GA 648 | Discovering Lean in High School with Ted Pendergrass

I always had a pet peeve of mine was if a student came up and said, is this good enough? You know, and I would say, if you have to ask, it probably isn't, you know. And that goes back to my quote, Bobby Knight's, you know, you're telling me that you're not giving me your best effort, you know, if you're asking if it's good enough.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Ted Pendergrass to the show. Now, today's episode was super fun because Ted actually came into our Keller, Texas, studio here, and we recorded it in person in our— we've got these little podcast bays that we can record live interviews at, and we used it today. And so it's always fun to have people here in person. So by the way, if you ever want to be on the Gemba Academy podcast and you're ever in the Keller, Texas area, holler at us, man. We might be able to make it happen. So, but anyhow, today's episode was, was really interesting. It's a little bit different than our normal episode. But so Ted is, is a retired high school teacher. And he spent many years, and he'll tell you all about kind of his career in the interview, but one of his things that he was especially proud of was the way he introduced Lean to many of his students. And so that's what really the majority of the conversation is about today, is how he went about that and how it was teaching young kids concepts like 5S and practical problem solving. And as you'll hear, they've been leveraging Gemba Academy at his school to help sort of teach the kids that. But obviously, Ted is deeply deeply involved in the process as well. So even if you aren't in education or anything, I think there's a lot of value to be had by listening to Ted and his story because, you know, the young people in our lives, they're the future, right? And so we need to start teaching them these Lean principles one way or another. If it's not at school, let's do it at home because, you know, they're going to be taking over our companies sooner than later. And what better way to have a bright future is to teach these kids Lean principles at a young age. So, really good stuff. So, show notes can be found over at gembapodcast.com. This is episode 648. Again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 648. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Ted, welcome to the show. How's it going?

I'm just going great. I'm glad to be here. Thank you.

Yeah, so we're in studio here doing an interview with both of us here. Normally, as I mentioned to you, we're almost always interviewing folks, you know, sort of over the internet and all that kind of stuff, but it's always fun to have people in person using our studio here.

It's nice being here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, where are you from originally or now?

Oh boy, that's a loaded question. Currently, I'm in Bakersfield, California. I was a teacher for 41 years. My last 20 years I spent at Taft Union High School as the coordinator of the Taft Oil Technology Academy. Before that, I've lived all over Washington, Oregon, California, Wyoming, Colorado. So I was moving around quite a bit. My dad was in the propane industry.

Okay. So what's it like being retired, freshly retired?

You know, as a teacher, this is like summer. It probably won't hit me until in-service comes around in August and I don't have to go listen to meetings and do all that. And it's a little bit different. My emails, I get very few of them anymore. Before, as a coordinator of OilTech, I'd get 15, 20 emails a day and all that's gone. So it's kind of freed me up from things like that.

Yeah. Fantastic. Well, congratulations, man. That's great.

Thank you.

All right. Well, so Ted, as you know, we like to begin kind of all of our episodes with our guests sharing a quote. So what do you got?

Well, one of the ones that I always kept in my classroom and controversial, whether he is or not, Bobby Knight. He said, do what has to be done when it has to be done as well as it can be done. Do it that way all the time. And that's just something I always try to instill in students and my own kids, you know, to do your best all the time.

Yeah, great advice. Great advice. All right. Well, hey, tell us a little bit more just about yourself and about kind of like, you know, your background. And then obviously we're going to kind of tap into some Lean stuff. So curious to hear your background on that, on Lean and how you first got involved with that.

Yeah, well, it started with oil tech before I had been I've been in cabinet making and furniture building, so kind of manufacturing processes anyway. You know, cabinet making is really a manufacturing process. And always, even before I knew about Gemba or Lean, I was interested in the efficiency because there's changeovers on equipment and, you know, changing saw blades and doing this and that. And how can we make that as much as efficient as we can?

Right.

The layout of your shop, the flow of materials through that to reduce your movements. It was always interesting to me. I was asked to be the coordinator of OilTech in 2010. And not long after that, probably a couple of years after that, Duane Kitchen at Era Energy started talking to me about Lean. And we had some meetings and he had mentioned Gemba Academy.

Mm-hmm.

we developed a 3-year program that we started. Oil tech is a 3-year program anyway— sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

Mm-hmm.

And so we developed this 3-year program, and at the end of that, we were hoping, you know, at some point to maybe give the students Yellow Belt certification. So we were going through that process, and not until about 3 or 4 years ago, we didn't have— we weren't finishing it. You know, they weren't getting the certification, and Your folks reached out to me and started talking about the Yellow Belt certification, and I jumped on it. I said, that's great, you know. So we added that with our seniors. So all of our seniors, at the beginning of the second semester, they would do the Yellow Belt certification through Gemba Academy.

