You know it's it's interesting. I was thinking last night. This is we're sitting here And this is the day that we all knew was gonna come But yet we also thought it would never come Which is the day that we're seriously talking about the political unraveling of America So the question is whether that's a happy or unhappy day I think that determines on that depends on whether you think there's some kind of deterministic arc to human history I personally think it's a happy day And I think it's something that we should be celebrating and thinking about and pushing forward because it's not really just about us Is it it's about our kids and grandkids more than anything? So I'm just curious how many of you saw the brew ha ha which happened with ran Paul the other night as he was leaving the Republican convention and I was really struck by some of the coverage of that event and of course Rand and his wife Kelly went on TV a couple times to discuss it and As I was watching that and I was seeing some of the usual suspects come out from underneath rocks and Say oh, they weren't attacked That wasn't threatening Politicians deserve to be yelled at the very fact that he was at a Trump rally means that he deserves it etc etc etc What what I thought was you know Not only is this not a nation anymore. It's not even much of a country at this Point a friend of mine a lot of Mercer. I wouldn't go this far personally, but she she calls America Walmart with nukes And that's what it kind of feels like doesn't it it feels like we live in a transactional Country where the only commonality we have is is basically material and and I'm not downplaying that that's a lot Materials a lot we're very very blessed to live in a country with it with this kind of material wealth But it feels to me like we have lost sight when you look at this incident with Rand Paul of Who are the imposers and who are the imposed upon? It seems like that's gotten very very murky because the people who are attacking him and those police officers They they feel like they are the imposed upon Right the people who are burning and looting and rioting in cities like Portland Chicago They feel like the they are the imposed upon not the imposers Of course, I think that's wrong. I think that's the opposite But what's the the important point here is that both sides think that for example? Christian America very much feels like the secular world is imposing on it and that it is acting in self-defense Let's say by voting for Donald Trump or whomever So this is a very strong thread that runs through the American psyche right now This sort of victim oppressor narrative. It's not very healthy So the problem one problem with the left is that Everything that happens Everything in human society now has to be viewed through this lens of critical theory now That doesn't mean that your average Joe Biden voter has thought much about this or cares much about this But but at that really hardcore part of the left, this is the animating spirit, which is that? We have to view today's events through this lens of presentism Everything has to be designed Everything has to be thought of in terms of identity and Of course what this does is the opposite of what economics does what markets do which is it inhibits social cohesion The whole point of a society of a culture is to have some social cohesion and and it appears that the Entity of politics right now is aimed at disrupting that I Think a lot of you recall Steve Bannon recently had some legal trouble as he was one of the architects of Trump successful 2016 campaign Well way back in in January of 2020 When the only thing dividing the country was Trump in those those idyllic days when we didn't have riots and COVID He was on this PBS Show the documentary called divided America. They interviewed a lot of other people as well and one of the things he mentioned is that We're we live in what he calls post persuasion America Which means we all have these little cell phones in our pockets and and even though we can access all the information in the world all of all of history In fact, we're sort of more dug in than ever before with respect to our personal worldviews And so you think that a time of unlimited virtually free access to information would make us sort of more open-minded or searching or critical of our own perspectives perhaps But it's he says it's done the opposite Maybe that's true. I don't know but his point is that If we're in post persuasion America what matters is not trying to win people over Intellectually or via debate or something like that. What matters is mobilization and of course he was using that term in the sense of the 2016 and now upcoming 2020 election That the side I guess is that's going to win is the side which mobilizes best But since then since January things have changed in this country We might think of mobilization more of something is who mobilizes in the streets And that's what's really happening in our country So this doesn't bring me any pleasure don't get me wrong. I know like a lot of you. I love America I care about this country very much. I feel very blessed to have been born here and You know one of the great Sources of wealth in this country is just its vast landscape I mean if you think of the diversity between some place like, you know Honolulu is a bunch of lava rocks and then Des Moines and then Alaska and then Miami and New York City I mean this is incredibly vast country and That vastness might come in handy Because it looks like we're all fixing to spread out a little bit here as people start to flee cities but the problem with this vastness is that We have a vast population too We have 330 million odd people who are all being governed mostly by Washington DC And not only just by a few thousand people in Washington DC or even a few hundred Members of the so-called legislature, but more and more they're being governed by five or six Supreme Court justices and That more than anything is a recipe For anything but social cohesion So we've always had this this sense that America needs 50 states and you know manifest destiny Americans America goes west and we at some point we needed Hawaii so we could refuel our Our airplanes and at some point we bought Alaska from the Tsar in Russia because we thought we were gonna have gold and furs up there But but it's really become something that's fixed in the American psyche, and I think it's time that it becomes unfixed Because at this point our size our vastness has become our Achilles heel This country is becoming ungovernable, and if you look at happy countries At countries that do have a degree of social cohesion. They tend to be smaller No one knows what that optimal number is, but We do know that 330 million doesn't look like it and and I would add that what we should care about is that is per capital wealth in the United States not GDP not some number about big You know size or who's got the biggest GDP or something That's why you would rather live in Liechtenstein than India right India's got a lot bigger GDP than Liechtenstein But it's per capita that matters so as We look at this unraveling of our country. I think it's time that we honestly assess it You know who who are we what is America and what do we want? Because Tom Woods points out that Political arrangements exist to serve us not the other way around We can pick and choose this isn't written in stone So how how might this happen? Well, I've got some good news It's happening already that really the decentralizing impulse in the midst of an otherwise rotten 2020 Is the most important trend of the 21st century and it's accelerating every day It's decentralizing impulse away from the sclerotic, you know the vertical top-down Organizations like federal government would be a good example of that and towards interconnected networks with no central hub And we have seen this unbelievably with respect to the response to COVID This has been just an unbelievable example Not only a federalism within the United States, but even on an international scale I mean all of the centralizing bodies On our planet the the UN the CDC the WHO have been proven absolutely useless Nobody's listening down. They give us conflicting information about asymptomatic spread about masks, you know locked down Don't lock down go outside. Don't go outside. And so they're losing credibility And as a result of this individual nation states have reasserted themselves and they've all gone in their own directions The the the vaunted Schengen area agreement in Europe even broke down and and now Or at least right right as COVID began to become known A Frenchman couldn't just drive into Germany anymore. I mean that's how little Accord people really give to international agreements and and bodies when things get a little ugly. It turns out that all crises are local So not only have we seen within Europe different responses to COVID but but we've seen Incredible differences worldwide, you know, you had very authoritarian approaches in in the Wuhan District of China where we continue to see a very authoritarian approach You know in the victoria state of australia and then you've had other countries like sweden and Belarus That have pretty much done nothing about it. They pretty much stayed open Just you know done some minor precautions with wash your hands use a sanitizer, etc So you've got a tremendous amount of diversity there, which I think bodes very well For a decentralized future within the United States, of course, we've had all kinds of examples We have governor christy gnome out in south dakota Having tv ads where she says we're open for business relocate here You know, they had the recent Sturgis motorcycle rally and then you have other states new york and new jersey the city of san francisco, for example Has been very heavily locked down and then Even even when you go a level below the governmental level if you look at college football This is an absolutely fascinating example of how the nc double a the