Senior Thomas Lisco sat down with Mr. Flavors to ask some burning questions from staff and students. Below is an excerpt of the full interview included in the audio.

Mr. Flavors Complete Interview Audio

Ms. Goehring asked: How do you learn people’s names so fast?
You know, I play little games in my head sometimes… I don’t know, I don’t know when the bell rings at all, at any given day… but names I’m pretty good with I really don’t know why

[Thomas] It’s a secret talent

I guess so, I recognize people I try to be sincere with that. Like I said I play little name games with certain kids, but a lot of times I come up with little things in my head to remember.

Student Question: Where do you find your happiness?
I find joy in my relationship with God, that’s where I experience joy. The happy feelings when I don’t have nothing to do.

One of my best summers was sitting in the basement at like 11-12 years old, I think I was 12 or 13. Memorizing the TV guide and I had the best summer ever and I wasn’t depressed or sad, I was exactly where I wanted to be.

I find happiness with my wife with my family time, checking in on family, visiting family, I’m gonna go visit and aunt today who’s on hospice. And I don’t feel pressed to rush out there yesterday on my day off, ideal time to go, but I don’t feel pressed because I visited before she got sick.

That’s what I’m trying to do in my life, live more life, hone more connections that I have and really just continue to show up and be there for people in my life. If I could get paid and make a living off helping people that’s where I get my happiness, service, so service is where I think I find my happiness

Student Question: What did you do before teaching? 
Dr. Paul Petri once told me at Washington State University in what we call the red/bed Cleveland Hall he said “Know What you want to do at the end of the day, and enjoy the road getting there”.

So the jobs I’ve had throughout my personal journeys I’ll start with, I [was cutting my own grass or] had my own grass & landscaping business in high school.

Then I go up to collage and I’m washing dishes in the dish room, working in the dining halls cleaning up, serving breakfast.

Then I go to a graduate assistantship that pay’s me and I’m running sports at Wazoo, a part of a team that does that. Then I go to my first job as a dean of students in California at Compton High School and I did that for two years. Then I had to go back to school, so then I became a substitute teacher, while I was substitute teacher for four years I also worked in a fish warehouse.

It got to the point, with the master’s degree, it got to a point where I wanted to be an exotic fish salesman but what I was, was, I was in the warehouse in the cold with the blood and the guts, receiving and shipping tuna fish and swordfish. So I’m in there and I smell like fish every day when I leave, so salesman was a goal at one point but I did that for four years.

Substitute taught and did that, substitute taught with the county and some of the juvenal halls and jails with the kids.

And then I became a pupil service and intendance counselor with LA unified school district witch was a councilor for at risk students and I ended up being an academic councilor for four years, then I moved back home for good after 10 years in LA and I was offered and interview as assistant principle and so I did that for three years. Once I knew I wanted to propose to my wife, I made that shift back to counseling.

Mr. Burress asked: What is the most important part about school?

[Mr. Flavors] Preparing students for life after school. I think that’s the most important task for us, preparing them for life after school.

[Thomas] Is that more so getting them mental ready or financial ready?

[Mr. Flavors] I think we are schooling children, which is not a good thing – I think we are teaching children how to play the game of life. If your goal is just to… see I don’t want to bring up my soapbox but I believe we are preparing y’all to go get a job, not to go be an entrepreneurial, not to live your life peacefully and balanced.

I think we’re preparing you to go to a college or university and pay them a whole bunch of money, and then they’re gonna go prepare you to go get the certificate you need to become an engineer to become a teacher, whatever it is you want to do next.

So that’s what I believe we’re doing at school, but I think we need to be doing is teaching students how to pay taxes, we got people who make it successfully and then don’t know how to manage their money, we need to teach students how to vote, we need to teach student things that are real and everyday, teach students how to read, teach students how to write.

Grammarly and ChatGPT are dumbing us down, so I think we just need to focus on some fundamentals and stop there. Maybe we don’t need to go to Mars, I don’t think.

Student Question: You talk about some of the pitfalls students can experience. What’s the biggest pitfall in your opinion from personal experience or what you’ve seen?

 [Mr. Flavors] … Wow that’s a great question. I think not knowing what you really want to do… but see some of this is developmental, right? If I could… Thomas, if you and I could figure out the solution to understanding theirs life after high school to a 15, 14, 16 year old we could be quadrillionaires. They’d make new money for us because we would have overcome natural development, human development.

So developmentally we have a place here to teach, and that’s good to have. But I think we have missed the mark with what we’re trying to teach and why, so I think we’re creating more folks for the labor force.

 [Thomas] Do you think that comes down to people not putting enough time or money into students or teachers aren’t “doing their jobs” argument?

 [Mr. Flavors] I think we should implode the educational system and re-do it.

We have a skill center here which is to help with vocations, but a lot of schools used to have auto-tech in their buildings, a lot of schools used to have vocational programs in their class rooms. Culinary arts is a class. Why don’t we make every student do that, ’cause you got to eat. So it’d be nice if you know how to cook.