And how has that gone? Not to make it a commercial or anything, but—

You know, I really enjoyed it, and I think the kids did too. I think they learned a lot. Some of the units that I think really stuck out with them was 5S, obviously. We did a lot of things with them. We'd have them 5S their backpacks. We would have them 5S their Google Drives.

Hmm.

You know, if you've used Google Drive very much, anything Google, they don't name documents. You know, you, so you look at a kid's folders and he would have 50, 60 untitled documents, you know? So, so it was, we started looking at that. Okay. 5S that. How could you set this up so you can find something? You know, if I said, give me this document that you know where exactly where it's at and you can find it.

Mm-hmm.

And, and so we started doing that. It, that would take, it would take a couple of weeks sometimes, you know, to get kids to, to get their, their Google Drives But think about like the, I mean, the incredible—

this is just teachers in general, like the incredible impact that you have on young people. Like that skill right there. Like you just changed their life. Yeah.

Yeah.

Like for the rest of their life. Right. And they're in high school, so they got a lot of life to live.

Right.

You know, and they know what 5S is and they know how to, you know.

They took that out to, we opened it up to teachers. And would say, do you have a storage room? Do you have something that you would like to have 5S? And the kids would go out to the classroom.

Run little Kaizen events. Yeah.

Yeah. And they would actually do it and, you know, they do the red tags and they would talk. And then we'd come back next semester and do an audit. You know, how are they keeping it up?

Man, we need to come out there with our video cameras and get a little Gemba Academy Live.

Yeah. And I think the other unit that really sticks out with them is the problem solving.

Like practical problem solving?

Practical problem solving. You know, they— I think that's— yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes they just don't know how to start to approach a problem. Yeah.

Break it down.

And break it down and get to the root cause of what's going on. Yeah. And You know, I think, I think that one opens their eyes to a lot of things. Yeah. Those two probably to me are, are two of the most impactful to high school kids.

Yeah. Well, and they play into each other perfectly, you know, because without 5S, practical problem solving is difficult, right? Because you're dealing in chaos, right?

Exactly.

Wow. Fantastic. So, um, what's your take then as far as when you look at At your, well, now former students, I would say, they go out and they get this certification and whatnot. What's been your perspective for employers looking at these kids? Is it helping them? I guess some of them aren't going on to college and they're going right into the workforce, or how's that working?

Yeah, we've had them. They do all kinds of things out of oil tech. Some of them want to get jobs right out. They know college isn't for them and they just want to go to work.

Yeah.

Some of them, you know, go to the JC, some go to a 4-year. We have some go to military, some go into trade schools. We stress that, you know, the Lean concepts can be applied to many different industries. So it's not something just the oil industry, but it can be The medical— we have a medical pathway at our school, and many of those students are in oil tech also. So we try to point out to them, this is how you can use these Lean concepts. Even though I'm teaching in oil tech, this is how you can use it in your medical classes that you're taking, or whatever else they want to do. It's all around them. You know, they, I think they start walking around when they go on tours, they would, they would see the Lean concepts at different places. You know, we did a tour one time of wonderful, one wonderful company, it's pistachios and almonds in Bakersfield. And they had Lean concepts all over. They had graphs and production charts and everything.

Mm-hmm.

And people could, put their suggestions on the walls and, you know, and all kinds of stuff, you know, and the kids saw that and they're going, we just learned about that in the class. I say, yes, you did. So I think that's important, you know, to be able for kids to be able to see what they're doing from the class to go out. And it's actually, you know, I'm not teaching in a vacuum.

Yeah.

You know, this is practical. skills and a recognized certification nationwide that people will value. Yeah.

I don't know how you could pull this off, but it'd be also interesting to bring them into places that aren't lean.

Well, yeah, most of their life, if you think about education— Yeah, that's true.

Except for your class, right?

I can say that now that I'm retired, but education is It wasn't the most lean process.

That's an interesting question. So like, I'm curious to get your thoughts. Like, let's say you have a magic wand and you could wave it over the US educational system, K through 12. Let's just start there. What would you do different?

I think it's, I think a lot of it is, you know, some of the things that are happening, Chunking, learning how to chunk.

What do you mean by chunking?

Present information when it's needed and when the kids are ready for it, to present that information to them.

Kind of point of use in a way, right?

Yeah. Just learning how to be efficient with your work and your time.

Yeah.