putative boss of college athletics has no authority Not only have different conferences started to disagree and break up over whether they're going to play football Against whom they'll play but even within the conferences Individual schools that have power like ohio state is saying well, you know, we don't know if we're going to abide by the big tens decision So that strikes me as really really interesting That's that a cultural component of america a strong cultural component, especially in the south college football Could actually be helping to lead the way in this decentralized revolution so after covet Another really heartening trend that we see is this great relocation that's happening. I mean, this is really a de facto form Of secession and it's taking place right in front of us because people are moving away from big cities like new york and san francisco And los angeles and chicago in numbers that were already happening but have been accelerated by the covet crisis And you know, it wasn't that long ago That they were telling us all these people under 40 They all want to live in big cities, you know the country's dad even the suburbs are dead There was a 2019 study and something called the journal of regional science That studied the net migration of younger people under 40 from about 1980 to about 2010 And they said, you know these young people today They're changing they they they don't care about having a big house in the suburbs. They're getting married later if at all They're having fewer kids if any They don't really want a car and all the trappings of adulthood and they might be perfectly happy Living in in the hip city well into their 30s or even 40s with roommates And this is a fundamental change in how we do business in america um And so in the 80s and 90s the the trend was for young people to go to new york and san francisco And then in the 2000s they discovered washington dc and miami and some other cities And so we were told that this is the new trend and Within just a year now We're being told the exact opposite That all of a sudden young people Are realizing that cities don't offer much opportunity anymore that they're full of crime That uh their rent and housing is way too expensive And furthermore now we all find out that we can work from home And that we can telework. Maybe you don't have to live in with three roommates in park slope anymore So this has been a boon of course or will be a boon for so-called second-tier cities places like columbus ohio or Or charlotte or tamper maybe or lando and so that's going to be very interesting to see because We already had an aging population in this country that was sort of headed out of the northeast Uh towards the sunbelt states or the southeastern states just because as you get older you tend to want to have lower property taxes Which is mostly true in the south you also tend to want to get away from snow and cold So now we have sort of a a twin axis where both older and younger people are moving Away from cities into suburbs and then beyond suburbs to what we might call ex herbs like Orlando and I think that this will have a decentralizing influence on political power Because do you look at new york state is dominated by Manhattan politically and so all the upstate people in new york's really resent That they can't get anything done, you know politically Atlanta dominates georgia Nashville increasingly dominates tennessee But but as people spread out more a lot of that political power Is dissipated with them and and so they're out in cities or they're out in suburbs. They're out in ex herbs and I think that the uh the chokehold That urban america has had on the political landscape may be lessening as a result so Maybe the happiest decentralized revolution that's happening in front of us is of course an education Which is Crumbling with rapidity. I think that is pretty astonishing to most of us In just my own personal circumstances I would say in the last three to five years my own considerations of what my teenage children might do in the future Has changed completely from sort of a well sure they'll go to college, but You know, maybe not some expensive grad school or something too Maybe they won't go to college and that's fascinating if you think about it because what colleges want to do Is exactly the opposite of what they ought to do. They no longer want to teach a real classical liberal education Which is the one thing you ought to be getting when you're young and you have some time to study classics and history and literature and philosophy So they don't do that anymore.  So You know as it turns out that both technical training other than perhaps maybe engineering law medicine Can be done at the at a technical school level or an online level But also that classical liberal education, which I think people ought to have Is something you not only can but but now you really have to obtain on your own.  It turns out So what I think is happening though over the past couple of months is the the teachers unions have had A meltdown and the American people and American parents are starting to call their bluff They're saying what do we need these guys for if we're going to be online? Why can't we just have the best social studies teacher in the country teaching every kid? Why do we have to have the crappy one at the middle school where I live? It's an interesting question, isn't it? And so what what fascinates me though about this homeschool revolution is it used to be viewed as something that was kind of Uh Crankish that it oftentimes People on the left viewed homeschoolers as religious types People who wanted to have their kids removed from society People who were raising sort of cultist kids and of course Worryingly to the left people who were Withdrawing their kids from the sort of left social indoctrination that they think every child needs to have But now because of coveted for the first time We're seeing a lot more sort of mainstream and left-wing people keep their kids home And that is a development that I think bodes very very well For our movement because I mean once you realize you can keep your kid home And once you start to see that flexibility and once you start to think about the possibilities I think that could be a sea change. So this isn't just something that's uh, you know some some uh Mormons in utah or some baptists down in alabama doing anymore. This is something that's going to come into the mainstream And and I think it's also going to dawn on people that Education ought to be delivered more like a marketplace Good or service. In other words, there ought to be some a la carte options.  There ought to be some some merit To the instructor, uh, and that's this this is going to be a very very interesting development And the final I think Decentralist message that's happening Is just the state and its financial situation I mean the idea that the that uncle sam is going to be able to Continue to do what he does Um much, you know remake afghanistan in the image of thomas jefferson You know much less fixed potholes on interstate 10 is very much in question. It is I mean just six months ago or 12 months ago. It almost seems quaint. We were just fretting about 22 trillion dollars In debt or a 200 trillion dollar fiscal gap between future entitlement promises we've made and as an actuarial matter the likely value of future Tax receipts 200 trillion dollar gap Okay, which basically means the baby boomers are the last generation to get social security medicare So those were the quaint problems we had six or nine months ago Add to that now what both congress and the fed have done I mean the fed's balance sheet has gone from a from about four trillion dollars to over seven And I don't know if you saw jerome powell's uh speech the other day in jackson hawai oming But he basically acknowledged that inflation is going to be a thing because they've been doing their dams to tell us It's not a thing for the last 20 years And apparently economists don't go to the grocery store They don't pay copays at the doctor. They you know, I don't know who these guys are but Basically jerome powell says something pretty profound and the the profundity is always buried in the details, isn't it? But they have this two percent inflation mandate, which is of course crazy Because inflation is a process by which we all get poorer whether it's one or two percent, you know or 20 percent But nonetheless they they target two percent inflation in the economy. That would be quite a trick if you could do that, wouldn't it? But now he says well, you know instead of targeting this We're going to let inflation go a little hotter, which is just basically his way of acknowledging That the new money creation on the fiscal side by congress and on the monetary side by the fed Is going to cause some some pain and some price inflation But instead of going for two percent, we're going to let it kind of go like this Remember those uh in math those the sine waves where you had kind of a line through the middle But the wave was going like this And so, you know, we're just going to try to aim it for two percent Let two percent be the line But sometimes it can go up to four and it's been zero for so long that it's okay if it's four for a while because that'll average out to two Okay I mean what this is is basically an acknowledgement Okay, the the the people in charge don't know what they're doing any more than we do Okay, we're on our own here And that's that's that's a beautiful thing If if we allow it to be so So for the first time in u.s history for the fiscal year 2020 which ends october 1st Cal fiscal year versus calendar year for the first time we're going to have a federal deficit a single year deficit That is as large or perhaps even exceeds tax revenues for the year So the the the budget that congress passed nobody ever follows a budget that they pass I mean it's just a meaningless document But the budget that congress passed for 2020 was supposed to