TOPICS DISCUSSED

Future Problem Solving: America
Outside of Politics: Paying Kids for Chores

Episode Resources

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Pantsuit Politics Fan Gift Guide
Future Problem Solving
A Chorus of 10,000 Voices (Pantsuit Politics)
Chris Murphy Twitter thread on crisis of meaning (X)
How Cheerleading Became So Acrobatic, Dangerous and Popular (The New York Times)
Upcap the House (X account)
Ryan Salzman Episode: When the News is Overwhelming (Pantsuit Politics)
Studying Conservatism on a Liberal Campus with Eitan Hersh (Pantsuit Politics)
Happiest Toddler on the Block | Top Toddler Books (Dr. Harvey Karp)
Does Your Teenager Know How To? (Nicole Shiffler via Instagram)

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.

Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.

Sarah [00:00:29] Thanks for being with us today. Our team was able to take time together in person earlier this week, which is a very rare occasion for us. And we spent a lot of time putting on our own oxygen masks after this very brutal election cycle, but also planning for the future. And it feels like a real whiteboard moment to us both as a team, but as a country, definitely as a Democratic Party. And so we hope to have a lot of conversations in the coming months and years that open up our politics and understanding to new approaches and ideas. And Beth had the best idea that one way we could do that right now is using the Future Problem Solvers framework. And then Outside of Politics, we're going to talk about teen responsibilities inside of family and whether or not you should pay for those.

Beth [00:01:19] Before we dive into all of that, please don't forget that we have tried to make your gifting easier through the Pantsuit Politics fan gift guide that's on our website right now. You'll find it linked in our show notes. There are lots of fun ideas for you to share with someone who might want to spoil you this holiday season or fun ways to enrich your own life by participating even more with the wonderful community of people who listen to this podcast.

Sarah [00:01:43] Next up. Let's solve some future problems.

[00:01:46] Music Interlude.

Beth [00:01:57] Well, thanks for saying this was my good idea, Sarah. It actually came, though, from you. We were sitting at breakfast when we went to Boston for our live show, and you said, "I got some things that I've been unhappy with for a long time." And I was like, "I would love to hear what those things are." And you started making a list. And that list reminded me of the first step of feature problem-solving, which is a competition that involves teams of four students. I coach this for our middle and elementary schools. It's a six step process where you take a feature scene like a little story about something 20, 30 years down the road and work through those six steps to find a path forward. Not to solve anything, which is misleading because solving is right there in the title, but to improve the situation. And so I wondered if a good post-election whiteboard container might be a riff on those six steps. Now, if any of my students are listening, we're going to skip some very technical parts of this process and we're doing that intentionally. And we're not taking a future scene today; we're taking the current scene. Just the state of America as we personally experience it, to talk about some of what's bugging us and then to use those other steps to think about a path forward.

Sarah [00:03:13] Important Pantsuit Politics trivia note. Not only is Beth a future problem solving coach, but we were both future problem-solving competitors. In fact, we realized at one point during our high school careers, we competed against each other in the State Governors Cup competition. So her knowledge and comfort with this process is much better than mine because I haven't done it since high school. So that's a long time. But we both have a deep love and loyalty to the future problem-solving competition.

Beth [00:03:43] So step one in this process is to identify challenges, and it is a true brainstorming step. So we are going to put the chorus of 10,000 voices, as we've talked about before in the draw, because when you're listing challenges, you don't stop and say but somebody else has a worse challenge, or this challenge comes from a place of privilege, or any other filter that you might use to talk yourself out of naming the challenge. You just list the challenges. And so that's the first process that we're going to go through today. As we experience America in 2024, what are things that we personally find difficult, con...