You know, one of the— I always had a pet peeve of mine was if a student came up and said, is this good enough? You know, and I would say, if you have to ask, it probably isn't.

Yeah.

You know, and that goes back to my quote, Bobby Knight's.

Yeah.

You know, if you're telling me that you're not giving me your best effort, you know, if you're asking if it's good enough.

Yeah.

And that's just a— that's a personal thing. You know, you, you, if you want to move up in a company, if you want to get ahead, you have to set yourself apart. And that's by setting standards like that for yourself, that everything that you do is going to be reflective of the work that you can do, your best work.

Mm-hmm.

So I think that's a big part. I think the problem solving part could be worked on much more to get kids to really be able to look objectively at what their work is, what's going on, you know, to look, okay, I got an F on this test. All right, why did I get that F? And be able to do a a 5-why on something like that.

Yeah.

And what caused it? A lot of times you hear, a lot of times the kid's agency is kind of an issue. The teacher gave me an F, right? They don't want to take ownership of it. And I think that's one of the things that the practical problem solving does is that you have to eventually, you have to take some responsibility, some accountability for it, and be able to objectively look at what you did, what the outcomes were, and then how can you change those outcomes in the future? And then do it that way all the time.

What's your take on the whole artificial intelligence boom, especially as it pertains to education? As far as, you know, kids just going to ChatGPT to get the answers and that sort of thing?

I think what I would— I told my students was that use it as a tool, not as a crutch. It's a great tool, all right, but, you know, if you want to do a paper on The Patriot Act or something like that. It's a great tool to talk to and work through what would be a good outline for that paper, right? And use it as that. Okay, let's get our thoughts in a good, nice sequence that will convey what I want. And then you write it. That's using it as a tool.

All right.

And what we see a lot is kids are going to AI and going, write me a paper about the Patriot Act and make it sound like a high school senior.

Yeah.

You know? And then now you're using it as a crutch. And so, you know, I— Could you tell? You can usually. Yeah. Usually you get some words in there.

Or the em dash, right? You know, take out the em dashes, guys.

Yeah, yeah. Moreover, however, you know, it's like—

Said no senior ever.

Wave a flag. Right, right, right, right. So, you know, I use it myself all the time. I have a Model A that I work on, and I Bounce ideas off of it, you know, and work through problems and then do it, you know, and it helps you really critically think about what you're trying to do.

Yeah.

If you're reading it and what you're trying to do, and that's a super skill to learn anyway.

Right.

You know, how do you write that prompt to get out what you want out of it? So I don't have a problem if they— with AI, if it's used as a tool.

Right.

But when it comes to, you know, if they're using it as a crutch, right, then, then I have issues with that.

Right. Yeah. Like, it's funny you mentioned like writing papers and all the rest of it. Like, I write a lot of blog articles for here at Gemba Academy and, and kind of what I like to do is I like to write and then I'm terrible at missing commas and this in grammar and different that. And I do love to run it through that and just say, check my grammar. And I say, just tell me what it is. Don't change it. And I'll decide if I want to go in and change it or whatever. But I feel like that's a value added and it'll make it a better read.

Yeah. Well, sometimes even when you When you start talking to the kids about— you can catch them pretty easy because a lot of times they'll turn the paper in, they won't even read it.

Yeah.

So you ask them a question and—

Oh gosh.

And they go, uh, yeah, yeah. And you go, yeah, you didn't write this, did you?

What do you think, um, what do you envision the future of Lean As it pertains to sort of education in the world? Like, do you see it possibly making more of a presence and just not just a special teacher like yourself, but everyone?

I wish it would. I wish it would, especially in the CTE programs, the Career Technical Education programs. There's a huge need for that. Go through the CTE programs, your auto mechanics, your woodworking, your medical classes, probably law enforcement you can throw in there. If you have a culinary arts program, you can throw those Lean concepts into any of those that will help any student in their work and possibly in their personal life too.

How does one go about making that happen? Is that something Gemba Academy should be? I mean, obviously it would look like we're self-serving, like, come use us, but what do you think? Is it like a government thing or what? Because God help us if it is.

Yeah, we won't talk about government and Lean concepts. But I think we need to get the word out to programs like that, that CTE, this is a A component that is needed. Not only a lot of your industries are using it, and you need to introduce your kids to it, right? And because, and to me, it was in, in doing oil tech, it wasn't just enough to teach them the geology, the how it's drilled, how it's produced. You know, when it gets to the surface, what do we do with the fluids and then how it's transported and refined and all that? I wanted to give them skills that they could use. And the Lean certification was one of those. Another one we did was Passport certification for its basic oilfield safety.

