Fiction: Transformative Power in the Imagined Realm

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back. Denzel Washington, welcome to inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Doctor Andy, how are you doing. I am doing great, deceeeding. It's great to talk with you. Hey, it's great to have you on the show. I love to hear this story about how as I'm interviewing people, how they actually got to the point they are where they've decided to write a book, or they're doing things to help other people. And in your case, you're really helping kids. So I'd love for you to share with the audience you know a little bit about yourself, and don't be shy. You know the achievements that you've done and how you've reached this point to where you're looking to really help these kids and writing your book. I appreciate the opportunity to do that

1:32 well. I am a longtime educator, having dedicated my life to children for forty years as a teacher, a college professor, and a school leader. In fact, twenty eight of those years I ran school districts in Southwest Ohio, where I'm from, and throughout all of that career I worked really hard to try to make sure I put kids first in every decision we made, from the financial choices we made to how we chose curriculum to whatever was going to work out best for kids. I was pretty lucky I got. I won several state national awards for my work. I was especially always interested in literacy. That was my primary concern because I strongly believe that if we can get kids on the roads to to read read correctly early, most everything else kind of works out in the long line. So that's always been a passion of mine. In fact, it's continued to be a passion even beyond, uh, beyond my retirement a couple of years ago. So I transitioned very easily from that to the idea of telling some stories. And and this, in fact, we're talking about my fifth published novel, and all of my novels are all featured teachers as heroes. I don't think that story gets told enough. And all of my real life heroes have always been teachers. So I thought, if I'm going to create craft fiction, then the heroes of those stories should be very much like the teachers and the administrators that I worked

3:07 with over forty years. And that's how I got to the books, the books that we're talking about today. Okay, And you know it's interesting as you're talking about that, something's come to my mind. Yesterday I got a call from one of my sons, and I'm very very focused on education for kids, and he had called me. He's got some very young children and he's saying, Dad, you know what, trying to figure out the school district, what's going to be best for them. And we had a long chat about that because when they were young, I actually put them in the Montsori School and one of the things that is I've looked at education and learning and how kids learn. One of the things that I've realized is that they all have different learning styles. In particular. I'm sure you're so aware of this. I had one son that was very much a spatial visual learner.

4:03 But because he was spatial, they were all saying, well, you know, he's got add and so on and so forth. I got a kind of on medication and that, and It's like, no, that's not going to happen, but I'm going to I bought him a palm pilot and he was able to focus on a pump pilot. He took that to school. I let all the teachers know, you know what, control them with that pom pilot, which sometimes they found difficult. But I said, but he's going to use that, and you know, it made the biggest difference for him to get through school. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit because we're in to talk you know a lot about children, how are they learning? Sometimes they're getting involved with drugs. I mean, you see all of these things going on. What's your experience as far as learning styles and how on earth do teachers who are kind of given a curriculum to teach, get to the point where they can be focused on each of those children individually and somehow make sure that their learning styles are being met. That's a very That's an excellent question, Doug, and it points out how really actually challenging the job of teaching is most people have no idea what kinds of skills, what kind of strategies to kind of knowledge. A teacher has to have to be a fourth grade teacher, for example, and be sitting in a room with twenty five kids of which there are at least four or five different learning styles sitting in front of her, and it has to for him and have to be able to sort out and figure out how to make that work.

5:35 The best teachers I knew did that. I'm not sure that any of them did it with ease, but they made it look easy because they were both that knowledgeable. So the answer to your question, I think is, first you have to have teachers who really know their stuff. If you're reading teacher, you have to really know how to teach reading. If you're a math teacher, you have to love math, know the different ways that kids can learn to math, and that everybody doesn't learn math the same way, so you have to know that subject. The second thing is that you do have to be knowledgeable about different ways to reach kids. Teachers are getting better to that. When I went to school, here's an example. When I went to school, you read a both papers to write a book report.

