In this episode of UEN Homeroom, Dani and Matt are joined by Ray Matsumiya and Iman Al-Omari from the Oleander Initiative. Listen to learn how they inspire peace education in the classroom by taking teachers from across the world to Japan to learn about the resilience of the survivors of the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
In this episode of UEN Homeroom, Dani and Matt are joined by Ray Matsumiya and Iman Al-Omari from the Oleander Initiative. Listen to learn how they inspire peace education in the classroom by taking teachers from across the world to Japan to learn about the resilience of the survivors of the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
Oleander Initiative: https://oleanderinitiative.org/
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Hey, Matt.
Hey, Dani.
So we are talking about something that's pretty near and dear to your heart on this episode.
Yeah, we are talking to Ray and Iman from the Oleander Initiative, which is part of the University of the Middle East. And what the program is it takes teachers from North Africa and the Middle East Muslim countries and teachers from the United States, takes them to Japan to work with the survivors of the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. And it's an incredible experience, and I was lucky enough to go in 2017.
I know just hearing from you and the stories that you share from your experience in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it's powerful. So I am extremely excited to talk with Ray and Iman today to hear their perspective.
Absolutely, let's jump right into it.
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We are so lucky to have a wonderful guest today all the way from Boston. He leads a program called the Oleander Initiative that I was lucky enough to be a part of a few years ago. Welcome, Ray. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Ray, and tell us a little bit about the Oleander Initiative.
First of all, thanks so much for having me on the show, Matt. It's really great to see you again. The last time I saw you was in 2017 in Hiroshima, I think.
Just a little bit about myself, I was born here in Boston. I'm Japanese-American, and I've worked in the Middle East and North Africa on doing peace programs for the last 25 years or so. My relatives are also from Hiroshima, Japan. So when I was a little kid, my mother would always be like, "You have to work for peace, you have to work for peace," and that's exactly what I ended up doing.
So I worked in the Middle East for about 20 years. And in 2016, we started doing programs in Hiroshima again. After 20 years of working in the Middle East, we did a program in Hiroshima, so it was a nice kind of circle back to where I started out from. And that program was called the Oleander Initiative.
And to tell you a little bit about the Oleander Initiative, it basically gathers teachers from all over the world to Hiroshima for a two-week peace education program. And I think what is special about our program is that we concentrate on what happened during the bomb but also what happened after the bomb, so there's equal emphasis on both. So most people know what happened on August 6, 1945. It was the first city that was attacked by nuclear weapons.
The horror that it unleashed was really unimaginable. But we also focus on what happened after August 6th. What's amazing about Hiroshima is that, even after 140,000 people were killed, even after 90% of the city was destroyed, the people of Hiroshima unified together. They rebuilt their city at this amazing pace.
Just to give you an example, just six months after the bomb, they opened school again. I mean, can you imagine, that's six months after the atomic bomb? Even though a lot of the schools didn't have desks or papers or even roofs, they just felt like they had to keep going with the education, and they started school again. I'm sorry, within three years, I think 75% of the city was rebuilt. And within five years, the Hiroshima Carp baseball team took the field on opening day. So that just gives you an idea of how fast they were able to rebuild after this devastating event.
What's even more amazing is that not only did they rebuild so quickly, they rebuilt in the image of peace. They very deliberately made sure that every single part of the reconstruction process reflected peace. And today Hiroshima is known as the city of peace, and that's why it's so inspirational to be there.
I think that's why it's one of the best places in the world to do peace education programs. To get a little bit into what we actually do at the Oleander Initiative, when our teachers arrive in Hiroshima, we ask them to think about the lesson of Hiroshima. What can we learn from both August 6, 1945, and what can be learn from the amazing reconstruction process afterwards?
And that's what we ask our teachers to really kind of internalize. And we explore the lesson of Hiroshima in lots of different ways. So we work with professors from the area, and they talk about things like the actual impact of nuclear weapons on the body or the devastating impact of nuclear weapons on the environment and things like that.
But we also explore themes like forgiveness. We also explore themes like resilience. Like how was it that the people of Hiroshima were able to reconstruct so fast? We go to different sites of conscience, like we go to the Peace Memorial Museum and the Peace Park and the Sadako Peace Memorial.
