Defying Expectations: A Homeschooled Child's Path to Success and Community Impact | Episode 89

Dr. Pratt, a social media strategist and homeschooler, discusses his journey and insights on parenting and education. He shares his early reading skills, influenced by his mother's homeschooling and his father's street smarts. Dr. Pratt recounts his experiences with standardized testing, his mother's creation of a homeschooling curriculum, and his father's influence. He emphasizes the importance of community support for parents of hyperactive children and the power of positive feedback. Dr. Pratt also highlights his career, including his work at the Port Authority, his honorary PhD in philosophy of pop culture, and his contributions to Black Twitter and social media.

Transcript

TD Flenaugh: 0:02

Welcome now. Do you have young kids? Have you thought about homeschooling them? Are you teaching them at home? What are you teaching them at home? We're going to get into this very important topic with our guest today, Doctor Pratt. You don't want to everybody. You don't want to miss this because he has insights. Okay. Hi, thank you so much for joining the falling for learning podcast. I am TD linaugh. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. Okay, here we are. We are ready to begin. This is Dr Pratt. He is a social media strategist extraordinaire, and he actually happens to do some Homeschooling with his daughter. And we're going to hear about all his insights. We're going to give you information about how you could work with him. Doctor, proud, welcome. Thank

Unknown: 1:16

you. Thank you for having me. I do want to hopefully let the audience know that I want to learn as much as as they learn. So love to have feedback after the the watch to in the comment section to let me know that I'm not the only person on the planet dealing with a hype rack to toddler, and I think that's one of the biggest issues, is that we're parenting kind of in this concept that it's just us, like, really only one everybody else's kid seems totally cool, and they're learning at the right rate, and they're meeting all their metrics, and just our kid that is complete, a complete fool, like it's just ours, it's not the rest of the world. So I just don't believe that. I don't believe it, but I think as a community of parents who have hyperactive children, we're we're doing a bad job of supporting each other and letting each other know it's okay, you're not alone.

TD Flenaugh: 2:19

Okay? So this is some some good insight. So he, you know, is wanting some feedback, please, some put some comments in the chat, like, let us know if you're having some of the same issues. Now we, I know Doctor Pratt, because he is part of a community that I and he's his own community even. But again, like I said, he does a lot of social media work, and he helps me with some of my work, of course. And we wanted to always find out from our guest what made them fall in love with learning. So tell us about your yourself. Oh,

Unknown: 2:58

wow, I wasn't expecting that as a good question. My mother was a strong believer in homeschooling in the 70s, so and also was raised in a religious household, so I'd learned to read a Bible at an early age, and I learned early on that I could get admiration or acknowledgement or even praise if I read with emphasis, if I read with a tone and or aliveness. Am I reading the Bible? People would clap and I would Oh, so as I don't know why, but as a child, that made me smirk and smile. So I read the Scriptures with you know, different voices at four or five. So back to your question, though, what I guess made me fall in love with learning was the power that I could have to influence adults by them discovering that, oh, Martin knows how to read, and not just that he can read the big words, and not just that I had this is, this is going back to the I was born in the 70s. So there was a a famous kid in the 70s had a TV show and he looked like me with chocolate like me and a big, big cheeks like me. So people thought I was him. Sometimes I had a big afro, as you imagined. Okay,

TD Flenaugh: 4:32

71 Wait a minute. So tell me who this child actor is, that they was Rodney l

Unknown: 4:37

Ripley or something rotten. I can't remember his name. He had the, I have to do the research, because I didn't. The big, closest thing I can say to him is like he looked like Gary Coleman. He was the 70s version of this

TD Flenaugh: 4:52

early celebrity. Okay, so you were doing it, right? So back in the, you know, we know people use that for the gram now, right? You were, you were exactly. It is that you're doing it for that audience, getting that little lift up

Unknown: 5:03

for you in the real world, in front of the librarian. So I would always go to the library books, and they would be, oh, you can't take out Moby Dick or whatever book I want. It was like a Christie or something. I was some adult book, right? You can't take that out. I'm saying, Can I read? If I can read for you, can I take it out? It's Oh sure,

TD Flenaugh: 5:23

negotiation, okay.

Unknown: 5:25

And I read, he like, and I just didn't read, you know? I read she was worried, chocolate with big cheeks, big afro, and just, you know, so, so it's very much for me when I saw Hollywood, understand that little chocolate, black boy on these shows, back then, it was the TV shows, comedy shows. I was living that life, in real life, in getting things I wanted because I could, I couldn't just it wasn't because I was a problem child or acting out child. I was actually doing with society. I was exceeding the level of expectation society had for me. Because again, this is the 70s, after the riots. Burned out hood in Newark, New Jersey, you know the empty apartment buildings. And I would go to places that were learning institutions, or learning places, or courthouse or whatever, and they would be surprised that this child, who the community looked like the news would say, you know, it was just we were dilapidated. We were we were depleted. We had lived in the

TD Flenaugh: 6:35

60s. So you keep Oh, so this okay. So tell us about like you said, the neighborhoods were burned in the,

Unknown: 6:42

yeah, the Newark, New Jersey, back then. This was after the riots, which the riots of, I think it's 69 or six. So I was born in 71 so I when I came to the planet, it was hell, hell. It just happened. So, so I grew up thinking that abandoned apartment buildings and mattresses outside and broken glass was normal. That's what I thought. So when I went into those institutions that were there to serve the community, they were shocked that we could be educated. So that's when I fell in love with learning, because I realized I could go further in my child mind, that I could normally if I showed up as a learned student or a learned, learned person. And that that power I at some point later on in my life, but not now. I relish that power. At some point, I discovered that it was all power and good power. But for, I would say, 10 years of my life, I realized I could get anything I wanted on the planet by being educated.

