Dad and Norah Down by the Schoolyard

Norah and Dad discuss school, why Norah loves it so much and how dad was a dorky high schooler.

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Question? Ideas for a future episode? Email us at norahanddadshow@gmail.com.

Intro music written and performed by norah marie.

Transcript

Dad: 0:00

Hey, Nora,

Norah: 0:01

dad

Dad: 0:02

what are we going to talk about today?

Norah: 0:03

today, we're talking about school

Dad: 0:18

Welcome to the Nora and dad show. I am, famously dad, otherwise known as John

Norah: 0:26

I am Nora.

Dad: 0:27

famously known as Nora.

Norah: 0:29

yeah. No, nothing else to add.

Dad: 0:31

Nothing else to add to the nor peace.

Norah: 0:33

just Nora,

Dad: 0:34

You're just simply just Nora,

Norah: 0:36

friends call me norm.

Dad: 0:38

Norm, Nora, it's all good. first of all, before we get to the topic of the day, which Nora tells me is going to be school. I just want to say a quick, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to download and listen. And our first week of, being live on the internet. Thank you all very much for your downloads and reviews and kind words And with that, Nora, you want to talk, about school?

Norah: 1:06

Yeah.

Dad: 1:07

You like school.

Norah: 1:08

I love school. Well, okay. I guess the topic is just very fresh in my head since I have midterms next week, but like, I am not nervous for any of my midterms. I'm excited for them,

Dad: 1:19

so, by the time this airs and is live, we're going to drop new

Norah: 1:23

oh, I will be done. Well, I guess I won't be done. I'll be done with my math on, which is the one I'm more nervous about, but not really nervous about it. Cause we get a note card.

Dad: 1:33

So what is it that you, as maybe the, the. I don't want to say not normal. That sounds mean,

Norah: 1:41

really mean. Wow.

Dad: 1:42

but I would say most kids don't like school, but most kids don't go to a school like you do. Why don't you explain, the school that you and your brother go to lake Ridge

Norah: 1:53

So they're going to like use the. They could use this, like a commercial or something. So I've been going to, it's a, it's a K through 12 college preparatory school. and I've been going there since kindergarten and I don't know, I just love the teacher. Like there is not a single teacher that I don't like there I've had positive experiences with all of the. liked the way that things are taught, because like there's not a set curriculum that teachers have to teach by. So like, if they want to do something, they just have to get it approved by like the head of that department and they can do it. So like, for example, in

Dad: 2:27

It's a it's.

Norah: 2:28

this year, oh, go ahead.

Dad: 2:30

No, I was going to say I don't, I, um, I'm going to get back to your chemistry class, but it's, it's, it's an independent school, meaning that, the school is not limited by the restrictions of state standardized testing, the teachers are really free to set their own curriculum, which in the case of your chemistry class, for example, Ms. Evans does really, really, really well good.

Norah: 2:53

Yeah. So basically, I, I love it so much. So the entire year we are don't have any tasks. it's not, if you're like, if you're an honors or AP, then you have to just because that's like how it is and how the department wants it to be an AP. It has to be. but if you are not in honors, like I am, we learn everything in our units through forensics cases. So the entire year we're following the case of this missing woman. As of right now, there isn't a body yet, but we're hopefully gonna get there soon. It's just so fun like this. So instead of having a midterm, I just have a forensics project that I've been working on the past, like week and a half with my friend. Who's my lab partner. And it is just, Ugh, I love it. It's so fun.

Dad: 3:35

Is is the school so bougie that they're going to actually give you a real body for your chemistry class?

Norah: 3:40

but we've recommended using one of the kids in our class. Who's annoying as a subject.

Dad: 3:44

You're not going to kill him.

Norah: 3:45

No. Well, it was a joke. It was a joke and I actually going to kill him. It was a

Dad: 3:49

There's not going to be any autopsies on any street.

Norah: 3:52

No,

Dad: 3:53

That's mean, by the way, you shouldn't do that to kids

Norah: 3:55

He's in on the joke. He thinks it's funny.

Dad: 3:57

Okay. That's a different

Norah: 3:58

No, no, no.

Dad: 3:59

to lead with

Norah: 3:59

no, he is not being like bullied. He thinks it's goofy.

Dad: 4:03

Okay. You got to lead with that. Like, Oh, we're joking around with so-and-so that he's going to be the body and it's okay. Because we all think he's kind of annoying. Anyway.

Norah: 4:11

Yeah, no, he's aware of it as well. He, he's not being targeted. He puts himself as the target.