6:16 Well, my granddaughter is doing something similar. In this case. They were reading Macbeth, but instead of doing a report on McBeth, they had like fifteen different ways that they could give evidence of what they learned from Macbeth. They could do a reality show, they could do a commercial, they could do a power point. You know. So teachers are starting to recognize all of that. I have, however, left out the single most important thing, and that is it has to It matters a great deal that kids understand you care about them. You know. They were saying and averything that kids don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. The best teachers I worked with were ones that went home at night agonizing over why didn't I get that last kid he needed to be He came home at night trying to figure out, well, what else can I do to reach these kids? Because they cared about the fact that. As I told my teachers many times, I said, you understand that for thirty of these kids sitting in front of you, the work that you do, maybe that may mean the difference between a life in prison or a life that's productive in society because they don't have the family support that they need. So we need to provide that for them. Here I saw many teachers work that magic over and over again. But it's very hard work, and it's very skilled work, and that's often overlooked today. So where did you teach? I actually started teaching in a small school in rural Ohio. I'm I'm from Ohio. I'm from

7:46 Okay. People that know that I'm from southwest Ohio, now close to Cincinnati. I grew up in Cincinnati, but this is actually about one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty miles from that in a very rural school. I grew up in the city. For rural school, I had kids that came off the farm, came into my classrooms to work, you know. So it was a very different experience. And I and but since then, my experiences have included urban center, urban areas, rural areas of suburbs, kind of the whole range I've had to present to work with over those forty years. Well, and you know, it's interesting my kids grew up in different states. California was one of them. I know it was another one, uh and in Utah. But what I find interesting is there's so much controversy going on right now with schools and with curriculum, and you know, you you commented about the teachers how they really need to be focused and really prepared on doing that. What what is your thought And I'm asking you some questions that are way out of line, maybe, but what are your thoughts about the controversy that's going on right now about the school the curriculum, the teachers, that type of thing. I think, first of well, I want to put a caveat out. I've been retired for ten years, so I am not merely as knowledgeable as involved in the day to day happenings of the schools as I used to be. I'm pretty much like everybody else watching what comes what we learned about from the news. But I will be honest,

9:18 I'm very very concerned some of the controversy, for lack of a better term, that are up now. The same thing occurred when I was in school, and what I found in many, many of those cases the people who were pushing a particular agenda. It wasn't really about kids at all. They had a particular point of view that they wanted to make sure got got across. And I know this makes sund you and I'm not saying this about the current individual, but I had people who did that, who didn't even have kids in the schools, but they thought that they knew better than what everyone else. Here's my answer to everybody else when they asked me this question, I'm going, look, when did we think politicians have a better idea of books that should be in the library and somebody who spent their entire life learning how to choose books for kids to go in the library, or teachers who are teaching kids and they have a bachelor's and a master's degree knowing how to teach readings. It amazes me that we think we can trade those responsibilities to somebody that really they don't have any real knowledge. They simply come from a particular point of view that they're trying to press. When I was in school, when I was in charge and was able to make decisions, we tried really hard not to jump to any of those screenings that went one way or the other. I had a couple of rules. The first rule is that whatever curriculum that we would put in place had to be based on scientific devities.

10:50 Does this math program work? We're not picking something because the salesman made a good deal. That happens. Know that's somebody else in this other place that's using it and they like it. Well, that we started with what the research says was going to work. And then the second one was is what we put in place is going to be good for kids as opposed to being easy for adults. There's a difference between those two. And that was off of a fight because teachers are overburdened like everybody else, and they don't like to take on harder tasks than they have to. I'm not critical of that. I understood that, but I said, well, first of all, our first responsibilities to the kids. You get to tell me, is this the best thing we can do for kids? Yeah? First does the research say we should be doing it? And then the second thing is if what's right for kids? So if you can do that, then I'll go back you through whatever else you has. So you know, you mentioned that particularly in urban areas and so forth, as you were working with kids, a lot of times they don't really get much parental support. But let's talk about them that You're right, Yeah, let's talk to the parents that really want to be able to support their children and yet they really don't know how.

12:03 Another interesting story for my family. You know, I've got four kids, so I get stories. But one of my sons we were talking and he says, Dad, he says, you won't believe it. He says, we were helping his daughter with some math problems and she was struggling, struggling, struggling. This happens to be the one son that was a spatial thinker. And he says, and finally I said, you know what, or he said to her, read the problem out loud, and so she did, and then he read it out loud to her and boom, she got it. And he said to me, Dad, she's I just realized she's an auditory learner. And so let's talk a little bit, if you're comfortable with it, let's talk about the different learning styles and hopefully helped the parents to understand that if their children or their child is struggling in school.