spend about 4.8 trillion And the projection was that we would bring in about 3.7 trillion. Well as it turns out With the the cares act With all the federal unemployment benefits that are being paid that are being paid With potentially another round of federal unemployment benefits with which trump wants to do of course to improve his own election chances You know the federal government's going to spend something more like 7 trillion this year maybe eight And they're going to bring in maybe four So what you have is a situation where literally half Of the federal government's operations for the year Are funded by debt And of course the mmt years for those of you who have been following monitor modern monetary theories. Hey, this is a okay This is not only a okay. It could be a hundred percent And it can be for a while I mean, there's some truth to that the mmt years would go out a little bit differently than how the fed goes goes at it, but If if we can do 50 percent why not 80 percent? Why not 90? And when you get into 80 or 90, you know, we start to look more like switzerland Where taxes are flipped right in in switzerland very little is done at the federal level constitutionally And and and political matters are pushed down to the canton's the 26 canton's which is which are the states in switzerland Or to the communes which are the cities in switzerland So if you're swiss you pay about 80 percent of your tax bill To your city your state and only about 20 to the feds. That's flipped in the united states, isn't it? Well, that's that's interesting though if we start to look at how the the federal government ostensibly finances his operations This this we could reach a point very quickly where People across this country and and governments across this country simply stop submitting federal tax receipts I mean at what point do you say it's all funny money and smoke and mirrors at what point does a christie gnome say?  It's a very interesting experiment I don't think we've ever been in this kind of situation before because you know that these states and these governors Are expecting a bailout I mean if you look at your town Somebody has to mow that grass by the side of the highway. Somebody has to pay the police You know Somebody has to perform basic functions We're not talking about new projects for which your city might flow to bond You don't you don't issue bonds for basic maintenance and operations of your city Um, you know and the ability of cities and states to borrow money is very constrained Do you want to buy muni bonds right now? from Kenosha I don't So so they're looking for a bailout from the federal government and when you when you think about what? Probably second and third especially third quarter tax receipts are going to look like for these states and cities with all the restaurants closed All the retail dead in the water So many people staying home. Nobody's buying gas hardly to drive. No one's going out to eat. No one's traveling No one's going to hotels I mean they they're they're going to want a bailout from the federal government So this is the the idea that the federal government is going to constrain itself in the next couple years is Is is absolutely not happening and and I think Jerome Powell in so many words admitted that On his end the other day. So this this unraveling this decentralized impulse Perhaps more than anything is going to occur simply because the federal government's not going to be able to pay the bills anymore And we're going to be forced to come up with a new way so I guess the question is is Can all this happen peacefully? Well That that's a very good question. I mean it feels like A simmering cold civil war in the united states is breaking out into a hot civil war That's what we're seeing on on the streets of some cities The problem of course is that we have 24 7 media today We have social media as well on top of that So that could give us a false perception As we consume content of really how much unrest is out there things might be a lot more peaceable than we think Most people might be a lot more reasonable than we think In other words the people who show up the loudest on cable networks and on social media might might be that 10 percent Who are sort of hyper partisan? angry aggressive opinionated and that there's actually this sort of complacent Majority in america that doesn't want all this unrest and I think that's probably true to an extent The the the percentage of americans who are going to be over 65 is set to double over the next 30 years so you know Civil wars are usually fought by younger angrier countries So that that's a that's a fact that might bode against a hot civil war and we certainly hope it does I mean we want we want this to be peaceable but When the federal government can can no longer provide social security or medicare Or highways or defense, you know all these things that it does. I think that's that's going to be the pain threshold We have to reach To really get there and start breaking up and of course the difficulty In doing so is that we don't have clear geographic lines every state Is a mix of what we might call deplorables and And wokers, right? I mean if If you look at california people think of it as a deep blue state It's not a deep blue state that coastal california is deep blue. You go 20 miles inland anywhere in california It's country music and mexican rancheros and and and you can say the same about portland in seattle The state where I happen to live alabama People think of that as some deep red state You know There weren't really any trump signs in in 2016 I think alabamans would have probably preferred to vote for a mike huckabee or a ted cruise or something I saw far far more trump signs in pennsylvania places like that the rust belt when I was up there but nonetheless Alabama has some very blue cities. It has birmingham and montgomery, which are historic black cities Uh, and so any kind of geographic or physical separation along those lines would would Presumably leave a lot of those blues blue voters feeling disenfranchised and and this is this is something that's inherent in any sort of political or geographic breakup It's inescapable. There's the idea of the rump state, which is the old Uh, uh, government or state left behind and then the new state Um, it's it's a difficult problem. And and I don't I don't have any easy answers other than to say It might happen just because we we start shrugging It might not require some big violent upheaval or some constitutional process or some big declaration by the red states. It might just occur in in a Because we just start to say no There's a fascinating article by angela codavilla He's a retired professor at uh, boston new or boston college. I can't remember but um, but he He wrote an article called the cold civil war in the clairmont review of books And that's they have a paywall, but that particular article is available for free the cold civil war and he He talks about in that article very fairly to both sides by the way And and of course we would argue that there's not two sides, but but you know, we understand the rubric he's using is that People could just simply stop complying with federal edicts. It's not that hard to imagine There's something like three million federal employees in total So he describes a situation where uh, you know schools in some southern state just start having prayer again Um, it's school or the what or the federal is going to send in troops It seems unlikely And he talks about the same thing happening in a blue state with respect to immigration or whatever it might be so There's always winners and losers. It's it's just the nature of things and I think we tend to focus On maybe some sort of deterministic or even utopian Plan or approach and if we look at human history, that's not generally how things unravel And of course oftentimes they unravel slowly all of this might happen well beyond our lifetimes but I think we still have an opportunity because of what's happening and also an obligation to do our parts to to move this unraveling along because There's a price for all this There's a price to peace and there's going to be a price paid for peace in america And are we willing to pay it and that price is increasingly we have to reject political universalism This idea that we we have to convince 51 of the electorate to see the world our way And we need to gather them up and we need to Win some big national election and then we need to use our newfound political power to vanquish the other side because You know, let's be honest the the left would vanquish us And whether that would mean politically or worse They would okay. There's there's plenty of people in this country who think it's a okay To break a few eggs to make an omelet And and I think they're they're showing us who they are right now And I think we should believe them when they show us who we are um but nonetheless The answer to that the response to that I think is not to try to vanquish them politically It's some sort of tit for tat game It's to show the strength and the courage to say that we're not going to accept this and we're going to go our own way However, that might look So this is this is the price that people don't want to pay the idea that As much as we disagree with what other people do or another country does or another political subdivision does That we have to let them do it It is somehow exceedingly difficult For human beings, but it is the next evolution if we're going to evolve as a species from from kings and outright subjugation and serfs to monarchs To so-called democracy now unfortunately to social democracy the next evolution. I think is Decentralist and it's far more about the the level at which you're governed than necessarily the ideology by which you're governed so What I would say to you in closing is that You know any problems that we have any difficulties that we face as a result of this political situation with we're in Is really nothing compared to what previous generations of americans went through Uh, this is not about us. It's about our kids and our grandkids And I think we should be clear-eyed and honest about the state of america and let's get moving with this unraveling Thank you very much