And I think one of the most interesting parts of this program is the peace education curriculum in Hiroshima. So Hiroshima is the only educational system in the world where it's legally mandatory that every single level of education has a peace education component. So starting from nursery school all the way to senior year in high school, there's a peace education module that's inserted at every single level of education because, like I said, Hiroshima is a city of peace.
And they don't want it to just be the city of peace. They want their citizens to have the ability to create peace. So it's an amazing combination of things that makes Hiroshima such an incredible city of peace.
I think a highlight of our program is when our teachers meet the Hibakusha. And the Hibakusha are the survivors of the atomic bomb. So these are people that have been directly impacted by August 6, 1945. Now many of them have lost loved ones. Many of them have been impacted by flash burns or even radiation sickness, and they tell their stories to our teachers.
What I think is really amazing about all the Hibakushas is that they all have a single theme that they always talk about. And they don't talk about revenge or anger or things like that. They all talk about the need for there to be peace, and they see themselves as the ambassadors for peace.
They want people to understand how horrible war is so they can understand how sweet peace is and how the duty of every single person with me and you and all of their teachers to make sure that we live on the most peaceful planet possible. And it is such an inspiring message because when someone talks about how they lost their mother or their father but how they forgave the Americans but condemn war and how it's their duty to tell you that you should work for peace, it's amazingly, amazingly powerful. And that's why I think so many of our teachers go back to their schools really inspired to implement what they learn in Hiroshima.
And that's the second part of the program is that after our teachers think about what the lesson of Hiroshima is, they work in multinational groups. People from the Middle East and America and other places, they all work together to try to make the most impactful lesson plan they can for their students. And that lesson plan articulates what they think the lesson of Hiroshima is and brings it to their students.
There's just been really amazing projects all around the world based on the lesson of Hiroshima. Obviously, some of them are about the dangers of nuclear weapons. But there's also great lessons about forgiveness and empathy. And I think a major one is the personal responsibility for peace.
So one of our educators actually made a peer mediation group in their school. So every single student has the ability to make peace because that's the personal responsibility for peace. Another theme has been resilience, especially during the pandemic, where people are really looking for sources of inspiration. So there's a natural connection to see what the people in Hiroshima did in 1945 and what we're doing now trying to get through this kind of crazy period of our lives. And I think it's inspirational that students see what people their age did back then to recover from this horrible event and how quickly they're able to do it and how driven they were to make their lives better, despite the circumstances.
I think Hiroshima has really acted as a really rich platform for education. And I think we've made a real impact through a lot of these projects. So I hope that answers your question. It was a long answer.
It was a long answer, but it was really beautiful, Ray. And I think you did a great job explaining what the Oleander Initiative is, and it's really cool that you have those personal ties to Hiroshima to be able to take educators there. But I'm wondering, how did this, the Oleander Initiative, how did it turn into teacher peace education training series.
Well, my organization has worked with teachers for a long time. And we really think teachers are among the most influential people in society. And if you think about it, each teacher is connected to hundreds of students. So whatever a teacher learns can be transmitted to people that are going to be controlling their countries in 20 or 30 years.
And a lot of times, we work with high school teachers. I think high school students are among the most influential in that they are at a time in their lives where their worldviews are really being shaped. So if our teachers give it the right resonant, impactful peace education at that time, it can be really effective.
So we've been around for over 25 years. We've worked in nine different countries, in America and Spain, in Lebanon and Morocco, all over the Middle East. There's been a very special influence of Hiroshima in our programs. And I think because of some of the factors I talked about, there's something so inspirational about having our programs in Hiroshima and particularly for educators. I think it's such a rich place to really understand peace education and peace writ large to bring to their students.
So this program started off as just Middle Eastern teachers back in 2016. In 2017, we expanded to American teachers. In 2019, we kept expanding. We expanded it to South Korean teachers and also teachers from the UK.
And in 2020, we were supposed to really expand all over the world with programs designed for people in Northern Ireland and Ethiopia and Bosnia. And we were really supposed to expand all over the world because I just don't think there's any better place in the world to do peace education than in Hiroshima. But, of course, the pandemic kind of shut it down. So we're hoping that maybe this fall-- maybe, I'm keeping my fingers crossed-- that we can start doing our programs again and really expand out.
That's fantastic, Ray. It would be great to see that come back, and I love the international influence. I think that's one of the biggest things about this program is being able to meet those teachers from all over the world and then hearing their stories. Storytelling is such a powerful medium for sharing experiences and learning.
