors that causes students to act out in ways where you over police them. Right. Maybe that, you know, maybe we changed that up a bit, you know, I'm not saying it would get back, you know, get back to some normalcy, but that would be, that would be helpful. That's a start, you know? Speaker 2 00:08:58 Yeah, yeah. You know, we're gonna get a little bit more into, to some of the, uh, that aspect of it here in, in a bit, but you know, it's funny and not so funny, honestly, uh, you mentioned mental health and, and, and the importance of that. And yet almost every night on any local newscast, um, you can not hear about mental health and how the local school board is trying to tackle that in, in, in, instead they're talking about lots of other devices, issues like critical race theory. Um, we Delma and I in preparing, uh, for this, uh, episode, uh, read your recent article on Al Jazeera around critical race theory in particular, um, just, you know, how scary it's been and how divisive it's been and, and, and so on and so forth. And, and one of the things before you kind of give us some thoughts there, um, help us even understand what is meant by critical race theory. Because I think a lot of folks don't even really understand it. Speaker 1 00:10:07 Well, a lot of, well, thank you for asking me that question. I think a lot of folks don't understand it because, well, you're not supposed to understand it. It's kind of high level fear, right? I mean, <laugh> right. I mean, no one asks people to understand like quantum theory, right? Quantum, quantum mechanics, and quantum, and the quantum universe that goes with it, right. Quantum physics, right. You don't ask people, what are the 248 different, um, vector particles there are within the quantum world, right? As part of theory, don't do that. Right. Cause you know, the average, person's not gonna know that. I mean, seriously, no, one's gonna know that. So why would you expect something that is taught mostly in law schools? Mostly in upper level. I mean like, like senior thesis level courses and so geology and history in other fields to be something that everyone will know about. Speaker 1 00:11:02 That's why it's a scam. That's why it's a freaking scam. When you think about what these legislatures and school districts are doing and banning books and, you know, saying, we don't want to hear the word race and racism come up, don't teach this stuff. They're not talking about critical race. They're, you're talking black history. They're talking about black history and culture. They're talking about the histories of people, of Americans, of color across the country. And the, the fact that a lot of these school boards don't wanna upset. The, as I say, in another piece that I've been working on the Jackson Jills of the country and their parents over, oh my God, they were upset. They're learning about the impact of racism on their classmates for the first time in their lives. You know, my point really is that gee put the, put the shoe on the other foot here for a second. Speaker 1 00:11:49 What do you think it's like for a black kid to learn about racism for the first time in school? What do you think it's the first, you know, you know, when you learn as a, um, woman of color or excuse me, a girl of color or, um, or even the white girl, you know, in the elementary school debt, you won't be called on nearly as much over time because you know, sexism, right. You know, these are traumatic events for students who are marginalized. So a student, so a student who has privilege can't afford to learn about, you know, this sort of stuff too. Now there are ways there are better ways to kind of teach this stuff, right. There are ways to teach this so that it can't be as traumatizing, but it should be uncomfortable. How do people learn? Do people learn what everything feels good all the time? Speaker 1 00:12:34 Do you learn how to <laugh>? Do you learn how to catch a football or throw a football or knock someone on their butt playing football by just simply, you know? Oh yeah, that was an okay throw was five yards away from where you're trying to go with it, but it's okay. No, you gotta be, you gotta get better at this. And sometimes that means trauma. Sometimes that means discomfort, right? And these are ugly things to learn about American society, by the way. So the critical race theory thing is literally just a catchall phrase, curated by the heritage foundation, as part of a larger campaign to undermine public schools, you can look this up. This is the, this is not conspiracy theory. There are plenty of articles about it. <laugh> you wanna dive down a rabbit hole? Go ahead. But my point is, is that, you know, they've all they've, this is a well crafted far right push to basically make public schools look like an enemy because their ultimate goals to destroy public schools, you know, to bring in more enough charter schools, enough private entities, particularly private religious, meaning Christian, in this case entities to basically replace the public schools that we have. Speaker 1 00:13:45 And all of these efforts, when you're talking about, don't say gay, when you're talking about critical race theory, they're about that larger issue. They don't care if the kids are trauma or passing legislation to traumatized kids who, you know, kids who are queer, what's going on is they just passed pieces of legislation in Alabama around all of this. So, you know, that's not this nothing to do with critical race, or we still have to deal with the reality that that's what people think that this part of this is, is, but it's not about that. It's about, you know, being able to teach histories, heritages cultures that make other people, particularly white folks uncomfortable. <laugh>, you know, I mean, am I right or wrong on, I mean, that's how I, I mean, I mean, I have people come after me saying I'm anti