These two tormented souls try to mount a proper case for society emphasizing certain essential schooling, but within minutes of the start of the show, they refer to society at large as tyrannical and spend the rest of the episode mounting the weakest defense imaginable for literacy, numeracy, and citizenship. Despite this failure, the listener finds himself strangely sympathetic to these two teachers' plights, and the episode becomes less about what Jon and Shaun are saying and more about living through some of their pain as teachers who care about young persons. Shaun continually tries to save the purpose of the conversation (a defense of societal expectations) while Jon dismisses the purpose of the episode and promotes an optimistic vision of a school setting that can serve children in crisis. Shaun, uplifted by Jon's vision, cobbles together what sounds like a presidential campaign speech, but his inspiration lacks precision and his pronoun antecedent difficulties confuse his final point.

Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / CC BY-SA