TD Flenaugh: 7:56

Wow, this is such a different answer.

Unknown: 8:01

You didn't expect to meet loose the the black Lex Luthor,

TD Flenaugh: 8:09

this is a spin on this, you know, like most people talk about, you know, a parent really getting them into it, yeah, like that was amazing thinking about where they can get you the power, like you're defying odds, or, you know, what's expected of you. Say that, again, defining odds, defying odds, yeah, no, yeah. I mean, that's like, that's, that's a great idea, like, right? Because sometimes, you know, kids don't get that from learning. And I talk a lot, and, then, you know, I talk about in my book too, like, we really have to be careful about the messages we send to kids, because sometimes we're sending the message that reading, writing, things like that are boring, are a punishment, and you were learning how to get power from it. Now you did tell us that you learn how to you were reading at four and five. Like, now, how is that possible? Are you just a genius? Or what do you remember about that process, about learning to read?

Unknown: 9:05

You know, I never questioned it. I grew up with two parents who read, you know, who are readers? We had a library in the house. Our apartment. First apartment we had was, it was a apartment. But back then, our apartment was, I would say it was, it was two bedroom. Well, no, it was probably like a three bedroom, but we had two other room, the father's office, and so it was like a four bedroom with two bathrooms, okay? And it was in a house in New Jersey, so it wasn't the square apartment. It was like a house, second floor of a house. So we had extra rooms, a living room, a dining room, you know, we have a space, and in those spaces my parents, one of the biggest things besides plants, was books. Okay? We had subscription to everything, you know, life time, Ebony, essence, jet. So I information was. Was available to me, in a way. And like every Saturday night, my father would take me to the to to a newspaper store. Back then they had stores, yeah, that was all magazines and newspapers. So he would get the New Jersey star ledger Saturday night, okay, so he could have access to the Sunday News. Mm, Saturday night. So you know, in this conversation, you're asking questions. I'm thinking thinking about things that I haven't really thought about for a while. And I'm realizing patterns my desire to have access to information started, you know, was I was inherited because I was around two people who didn't have college degrees but had a higher level of success because they understood how to read the tea leaves, so to speak. So my dad had New York Times Wall Street Journal and the Sunday star Ledger in New Jersey, and he didn't get the times. He only got times on Sunday, he brought both together. He bought the New York Times and star ledger Saturday night, it was available to you and the the Wall Street Journal he borrowed from a local office that would throw you out every night. He would literally go to the garbage and get the Wall Street Journal every night to be able to read what happened on the wall on the street the day. So he was getting old, he was there Right. And then when he got financially secure, he got we Wall Street Journal was a regular thing. So actually, my nickname in high school is the Wall Street Journal. Oh my

TD Flenaugh: 11:36

goodness. So that's, yeah, interesting. Like, I

Unknown: 11:38

was a nerd. I was a complete nerd that that was blessed to have older friends who protected me, okay, but, but getting to your question, I don't remember why I learned to read, other than the biggest desire I had was to keep getting the accolades so I kept perfecting my learning. Wonderful.

TD Flenaugh: 12:04

So this is also something I talk about, is like having that positive feedback, because sometimes we give kids a lot of negative feedback, like, you know, like, you did this, yes, that wrong, but we give that positive feedback like, that is something that's really great. Great. I don't know. I hear an echo. I don't know if you hear echo, but I do.

Unknown: 12:26

No, I don't. I just I you're lower. Now, now, unfortunately, all of a sudden, my neighbors are outside my window.

TD Flenaugh: 12:33

I can't hear anybody. I just hear that there's kind of an echo. So sorry about that with the sound. So one thing that stood out to me is you also were saying that your parents didn't have college education. And, you know, sometimes people are intimidated, like they're like, I don't know about that much about reading. I don't know about reading or whatever, but, you know, just having your kid around reading and talking about what they're doing. And some of it's kids books, but some of it is, like, adult stuff, because kids are interested in stuff. And a lot of times we're like, mind your business, or you don't have to worry about that. The kids are very interested. And we need to, you know, feed that embrace in ways. Yeah, embrace the curiosity. So can you tell us a little bit about your educational journey. You know throughout your life,

Unknown: 13:25

yeah, so two quick stories, or maybe three. In New Jersey, they tested you. So I was homeschooled. My My mother really believed in homeschooling. She did not believe in the education system. She was an ex Black Panther, so she really was, like, not about this life of giving. I want to make sure my mic. I just realized, maybe you're here to echo, because my mic is so far down. I just realized. So but my mother really believed in educating the community from the community, not allowing the school system to educate you. I however, you know, wanting the accolades, need to go to school, so we battle like battle. When I say battle like a lot of this is reminding my three year old now we battled in a sense of I wanted to go to school, and I would find reasons, legal reasons that like neglect. I accuse my mother love education at at five, I said, the state of New Jersey says, If this child is not go to school at school age, you are committing education to Google that you know what she did, found that in the reading yes in the library back then. Think about the library was Google back then. So the librarians, they knew the answer to everything. See. You