I'm going to be talking about the PAL process. And the PAL process is what Kathy, actually, this is such a lovely graphic and much nicer than ours. So really, it's quite nice. But the same message is there. And we developed this curriculum planning process from work with high school teachers, actually, in a city a little bit north of us. And the reason we developed it is to really concretize the UDL guidelines so that teachers had a framework. So this morning, we looked at the guidelines from a curriculum purchaser perspective. This afternoon, we're going to look at the guidelines from a lesson unit of study perspective. And what we have with the guidelines, oops, wrong thing, oh, sorry, sorry. What we have with the guidelines is we want to start with the problem that you want to solve. So if you have lessons or units in which students are successful, you just kind of pat yourself on the back and you move on. And when I say the word successful, what we mean is really that they have achieved the goals, as Kathy talked about. That means that the learning experience was a successful one, the goals were clear, and all students were able to succeed in it. So I always think it's a good idea to pause, think about why that was effective, and then move on. But the lessons you want to start with, because teachers will often say, where do I begin? And so what the advice is, is to begin something that's going to happen in the near future. School is starting in September. You might start thinking about, from a teacher's point of view, what am I going to be teaching in September that I can already predict that some students will not be able to achieve the goals? Those are the problems that you want to solve. The lessons where you can, and you can, you can just predict. My kids won't get factors. My kids won't get this or that. Start there. And then when you start there, you start by saying, OK, what's the, what are my goals? What's the context? What's the learning experience? All the same kind of thing. And this is a recursive. And we'll go through this just a little bit. Then you analyze what are the current methods, materials, and assessments that you're using. Then you think about what are the potential barriers. And from the barriers, you look at the UDL guidelines. You teach the lesson. You pause, reflect, did all my students achieve the goals. That's what it was. And the way you figure that out, of course, is that you look at your assessment. Very simple process, one that's been reinforced by what Kathy has said. So the UDL curriculum framework planning for all learners, and you've heard me say this before, the goal is to minimize barriers, maximize opportunities. That's what we're doing so that all students can achieve the goals. OK. When we talk about curriculum, and we're actually talking about the use of that word right now, but right now, we do talk about curriculum. We talk about curriculum being goals, methods, materials, and assessment. Learning experience is also a very nice way to talk about it. Instructional practices, people have talked about maybe using that term. But for today, we're using the term curriculum, but we're considering changing that. Because oftentimes, schools think about curriculum as they associate that with scope and sequence, and we really are moving beyond that. But to really take into account the instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessment. Oh, this works. Keep forgetting. OK. So the goal is the starting place. And it's really quite important. You have to clarify your goal. So what we might say is, when you're identifying your goal, be aware if the means is embedded in the goal. And so if the how is embedded in the goal. It doesn't mean it's a bad goal. It just means you have to be aware of that. Because if you embed the means in the goal, what happens is you're providing one way to get there. So we're going to just go through a few goals. And if the goal is a skill goal in which you want the means embedded, then you have to just recognize some students aren't going to be able to achieve that. And you have to embed supports or scaffolds to ensure that all students can achieve the goal. So understanding the goal is a primary starting place. So what we're doing, as I said, this is just raising awareness. And every time a goal is put up there, kind of have that little internal voice saying, are the means embedded? It's OK, but just recognize you're going to have to support a scaffolding. So I am so sorry. I have a series of goals that we're going through. And somehow, this PowerPoint is not the right one I was working on last night. So we'll go here for a minute. I'm going to jump to this. This is a goal which is students will understand the relationship between experimental and theoretical probability. That is typically a middle school kind of goal. Are the means embedded in that goal? No, no means. So that's an open-ended goal in which you can actually say that, possibly, all students could achieve that goal. If, Kathy, did people pass out that paper that I had for them? People should have a little. OK, perfect, OK. So we're going to actually, don't take it out yet. We're not going to end. Paperclips need to be passed out, so maybe two per aisle. Yes? Sorry. There is a paper that is a one sheet black and white. Let me show you. The spinner on it, how many people do not have that? It went around. Oh, my goodness. They're coming. So just ignore that for a bit while we get the tools that we need. So we met with a group of six grade teachers. And the discussion started by, what is the problem? Math teachers. What is the problem that needs to be solved? So the math teachers told us that their students don't do well on these standardized high-stakes testing in Massachusetts in the area of probability. They don't get it. They don't understand it. They don't get it. So we started out with a problem that they wanted to solve. We knew the goal, but the students were not achieving the goal. So after we had that little discussion, it's like, what is the problem that needs to be solved? Then we had to go down the path of, what are you currently doing in your math class? So this is the question, central question. And these are the materials that they were just using. They were using a page from the math workbook. And actually, that is the printed file that you're getting, is the page from the math workbook. Now this is one lesson. Probability, of course, is a series of lessons over several days. But we chose one lesson to highlight. And they use pretty traditional pencil paperclips. And they lecture is their method. So it's fairly traditional in how they teach probability. And in fact, it is traditional that they do something called the spinner. I don't know if you have ever done that in your class environment. We're going to actually try that. So I'll wait until everybody has their little paper. Now just envision this is in a workbook. And it's a good series, but it's in a workbook. And we copied it through fair use laws. OK. OK. Is everybody set with their materials? Anybody need anything? OK, OK. OK. Actually, sharing is good because you're going to share anyway. OK? So not a problem. OK. Remember, this is the goal. And you're going to put yourself in sixth grade math class right now. Anybody anxious about that? Raise your hand if there's any anxiety about sixth grade math class. Just a few of you. OK. Pretty good. OK. Thank you. You do know that math is the only subject in which they talk about math anxiety. They don't talk about social studies anxiety, but math anxiety. OK. That's pretty good. OK. This is the goal. And you may choose. OK. Sorry. Sort it out here. Just like middle school. OK. It's the students in the back we're waiting for. OK. OK. You may choose to work alone or with a group of two to four. That's your choice. OK. Is that a mistake in middle school? I don't think so. I don't know. OK. OK. So this is your challenge. You have a worksheet. Excuse me. I'm going to just borrow this for a minute Evelyn. You have a worksheet at your disposal. And you are to read the math problem. And as you can see on the screen, it's very high tech. It's a pencil and a paper clip. So you should have the tools of the trade. And you just put your pencil in the middle. Put your paper clip at the point of the pencil. And then spin away. And remember where we want to get to is to understand the relationship. So I can ask you, can you please tell me the relationship between experimental and theoretical probability. So work with your partners. We're going to give you probably about three minutes to do this. Oh, you need a pencil. OK. It is like middle school.  