Okay.

And, you know, When they start seeing that, and we saw industries, companies do this, you know, they started, the kid, they were getting these letters of recommendations and we did a career portfolio for all students. And here they've turned it in, here's Passport certification, Yellow Belt certification in Lean. And they would start asking about that. You know, it was, that was one of those things that brought them above the other people that were applying for the jobs. And, you know, we even, we have an internship program in oil tech. So we have, I think, 7 or 8 juniors working for various companies and probably that many seniors after they graduated were hired by companies. And the thing that we always heard You know, we teach them the skills, interview skills. We teach them— they did a whole portfolio. They had 3 letters of recommendations. We taught them how to fill out a job application, get a professional resume. And then they go through these interviews. They do sometimes mock interviews.

Yeah.

If they didn't want an internship, a summer job, they did mock interviews. And then And then the students who wanted internships are doing interviews also. And then the people that were interviewing always said they wish that our— that the general people that were coming in for applications, you know, and trying to get a job were as well prepared as our kids and ready to work. And that's our whole goal in career technical education anyway.

Mm-hmm.

You know, to give them those skills that they need to succeed. And if we can give them just that edge to get in the door and get that first job, that's a great accomplishment for the student and for education.

Maybe to wrap things up, I'm wondering if you could, I don't know, comment on like, where do you think we are? Are you hopeful for the future with our youth and with the education system and the things that you've been involved with? Are you worried? Are you both?

You know, I, the kids that are in our program, and let me, let me talk a little bit about OilTech was a California Partnership Academy. We were equally funded by the state of California, by the school district, and by our business partners. It is not a new concept. It started back in the '70s in Philadelphia. They were just trying to get kids to stay in school, to get them to kind of understand, you know, why they're taking English, you know, kind of attach a career focus to why they're doing English, science, math, and all those. And it was fairly successful there in the late '70s, early '80s. We started them in California and they have made huge improvements. I think now we have right around 400 different academies in different career sectors, basically every career sector. It's a group of teachers, academic teachers and a technical teacher that work together, 3-year programs, sophomore, junior, senior year. There's internships, there's mentorships, There's a lot of stuff going to it, very successful in California. And with that funding that we get, that allows us to be able to do things like we have done with Gemba Academy and things like that. So to get into our program, they have to apply. As a freshman, they have to— we do a tour of the academy. They decide if they want to be in. We can't just say, You're in oil tech. The kid, the student has to apply. He has to go through an interview. The parents have to approve for them to be in. So we get kind of a different student in oil tech. And I wish that all of the kids, you know, in school would have that same kind of drive.

Hmm.

That want to do something. You know, they see these things, they hear these things, they say, this can help me.

Mm-hmm.

And they get into it. And we get about 100 to 120 students apply. We can have seats for about 70 in the program. So unfortunately we have to turn 50 students away about every year. And granted, this is a school of 1,100 kids. And we're getting, you know, 120 of them, of the freshmen. And, you know, usually there's about 300 freshmen coming into the school, and 120 of them want to be in this program.

Yeah, almost half.

Yeah, yeah. And so we, you know, we feel good about that, that we've developed a place that people, that students wanted to be. And give them skills. And one of the things, some of them that we always heard kids talk about was they want to learn how to speak better, you know, to publicly speak or to learn how to, you know, resumes and get jobs and things like that. They know we do all these things. And so they have an interest, you know, even as freshmen, they have an interest in in these things. It's unfortunate to me that not all the kids want to take advantage of those opportunities, you know, when they come along. If we could find ways to get those students to find something that they want to be involved with, Mm-hmm. and then within that, you know, This is why you need English and this is why you need math. This is why you need social studies and science and things like that. Make it so that they understand why they're in school.

Right.

A lot of times it's just disconnected from, they're taking all these classes, but their interests lie over here and they're taking all these classes and they're separate. And when we can bring them both together. It's fun.

Yeah.

You know, when the teachers are on the same page, the students are all on the same page, you know, we all have that same vision. Where do we want to go? Even though each individual student has their own plan and all that, it's fun to see, especially we do a thing on Career Day where we have usually around 35 to 40 companies going. It got so big that we had to move it off campus into— but the companies, they set up their own booths, and our sophomores have to go around and have a conversation with the people, not just ask questions, but have a conversation. And they get stamps.

Oh, wow.

They're trying to get these stamps. And I tell the businesses, They have to have a conversation with you, not just come up and start asking questions, but have a conversation.

Okay.