TD Flenaugh: 15:00

ask the library to tell us why you should go to school, or how did that come about? That's crazy. Like, no,

Unknown: 15:06

let's see what I learned about adults. Here's the thing I learned about adults, especially in the 70s, if a black child, and I say this because I don't even around black people, so I don't know about Spanish, I don't know about Italians white, but if a black child went up to an older black person and said, Excuse me, sir. It respects like, oh, nice little respectful, sir. Okay, yes. What can I do for you little child? And I would say, is it okay if my parents keep me home from school and don't let me go? Oh, no, no, it's not, that's not okay. And I was, can you please tell me the law that tells me that's not okay? That's a good question, Johnny, or, you know, Martin, and they would give me the status the statute. So guess my mother did. That's the type of Mother I had. My mother. My mother was, she was an excellent mother. Human being was another question, but excellent mother, right? I mean, excellent provider. We'll say, okay, so she did. She's super petty. So she said, Okay, I will write to the to all, to the capital, the state capital of New Jersey. I figured it's Trenton. I think it's written. I'm used to New York, so it's Albany in New York. But anyway, she wrote the state capitol to assembly, the assembly, our local assembly person that so it's like we had the Senate and Assembly. Somebody's like the House of Representative from New Jersey, and he was a black guy, and she wrote to his office and says, Can I get a deferment to teach my child at home? They said, yes, if you give us your curriculum. So she never had been to college. Created an educational curriculum that became the standard for New Jersey for homeschooling.

TD Flenaugh: 16:56

Heritage, this genius, okay,

Unknown: 17:01

I then got my father on my side, because my father grew up in the streets. He was he they got married after he got out of juvenile they call it juvenile hall and stuff like that, dude without detention. But he felt that the socialization he didn't want me to be a wimp. They didn't say nerd back then. They said wimp. And he was like, you know, no child of his is going to not be street smart. And the only way I was going to get street smart because of their lifestyle wasn't going to be because I hung around them. I had to get in the hood and be of the hood, to know how to you know, to know how to survive as a black male,

TD Flenaugh: 17:45

okay, hold that thought, we gotta go to commercial. Okay, hold that thought. We're gonna hear more about how you got street smart after these and messages, okay, the rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook are your go to resource for helping kids to learn to fall in love with writing. It has the tips, tools, resources, strategies and skill building activities to help kids fall out of writing and into loving. To write, get your book set today. Okay, I'm back with Doctor Pratt, just telling us how he got his dad on his side because his mom was homeschooling him. And he was young, but he was very knowledgeable, and he was trying to so how did you get what was the street like? Let us know what happens now.

Unknown: 19:01

So again, just to recap, in case you just joined so I shared our live out to two different communities. And in case anybody's just come in, I eventually got skipped in school. So they would test you in New Jersey before you got into school, and they would place you in the right grade, okay if you were in the district. So in my district, you were standardized tested at five and six years old to get placed into the right school, right right classroom. And I got placed into gifted talent gift in the town. So they called it back then, and so I had a high standardized test. I always could take tests. I didn't even know what a test was, but I knew that I knew the answers and stuff, and because I could read, you could guess the right answer back in the 70s based on the tone of the question. So you know, you think if Johnny would want apples, okay, one apple? Apples. He has five. If Susie doesn't want apples, how many is he going to have five because Susie don't want them? You know, it's like and I would, I would, I would, actually, this is my thing. Not now, not not do, I don't do this. Y'all now, but back then, I over wrote things, meaning that I gave answers above and beyond what was required. Okay? So that would give the person a snapshot into my thinking. Mm, hmm. And that did two things that got them on my side and that impressed them. So I would always in pencil right in a little bit more. Cuz, remember, I'm homeschooled. I had the whole chalk at three. I had to learn how to write on a blackboard. We had a black let me tell you how my mother did. She put that damn Blackboard on my on my door. I had a when you open my my bedroom door, there was a blackboard that would so like, is, this is, you know, so my, my perception of my childhood before I got before I got my 406 was I was in prison in an educational institution called home. Definitely remember. My father went to juvenile detention. He was he grew up on a street called Prince Street in in New Jersey in Newark. Prince, Prince. So when you look at the gangsters, the gangsters of New Jersey, the Black Mafia family that we had a black mafia family in the 70s, all the gangsters came from his block.

TD Flenaugh: 21:39

I watched that show. BMF,

Unknown: 21:43

well, that that's a different BMF, that's the that's the 90s. Yeah, original. BMF, og BMF was from Newark New Jersey, because New Jersey also where the sopranos came. The Sopranos were based on a family called the imperiality family. So the Tony Soprano was, is actually a real person, and that person lived in Newark, New Jersey, on a different side of town. So we had the black sopranos, and we had the and my father's one of those, you know, one of the Street guys for the black crime families. And so he was not about letting his child, you know, not, not get indoctrinated into the world, and it reminded my my institution, my my mother teaching the album school reminded of how he was institutionalized. I see, I see. And so he was not, you know, happy about that, but check this out. My dad loved my mother so much because she taught him how to read. So it was a very unique childhood to say to me,

TD Flenaugh: 22:47

do it make them feel indebted to someone?