I'm trying to interpret your smile. Oh, good. All right. That's good. OK. All right students, are you ready? Remember the goal. The goal is to understand experimental and theoretical in relationship to theoretical probability. Would someone like to be able to be able to tell me about that and what you learned from that task. I noticed a lot of people that were very focused. I also noticed a few of you, I hate to say, were probably doing something else during this time period. And I didn't want to embarrass you by coming over, but I was aware of it. And I got my grade book. So we're all set. In terms of the activity, because this, and there are some that can't even stop, they're still doing it. And they're ignoring me completely. OK. In terms of the activity, this actually is an activity that is supported. And in the book that the students use, it is color-coded orange and white. So you have the words red, blue, green and yellow, and you're using the colors orange and white. I have a fabulous assistant. When she printed this out for me one time, she printed it out with the correct colors. And I said, no, no, Leslie, I want it in orange and white because, and she had to go back and reprint. OK. The question we want to ask is, what are the barriers to achieving the goal? What did you encounter? What were some barriers? Did it? I mean, this is the goal. What were the, yes? Going yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow. Oh, see. It took you a bit to figure that out. OK. Sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't smile at that. That's great. She lost, and remember, middle school students. At least she only lost the paperclip and didn't flip it across the room. And then also environmental factors influenced the spinning. OK. Other barriers. Yes. Was it good for collaboration? And if you have a classroom, now numbers are going back up in the states anyway as students. There are 30 students in our classrooms so that we probably have a similar difficulty with closed space. Right. Exactly. OK. Good. So it wasn't conducive to collaboration. Other things that were a barrier to you achieving success to get to this. Yes. Finger. Needed finger dexterity. Absolutely. Because you really, I mean, this is a skill that not all students can do that. OK. Good. Something else. Yes. Absolutely. That we know what experimental and theoretical probability mean. Thank you. Right. Yes. That's right. You couldn't read the instructions. That's exactly right. Because they're hard to read. And not only are they in print, exhibiting print disabilities. They're also dense in comprehension disability. So they actually are both. Small. OK. Other things that you noted. Can you give us enough time? Obviously I did. And in a classroom you'd obviously have more time. But that's right. Good. And you know for some students it doesn't matter how much time. Because it's not the time that's the issue. It's the task and the understanding. Yes. Exactly. What do you do to plot? Because it, and this is what David was talking about earlier, is construct validity. Is that right? Construct relevance. Thank you. Relevance. I knew validity wasn't it. Construct relevance. Because what are we really asking students to do? We're asking them to spin. We're asking them to create a table or a graph or some visual representation. So we're asking them to figure out the means of collecting data. And actually one of my colleagues worked with the publishers of this particular activity, this particular series. And what they did is they made it more UDL in that they provided students with a couple of templates for collecting data. So they kept their eye on the goal and didn't let other things interfere. Anything else that might have been a barrier? So this is part of the process is when you have a lesson that you can almost predict is not going to be successful. You pause. You think about what the goals are. And if it's a goal that embeds means, that's fine. If it's a goal that doesn't embed means, that's fine. You just have to figure out how to scaffold that. And then you have to think about what are the potential barriers. So I want to show you an alternative way to achieve the goal. And I'll just tell you a small short story. Is a colleague and I were in a sixth grade classroom doing a professional development activity with the teachers. But we were just observing. And the students were working on probability. And we said, this is fabulous. They're going to tell us about probability. So we said to them, what is probability? And there was a small class. And they kept giving us the formula of probability. They said, whatever the formula is, those kids knew the formula. But they did not know what probability was. Because they hadn't stepped back to figure out the why. Why are they even learning it? We're talking about authentic learning. Why are they learning it? So I'm going to show you an activity that we serendipitously said, let's do this with the kids and see if they better understand probability. So let's see if we can all better understand probability. Go here, go here. Do people know the show door site SHODOR? This is a fabulous takeaway if you have people that are in the math arena and they teach students from kindergarten through grade 12, SHODOR off a free site. And it's just another way to represent the information. So I'm going to go to the SHODOR site. Here we go. This is project interactivate. Sorry, let me just resize this. So this will, what does that look like? So remember the goal. The goal is to understand experimental probability relationship to theoretical probability. So what we're seeing right here, and I will tell you right up front, there are clearly barriers to this site. I mean there's no question. You cannot read aloud. I mean so we can look at it from a barrier point of view and know that still this isn't going to work for everyone. But it gets us closer to achieving the goal. So we have the visual representation, which is actually fairly true to the colors here. We have a representation of experimental probability and theoretical. Now we can have an opportunity, as they say, the teachable moment. You can talk to your students about what is theoretical probability. And you can talk about it being a constant in this particular instance. I mean we can create something that is variable here. And now we can start looking at what is it. So let's just do one spin. And what do you predict is going to happen? Are we going to get closer to experimental and theoretical probability with one spin? No. Okay, I'm going to go. No. Okay, so all I do is I have one and I'm going to say spin. Okay? So now what we see is again another opportunity to have the discussion and talk about experimental in relation to theoretical. And we have 100% in the grade, 25%. So let's increase that. And now we'll do two spins. And again start thinking, and you can engage your students in thinking about the process of understanding probability. So I'm just going to go with two spins. And I'm going to see what happens. And you can start having them predict what, oh, that's right. Three spins, sorry. And it has a cumulative number, so we can see we have three spins. And we spun around. Now students do not worry about the fact you don't see it spin around.  A couple of teachers have said, I didn't see it spin around. But kids, don't worry about that. Another opportunity to have a discussion about experimental and theoretical probability. Again, we're getting a representation here. And I want another representation. So I'm going to show results frame. So now I get to see, and I just want to minimize my screen a little bit. Okay, there. We'll push it there. We'll just have to open and close it. So now you get another representation of what the data looks like. So you can see 1 third, 2 thirds. You see it numerically. And you see another visual representation. So getting, again, a sense closer. So how many spins should we go this time? 100. 100, thank you. Okay, so let's, and I only asked you to do 50 before. And remember the goal. See if you can better understand. Your head should always get wrapped around what the goal is. So I'm going to just type in 100 spins. And let's, before we jump into it, predict what's going to happen. What do you think? You said 100 spins. What do you think is going to happen? The experiment will get closer and closer to 25 for each. Do you think it'll be 25 each? No, because we have three already, and it's experimental, so no. No, okay. I'll tell you a flukey thing that happened once. It worked. It worked on three spins. No, on four spins, it went 25, 25. Well, that blew the whole lesson. But okay, so let's see how this works this time. So I'm going to spin. I'm going to watch this chart, because I'll get a visual representation. I'll keep my eye here, and let's spin. Oops, sorry. Thank you. Close, but really no cigar. Okay, so we're not quite there yet. So who would like to try something else a little bit more? Give me another number. Big one. Who's going to take a risk? Give me a big number. A thousand. A thousand. That's a little bit of a risk. All right, so let's go with a thousand. And then again, remember we're engaging students in discussion. And that's exactly what we did in this classroom. And they started focusing on, oh, experimental and theoretical. When is it going to happen? So I'll spin here. We have a thousand, one, oh, three. We're not there yet. And I'll give you a little hint. You can spin up to 100,000 times each time. So I'm going to spin 100,000. And we're going to see what's going to happen. Is that 100? One more zero. Nope, that's a million. Sorry. Yeah, that's it. Okay. Almost, but not quite. And we were asking you to do 50 spins and see if you could answer the question. And now, when we go back to the question, what is the relationship between experimental and theoretical probability? What is it? Talk to me about it. Somebody? What do you think? As the number goes up, the chance of the two meeting.  What are the chances of winning? All of a sudden it became authentic. And they said, oh, we have very little chance of winning. Right, you have very little chance of winning. And they actually bet that you will bet more and more because you have very little chance. It became an authentic lesson. And I will say, in the same amount of time it took us, the students now could understand the relationship. They didn't know the formulas. I mean, and that is what you back it up with that. But they understood. Now, this did not work. We had a training once with a fellow who's blind. And this was a major barrier, major barrier. He, and we even got the tactile spinner. And he finally said, Grace, don't worry about it. I will just be a cooperative partner. Because that wasn't working at all. That was real. I mean, so that had a major barrier. But for more students, and that's what you go for. Not every lesson is going to hit every student. You're increasing the chances of understanding, though, by thinking about multiple resources.