How have the stories about Nagasaki and Hiroshima helped to explore larger issues surrounding peace education and social emotional development in different teachers' classrooms? What kind of stories have you heard that have impacted student learning or some of the stories of the Hibakusha as well. I mean, if there's some of those stories that come out of Hiroshima that have impacted and teachers have taken back to their classroom and shared with students, that might be part of this as well.
Well, sure, so what from the program itself has been taken back to-- OK. I think that a really major theme is really forgiveness and moving towards the future. I think moving towards the future is one of the big takeaways from the Hibakusha and actually in Hiroshima in general and it's really hard for people to understand, including me, how people were able to move forwards from such a catastrophe. And I think that is one of the things that really strikes people. That's a common theme in Hiroshima, where everything has been destroyed, but there's no choice but to move forwards.
You have to move towards the future. You have to just step by step, you just have to keep moving. And I think that is such a major theme.
And it really was most resonant during the last couple of years, where I think a lot of people felt really helpless or stuck. But the idea is that no matter what happens, you just have to keep moving towards the future. You have to keep moving towards a better future, and I think that's a major thing.
I think another thing that really strikes people is it's kind of funny, but there's a-- I talked about the Hibakusha, which are people that have been affected by the atomic bomb. But there's something called hibakujumoku, which means trees affected by the atomic bomb, and it's such a simple thing. But even after most of the vegetation in Hiroshima was burned up, there were some trees that survived. And these trees have struggled so much just to get through this, and they're still alive 75 years later.
And the people in Hiroshima take care of these trees, and they prop them up with stilts. They wrap them around with cloth or whatever it takes to keep these trees alive. And for whatever reason, that's been such an emotional impact on our teachers, and a lot of them use that in their classrooms as a symbol of resilience or the symbol of how nature keeps fighting through, no matter what happens to it. And I think it's a similar theme to resilience, where these trees are that symbol of resilience. I think a lot of teachers bring back the example of the trees back to their classrooms.
I was just going to add to that, Ray. I'm glad you brought that up because I was one of those teachers. I remember one day we had a double-- for me, a double gut punch because we went to an elementary school and then saw these survivor trees. And I had never heard of the concept, saw a bunch of them, took as many pictures as I could because it was such an amazing, beautiful concept.
And then that same afternoon, I went over to-- I believe it was called-- ANT and met with some of the Hibakusha and had lunch with them. And those two stories were the ones I most commonly shared with students because they're so deeply powerful, to show not only the human side, the human suffering, resilience, peacemaker side of it but then also the nature side of it, how the environment changed and shifted with the human suffering to then come back and be so beautiful. And just as a side question here, can you tell us why you chose the oleander as the symbol of this program?
Oh, sure, that's a great question. So when the atomic bomb dropped, scientists came over to Hiroshima a few months afterwards. And the scientists were like nothing is ever going to grow in this irradiated soil ever again.
And, of course, everyone in Hiroshima was devastated. But just a few months later, these beautiful flowers started springing out of the soil, and those were oleander flowers. So that's why we use that as the name of our program is that oleander flowers, they're such a symbol of resilience and rebirth, but it's also a warning about the dangers of nuclear weapons.
I love that story. That's really cool. So this is going to be-- our next question is going to be a student question.
Hi. I'm Sam from Judge Memorial High School. How can teachers, especially those who have not been part of the Oleander Initiative, explore peace education? And what have you seen students in schools do to promote peace education?
So I think one thing you can take away from Hiroshima with peace education and not visit Hiroshima is on the story of Sadako and the paper cranes. And this is a very famous story in that there was a girl named Sadako who is very, very young when the bomb dropped. And then a few-- over a decade later, she became sick with leukemia because of the after effects of the bomb.
And when she was in the hospital room, she started folding these paper cranes. And the idea behind these paper cranes was that there's a Japanese legend that if you fold 1,000 paper cranes, you can be granted any wish you want. And Sadako's wish was that she gets better from leukemia.
Unfortunately, she didn't make it to the 1,000 paper cranes. But her classmates took over for her. And they folded the rest of the paper cranes. And from then, the paper crane became a symbol for peace in Hiroshima. And it's a very powerful thing.