Unknown: 22:50

Yep, wow, yep. He respected and my dad started flipping real estate. He taught her how to flip real estate. So, so what? They were a good couple. I didn't like that they were a good couple because I couldn't, I couldn't really play

TD Flenaugh: 23:04

them against each other in between them. Yeah, yeah. And

Unknown: 23:07

so I same thing my daughter now, as a three year old, she tries to play this and like she bounces from you on the other and what she my daughter's not home right now. My wife and my daughter are in at the bayou, but I'm in Louisiana. They're in a different town totally, but it's really close to the water, and her uncle just called me and said he's acting worse than she is. And she keeps running back to my her mother because she's, she's a she's a toddler, and she likes to try to play you. She's very smart three year old, uh, she thinks she get away with murder, and he's acting like a two year old to her, she keeps going, No, I can't deal with this. He's crazy. He's like, I like, Listen, do what you gotta do, you know? So we gotta keep this kid in line. Because she's, he's out of control when it comes to her thought process. I'm seeing myself and her to some degree, but even worse, like it's scary, because it's I would never give

TD Flenaugh: 24:01

us, give us a situation. Like, let's hear it. She goes

Unknown: 24:06

into the refrigerator because she's, she's 61 pounds and she is 50 inches tall, so she's three. She's like a mini, a mini athlete, like a mini version Amazon. And so she her, her arm strength is incredible. She can push a weight of 225, pounds, so and see. And the thing is that she, she doesn't, she throws around her weight. But you know how somebody knows they can do X, Y and Z, they don't even, they don't even think, like, that's not even question. So the other day, she we have an ottoman, and she wanted the Ottoman across the what? She just started pushing and moving the Ottoman like that. Not, not Oh, you know, she's never done it before. She just like, Oh, I'm pushing to move it. You're like, what the, you know? And then she gets, stops it, and then jumps on top of the Ottoman, anyway, um, she grabs my wife's phone. My wife phone has the Roku, uh. Remote Control on it. Okay, so we took it off of the device that she has so she can stop messing up the TV. She grabs my wife's phone, and we hid the we hit the app, okay, so it's not, it's not on that homepage. And so she grabbed my wife's finger like this. So he's like, she's like, she's like, What are you doing? What do you what's wrong? What's going on? You got, you have your device, you know, you can see, you can see YouTube kids and whatever. She love. She binge watches Sesame Street in japan, Japanese or whatever. And she's very much like an anime kid to some degree, like at three. She says, you know, loves other languages, loves watching those videos with a cap the bottle and a cap meet, and they make the clicking sound, so it's almost ASMR, but also the same time is colors, and it's just so so anyway, she tries to manipulate us. My point was that she tries to manipulate and I'm seeing myself in small dosages of what happened later on in my life, through that now she my mother was, I told his type of Mother I had her great, her, her grandfather, her mother's father was, is like my he's still alive. Was, was like she he is like my mother. So she has two DNA sets of these strong minded, educationally focused grandparents, energy in her. Okay, so it's difficult to not challenge her. You can't just say no. Her name is Zora, no. Zora, I actually have this oh so good example. Even better, three days, I have two, not two fingers up, three days, twice a day, she stopped breathing when she was three months old. Three Three days old. I'm sorry. And the reason why she stopped breathing was because the doctors would just come by and touch her. They would just start, you know, examining her. So they call me frantic, saying she stopped breathing for like, 10 seconds or five seconds, and she's like, and she's like, we think she's holding her breath. So I said she has these grandparents that were stubborn and stern, and they don't, they didn't take any mess. So you need to identify yourself as to who you are and what you're going to do. And it should be okay. You're like, what they call me back. Yo, it works. Yeah, I know. So we had a website up. We took the site down, but it was called for Zora because she stayed in the hospital 80 days, and she she was born not breathing again for 11 minutes. So the nurses took turns and did the breath of the blowing in the breath and pumping our heart until they got adrenaline. Once they gave her adrenaline, she took off. Now then she was in a tube for, I think, two days to make sure that her brain swelling when, you know, whatever. So they she had, at one point in her life, she had 16 doctors that was in charge of her. So at the end of that time period, at six months old, they were like, you know, she's going to be deficient. Learning Disabilities. Is going to be all these problems. She had no problem, no vision problem, no lung problem, no brain problem. In fact, the last doctor's appointment we had with the Children's Hospital, the the neurologist was showing me her scans and was talking to me. Zora is six months old. She's sitting on my lap, just me and Zora in the doctor's office, and she's looking at me like, does this? Does this be know that I'm here? So the doctor figured that out she was a foreign person. And she said, Is she looking at you with a disdain on her face? I say, yes, you're not addressing her. She said, oh, oh, my God. You know, you know foreign people, people who are not an American. They're a little bit like, whoa, black kid, Hex technology stuff, right? So she's like, Okay, fine. It's Dora, you and so, so Zora goes at six months. She's her. She's right, I know. She's like, so anyway, the doctor's saying, I don't see anything wrong with her brain. And she's like, this is the example why I believe she's fine. So that's Zora, and I'm living in this conversation. I'm reliving my life, and like you said, my educational journey, yeah, and how I have to, I literally, I cannot drive by a parent this child, there's no, there's no moment that I can't teach her something. It's unfortunate. I wish I could. I cannot, not take a break in and then at the same time, challenge, did you get it? Did you get she's like, you know, she'll, she'll come by and. And she'll tap my hand, and I'm like, What? What did I do wrong? And she'll smirk at me. I said, Oh, I didn't say, I love you. And she'll, you know, whatever. And then she'll walk away. And then I have to, I have to leapfrog. I what I try to do with my child is I try to get ahead of her. And I'll say, but make sure you go do that to your mother too, because your mother loves you too. And so she's, Oh, right. She does my mother, okay? And she runs to her mother. And so every time I end I engage with her, I'm ahead of her. I have to, if I, if I allow her to lead the energy that day in the house, it's a wrap. I can have a appointment set with TD, and she will have a tantrum for something else because she wasn't engaged enough early in the day. Okay,