In its quest to foster peace and unity among the different religious groups, ethnicity and cultural backgrounds, Hai and Ban Ki community in collaboration with the Global Peace Foundation Nigeria has organized a cultural carnival festival in Kaduna State. The group says the aim is to strengthen the peaceful, cordial relationships between different people as one big family, and for sustainable development, plus TV correspondent Habila Darofai and Kaduna filed in this report. Over the years, Hai and Ban Ki is one of the communities in Kaduna North's local government area that enjoys relative peace and harmonious relationships irrespective of cultural and religious ethnicity in the state. This they do engaging youth, women and members of society in organizing cultural events and sporting activities among others to promote peace and unity in the state. Country's Director Global Peace Foundation Reverend Dr. Joseph John Hyub says there is a need to give room for peace building in communities where all stakeholders will come together and respect one another. Sometimes there are things around us that we can solve them, but we are waiting for government and government is busy attending to other things. Hai and Ban Ki will continue to be peaceful and not only Hai and Ban Ki, but Kaduna State will be peaceful. I want to appeal to you that never take the law into your hands. If you see anything happening here, report to the appropriate authority. But when you start burning houses, start destroying each other's property, you are only wasting your time. And it will only happen when the youth are together. That's why today I am happy to see the Catholic Cadet, the Boys Brigade, the Royal Ambassadors and the first aid group of the Muslim community. He appealed to religious leaders to speak to their congregants on the need for unity and understanding and also called on community members to create a platform where people regardless of their differences can come together in unity, love and understanding.


Healthy Planet, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet on the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series. I'm your host, Dr. Grace O'Neill, and joining me today are Brian and Charlie Trupo of Trooper Treats. Welcome, Brian and Charlie. Thanks, Grace. So much for having us today. Yeah, thanks so much for having us. Yeah, thank you for being on the show. We're thrilled. So tell us about how you guys became vegan and your journey. I'll let Charlie start off here. Here's the one that became vegan first and I kind of followed suit there. Sure. So it really all started. We were very young. We were seven years old. And it was a Thanksgiving and we were at one of our family friend's houses. And I think Brian and I were just sitting there kind of wondering, like, where's, where's the Thanksgiving dinner? And where are all the men? And I think one of the adults told us that the men were actually out hunting for our Thanksgiving dinner. And that was kind of like the key moment in our journey where we put together and realized that, you know, the food on our plate came from, came from animals. And we were both very big animal lovers. So that was kind of the start of our vegetarian journey. I think from that point, we didn't eat any animals. And then eventually, when I was 15, I became a vegan. And I think Brian came one closer to around 19 or 20 years old. But that's kind of how that started. Yeah. Wow. So who's the older one? I'm curious. Um, I'm older by around 30 seconds. So very, very little time between us. But yeah, I'm, I'm older. So did you have to convince Brian to come vegan or vegetarian or he kind of, you guys just felt the same way all along? Yeah. So, um, I think I became a, I became a vegetarian first. So it was like a year off. Brian became one a year after me. And I didn't really have to convince him. I think it was just kind of a matter of, you know, seeing my actions, seeing what I was doing, seeing what I was eating. And then kind of just thinking about it himself and being like, Oh, maybe what he's, maybe he's a vegetarian for a reason. Like maybe I live animals. Maybe I should do it too. I think at least that's from my perspective. What was it for you, Brian? Yeah. No, I kind of agree with you. Like I don't think I was convinced in any way. But I think Charlie gave me, you know, some insight into what it was like to be vegetarian and then be vegan and recommended some documentaries. Actually, I think the one that really got me to switch over was Cowspiracy. I think it talks about greenhouse gas emissions from, you know, animal consumption and so on. So, yeah, I don't think it really took convincing.  It's a little bit harder to go out and find food. But overall, I made the decision on them. How about other people in your family? Are other people have they followed suit? Yeah. So I would know they haven't actually at all. It's actually funny to say that I feel like they might even be like less vegan, less vegetarian than they were before we went. I know that our parents were vegan in college. I don't know what happened, honestly. Yeah, I would definitely say that being vegan ourselves has definitely made them think more about their actions and more about what they are eating. For example, I know our sister went meatless for a while. I think she does eat a little bit meat now, but I think she's a lot more conscious of actually, you know, what she is eating. So I guess that's the positive impact there.  So can you tell us how that got started? Who came up with the idea? What, you know, what inspired you? Yeah, so I'll take this one. I had just went vegan my junior year of college going into my senior year. And I was in actually a master's program too, at the same time as undergrad. And there was a thesis. There was a thesis class where I essentially had to either start a business or intern for a startup. Anyway, I was walking the Whole Foods one day and I got the idea to start a vegan milk chocolate company because I was really craving something, you know, kind of creamy, delicious, sweet, like a chocolate product. I just couldn't find anything that was completely vegan. It either had dairy milk or had honey in it or something. So yeah, I pulled my brother up quickly after that Whole Foods trip. And we immediately launched a Kickstarter like 30 days later for troop retreats. Yeah, that's awesome. And you guys are still going. How many years ago was that? So this was during the peak of the pandemic. This was summer of 2020. Mm-hmm. That's amazing. So what is this? I know you have a couple different versions too. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. So this is, oh, sorry, upside down. This is the way for Barso. We loved Kit Kats as kids. And so we always wanted to veganize it. Our slogan is actually veganizing your childhood favorites. And so yeah, this is kind of like our version of Kit Kats. We've got the chocolate flavor. We've got the peanut butter flavor and we've got the hazelnut flavor. And how about this? What is this? Yeah. So we just released a product called Earth Gems. Charlie, I'll let you kind of dive into it just because I've got some sound going on here. No problem. So yeah, we recently released these products called Earth Gems, which I can't really say what the vegan version is though, but I'm sure you can imagine what we tried to veganize there. But they're basically gluten free, they're dairy free, and they're just really great for eating on their own or for baking or for using it even as a topic. We showed a lot of time on our Instagram. Yeah, like that right there. A lot of retailers use it for that purpose though. And how about the cookie sandwich? Is that going to be a product, like an ice cream cookie sandwich in the future? Yeah, that's actually funny. You never know. As of now, it's not in our product lineup, but we did, you know, something we did love as kids were those cookie sandwiches with the M&Ms in them and ice cream in the middle. So we'll see maybe one day. I was also wondering about, I mean, I guess there's a lot of copyrights and patents possibly for chocolate. So do you run into any problems with that when you're trying to make something that looks like something else? Yeah, so there's certain, I'll say there's certain qualities that you cannot copy. So for example, let's just go with Kit Kat, for example, like you can't really make it look like a font like Kit Kat, you can't use the exact same colors. I know there was a company called Midday Squares that got sued by Reese's because they use the exact orange color. And that's something we really try to avoid. We run everything by our lawyers.  