12:54 It may have something to do with the learning style they have versus the teaching style that they're experiencing. And then I definitely want to get into your book. Well that's fine. Well I think yeah, and I think you've left off you left out one part of the equationment. It also may be the difference between the learning style that the parent sees the world through and the learning style the child sees the world through, because be honest, we assume everybody sees things the way we do. That's just kind of the natural, so they have to kind of learn it. I think the first thing I would do to try to ease parents' anxiety is they have to be there for their kids. That means setting boundaries. You know, I have a friend, here's her rule, walk in the walk in the door. The cell phone goes in this basket, it doesn't get touched again until homework's done. All the red. So I think those kinds of things, especially today where they are so dog on any distractions, I think that's really critical. The other the second thing I would like to say probably is the earlier they can get involved, the better. There is tremendous research about if you can start with kids and read the kids even before they're in school. You can make a tremendous improvement on their trajectory and learning as they go later. I'm involved with my own community. I don't know if you know about this in California, but it's called Dolly Parton's Imagination Libraries, and Dolly Parton is the one who

14:28 funds this, and she and she partners with community organizations and in the community I'm in, which is a community it's called Retay. We have put for five years, maybe eight years now, we put a book in the hands of every child at when they get born, at a book a month from their birth until they're fifth five years old. The remarkable program and and that I had where we live in Greek Couny. There's a sizeable portion of very poor people who would not be spending their disposal income or in many cases wouldn't be able to spend a disposal income on books. But it's incredibly value. So I think part of my answer is if you can do that early, then you'll make lots of things. You will cut down problems that will happen late. However, there may be people listen to this and their kid is already in fourth grade or third grade or you know, so they shouldn't feel guilty, but they need to be there for their kids. And I think if they can figure out what their child's learning style is, that okay.

15:37 The other option is that the experts say that even if your preferred learning style is one style, it is best to help kids be able to learn through multiple learning styles. So if I'm hoping helping my kid with school, I would suggest to do exactly what your son did. I'm helping her study for the tests I did X. That didn't work, then try why try try a different approach. If try quiz game instead of something remote. If that doesn't work, try a flash cards because every kid's going to have a kind of different respect. But I think the key is that the kid has to know the parents invested. You know, the kid has to know that mom and dad, mom or dad or one or the other is there for me, and mom and dad are communicating to me. This is important what I have seen because I have worked with kids from rural backgrounds, work with kids from urban backgrounds, from suburban backgrounds with great parent support, with poor suparent support, the best of all outcomes occurred when the kids got the message when the parents at school was important, this is your job. You know what my job is. I gotta do blah blah blah. This is your job, This is your responsibility, this is my responsibility. When kids get that message, then then things like I don't like that subject or it's too much work. It kind of cuts through all that and goes, hey, I've

17:08 got to do stuff in my work I don't like to do either. Let's get the homework done and we'll move on to the next one. I think that can make a huge difference, and the research says that that would really push a long way for kids to be able to get where they need to be well. And you know what's interesting, I think that so many times we look at our children's future and how how are they going to experience life in the future as adults, and I think we don't realize how much those school experiences can affect that. You know, I've got some brothers that have gone to major advanced degrees, including myself. I've got one brother that, you know, I think went for a year college and didn't work brilliant, extremely successful, And what I recognized was that it had to do with parents being able to make sure that they don't get the sense that I'm I'm not smart, I'm not able to do this. Yeah, the parents recognize they have to they have to convey to the COVAD of their son or daughter, you can do this. I believe in you this, I understand that this is something that you can you can you can accomplish. Go ahead and say that again. It's it's important that the parents are able to say to their son or daughter, I believe in you. I know you can do this.

18:38 I know it's hard. The best things in life are hard, the best accomplishments are hard. But I believe that you've got it in you you can do that well. And you know, one of the things that I'm experiencing in and I've seen is that so often, in fact, I've made this statement and I don't know scientifically how truth it says. Someone can back this up. But I notice a lot of these kids that are quote add and all of these types of things, they actually have a higher IQ level. They're actually much very smart. And because of that, depending on what happens to be whether they're a spatial type of thinker, they observe things that most kids don't observe, and because of that they're identified as ADD when in fact they're just really smart kids. They have a spatial type of learning.