TD Flenaugh: 30:53

yeah, you gotta be smarter than your kids. You gotta be smarter at

Unknown: 30:57

three like this, and I'm watching Tiktok, and I'm watching Instagram, and I know I'm not the only parent, with this, because it's there's a lot of different accounts that talk about these three year olds or four year olds or five year olds. Do not give a about your yes, they're different. I call them the returning generation. We have had examples. There was a three year old three years ago, if you just Google, three year old, who sold lemonade, three year old lemonade North Carolina and diapers. This girl created a lemonade stand to sell, and she donated all the money she created to the homeless shelter to make sure that babies had diapers. And when you see the picture, she has her Mary Jane shoes on, she's barely can carry this box of diapers, and she looks like she's walking across the bridge in Selma. Okay, this little three year old looks like she is not. She won her local city civic Person of the Year Award. She was dedicated. We have a six year old in Georgia two years ago, so she's now eight that became the youngest certified farmer in the state of Georgia, because she was trained by her great grandmother at three to farm. And I have two or three more examples of this. It's a phenomenal

TD Flenaugh: 32:18

turning so they're, like, they're, we're raising

Unknown: 32:22

a I'm raising my great, great grandmother. That's what I believe. Ooh, this is the 1940s generation in these little gen ed kids. They here for your feelings. They're here to learn, get impacted and move on. They got other stuff. That's how my daughter, like, I'm like, you wake up. She wakes up. Like, Okay, where is the lesson from? What's the lady? Miss Rachel. Where's Miss Rachel? At, I'm like, you just woke up. She don't want milk. She don't want the hug. Miss Rachel. Okay. And then then she relaxes and goes, Okay, hi. How you doing? But Miss Rachel's in the background, teaching it up. She is and you are not. You don't have a break. Like my wife doesn't get it. I actually have a schedule for my daughter. I have a schedule I know I can tell you exactly what she's going to do every hour that she's up. I heard that when, when we follow the schedule, I don't have a problem, but let that schedule get messed up, that child goes and it is crazy in the house, and it's only for three of us. Okay, yeah, it's a lot. It's not and I see other parents who are exhausted and who are, like, Yo, these kids? I'm like, yeah, yeah. And people say they have four I'm like, crazy.

TD Flenaugh: 33:46

So can you tell me? Tell me what happened to your education, going back to your education, yes, age, where you got into public school. You got out of the prison? No, I got

Unknown: 33:57

out of homeschooling in the prison. At my mother, my idea of homeschooling was a was a prison. But when I got to school, I could read, I could write. I knew my ABCs. Actually knew how to add the addition table. So back then, it was really simple, not like today, it was really simple. You learn to read, you learn to write, you learn I didn't learn cursive. I learned my addition tables and my multiplication tables. Okay, well, because I could read and write together, meaning I just didn't reach I didn't just know A, B, C. I actually knew words. I knew how to put the word together. So I was way ahead. I was considered super advanced for my age group. I was in my third grade level reading as a first grader. Okay, um, what? What happened was, this is a funny story, and I haven't told her on the internet yet. So you exclusively got my funny story. I told it, but not, not to you know, this will be it forever. On internet, I watched roots. I was a generation that watched roots. I went to my first grade teacher's classroom, and I told her, I am not Kuta kente. I am Martin Pratt now my teacher, Miss sika, was like, What are you talking about? She told me, Go, sit down.

TD Flenaugh: 35:21

Wait, did you have a black teacher? No, ma'am.