So one of the workshops that our teachers do after they come back from Hiroshima to their colleagues is kind of as a paper crane folding workshop. And what's great about the paper cranes is that it's something tangible that you can do for peace. And I know that, for students, it's really hard to imagine world peace. It's such a huge concept. And what can I do to contribute? It seems nearly impossible.
But by folding paper cranes, you can have a small but tangible impact on peace because what happens to these paper cranes is that they get gathered, and they get sent to Hiroshima. And Hiroshima receives millions of these paper cranes every year, and it's a symbol of peace that students can contribute to. So even if you don't go to Hiroshima, you can still somehow contribute to the peace in this way, by folding paper cranes. And usually, there's activities and discussions that go around paper cranes . But ultimately, you can do something with your hands, feel like you're empowered to do something, and then actually have that paper crane go over to Hiroshima.
It is absolutely a beautiful symbol of peace education and peace learning. I had one girl actually fold 1,000 paper cranes in my classroom by herself over the course of the year after I taught her how to do it. It was absolutely incredible. The string was in my classroom for a couple of months afterwards.
So Ray, one of the things that I'm curious about as a former participant, but then I know other teachers. This is such a growing program. It's a big program. It has a lot of amazing goals. What do you view as the end goal of the Oleander Initiative? What would you like educators around the world, even those that aren't able to participate in the Oleander Initiative, to understand about peace education?
One of the great-- not contradictions-- but one of the really interesting things about Hiroshima is that the duality of it is that on one hand, there's such horror in August 6, and there's such sadness on-- but on the other hand, when you look at the reconstruction and the resilience of the people, I think it makes you realize how sweet life is, really, and how sweet peace is. And I think that's what I want people to understand, is that peace education is often framed on-- not negatively, but it's like a prevention to war. But I think Hiroshima makes you understand that peace in itself is so beautiful and that it's really worth working for.
And I got to go back and give a little credit to one of the sponsors of this program. His name is Bernard Otterman. And I met him in New York City. He was a Holocaust survivor. And one of the stories he talked about was how there was a story about a kid in a concentration camp that celebrated his birthday-- or maybe the kid was in hiding during the war, and he celebrated his birthday.
And that was the most beautiful memory that that kid ever had. So even in the midst of war and horror that there can be beauty, and that beauty is very, very powerful. And I think it's a similar ethos that's happening in Hiroshima. So it's really that contradiction that makes peace education so complex, and powerful, and important.
Thank you for sharing that. I'm wondering, Ray, teachers that are listening to this podcast, what would you ask them? Where would you send them for more resources about peace education, and how could they learn more about the Oleander Initiative?
Well, hopefully, we'll start programs again when this pandemic is over. They can go to oleanderinitiative.org. All the latest information about our programs will be there. And there's a lot of resources too. I think a great place to start is Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. I think that's such an impactful story that if you want to build a peace education curriculum, that's a great place to start-- or at least education about Hiroshima.
And I know that the city of Hiroshima itself has a lot of resources that they give to teachers around the world. There's also many organizations in Hiroshima itself that are English-speaking that do this as well. One of them is ANT-Hiroshima. Another is Peace Culture Village, Hiroshima. And they can all provide resources, and they all speak English. So they're pretty easy to access.
That's perfect. We'll make sure to link all of those resources in our notes for this podcast. And I just want to say, thank you for providing this information for teachers and this experience for educators all over the world to come to Hiroshima, and see, and experience, and talk to people who have lived through the horrors of war and give this great experience to educators who can then pass it on to their students.
Thank you.
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We're very lucky today to have a guest that is all the way around the world. Is this a first for us on UEN Homeroom, Dani?
I think it is. I think this is a first.
Yeah, definitely a first-- I think our first Jordanian guest, but also our first guest from around the world. We're so lucky to have Oleander Initiative participant Iman with us today. Iman, could you introduce yourself a little bit and tell us about your place in education, what you do in Jordan?
Yeah, actually, I've been working in the educational field since 1990, but I still look young. [LAUGHS] I'm just kidding. I started actually to work as an administrator in the school. And at the beginning, I was thinking it will be just like for a short period of time, a temporary state because I was continuing my master's degree in political science. Just later on, I became so attached to the place, and the principal and general director at that time started to convince me to become a teacher.