19:29 Well, I can tell you from my experience that way too often some educators used ADD as a write office far more than should have been the case. For whatever, for bad behavior. And yes the research, does the research say the kids with ADD have a higher academic No, but there are just so many kids with ADD that have higher achievement possibilities as there are the kids without ADD. So the ADD is not a factor that has any limitation on that. If we can simply get the true true some dy's get to let's get to your book Cruel Lessons. Talk a little bit about what motivated to you to write that one, and what are some of the things that you're trying to teach? Well, what I all of the books that First of all, I mentioned that all the books that I write, This is my fifth novel being published by this company, and they're all about school. They're all featured teachers as heroes, and they all try to focus on a serious issue that we are struggling with as a culture. I happen to choose to set this particular book in the nineties. In fact, the book is actually set in fall of nineteen ninety five. That's a deliberate choice for several different reasons, but part of it has to do with what I'm trying to focus

21:02 on. So the story, basically, the story is very The story is about a It's about an elucidic drug that's being peddled to middle school and a couple of kids get ahold of the drug. They're going a joy ride and crash in this very small town, and there's four kids that die in a small town town's never had four kids die ever. So the town is traumatized and is calling for somebody's head. Who's the comfortable, So the school district works with the police department and try to track down who's pushing drugs into first the war school and then into the middle school. My goal here is besides telling a good story, and I shouldn't stop. I should not neglect the fact that the reviewers have loved them. The first reviewer said this is the best thriller I have ever read. That's from a group called a perfect professional reviewer called nmm oookayment called the reader's view readers can see this on my website to look it up. Said, this is one of the best mysteries of twenty twenty three, so it's a very good read. But behind the read, behind the fund, behind the who done it, behind the mystery, I'm trying to tell a really serious tale about the dangers of kids experimenting with drugs. I chose nineteen ninety five for a couple of reasons. I happened to know that that was a time when school did a very poor job of creating programs that had any ability to keep kids on drugs. So if I'm

22:33 dating myself here, but in nineteen ninety five, the two programs we were using was Just Say No, their program, and we have since learned that those two programs had virtually no effect on diminishing kids' experimentation with drugs. The Their Program had positive effects for student and police interaction but didn't change their drug habits, and Just Say No had no effect. So I was trying to kind of cast the store were in that context, and I wanted to use the past instead of getting into the politics and the partisan thing about what's happening presently. But I wanted to use the past as a metaphor for what's going on now. My concern is that the issue today is far more serious, far more dangerous than what I portray in my book. I mean, these kids just this is a there's no real drug. I made it up.

23:25 So it's a little bit similar to LSD that you get a hold of, and it's dangerous, but it's not terribly dangerous. Today kids could take one one dose of fentanyl and die. I mean, that's a staggering issue that we've never dealt I never dealt with when I was in school. So I'm trying to use the story here to at least elevate the issue to be talking about. And I'm so serious about it that I part with this book, I've partnered with a national drug prevention program for youth called Natural Hide, and a portion of every of the profits of every book is going to this particular group. And the really, the reason I really love this group is their goal. They make scientifically based resources for teachers and students to use to talk with kids about drugs, and they don't charge teachers or parents anything, so it's a free service. So everything is of course does are a nonprofit.

24:22 You know, it's done by Foundation stuff. So I'm really excited about that kind of combination. It helps, It helps with the message that I'm trying to get across. Well. And you know, you talk about a story, and so many books are written non fiction, you know, their their nonfiction stories, and those books are really tough to get through. And yes, you might get the points that they're trying to make, but you know, at least for me, I find that this I struggle. Whereas when you get into the fiction and the really fun fiction or the interesting and fascinating fiction, so many times as you're reading that, all of a sudden you're learning lessons life lessons. And as you think about cruel lessons, your book not not what would be the life lessons that you believe readers can achieve and understand, particularly in helping their children not only to be better students, but also to avoid the pitfalls of drugs. Everything in the book is about working with and communicating with kids. So in the book, what happens is that the kids who are experimenting with drugs are kids on the edge, not kids that are not very popular or troublemakers, you know, use whatever they're at risk, whatever label currently you like. To use and ought to way too

25:56 often in way too many places, those kinds of kids just get dismiths. Now I had his brother. You know what his brother was like. Man, that kid's not going to mount to anything. So I wanted the message to be that and in the story that the heroes in the story are incredibly moved by the fact that that lots of people don't care that these kids are dead. You know that that these are these were disposable children. So the issue is about caring about every kid and making sure that those kids know that they are they are valued, which then affects their decisions of doing risky behavior like experiment with a drug they never heard of before. So I think, I know that's not very I know I'm not putting that in a pithy language that I can put on a bumper sticker. But that's that's where I'm trying to go. And you know, my first goal is I'm a storyteller.