So you can't really patent a product or trademark a product unless it's very particular in how it's made. So I mean, I don't know what's on the horizon, but I personally like Toblerones and I don't know what other things people suggested. I like those little lint truffles with like the inside that are kind of nice. Yeah, I don't know what else is on the horizon for you guys in the future. Yeah. So, Charlie, I mean, we've got some prompt releases this fall. We actually haven't even released yet. We haven't told anyone about them. But we do have a couple of hints we've put on social media, such as, you know, it might have some mixed nuts in it. I think that's actually the only hint we've given out so far. So, you know, stay on the lookout for those new products. But we will I will tell you this. One of them is America's favorite candy bar. So if you can figure that out, you kind of can figure out what we're making. So I heard the two of you guys just turned 25. So how does it feel? Am I correct? Yeah, yeah. So we turned 25.  Well, not through life, but quarter through a century. I know, I know. It is funny, like, growing up thinking that everyone lives till 100.  But you actually weigh more than that, aren't you? But, yeah, no, it is wild being 25. And I still feel like I'm a little kid or going through high schools at that age. But I know, yeah, our birthday was yesterday. So, yeah, yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's pretty crazy owning a business. I mean, we started this in college and it's just crazy. Like, actually, it's still surviving and thriving and growing. So that's awesome to see, especially with the lack of business experience that, you know, we just went straight out of college.  Oh, I would probably assume me, probably. I don't know exactly. But I did a Master's of Entrepreneurship at University of Florida. And I know we always kind of looked at kick stars. And and we were always curious to see what types of new innovation were coming out. And I had the idea. I was like, why don't we just, you know, we have zero money? Try to figure out a way to fund this so we can actually make this come to life. I was just going to say that, yeah, a lot of a lot of the ideas, a lot of the actual doing does come. It does stem from Brian because he had the background in business. I studied environmental science. So I'm more of like thinking about the environment and animals. But yeah, definitely more of the business stuff comes from Brian. So I guess that's where we combine our our interests a little bit. And did you guys go to the same college? I'm sure you guys went to different colleges. Yeah, we went to different colleges. I ended up studying overseas in Scotland at the University of Stirling. And I'm Brian, I'm down in Florida at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Nice, nice. That's awesome. And I know your company. I'm just wondering where can we get some of your chocolate bars? Like, I know we can get them online. I'm on an email list. Suppose you wanted to go into the store in Hawaii, for instance, and get the chocolate bars. Can you get them at Whole Foods? Can you get them at Down to Earth? We have a vegetarian store called Down to Earth here. Where can we buy these chocolates in Hawaii? Because I didn't see anything on your website. Yeah, so our website is a little bit outdated, to be honest. And we also do, quite frankly, at this stage, try to avoid the hotter states a little bit just because it's hard to ship chocolate unless you have a distributor that can keep it cold. So where we focus is mainly on the West Coast right now. We're in distribution with UNFI. They're basically a natural food distributor. But we're in some pretty decent sized chains in Washington state and Oregon. So molly stones, natural foods. We've got we're in Huckleberries in Washington states. We're in Yoke's Fresh Market. We're in New Seasons Market. And then we might test launch in Ralph's really soon. Ralph's is a Kroger brand. So that would be in San Diego, LA area. Yeah, well, we'd love to have you at Down to Earth. You guys should contact Down to Earth. I'm sure they would be willing to put up your product there because they have a lot of it's like a natural no GMO food store. I'm sure they would be willing. So, you know, there's a lot of vegans out here. So and there's a lot of people who are also lactose intolerant because we have, you know, a large Asian population here. So I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated. Yeah, for sure. We we actually we work with a lot of animal sanctuaries. We've worked with quite a few actually in Hawaii. We've worked with big island farm sanctuary. And then I believe there's one called Aloha Animal Sanctuary. Yes. Yeah, there's one that I'm missing too. But I know the big island farm sanctuary actually is selling them in their little store on site, too. So cool, cool, magical creatures. There's a magical creatures farm sanctuary on the big island as well. That might be the other one I'm thinking of. We have, yeah, yeah, yeah, we have definitely partnered with magical creatures as well. So tell us about your program for the week.  Yeah, we do. So a lot of times what we do is we partner directly with these sanctuary and we kind of like a cross promotion on us, like kind of benefits the both of us. So depending on the events will change the percentage of proceeds donated. But yeah, we'd love to give back to these sanctuaries. And we just we ultimately started this company because we wanted to figure out a way that we could support animals and animal sanctuaries, but in a very practical way. So we've always wanted to start an animal sanctuary, but we're like, how do you get to the point where you can fund that on your own? We're like, let's come out with a prods where we can just give back to other animal sanctuaries that are already in existence. That's great. So, I mean, that's great to hear you guys have already been at the major sanctuaries here. How about Laeaki? Have you been to the not Laeaki, the one in Maui. There's one in Maui. Have you been to the one in Maui? Is Laura Lay's sanctuary? I don't believe so. I'd love to check it out. Yeah, you should check it out. She's been a guest on my show, so you could go in and search. She's a great, she's a great woman. She wrote her own book, too, about how she came about and did the sanctuary. So that would be another great person to partner with. So do you actually visit all of the sanctuaries? You see a lot of the pictures that you've gone to the sanctuaries. And have you been to some of them or most of them? Yeah, so we've been to some of them, I would say. Any any that are in reach of us. So I've been to a bunch in Florida. I've been a couple in New York, a couple in Colorado, a couple in California. So we hit some of them, but we'd like to go to more. I mean, that's part of our mission and hopefully, you know, down the line when we have more money to give and everything as we grow as a company, we can, you know, go and visit these sanctuaries as well. Yeah, and actually one of our really big goals is to create our own sanctuary one day and we do have a name for it. We would call it, I think we would call it the Chocolate Sanctuary. So yeah, that's a really big goal of ours. And where would it be this Chocolate Sanctuary? Yeah, I don't know. But we do know that we have a few, we have some criteria. We want to be very scenic, very relaxing. Like we want to be kind of like an experience where we can teach people, you know, about why maybe why you should go vegan. And then also we want like a kind of mini chocolate factory on site so that people can see the process of how chocolate's created. I think like a mini Hershey Park type idea. Nice, nice. That sounds awesome. I'll definitely come visit if it's in the anywhere near where I am. So do you think what kind of animals would you like to have on your sanctuary? Yeah, what I've noticed is a lot of sanctuaries. Unfortunately, we can't save all the animals, right? And so a lot of people or a lot of sanctuaries seem to rescue animals that are in really bad conditions. And I think that's going to be the same thing with us, is we're not too, you know, we're not going to be too particular about what type of animal, as long as we're saving an animal that really needs to save and has a story that we can educate others with. I think I think that's kind of what we're looking for over like a certain animal type, but Charlie, I'll kind of let you follow up with that. Oh, no, I agree with you, I think. And I definitely don't have any particular like farmed animals in mind. I think just, you know, save as many animals as we possibly can. And I think that's always been our goal, kind of just, you know, all animals. Yeah, I mean, that's great. I am wondering right now, how many people, how much stuff do you have in your company? Is it still pretty small? Yeah, so it definitely fluctuates a lot. Chocolate is a very seasonal business model, like in the summertime, not a lot of people are craving chocolate, to say, except for consumers. Right now, we've got a team of, I would say, probably a maximum of five. You know, we've got some part-timers, but we've only really got two full-time workers, Charlie and I, on the team, so yeah, pretty small team overall.  