patriotic, but other than that, am I wrong? <laugh> well, Speaker 0 00:14:40 Here's, here's kinda what I, you know, you saying all that, what I really kind of boiled this down to is really, we should be, you know, even with your first statements, we should be teaching young people to think. Right, right. And that's, that's it at the end of the day that, you know, truth is truth. And we, we can draw truth out of things if we teach kids to teach logically or to think logically rather. So that's kind of, you know, the, and that's, that should be the impetus of, of education in general. And, you know, kind of thinking about, you know, what we were talking about earlier, you had mentioned, uh, you know, around the testing and things. Uh, you know, one of the challenges facing us today has been around or us as teachers is the function of great and evaluation. And we've had many attempts and measures to measure student achievement and learning accurately. But, but what are your thoughts on some of the practices when it comes to grading and assessments? Speaker 1 00:15:44 Um, well, I've, I've gotten to the point. I, I mean, I've always hated grading. I can tell you that whether I was 21, uh, 22 years old as a TA in graduate school, teaching sections of us history are now at 52. <laugh> right. Teaching my 98th course. Um, which is actually true. <laugh> I met 96, 97, 98. This semester I'll hit 100 this summer. Um, <affirmative> it's dubious. Thank you though. <laugh> <laugh> right. Um, it's also, you know, it's kinda like, why am I doing this? What does this pur, what purpose does it serve? It doesn't really tell me what students have learned. I tell students this all the time, but students are so wrapped up in their grade, oftentimes that, you know, if it's an, if it's anything other than an a, I mean, an a not even an a minus, just if it's not an a right, they're, they're, they're finding feelings in themselves. They're finally find finding things about B that, well, you're not the perfect professor either. You're arrogant. You expect this to know this stuff. I'm like, well, that's kind of my job, right. <laugh> not the arrogant part, but then make sure you know, this stuff Speaker 0 00:16:57 Know. Speaker 1 00:16:57 Yeah. And by the way that I should know this stuff, what I'm I was I supposed to go? I'm not sure about anything that I'm teaching. So let me just throw it out here and see if you like it or not. No, that's not how this works. Right. Years learning all this stuff. So I've tried to impart it to you. So you don't, you'll have to spend years learning this stuff either. Right. <laugh> I mean, get paid for. So anyway, my point is, is that, I mean, one of the things I've learned over the years is that the grading system that most of us still have forget about from the moment the, um, you know, the newest of grading systems, which I'll talk, which I think you're gonna asked me about later, but just in general, the, a, the F or a, the E grading system has only been around since the mid 1930s. Did you know that Speaker 0 00:17:45 I've had many of conversations around Speaker 1 00:17:49 This, but most people think it's been around forever. You know, this forever thing that people love to say it's been around that long. Right. You know, there are ways to grade people and there's still there's schools that still do this, not public schools, private schools do this university of California, Santa Cruz for a time. Did this, I don't know if they still do or not, but there's qualitative grading where you literally write out what the student did. Well, what the student needs to prove on the student, um, prove, did improve on over the course of their time in your course, you know, their writing skills, those sorts of things. Right. You know, it's not just, did they beat some standard. It's literally just you as a teacher, giving a qualitative evaluation of each and every individual student in that course, maybe it's three sentences. Maybe it's a full paragraph, but some sort of evaluation that says this student actually learns something. Speaker 1 00:18:39 There that's a, that's what lots of schools used to do until we got caught up in grading. And then with high stakes testing and everything else that's come on. Since the mid 1990s, we've gotten to the point where, okay, how do we make people more comfortable with graining? I mean, we know, I mean, I don't know if you guys remember what Montgomery county tried to do with K K through five, um, a few years back, we, with this, this assessment, which I called E P, which is actually known as E S P I N, where <laugh> right. Where you had this, these levels of grading, which wasn't tied to a, B, C, D, E, or F or whatever combination they were using. So you had to basically be, you know, proficient was one level, you know, you know, sort the, I was basically average. I forget what I means E was for excellent or exceeding expectations. Speaker 1 00:19:34 Exceeding proficient. Last I checked proficient means that you have a certain degree of mastery, the materials to begin with. So how do you exceed proficient? How many grade levels do you have to be above to <laugh>, you know, to exceed proficient at this point. It right. And bye, by as a greater proficient means a, B or B plus student, that's pretty good. I feel pretty good about that, but no, we gotta have a system that has to have exceed so that 12% of students can feel like that they're gifted. Right. And <laugh>, I, I have lots of problems with grading, but the main thing, I have problems with this. So tied to testing these days, that it, um, it almost becomes like you're creating an artificial bubble of competition that you need not create, right. Students can compete with each other without you creating all these other wonderfully ways to like evaluate, right? Speaker 1 00:20:36 Yeah. So I think we need more qualitative types of