26:56 I'm telling an intriguing story. I'm telling a good who done it that will keep people captivated in the pages to try to figure out I think it's him, No, No, it's Arth No, okay. So I mean that's my nature I'm a storyteller, but I am hoping that maybe by two thirds or three four so they through the book, they'll have the aha moment and they'll get it. Oh, I get it. Okay, it's about why aren't we taking better care of these kinds of children? And how can we do something different so that this isn't replicated in my classroom tomorrow, or in my community tomorrow, or in my family. So would you say that the target audience for your book and gaining the greatest value out of that are teachers.

27:44 No, I mean teachers will enjoy it because one of the things that's different about this book than my other four books before this is all of the characters. All the characters are all scoopy. So there are teachers and custodians and secretaries and board members and superintendents and superten everybody that and a few parents. But everybody who interacts in a story are all are all educators. So all of the good guys and all the bad guys are all are all educators. You don't you have to figure out who's new. So, of course teachers will enjoy seeing that, but parents, virtually, anybody who's been through public school in America will recognize that, especially if they were in school in the nineties with a lot of you know, they will start to see, oh, I remember the teacher. Just in fact, I've already gotten some earlier views where people go that Chris was just like the teacher I had in seventh grade. So I think I'm hoping that there will be a lot of readers who see some of their lives echoed in some of the characters that they see in there. The book is there is nothing inappropriate for the books for students, but the books are really intended for adults, okay, and for those that are involved in education as well as parents. Have What value do the parents get out of this and how is it going to help them to really help their children? Well, I think though the greatest value, the first value that we have is it'll be a really good read. They're going to have a good several nights employment, and it will do some nice memory

29:18 taking back. Plus they will be able to see reflected in the attitude of what's happening in the school district, things that they would want to be talking about. What are my teachers like with my children? You know, is the teacher like Chris or is a teacher like station. Who's one that has my teacher do my teachers put my kids first, ahead of getting out of school early, ahead of getting my hair done, and all those other things that come into me. So I think they will get that as well. They're not going to learn about the current drug culture from anything in you, but I'm hoping even parents will see the one kid that ends up getting caught up in this is a really good kid that just happens to be in the wrong place at a wrong time. So I think part of that message will get the parents go, you need to be talking to your kids because this kid just happened to walk into this one spot at the one time, and as a result, he ended up being here you're talking to do exactly the same thing. You need to have that conversation with them ahead of time, which is really what the natural high that I'm partnering with, that's what they're all about. Don't wait till X have that conversation now. So you know, one of the things that you're talking about that really comes to my mind as you're talking about parents, and this is a tough one. How do parents hold teachers to a higher standard and help the teachers to achieve that standard

30:55 rather than getting into more of a difficult type of aggravated discussion affitational discussion. You mean, I think that is a very difficult question, and it is even made more difficult because parents' lives are even more complicated now than they were in nineteen ninety five. I mean the parents is that I worked with from I started in seventy two and I finished in twelve, So the parents I worked with all had complicated lives. I had a lot of parents that were single parents, but they were trying to work, often more than one job, trying to raise two kids, three kids, four kids, So the demands on them were very difficult. But I tried to tell them, even with all that, you still need to find a way to get positively involved with your school. Doesn't mean you volunteer a lot, it doesn't mean you are head of the PTA, none of those. But you need to find way to to show the school that that school matters to you, what your kids are doing matters to you. And if you can do that to the teacher, that opens up almost any kind of conversation with them, as a teacher knows that you're there for them. You're going to help the parent is going to help the teacher work with Jamie. Okay, and Jamie needs that

32:28 work. When the parent comes and goes, look, I got a question. This happened and how did that? Why did that occur? Is there something we should have done differently? The teacher's going to take that in a whole different way than if they've never met this parent. Parent comes in and you know, I had this happen many times, so this is not fictional parents, and this teacher had never met. The kid gets in trouble. Mom and dad comes in screaming saying, my kid would never do that. You know the number of times had parents come to me and go, my chi, I would never lie to me. And he said. The other person said, man, first of all, I got three wonderful kids. They've all lied to me. Okay, but maybe you're kidding better than mine.

33:10 I don't know, I said, but but we have five people that said, your son's starting to know. So if you can, if you can build a relationship first, then I think when you have questions and when you want to raise an issue, it's a whole lot easier than that. If you just go in and go Hey, I love that I've heard this too. You know, I pay your salary, so you better do what I tell you to do. That's not making it up now. And you know what, I think that that's such an important point is you know, we talk about how how essential communication between children and parents are, particularly in their ability to learn and deal with school, but we don't talk a lot about how important that communication and relationship level is between parents and the teacher.