But yeah, so actually, I would say no, not at all. Interesting thing about startups is our mission is to be, you know, a national company, right? And to get there, you really need to invest in brand. You really need to spend some marketing dollars to get your name out there. And, you know, it takes a lot of money and hard work to get there. So what we do to support ourselves is we're basically trying to, we raise money essentially to support ourselves and also, you know, to because we eventually want to sell to a bigger company that can take us to the next level and like make, you know, make this vegan chocolate company something bigger and more meaningful. Yeah, yeah, I'll just add a little bit on that. It's definitely hard to make money like Brian was saying and be profitable, especially such a small company.  And I'm sure all the other, you know, small vegan chocolate companies are in similar positions. But, you know, it takes money to make money. And I think we're also making very unique products. And with that comes minimum order quantities that are quite massive. So we do spend a lot of money at once. And then we kind of have to sell off all of that product kind of over a period of time. So it's something difficult being a small, small vegan company, but we're making it work for now. And I think we're on our way, we're on our way up. Yeah, I mean, I hope you guys last. I mean, I really do feel like because the vegan community is so supportive and they're very faithful to vegan companies that even during the pandemic, you guys were able to survive. And I think even here, a lot of the restaurants died during the pandemic, but the restaurants that were vegan actually most of them survived. And I think it was just because they had, you know, vegan people, they don't really have a choice.  But, you know, I feel like there's definitely a faithful following always. So, you know, I do believe you guys stick with it, that you're going to probably become a pretty big company soon. And I think just with a pattern of things like even now, you know, we have these huge wildfires in Maui and people are really thinking about climate change and how what we eat affects climate change and everything. And so, I mean, with people having that more mind, maybe some people will start changing their habits and want to eat, if not be plant-based completely, want to be more plant-based at least, you know, if they can support a vegan chocolate company versus supporting like a big chocolate company that, you know, uses milk and, you know, pollutes the earth a lot. Maybe they would go for the first one, you know. So. So, yeah, I actually meant to ask a little bit about that. You know, how is that affecting you all and, you know, just the community of Hawaii in general? Well, I think it's been, I mean, because I'm on Oahu, I'm not feeling it as much, but it's definitely like I think a lot of people are pitching in and helping. A lot of people are willing to help. We've sent donations over from Oahu, obviously. And there's been a lot of relief effort. But a lot of the problem also lies in the fact that, you know, people just lost everything. So I think I was hearing that some people they're going to stores and all of the stores are sold out of things, too. So that even makes them more difficult, even if they have the money to buy stuff, they wouldn't be able to. So just really difficult, you know, losing everything. And then all those people that died. So, yeah, I don't think I think it's just going to be, you know, really terrible for a while for people, you know, especially our mouths. So I don't know. Definitely, no, I know that I saw that. Yeah, I was heartbroken, just sending my prayers.  And it's happening. So the more people you're watching, prosperity, sea spiercy, buying, you know, vegan products, and, you know, things are going to start moving and changing. I agree. And I think one of the best ways we can do it is with food. I mean, food is part of every culture. And if we can kind of get these vegan or better for you type products that are plant based into everybody's hands, I think that's a great form of activism. And people always ask us, do we do activism? Yes, we do. You know, we volunteer. But also, I think one of the most powerful ways is to share vegan food with others and get them to experience that it tastes just as good as, you know, food with dairy, food with meat in it. So I think food can be a huge game changer. Yeah, I mean, I'm wondering how do you guys actually develop the products you have, like the chocolate? Do you have a team of people or just you guys? Yeah, so interestingly enough, I came up with the first recipe just in my kitchen. Um, so for the chocolate base, that's what I did. And then, you know, from there, we hired a food scientist to help us develop a gluten-free recipe because it's very difficult to work with gluten-free products if you don't know the science behind it. So, yeah, we do have some developers that we kind of use as contractors. So with the gluten-free, what inspired? I mean, I think it's wonderful because I'm actually gluten-free.  But what inspired you to to do the gluten-free versus just a normal, non-gluten-free candy bar? Yeah, I'll go real quick and then try out. You can add on here. So it actually kind of just happened. We were working with a facility that was gluten-free. They were actually all allergen-free. So we said, you know what, let's just stick with the allergen-free message. And then eventually it evolved. We noticed that a lot of people with dairy allergies actually had gluten allergies and vice versa. Maybe I got that wrong. Maybe a lot of people with gluten allergies have dairy allergies. But when we caught on to that, we're like, you know what, let's just stay loyal to to to everyone who can eat gluten. Honestly, also something that affected this was that kick hat has no gluten-free options, at least in the US, I've noticed. So that kind of helped influence our decision there. We wanted to provide people that may never have had a kick hat with a gluten-free wafer bar. So that's awesome.  Like you guys had a special s'mores campaign or something. And I ordered some and I was kind of saving it for a camping trip. And so I put a bunch of them in my refrigerator. And what I thought was a safe place because my husband and I, we each have our own fridge. And what happened was that one day I looked in and everything was gone. I stepped the marshmallows and I go to my husband. I say, what happened? Why did you eat all of my stuff and my s'mores? I'm saving that for a camping trip. He's like, oh, that's been in a while.  And I was like, no, I was saving that first. Oh, no. That was the gluten-free graham crackers. And that is funny. Yeah. But are you guys going to have a s'mores campaign and other stuff again? Any new fun campaigns coming up? Yeah. So I think like we were saying before, Charlie, I'll actually let you talk about our upcoming Kickstarter and maybe the Halloween prize we're putting out there. Yeah, no worries. And yeah, so we are right now developing our products for Halloween, which is really, really exciting. It's kind of like a traditional Halloween product. I know it's one that Brian and I both love. But yeah, so we have that. And then, yeah, that's us last year, right when we launched the Wafer Buzz. But so we're also releasing America's favorite candy bar, which and which we'll be launching sometime in September. So those are kind of our next two big things that are coming. Nice. OK, we're out of time. So unfortunately, we have to wrap it up. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. This is Healthy Plan on the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series. We've been talking with Brian and Charlie Chupo, co-founders of Chupo Treats. Thanks to Michael, a broadcast engineer and the rest of the crew at Think Tech for hosting our show. And thanks to you, our listeners for listening. I'll see you in two weeks for more Healthy Plan on Think Tech, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet. My guest will be Holly Holowalk, founder of Popoki Place, Oahu Cat Sanctuary. If you have ideas for the show or questions for my future show guests, please contact me at Healthy Planet Think Tech at gmail.com. Check out my website at gracinghawai.com or Instagram at Graceful Living 365 for more information on my projects, including future show guests. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. Aloha, everyone.