approaches and less quantitative types of approaches. We, you know, we have at this point, reams and reams and meaningless data, right. That tell us that what we already know, they tell us what we already know. That's the main problem with the data. Doesn't tell us anything different. It's not like all of a sudden you figure it out. Hey, Don borrow, you can be a better teacher. If you do X, Y, and Z, you can't get that from the data and that Eric and I from just from grading, you can get an evaluate. You can't get that from the qual, the quantitative data that's out there. Speaker 0 00:21:11 Right. Speaker 1 00:21:12 Not really. They think they can, but <laugh> so, Speaker 0 00:21:15 Yeah, but not, not adequately to, to be able to, to really, you know, put, put your thumb on the, oh, this, this right here is where, you know, and I get it. I get it. So kinda to piggyback off of that, man, uh, you know, one, one of these shifts that that's been occurring is the standards based grading. That's kinda one of the big pushes right now. And it's been kinda, it's been one of those gradual waves. And I think once the, the shutdown happened, you know, it kinda lost a little momentum, but I think it's starting to come back now. Like, do you believe this is an answer to increase student mastery and why? Speaker 1 00:21:57 No, I don't. Um, I feel like, like, we, you, as you know, Eric, as, you know, Delmar schools go through three to five year cycles of trying different things, let's try this, let's try this. Cuz. And parents generally in most public school systems, these days pretty much agree with whatever school initially tries, cuz whatever will work to get my kid to be better at school, they're willing to go with it until they, it shows it won't work. And they're like, oh my God, this crap doesn't work. Let's get rid of it, try something else. And then there comes a, another new set of things. Yeah, no, it doesn't work. And here's why it would be different if it was just a diagnostic tool. If you were using 1, 2, 3, and four to show levels of mastery and you know, as a diagnostic tool, fine. But if you're gonna tie it again to testing, to are in evaluations, through testing, to evaluation of teachers, through testing as students, then no, it's not a good tool because again, you're creating the same situation that you're creating with just a BS and C's and D's and E's or Fs as the case, maybe same thing with EES, P I N, and Montgomery county between 2013 and or between 2013 and 2018. Speaker 1 00:23:12 Right. And in other cases, what you're creating is a system where, because you are tying it to testing because you're tying this to the larger theme of, you know, trying to make, make sure that, you know, you, you know, that evaluating that are essentially, if a student doesn't achieve mastery, you essentially blaming them for not achieving mastery. And again, we're talking mastery, we're not talking, do they understand the concept, but have occasional trouble calculating the answer because even though they might understand the, and like the larger processes along division, they just sometimes put down the number three instead of four, right. Students do these kinds of things. Does that people understand the concept? Yeah. Yeah. That goes that in that there. Yeah. Yeah. It's so kinda like, wait a minute. Speaker 1 00:24:06 No, no. This is the, the problem is we're constantly using diagnostic processes to try to do formative and summative evaluations and assessments of students. Right. And you, and if you're doing, if, I mean, let's put this way, if you know somebody with say DYS dyslexia, the first thing you do would be, Hey, let's turn that into a test so that they can overcome dyslexia. Of course you would. You know why? Cause that's a process, that's a process. You don't just, you know, go well, Peter didn't overcome dyslexia in six months. So there's a gap issue, right? No, that's something that you work on of somebody until they can over until they can figure out a coping mechanism for themselves in order to deal with the fact that they sometimes don't process letters in a way that, you know, most people are able to, right. You don't do that with this, but you're trying to do yes. Speaker 1 00:25:05 You can have a stand standard around mastery. I mean, we can talk about why the standards themselves are flawed in a minute, but you can have standards around mastery. Right. But the ultimate goal is to help students get to the point where they can walk that path themselves without you, you know, without intervention. And so that means we're working with students in a more directive way, you know, whether it's with reading or with math or, you know, other ways to help them get to that point, but not to just test them on it. I mean, you know, that's the problem I have with that. Speaker 2 00:25:42 So I have a, a quick question as we were coming on here, you were that you were grading. Um, right. And, and so I rec I, I expect, I imagine that you have to turn in grades, uh, uh, that are in the, a, B, C, D, whatever. That's my assumption. You can tell me in a moment I'm wrong. My question is with all this you've said about assessing the students and, and, and how to, to quote unquote grade them, what is it that you're doing? And then do you have to then put it in, you know, after you've assessed, how somebody's doing, do you then convert it to this kind of structure that maybe you don't agree with? Speaker 1 00:26:26 Absolutely. Eric, I absolutely do have that. A, I do have to have the, I mean, this sort of, um, conversation with myself about what my universities expect from me and what I'm actually doing. One of the things I adopted about four or five years ago, at least when I teach at American university is UN grading. Um, it's a process, um, by, uh, that I've been thinking about doing for years and my other university, university