Dad: 4:17

Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. So other than your amazing chemistry class, which by the way, does sound amazing. Tell me what else it is about being a student, that you enjoy so much.

Norah: 4:28

well, the class sizes are really small, so I really like that because I get to know my teachers,

Dad: 4:34

And when you say small, like,

Norah: 4:36

my biggest class is my math class and that has 26 people in it. And that's like huge for Lakeridge.

Dad: 4:44

When, when I went to school, the normal class was like 35 kids. That was like a normal

Norah: 4:48

It's a one day. Student teacher ratio. I think something like that.

Dad: 4:54

And now this does sound like a commercial for the school.

Norah: 4:56

I remember from my open house touring 93 acres and eight to one ratio.

Dad: 5:02

It is, one of the things that I think makes the school unique and something that, so when I was in high school, actually all through school so I went to big. inner city, public schools in Philadelphia, and they had a separate, they call it the mentally gifted program, which is such a terrible name because it makes us sound like, I don't know, touched or something like special. I don't know. But I was in the, I was in the mentally gifted program. It

Norah: 5:30

you got coffee.

Dad: 5:32

Yeah, I did. I did get coffee in high school and the, in our, in our, we had our own lounge, but in that program, we had our own set of teachers and they only taught the gifted classes and then the in high school, like they taught the AP classes as well. and so we had our own, we were able to develop those kinds of relationships with the faculty. In some of the faculty in the grade school, grade school, middle school, and then definitely in high school. Cause we were always like, those were our teachers for all of our classes, but I think that's one of the things getting back to my original point in that like a really roundabout way. I think it's one of the things that makes your school super unique is that like every year you've had just amazing like relationships with your teachers.

Norah: 6:10

all of my teachers. So Soma, especially my middle school teachers. I miss them all so dearly. I miss seventh and eighth grade history. Every.

Dad: 6:18

shout out to Matt Barker. I know he's listening.

Norah: 6:20

Hi, Mr. Barker, I miss your class.

Dad: 6:22

so tell the listener, some of the other things that at least make your, make your upper school experience. So, so unique. So take OBS. What

Norah: 6:34

Thank goodness for back in school. Uh, we do it every year. So at Lakeridge we have houses like in Harry Potter. I don't like Harry Potter, but, houses like Harry Potter based off of like it's Dante, DaVinci, Locke, and Newton. Go purple. and, we have thank goodness. We're back in school. It's the first Friday of every school year. And we get in our houses and we just do little competitions and then we get points based on whoever like wind it's like it's like field day, we just call it, tickle this. but we have like events throughout the entire year and we have something called house cup. So like we'll do Kanwar's and we raised, cans for like a. Food shelter. And then we, um, also do this thing called iron shaft. I don't know if we're still doing it though. Last year we did like a lip sync battle instead, and people seem to like that more,

Dad: 7:21

how's how's how's how's DaVinci doing in the house.

Norah: 7:24

we came in third for tickle this not great, but, Devinci normally wins. Kanwar's like. Thing that they normally get. Um,

Dad: 7:34

because you come home and say, dad, I need a hundred dollars for cans. I have no choice.

Norah: 7:39

there was a choice

Dad: 7:41

No, there's

Norah: 7:42

it's for the community.

Dad: 7:43

know It's community. service and I will say your school does

Norah: 7:46

have day of service to

Dad: 7:48

an amazing. Job, one of the things your mom and I was concerned about your mom, grew up going to parochial schools, and then Catholic high school. And, um, she was concerned and I was also concerned not sending You to a parochial school about losing the service aspect that those schools do really, really well. And you haven't lost that at all at

Norah: 8:08

got more of it.

Dad: 8:09

cause they do, service tremendously. Well,

Norah: 8:13

Yeah. So we also have this thing called day of service, which is like, sometime in September, it got pushed back like a month, this year because of rain date or, uh, yeah, this year because of rain, but we get paired up with elementary school or if you're in that preschool and you just get to go do stuff with them for like this one day it's either on campus or off campus. So like, This year, I was paired up with a third grader and we just like took care of some of the gardens on campus. but in previous years, like we've gone to beaches and cleaned up stuff and found like heroin needles on beaches and like one of the beach. Yeah.

Dad: 8:48

Uh, my tuition dollars hard at work.

Norah: 8:49

We didn't

Dad: 8:50

skirt, wrapping up heroin needles on the beach

Norah: 8:53

Or like used feminine products. Yeah. The, so that's always fun. You went to a waterfall once and cleaned that up. Um,

Dad: 9:03

think lake Ridge is now reconsidering using this as a commercial for the school.