And the first time I went to the class, and I remember they were eighth graders. The first time I left the classroom, my tears were falling down. And then my experience later, I became so attached to that career. And I've been teaching Islamic studies since 2013 till now. And I'm also an administrator exam officers for IG program, which is the British educational program system as the contact person between the students and the British Council in Jordan in order to register them for their external exams.
Thank you for sharing. And Iman, you are definitely not the first person that eighth graders have made cry. I think a lot of us have been in that same situation. But they do. They make you cry, and then you become very attached to them and helping them on their educational journey. Iman, can you tell us how you became part of the Oleander Initiative? And how did visiting Japan change your perspective on education?
Actually, it wasn't the first program that I attended with the UME, the University of the Middle East. Actually, I think it was the fifth program. And when I heard about the summary concerning the Oleander Initiative, so I applied in 2016, then I also applied for 2017. And I went to Japan, and I was really impressed.
And when I came back to Jordan, I started talking to another teacher and the students in order to share with them the experience of Japan and in order to implement the project, which was part of the program. And actually, the project was drawings from a Japanese artist. Her paintings were really related to the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosions.
Yeah, and the student started to not like to imitate the paintings or the drawings. They started to draw what they know about the Japanese, let's say, experience in World War II. And I was really impressed. Then the teacher who implemented the project with me, she really wanted to implement similar projects with her students in the other classes as well.
That's amazing, Iman. Such a cool project to bring in art and the Japanese experience during World War II and talk about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Which stories connected with your students and with this other teacher's students about visiting Japan and working specifically with the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Actually, they were really impressed of how determination that they can and hope, OK, can really produce this result, this accomplishment, just like the Japanese experience. And for example, because I had a student from Iraq and Syria. And unfortunately, they have a really bad situation due to the civil wars in their countries.
And I keep telling them to look at the bright side, remembering and telling them about that Japanese experience, how they can people-- it was the most horrible thing in the human history, that humans can victimize each other in that horrible way. But at the same time, they were able to survive. They have this will in order to redevelop themselves, to rebuild their country.
And I keep telling them all the time, remember this experience. And remember, there will be a day that you will go back to your country with a new-- with your opinion that you will be able to build your country because you are the generation that will help your country to redevelop again and to get rid of the results of the civil wars.
I love that you're able to share that message of hope with your students, that there's always a bright side. There's always something to look forward to. What do your students want to know about your experience in Japan? What kind of questions do they regularly ask you? And then what do you ask them to do to share with their community?
Actually, they were really impressed when I told them that I had the chance to meet some of the hibakushas, the people who were able to survive. Also, they were very young when they were at the time of the explosions. But they were able to tell the stories of that sad moment they faced. I told this to my students, that they were really impressed how they were able to share this horrible moment with others in order to give the people this lesson-- really, this great lesson and know they were able to survive to come over all of these bad times of the war, yes.
It's amazing.
Our next question is going to be a student question.
Hi. I'm Sam from Judge Memorial High School. How can teachers, especially those who have not been part of the Oleander Initiative, explore peace education? And what have you seen students in schools do to promote peace education?
Actually, all of the teachers, particularly in certain subjects, who teach English, or History, even Islamic Studies, they can sit together and look for common topics, and they can share these topics with their students by relating to the Japanese experience in order to create peace education in some of the subjects, just like English, History, Islamic Studies, Art, by drawing and painting, even music classes. Because I brought a CD, which was from most of the countries of the world singing the same song of peace for [INAUDIBLE] and Hiroshima.
But unfortunately, I couldn't translate it into Arabic because it didn't work for the words and the rhythm. So unfortunately, it didn't work. I tried it, but it didn't work out.
That's all right. Even if it didn't work, what a cool experience to hear that music and have kids from around the world singing the same lyrics of peace, even if they don't quite translate. That's all right. [LAUGHS] So our last question for you, Iman, is, what would you like every educator to understand about the Oleander Initiative or about peace education in general?
The determination of the ability to resilience, to be optimistic because definitely, definitely, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel besides all of the consequences, besides all of the situation. At the end, there will be a light, definitely, at the end of the tunnel.
I love that answer, Iman. That's how I've always thought about peace education when I came back from Japan of, there's always a better place and a better change that we can make down the line, especially with our students. So thank you so much for being here today. We really appreciate your thoughts and ideas. Anything that you'd like to add or anything else you'd like to say about peace education or the Oleander Initiative?