Unknown: 35:24

And so Miss Seko is Italian. I grew up in orange New Jersey. It was very Italian place. And my block was integrated, but the orange at that time was more, you know, Italian than

TD Flenaugh: 35:35

it was. Go, sit down. And then what? Yes, and

Unknown: 35:39

I refuse to sit down, because I was like this, okay, so because I read, I was really impacted by stories to the extent where I refuse to watch different movies. Because even though I was young, I wanted to watch this movie, but I knew I was going to have to deal with the emotions of it, and I didn't know, I didn't know how to process and shake off the emotions, okay, so I would stop myself from watching movies that seemed like it had a hit, a cliffhanger ending, or it wasn't a happy ending. I only wanted to watch sappy movies because I knew what the ending was going to be. Because I read so many books, I knew I could tell by the character development what was going to happen. So I would scare you like a bond James Bond movie, because, it's like John James not gonna die, it would freak me out. So I walked through and I told this woman, I am not killed. To kente, she told me to sit down. And I said, Hell. I didn't say, hell no, but I said, Whatever I said. And so and then she came to what I said, Yes. She came towards me, and I kicked her in the shin. Goodness, I'm in advanced class. I'm not with the hood negros. I want the nerd black slash Italian class, Spanish kids right now, everybody's facing the class like and I was there like this. I am Martin Pratt. I'm not cool to Katie, because I thought slavery was real. I thought we were in a slave environment. To this that that point, the roots really affected me. So, Mr. Bikino, I remember all these teachers name because it was very impactful situation. Mr. Bikino wanted to kick me out of the district. The principal, yes, that was Matthew, but you know, he wanted to kick me out of the district, not just out of the school. Be like I would have basically, he was trying to put me in Newark. He was trying to, like, go. So my mom said, well, because she had her her curriculum, remember her curriculum, homeschool. Curriculum, accepted. Okay. So my mother knew the boards of regents. My mother knew the superintendent. My mother knew all the people she had to go through.

TD Flenaugh: 37:47

Connected. Okay, what happened? So

Unknown: 37:50

when that happened, she said he watched fruits, and they're like they also they know that at that point, society was not like it is today. White people did not know black stuff. You know all that we did, a lot of problems with giving them access to our content. I'm just telling y'all so they didn't know about roots. Roots was on national television, and white people never watched roots. In the 70s, we were the only ones interested, because it was black content. You didn't see black faces all night for four nights or five nights. That was, that was incredible. So every black person was glued to TV. Every white person's like, hey, baseball, Hey, John, what's going on? But they didn't care. They didn't know. Oh, mister maquino said, What's roots? And she explained to him. She said, he's like, Oh, my God. He watched that. He says it's on at eight o'clock at night on national television. Yes, he watched it. This is his history. Yeah. So he's like, Oh. He said, Well, he Okay. Well, he suspended my mother. Was like, for what? He said, We're kicking his teacher. He said, why? What do you mean? He said, she told him, go sit down. No. He said, I'm not cool to kente. She didn't engage with him. She didn't ask, who's the Kente, and why are you not going to begin today? So miss the Pina was like, I'm in the chair, I'm in the I'm in the office while it's happening. So my mother's manipulating him. And he's like, Well, what are you suggesting? He said, If he wasn't a black teacher, she would know. And so he's like, Oh, yes, give him the blacks to give know what his punishment is. Put him in the black class. You know what the black class was? Missus Francis. You know what Miss Francis did? She invited us every summer to our house. You know Miss Francis did? She taught us all black history. You know what Francis did? She really educated me. Missus Francis was one of the best teachers in that damn school. So my mother was not happy that I was in missika class to begin with. I didn't know that at the time, so this all worked itself out. But that was my that was my first seeing how my content consumption of outside you know, education affected my education. So I learned. An important lesson. I love Battlestar Galactica. I love Star Trek. I never, ever took those stories of school, never because, because that one experience with teaching, taking roots to school totally, you know, messed up. So I learned to leave outside content. I had a hard time in high school because the stuff that was happening in society, crack and all the US and hip hop and rap and everything, I grew up in East Orange, in high school and middle school, and I went to school with Dana Owens. I went to school with Queen Latifah. So a lot of the stuff that happened in run, DMC, and all the hip hop stuff, I was at the beginning stages of that stuff, and I couldn't bridge the gap, because I had such a bad situation back in the day that to say I did wear Adidas, I did watch out to to tone the what do we call them? Double fat laces. I had, you know, we did a lot of stuff. We I don't know if you remember the probably too young to remember devils jeans. There was jeans before Lee. Lee had color jeans for hip hop. These jeans are Devil's jeans. And I begged my mother, my father to give me a one pair. It was a devil. It was a hip hop devil like this on the back of the jean. So you were really cool. We need more the devil. But thank

TD Flenaugh: 41:14

you. Anyway, I don't know anything about it.

Unknown: 41:18

Yes. So hip hop growing up through the hip hop generation, another funny story, real quick about education. I went to a a technical Vocational High School, okay, but how I got into technology was because that high school was the best high school in the east, the northeast of New Jersey, okay, because they had a computer teacher named Mr. Bishnu who taught us programming on IBM, x, t and at computers. So I learned cobalt and Fortran High School.

TD Flenaugh: 41:53

But no one Fortran.

Unknown: 41:56

So those are, like, unique, all the stuff that Elon Musk is shutting down now he's gonna, the government's gonna be really effed up, because a lot of those programmers, they are old language programmers that you can't find today. So the new programs today, they're gonna have to learn this old language, and they're gonna become really, it's gonna become hard to get some of those, those, if he and I think it's gonna be stopped. But my point is that this language that we deal with today is based on Unix and based on cobalt Fortran. I learned that at 14, but I went to a vocational high school, not a cool High School where Dana, when Latifah went to, or even Whitney, Whitney. What's Whitney? Whitney? Singer, Kenny. Your last name? Well, yeah, Whitney Houston. So Whitney Houston was lived in the East Orange, uh, she went to high East Orange high school. I went to this Newark high school called vocational Essex County vocational technical career center. And it was like, There's only 400 kids in high school. It wasn't a cool High School. We actually got, I didn't get beat up, but the high school got jumped on a daily basis. Like the Newark high school would come by and beat up the nerd kids, so to speak.