But I think we are focusing standards on things that don’t matter. I took calculus in high school – it’s NEVER helped me in my entire life. It’s actually the only class I cheated my way through senior year. I don’t cheat, copied every assignment for the rest of the year, ’cause it was hard.

I took three years of French. You know how much French I use in my life Thomas? Zero. So I just ask “why” a lot, to what are we doing this for? So… I think we need to re-do education and understand why, some kids need to start being mechanics right now. I know high school kids, we talk about them every week here in my office with the team, “how do we help them, how do we help them”. Go get them a job, some kids are ready to go. So what’s holding them back, education… that’s a big soap box for me “why are we doing what were doing?” Cause I don’t understand.

 [Thomas] do you feel like when it comes to people taking French or AP Calc, does that come down to the pressure people put on themselves to get into a good collage. Is it a pressure from that or some outside force?

 [Mr. Flavors] I think it’s all pressure from the rat race and things that come with the way we do things in this country. I’m not gonna make it political but we only rushing because, if I don’t pick up my kids from day care their gonna charge me a whole bunch of money that I don’t have, because my job cut back on hours, because they don’t have enough money to pay us, but people don’t want to work, but I can’t work these extra shifts cause I gotta watch my kids, cause I can’t afford day care, now I’m in a cycle and I’m wondering how do I get out of this cycle. I think it’s systemic, we have systemic issues in this country. I think we we’re build on the back’s of the enslaved and I think we’re only trying to play catch up from their, we’re a very young country but we act like we’ve been around for thousands of years. So i think it all trickles down from us, the goals of those who quote-unquote “created this country”, I think it all trickles down from their.

Student question: You constantly go out of your way to uplift people and get to know them. Why?

I want to be seen as well I want to be appreciated, and I think when… Walked in this morning, a kid is sitting outside the gym waiting for wrestling practice. See them chilling by themselves, their fine. But I walked by and said “Hey” and I know there name, they said “Hey” back and I keep it pushing. How many other teachers walked by the child and didn’t even know they were in the corner. So I think it goes back to that golden standard of treat others how you want to be treated. I don’t need to be your favorite person in the world, I’m just saying hello cause sometimes you say “hey, how you doing”, “Oh, yeah I’m good” and we keep it pushing. But we’re really not good and just slowing down overall is another reason why I do what I do.

Ms. Wyn asked: What type of student were you in high school? 

Very quiet, very focused, some might say nerd and I’ll take that. I was working internships, cutting grass, made my own money, bought my own clothes, bought my own food and was very independent. I thought I wanted to move out of my parents house when I was 18 which would have been my senior year, the entire senior year and my dad laughed and I wasn’t ready. But I was very responsible enough to feel like I could ask him about at 18, not after high school but at 18 now I understand why he laughed. Very focused, a good kid, well behaved, respectful, got good grades A’s & B’s only.

Student question: Will you ever retire from teaching?  

I wanna be fully transparent with you, and I don’t know where’s this gonna go and I’m okay with that. I applied for a job that starts in January about a month ago, I didn’t get the job and my ego makes me wanna… scoff at them. “I didn’t even get an interview, are you serious?”, that’s my ego. What I know to be true is that, that position was not meant for me not matter how good it looked. Good, bad, or interferent, I can process that later. The fact is because of my faith I know that’s not meant for me, I wasn’t applying for the job because I’m not happy and Lincoln. I was applying for the job because I thought it was for me, just cause the way it lined up. And it would have required me leaving in the middle of the year. I’ve never worked at a school longer than four years Thomas, I think it’s because, I reflected on this a lot, I think it’s because once I see the bullshit that exists in a system, it’s harder to go to work everyday. The more growth I’ve had, positions I’ve had, experiences, this is all bullshit that’s just my option. I’m gonna go hard in the paint, but I felt myself lacking off a little bit once I applied for that job. Cause I banked on it too, I also had faith, and I’m like “This is my job, I’m claiming it”. Now I’m literally in a space today, this week of like “We’re back at work”. And is apart of my meeting this morning, I didn’t know they would have that impact on me. But it’s reminding me I’m blessed, I’m in a space where I have to work in this world, in the country.

Student Question: How do you face those day when you’re feeling lazy or tried? 

Today, today was one. I woke up in my home while it was raining. I try to be appreciative and grateful for what I do have. I have a job to go to, I’m trying to help support parents right now to get a job but their immigrants, their begging for a job they don’t have, and I have one. I work three days a week Thomas you know why, cause usually it’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, but now it’s gotta be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday this week. If I don’t shut the hell up and go to my three days a week job and enjoy life. It’s just trying to say in the place of graduate and appreciation for what I do have. There was a time I was looking for pennies in my car, just to support habitats or eat. To be a space now where I have a constant check, I have all these opportunities coming my way, just be appreciative of what I have but now it’s time to really double down and take advantage in a good way of the opportunity that I have.