So learning how to speak to adults, sometimes this is the first time, you know. So sophomores are doing that. Our juniors and seniors are doing the same thing, but also they have these interviews going on. So it's a, it's a crazy, crazy day.

Yeah.

But when it finally comes together, you know, and you're walking around And you're talking to interviewers, people that do interviews on a day-to-day basis, and they're saying, these kids are amazing. Makes you feel good.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I wish teachers, especially CTE programs, would take advantage of those things that are out there and not just teach in a vacuum in their own class. Bring in your businesses, uh, get your kids out there.

Yeah.

Um, prep them, you know, you, you've got to prep them. Yeah. And teach them. And, uh, and those are skills, you know, lifelong skills that, that they will, um, they'll carry through, you know, the rest of their life.

Well, I've even been thinking back, back to my question about, you know, how do you— how do we spread this? I mean, I think everybody listening to this podcast, you know, we could be out there, you know, like go to your local high school and offer to run a 5S numbers game or something like that, you know, for free. You know, just go in there and take 2, 3 hours and bring the handouts and teach kids what 5S is, you know. And you never know what kind of seeds that can be planted.

And yeah, I think if your companies got more involved in it, you know, to me, I was always looking at how How can I improve the program? And this was one of the increments that we could improve it. And it's not, you know, some teachers may not have access to the companies like I did.

Yeah.

You know, I had, like I said, the one that introduced this to us was Aera Energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they said, use the Gemba Academy.

Yeah.

You know, they've got great videos and stuff to work. And a lot of times teachers don't know what's out there. Sometimes you get in the— invite them to a teacher externship and say, hey, we'd like you to come and we're going to give you a tour and talk to you about our company and what we do here.

Right.

And get teachers in there and how can you partner together? What can you do? We don't necessarily need money. All right. It's, we need knowledge. We need, we need skills. We need time. We need people that care.

Yeah.

You know, we've been, we've been lucky at, at OilTech that we have a community built on oil, highly regarded program. And it really comes from our business partners, you know, Chevron, Era, CRC, General Production, Holmes Western, they all make a concerted effort to work with our kids.

Yeah.

You know, I would say to teachers, get out there, talk to, call companies, try to set up field trips, get them involved in things. We found that if you can get a company to come in and do a tour of your program, that they usually tend to stick around.

Yeah.

When they get around the kids, the kids sell your program.

Yeah.

And so if you are teaching them the skills that they need and how to respond and react to— there's that generation gap. We can start talking about that all we want, but how do you work How do you speak to these folks, right? Yeah, you're 18 years old, you're wanting a job with Chevron and getting interviewed by somebody that's 50, 60 years old. You have to be able to—

Look them in the eye.

Look them, shake their hand, introduce yourself, look them in the eye. You know, think of some questions that may arise and work on how do you answer those things. We do all of that. And when they see that, then they want to come back.

Yeah.

Companies want to come back. So I think it's both sides. I think it's education needs to reach out to businesses. Businesses need to go into schools and say, hey, you know, we're interested in this industry. We need employees. How can we work together to help students succeed not only in the classroom, but once they leave?

Yeah. Life.

Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of our kids go to Taft College. 2 years there and then move on to 4-year universities. We have, as I said, some that get jobs right out of school. Some of them just go for certificates and get jobs. We've had kids— I say we've had them go from Cal State Monterey Bay to George Washington University, one Texas A&M, and everywhere in between.

Wow.

We've had 4 students graduate from Colorado School of Mines. One of the top science colleges in the US, you know. So when you can start pointing those successes out to people, you know, everyone wants to be involved with a successful program, right? You show them, show them the success, get them around the kids, and the kids will sell your program.

Yeah.

If it's a good program and you run it and it's being Right, right.

Good.

They sell it, man.

Well, this has been a fun conversation, Ted. I appreciate you coming in, and, uh, yeah, congratulations on your, on your retirement, and thank you for all your years, you know.

Well, thank you.

Pouring into these kids.

Yeah, Gemba was a big part of it.

Well, so thank you for your, your business too. We appreciate that as well.

Well, the kids, the kids appreciated it too, so they get more out of Hey, if people wanted to connect with you personally, what's the best way? LinkedIn, something like that? I'm on LinkedIn. I'm also on Facebook and Instagram, but LinkedIn's probably the best. Okay, yeah, we'll put your—

we'll get your LinkedIn profile and we'll put it in the show notes so everybody can scroll down and be sure to go connect with Ted.

Yeah, yeah, appreciate it.

All right, well, thanks again, man. This has been a lot of fun.

I've enjoyed it. Thank you.

All right, take care.

Bye.

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