34:01 And and I think you hit a good point being able to, you know, really develop a relationship with the teacher so that you can go in and say, hey, you know, my child's struggling and I'm wondering if if maybe they have a different, say different learning style, what are your thoughts, And all of a sudden that gives the teacher the ability to go, oh, you know what, maybe that's true, and maybe I need to focus a little bit differently with that child. So I think, you know, I appreciate what you say there because I think it's so important that as parents we actually get to know the teachers, which is not easy, particularly once you get into middle school and high school. It is not right now, and it has gotten the schools that made it easier in the sense that there are more ways that you can have a relationship. You can you can do a text back and forth, you can do an email back and forth.

34:55 And I don't want to give the impression that they got to become best friends. That's not heavily involved. They don't have to know them personally. They just have to have a relationship. Try to make the relationship there before any an issue that you just raised came up. You know. The other thing is, I will say this now now, Doug, I worked with thousands of teachers, and you can guess over forty years, and I would say ninety five percent of those teachers worked really hard and did the very best they could all the time we had our chat. Five or ten percent that that's not true, but mostly so. Now your parent that you're talking to will say, well, this is one of the ten percent, and they may be. I'm not dismissing that, but I would remind parents that in most cases the teachers were doing the very best they can, and it would help them to recognize that beforehand. So it's not like God, if they just gave it, if they just gave it, damn, then your kids wouldn't be in this situation that's not been my experience. That doesn't mean that your example is perfectly right. That this teacher may not have thought of trying a different learning approach with this kid. I'm not saying that that's not a good idea, but don't assume that that hasn't happened because they're too dumb, or too lazy, or none of those things. Most of the time, none of those things apply. So let's focus on this people involved in school.

36:28 And you say it's not only just the teachers, but it's the principles and all the other workers and everybody that's involved. What is your main message for them that comes out of this book. I have a line that I use in this book at least once, maybe twice, when the protagonist his name is Ken, is really frustrated because about giving too much away. There are people in the school district that want the problem to go away because it's making the school district look bad. Let's see that, And in great frustration, he says, you know, some of us forgot that we got into this job in the service of children. Almost all the mistakes that I've seen people in leadership make is because they have forgotten that fundamental lesson. Their focus is on money, not their own money, saving the district, or power or popularity or what or what the public is going to vote on the next It's not about you know. We did this to try to figure out the best way to serve children in this community. Is that what we're doing?

37:45 So if you're asking me for my advice, based on my forty years of experience, I would tell principal superintendent board members to ask themselves that question when they're confronted with a controversy or they're trying to deal with the serious decision that they're affecting the leadership of the schoodest the question they should ask is are we making this decision in the best interests of children? Are we remembering that we got it into this business and the service of kids? What about us? It's about them? And if the answer is yes, then go ahead with where're headed. If the answers, I don't know, and you better rethink your motives because you're probably on a wrong sid well. And I think that's a good message to end the show with. I love that. So I guess question number one, how did they find your book? The easiest way to find that book is to find the book is on my website. My website is simply author Randy Overbecker dot com. Can't be as simpler than that.

38:49 And on there it has any kind of any place they they want to purchase a book. There's a link to that to Amazon, Barnes and Noble and all those places. They also can contact me by email, which is just Randy Overbeck at authorandioirbeck dot com. They can catch me on Twitter. They can catch me on Instagram. On Facebook, it's author Andy over Beck. Instagram, it's author Andy over Beck. Any any of those things. I love communicating with my readers, or somebody who's just got a question that you have prompted them on this great interview. They may want to go that direction and throw a question at me. I'll be happy to talk with and for people who may not necessarily be involved anymore in you know, their kids are grown up and whatever, but they love fiction. Is this a book worth reading? Oh? I think well? And the answer of let me how about this here's on the front cover. It says masterly written, a gripping crime thriller and an amateur sloop mystery literary type Okay, so that's what I want to That's what I want folks to understand that. You know what, if you love reading fiction and mysteries, here's a great book that you can read and don't worry about the rest of it. Then for those that are involved with their kids in school and those that are involved as teachers and all of that, this is a great book that you need to read and really start to envelop that message and integrate that message into your life and into your teaching style. So, Randy, thank you so much for being on

40:22 the show. Doug, I am thrilled to be here. Thanks for the opportunity to tell my story and to share my two cents worth for what it's worth and get the word out about my new book. I appreciate it. Oh you bet, And folks, thanks for listening. Hope this has been a good message for you. Look forward to having you join us again soon