Actually, particularly, Oleander Initiative helped me a lot because I teach Islamic studies. And definitely, we concentrate on certain spiritual things. And the main principle I always tell my students about, there is a verse in the Holy Quran which includes that God will not change the situation of the people unless they will do the change by themselves.
If they will do the change, God will help them to reach their goal. And that, I keep on insisting, telling them, emphasize this principle to my students in my young Islamic studies classes. So this is the link between the Japanese experience, how the people, after this horrible catastrophe, they were able to survive, and to construct, able to rebuild their country in that amazing way.
That's really beautiful. I love that you're encouraging your students to be part of the change, to be part of the peace and making and building that better world. So thank you so much, Iman, for sharing your vision of hope and how you experience the Oleander Initiative. We really appreciate it here at Homeroom.
You're most welcome. Thank you.
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So I'm interested, because I have a very deeply personal connection to this whole thing, Dani, what was your response to both of the interviews? What things would you want to learn more about based on this conversation?
Absolutely. Well, I'm kind of embarrassed to say that until specifically talking about the Oleander Initiative, I can't say that thinking about and teaching peace education was even on my radar. And I love it, and I love that it's part of the curriculum in Hiroshima.
Ray shared that every single year, students in that city would have some kind of peace education. I love that. And I think it's amazing that Ray and the Oleander Initiative work to bring educators from around the world to experience-- I really like how Iman put it-- how horrible humans can be to one another and then can take that and turn it into something that they share with-- an experience that they share with students that can ultimately change their lives and help to make the world a better place for all of us.
Absolutely. I will just go with you on one of those big things that you just said is, before I went to Japan, I didn't think about peace education. I didn't know much about it.
I saw the advertisement for the Oleander Initiative, and I went, this sounds like an incredible program that has some deep connections with the State of Utah, with nuclear testing in the 1950s and '60s, and the downwinders. And that's what I really wrote my project about and then presented on it a few conferences. But you're hitting the nail on the head of, this is a program, like many, that brings educators together from all over the world to really think about how we can work with our students to better the world around us, whether it be through anti-nuclear weapon action or just through general-- like Iman talked about-- thinking about being the change in the room for your country or for even your school.
I think that just overwhelming message of hope and resilience-- I mean, we all know, the last couple of years have been crazy for us. We have all had to be really strong and really resilient. And I think we've gotten good at that, but I think sometimes we forget the hope part, that this isn't how the world always is, and it's not always going to be that way. And I think we need to hear that, that message of hope right now.
Absolutely. Cassandra, same question. After this interview, thinking about as a person who didn't participate in this program, what would you want to know more about? What's affecting you? What kind of things are you taking away from the conversation?
I think that it's so important to keep thinking about peace. And it's very inspiring how they turned it into such a positive way to get through and have a conversation about peace. And going back to what Ray touched on, he mentioned how resilient we've all had to be through the pandemic and the continued lack of normalcy that we've just been experiencing in the last two years.
I hadn't really thought about peace education. It's kind of been peaceful. We live in Utah. It's pretty chill. But just what we've all gone through, this was a great reminder. And just-- I don't know. I'm just really excited for people to learn more, and I want to continue to learn more. I googled it after, and I just-- it's a great initiative, and I'm excited to share.
Absolutely. I think it's one of those things that can fall off our radar if it's not something that we're constantly thinking about and looking at. And yeah, I think in our little box here in Utah, we feel very safe and sound, and we have to remember there are times when it's not like that all the way all around the world. And I think we sometimes take that for granted.
Exactly, yeah, I totally agree.
One of my favorite moments on the trip that I don't talk about enough was a night where we as teachers got to sit down and work with Japanese teachers from around Japan that were in town for one of the conferences. And I got sat at a table with teachers from Fukujima, the area where the nuclear reactor went off in 2013. And it was such a valuable experience for me for so many reasons.
But one of the biggest ones is that the first thing they did was start making jokes with me. And we had a good conversation. We had a fun time up front. And then we got serious and talked about real change and hope. And I thought that really hammers home this point that if we can all think about hope and change and hope for the better, it will happen down the line.
Oh, you're absolutely right. I just wanted to say that we hope other educators in our state and beyond check out the Oleander Initiative. We're going to put all of those links in our show notes.
Absolutely. And thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.
Thanks, everyone.
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