TD Flenaugh: 43:09

Okay, so how did this affect, like, your like going to college or after high school? How did that affect?

Unknown: 43:16

So, because I went to a vocational high school, I got to work at sophomore my sophomore year, I decided I didn't want to go to college. I worked for the top company in New Jersey called Port Authority of New York, New Jersey, and I worked at World Trade Center. I worked at Newark Airport, JFK, Teterboro, La Guardia. I was the first technology person for a unit called financial services. They were the they were in charge of the gate all the fees that the Port Authority collects from all these companies that do business with them. That unit was there for reporting to the board about what today's money came in. Okay and they were still doing things by hand. So what I learned in high school with the IBM x t, when the IBM at the first, the first computer where hard drive came out, I learned how to program. And it was simple, just installing a program, but I learned to program something called Super Calc. Super calc was the presence of the lotus, 123, and then Excel super cap, D, base plus, and a word processing program called Word star 2000 this was in 1988 oh, that's graduating. It was 1986 so I, I installed these programs for what was called financial analysts to use. And they were all white men who were using this scientific calculator, the HP calculator. And these, these books with green paper in it. There was a there was a printer called the okie data dot matrix printer. This is. I had to install those things in each of the units and then teach them, yes, wow. So I had a carver service and picking up high school and take me because I had security clearance to get on a tarmac. So the financial service units for back then, they were in the the traffic control building. They were behind the gates and all that stuff. So the guy, the guy, the security guys, it wasn't a, you know, like a nice car service or anything like that. It was a car that had the word Port Authority in New Jersey on it. And they would, they would, it was quicker for them. If I took the bus and came to the airport, or I not World Trade Center, the world trade you get on the PATH train, but all the airports, they have service roads to get to, to get to where I had to go to. So it's quicker if they're picking up from school. And took me straight there, then for me to go take the bus and do that stuff. So anyway, so that made me realize I didn't want to go to college. I was in a a, what do you call it? I was in a advanced class to get into Rutgers and also to get into there was a two year college called Essex County, Essex County, Essex County College, so I could gotta, I could have an associate degree when I graduated. I have an associate degree when I graduated at 12th grade. But then the program was you graduate at 12 and go right to Rutgers. So you could go to Rutgers and get out of Rutgers by two in two years instead of four years.

TD Flenaugh: 46:34

But you decided not to do that. Yeah,

Unknown: 46:36

I was I was done with school. I wasn't. Hold

TD Flenaugh: 46:39

on. We have to say this, because I am calling you, Dr Pratt, tell us about how you got Dr Pratt, right,

Unknown: 46:46

yes. So I have a, I have an honorary PhD. So it's not a, it's not, I haven't people, some people feel like you have an earned PhD. Then you go to a PhD program. What's my honorary degree in? It's in philosophy of pop culture. So we need another show just to explain why I have that. But real quick, what I will say is I was one of the first people on Twitter. Not one of I was the first person on Twitter with the word black in their Twitter name. So because of that, my Twitter name was, I love black women, and because of that, I was invited from a a a black media company to help them cover celebrity events. And also, at the same time, my aunt opened the first black bookstore in Washington, Heights in New York, and I worked in the bookstore also, so in 2003 this is before the Twitter I'm talking about. I was running the bookstore, and I had a radio show called Tech, no color radio show. I was the only technology talk show on FM radio in New York, on WCR. I was on for 13 years from 2003 2016 we were the only technology talk show every Monday night. So the talk show, the bookstore, and then being, being one of the founders of Black Twitter. When I learned about the honorary degree program, I was like, I need that, because I have done pop culture for so from 2003 let me, let me give my backs are a little bit too so I started working on something called Black Planet. Before was Black Planet, it was at the time I worked on it. It was called New York online. Black Planet was the first black website that monetized monthly fees for access to member profiles. Okay, so I know the founder that Omar, he was in my neighborhood. We actually were neighbors. He started in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, um, I also was the the internet cafe administrator for a cafe that Spike Lee owned. Dana. Dana and her mom were investors, Queen Latifah, Tracy Chapman and Alice Walker's daughter, Rebecca Walker, the cafe was called cocovar, and that was in fourth grade in 96 so disappoint.