of Maryland global campus, they won't let me do it. So I'm stopped using their rubrics and their methodologies for doing things. Right. I hate it <laugh>, but I can't, but there's something I can do about it, but where I can do stuff is with UNC graining. And this is, um, the person who's the real guru for this at the university levels, Jesse Stone, um, S T O M L M, excuse me, S T O M M E L Jesse. Speaker 1 00:27:22 Um, he, um, basically started implementing it in his classrooms about 10 or 15 years ago. And it's made so much, it's made so much of a difference in terms of his own teaching. I've been thinking about doing this without reading his stuff first, right? Cuz I've been thinking about this because I knew teachers who ungraded too as early as 2012, but there was no way I could get it in. Once I started teaching AAU, American university has started using it and it's mostly had really, really good results. And the idea here is simple. It's a 360 degree process of students do some self evaluation over the course of semester to write reflections on what they've learned, including personal reflections about what they've learned and whether it had any impact on them. Uh, I, you know, I do qualitative evaluations of papers of projects that do project work and give them back to them so that they can work to improve on those things. Speaker 1 00:28:17 So it's not just, here's a paper, here's a grade, that's it, here's a paper. Here's a, here's my assessment of it to go back and try to do this again, you know, using what I've actually asked you to do, right? So it's not six papers. You might get one or two papers a semester and you have one project and that's it. And then, you know, if you're working on, you know, second drafts and third drafts or things, you're trying to implement the things that I'm, and there's peer review as part of this process. So your peers get to reach your stuff too. And, you know, give you feedback on it as well, reach your projects or watch your projects as the case. I mean, give you assessments on that as well. And so the whole process is meant, so that by the time I sit down and give you a grant, I don't have much of a choice, but to, if you do everything, your probably gonna get an era a minus, right? Speaker 1 00:29:07 So in terms of how I translate, cause I'm not looking at well, if you're a really, really great student here is Annette. Some of that's true, great students will do well, regardless of what format you use. But if you have students who are improving over the course this semester, even if they don't initially understand what's going on, how can I not give them an, a RNA minds? How can I not assign them a higher grade? Because they've done the work right. And they've improved tremendously. And so that point that, that, you know, when it has worked, it has worked well. Right. <laugh> very, very well. Um, some students don't buy in and that's, and that's an issue at the college. It's particularly an issue cuz they're adults, you know, some extent if you don't buy in, that's up to you. I mean, I can't make you buy in, but if you don't buy in, there are consequences. Speaker 1 00:29:57 Right. So one of those is that, did they improve of course of SVE? No. Did they do all the work they were supposed to do? No. Did they heed my recommendations to suggestions for what they could do to improve? Nope. Well, that's not a, a or a bias. It's something else. Maybe a, B plus, maybe a B you know, depending on what they did naming some cases it's even lower than that. But for the most part, most of my students, well under this kind of thing, as long as they buy in, right? Yeah. And some of them won't because they're still tied to this, I water there. They I'm like wake up. It's not about a it's about learning. Speaker 0 00:30:35 Yeah. Speaker 1 00:30:36 So that's what I do to try to try to accommodate that. It's more initially, but by the time I get to the final stages, I'm not tearing my hair out reading stuff because I know the students made a lot of improvement in most cases. So, you know, that's how I look. That's try. That's how I try to deal with it. Anyway. I mean, have you, I'm assuming both of, you've heard of UN grading as a method. Oh Speaker 2 00:31:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, Speaker 1 00:31:02 Yeah, Speaker 0 00:31:02 Yeah. Yep. Well, cool man. Well, thanks a lot, Donald man. We've had a great time. This has been some great discussion and man, it's, it's given some pause and reflection even for myself there in regards to, to some of the stuff, which, which is always good to have. So yeah, man, we really appreciate your thoughts and your, your I'll here today. Speaker 1 00:31:24 Well, thank you for having me and thank you for the questions. I mean, it, listen, you know, after the year that we've had with yoyo, you know, education between being online, being in person mask this week, no mask this week mask again, you know, a, you just went back to mask band date yesterday after a month telling us we could wear, we could walk around without wearing masks. I'm like, I, I never took my masks off. What are you talking <laugh> but anyway, right. So yeah, especially after this year, it's good to know that, you know, okay. I'm not crazy. The, the things I've been doing are actually normal things to be doing as a, as a teachers, an educator. So it's good to know that. And if nothing else <laugh> Speaker 2 00:32:08 No, it, it, we, we, we greatly appreciate it, Donald. Thanks for the time. And, um, man, there's a lot here that we can uncover and, and actually probably need to, to schedule a part two at some point because it there's some areas here that definitely deserve more time. Speaker 1 00:32:25 Okay. Well, it sounds great to me. Speaker 2 00:32:27 All right. Thanks so much. Speaker 1 00:32:28 Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Delmore.