Norah: 9:06

no, he took care of it, took it off the beach. We didn't touch it. But then the teachers did with like tongs. It was super fun. And trying to think of other service things we do. I mean, I guess isn't really a service thing, but I get to help out with the little kids and that's

Dad: 9:22

there's this, there's the three Kings dinner every

Norah: 9:24

that goes along with holiday project. Like we get gifts and cans

Dad: 9:29

you guys are knee deep in holiday project. And so this is going to air. This will go live on Tuesday. And then Friday is your last day of school before

Norah: 9:37

Well, technically tomorrow's my last day of school.

Dad: 9:39

But Friday, explain how, explain how you're going to spend your half day at school on Friday.

Norah: 9:44

Well, I get to be a caroler I'm so excited, or calling us ELFS, but I just get to sit in the choir and with my friends and my lovely choir teacher and sing songs with her little kids for half a day.

Dad: 9:59

Shout out to Mr. Ma who is probably also listening,

Norah: 10:01

He does listen. Hello, Mr. Matt. so yeah, I'm super pumped for that. I've so excited when I found out I be able to do that. but if you

Dad: 10:09

yeah, but then what else goes on, on campus?

Norah: 10:11

if you're not an elf and you get to, you get paired up with a, if you're in like older, you get paired up with a, uh, a little kid and you like sort cans that we find collecting or coins are other, like the two lower schools have been doing and they should like say big candy bags, stuff like that. And then the middle schoolers, they. That Thursday, before they go to Walmart and they get shopping lists and they eat shop for a kid, then they wrap those presents on Friday. And it's, it's, it's like my favorite part of going to lake Ridge, I think besides like the academics and stuff. That's like something that I look forward to every year. It's a really nice thing to have after, um, midterms.

Dad: 10:53

Well, I am really, really, as a lawyer, I was excited. You were doing

Norah: 10:57

I love mock trial.

Dad: 11:00

I am

Norah: 11:00

going to regret that, but I love it.

Dad: 11:03

I'm just glad that you enjoy like going to school every day and you've enjoyed like your educational experience. I enjoyed being a student and learning. I can't say I was in love with. Going to school till I got to college, just because I was, this is embarrassing, but I was kind of a dorky kid growing up a little bit and a little nerdy. Maybe I blossomed when I got to college. Because otherwise someone like your mom would not have agreed to marry me. So I'm glad that I'm glad that I came into my own as I got on in life. my point is I didn't always love going to school. I liked the experience of learning and the things I learned, but I didn't always enjoy the environment. And so I'm glad that you have an environment to go to that you feel safe and happy. And with teachers that, you know, support you and good friends and that you just love. Uh, that you love being a student. It It makes me very happy.

Norah: 12:00

Or like today, uh, the two, not there's more than two English teachers with the two English teachers from my grade, they're married and they made cookies and like bread and they like made hot chocolate for every student in the upper school. We just had to bring our own mugs because they were like, we know your stress for midterms and like essays and stuff. So we just wanted to do.

Dad: 12:23

That's

Norah: 12:23

Just like unprompted. And last year they did like root beer floats for, finals. So like there, I love that. I love Ms. Guggenheim, Mr. Davis.

Dad: 12:30

fantastic. Well, this was a as always a lovely conversation. Thank you for

Norah: 12:35

like, uh, not sponsored.

Dad: 12:38

Not, yes, this, this, this pie. You said you wanted sponsorships. So this, this podcast not sponsored. by lake Ridge academy, although it sounds very much like it. thank you for picking such a nice topic. I as always, enjoyed our conversation. Nora, if people want to find You online, outside of. The listening experience of the Nora and dad show, where do they go to find you?

Norah: 13:03

You can find me normally music on pretty much any social media platform you can think of north and H.

Dad: 13:10

And you can find me John Hyman. no H in the John, I gave him to her, my H all over the socials, as well as at Ohio employer, lovelock.com. thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week with an another episode, Nora, any. Should people maybe drop us a little review

Norah: 13:30

Oh, yeah. As of, as of right now, we have one review. Well, there's 10 reviews, but one written review. So

Dad: 13:40

so if you like what you hear drop a review, we'd really appreciate

Norah: 13:43

five stars,

Dad: 13:44

And Nora says as always five

Norah: 13:46

no other option.

Dad: 13:48

that's all there is. They give you other options. We just appreciate it. If you have Norris has no other options. thank you all for listening and we'll be back with another episode. we'll be back with another episode next week. thanks Nora. Love you kiddo.