TD Flenaugh: 49:09

Dr. Pat Lo,

Unknown: 49:12

well, you know, so I feel like you know, I deserve my my honorary degree, because I have been around pop culture and black pop culture in a significant, unique way, like I remember Erica Baidu. I met Erica Badu when she was she used to walk barefoot in Fort Greene in the poetry era when Saul Williams and Jessica K more. Jessica K more is a poet that was on what's the name God, what's the in Harlem the I can't Why am I blanking on Harlem's, Harlem's amateur night? What Apollo, Apollo am tonight? So when that was when Black poetry was taken off like this. Erica Badu was in the our neighborhood, walking around, barefoot, okay? Living Single. Was developed in that same neighborhood. So one of the writers, not the person who was given credit for Living Single, but her co writer who's never given credit, she based the brownstone their life again, Queen Latifah figures in my life a lot, not because I, you know, we physically are friends or anything. But just, we just ended up being in the same space a lot of times. And then I'm thinking of Black Girls Rock. I met DJ Beverly bond before she sold it to b t so I covered Black Girls Rock when it was owned by her, and she held it in New York Times, The New York Times building, the brand. They had a brand new building, and she held it in your in their theater. And so I wore a t shirt that says, I love black women with a black woman's face on a t shirt that was my brand. And so because all those things kind of converge at the same time, okay, I think it was, I've only had to honor a degree for a year. So when I learned about the program, I was like, yes, and so I'll just tell your audience, there's there's levels to honorary degrees, just just like there's levels to their presidential lifetime award. There's a Presidential Medal that has Biden's face, Obama's face, and now Trump's face on it, or Trump's face again. And those, those Presidential Awards are just like TEDx talks. So because you get it doesn't mean that you know the President knows you, but it's a brand that's licensed, and you get an award. And so somebody wants to give you the Presidential Award, they have to pay a licensing fee to use that award to give that to you. The same thing with honorary degrees. It's some, of them, the school gives it to you because you gave them to the school. Some of them, you can find out about a program. You can take the program and you pay your fee and you get your degree. Okay, yeah, but you need to, I feel like I everywhere I am. I tell people, you know, I have the H O N, so everybody knows. It's not a a, we'll call it an earn, unearned PhD. It's an honorary degree. I mean, I just, you know, but I've gone totally told a lot of different educators that are upset that regular folks can get an honorary degree, so

TD Flenaugh: 52:15

your resume does not disappoint. Yeah, I would say, and I agree with no. Let them know where they can find you if they want to work with you, because you know so much about social media. You very you know he's a genius. So like

Unknown: 52:31

I do my best, I would say the best place to interact with me is LinkedIn. And so I'm Martin Pratt, dr, Martin Pratt on LinkedIn, but other places here, on YouTube, I'm asked Dr Pratt on Tiktok. I'm asked Dr Pratt on Instagram, on my initials, which is lmJ Pratt, and Twitter, I'm also lmJ Pratt,

TD Flenaugh: 52:56

Facebook, are you on Facebook? Because it's also on Facebook. Yeah, it's not on Facebook

Unknown: 52:59

as Dr Martin Pratt, too. Yeah, as Facebook, I don't really interact a lot, but I'm there. I check it every day. I check it every 15 minutes. So every platform I check, any connection I'm proud of. I'm proud to say that on all the platforms I know, I would say 90% of my followers, I actually know them, like I actually know their story. I know where their kids went to school at or I know, you know. So I got in social media so early I got to learn people. And if I you followed me, and you stand out, I want to know more about you because I want to help you, not because I want to make money from you, but it's got. I want you to be able to stand on the shoulders, like I stood on a lot of people's shoulders. I stand on a lot of people's shoulders. Unfortunately, most of the people I should as I stand on are no longer on this planet. But a lot of those black folks that that helped me out, you know, and so I learned early to give, give Black Okay, so, alright,

TD Flenaugh: 54:00

well, last words you want to say to for parenting?

Unknown: 54:05

I would just say, Yes, parents, I would just say, you're not alone. Please create your tribe. Please create people that you can talk to so you're you don't feel like you're the only parent going through this because you're not, I guarantee you whatever your child is putting you through, or whatever your grandchild is going through, I swear to God, I'm so happy to be alive this at this moment in history, because I'm learning so much about the shared experience that we all have, but we don't talk about, you know, and it's like it is one of the, one of the things I like to leave people with. And real quick, Google is your brain or your heart stronger electricity wise. So just Google is my heart stronger than my brain. And let. Electricity. And so your heart, okay, it it is more electrical currents running through our hearts than our brain. What does that mean for centering our life? What's in your heart, not what in your head? So when you're struggling and facing issues, go to your heart. Protect your heart, because your heart is beating and is the strongest current we have in our body. That means that your love you have for your child is going to help you deliver that child to their adult passion purpose, no matter what the f your brain is telling you. But if you don't know that, you will stay in our head going, oh my god, what the hell's gonna What's this child gonna grow up? And then people around life are like, Oh my god, your child doesn't sit down. Oh my your child's not talking fast enough. What's in your heart? So, and that's a great way to stop people from saying stuff to you. You say, I get it. Tell them the fact about the heart and ask them. Excuse me, Auntie, what do you what's your heart desire for her? Oh, I want her to Okay, great, stay there. Why does it? Because your brain has less electricity. It's not as important what was in your heart. And usually, hopefully, everybody in your life, their heart is in the right place. And there's all these sayings that we people say, that makes a lot of sense now, but it makes sense to on this planet 53 years. For 53 years, I'm thinking the brain. What's In My Head is the most important place. It's not

TD Flenaugh: 56:31

okay. He left us with a word right now, make sure you go and follow Doctor Pratt get in contact with him if you want to work with him on social media, because he has so much insight, and make sure that you parents and educators out there do something today that gives your kids a competitive advantage. Thanks again for joining us. Thanks again for supporting the falling for learning podcast, new episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com, at falling for learning, or listen on all major podcast platforms such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much More for more resources, visit falling in love with learning.com we really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week. You.