An Army of Normal FolksDr. Rhonda Smith: I Use Your Podcast in My Classes! (Pt 2)
Professor Rhonda has assigned listening to and reflecting on our podcast to over 400 of her college students. And just wait until you hear her story that led to an extraordinary life of purpose.
Hey, everybody, it's built Courtney with an army of normal folks. And we continue now with part two of our conversation with doctor Ronda Smith right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. So where do you go from there? And how do you become doctor Ronda Smith?
Okay, the rest of that year was pretty rough that year, and then the beginning of the next year was probably one of the hardest seasons of our family's life if you remember, and you probably we probably didn't know it then, but two thousand and one was when oxy cotton was being developed and over prescribed and overused.
In fact, it was being over pushed and sold by many doctors actually intentionally. There's actually a movie about that that was out recently that was awesome. But it was basically legalized pharmaceutical while drust drug pushers yep, and highly used in rural areas among people who really trusted their doctors. Absolutely, Yeah, I remember all that.
Yeah, well, that's part of our story too. So and that's also that was Roger's drug of choice was oxy cotton, and so I found out later that he had been injecting he'd been using that regularly and that's that comes later also, but I don't think that it had started at that point. But so September twenty eighth and twenty ninth was when the major that abuse happened in Houston, that Roger heard us so bad. And then the day before Thanksgiving in November, my dad's mother, my grandmother, died by suicide.
Oh gosh.
Yeah. She had been diagnosed with MEAs with elioma earlier in the year.
That's lung lung can. That's a big word for lung.
Can, yep. And she had uh. They had lived in New Orleans and lived down the street from a shingle uh manufacturing factory.
So she wasn't a smoker, new was.
She didn't smoke, drink because nothing. Wow, she was a saint, right. So she ends up with lung cancer and was prescribed one hundred milligrams of oxycotton twice a day.
Holy smokes, and she was stoned as a rat. Didn't even know it. None of us knew she was using what the doctor gave her. So back then everybody trusted the meds the doctor gave.
And so none of us knew. And my mom and dad would go over they lived just down the street from them, and they would go over and check on them, you know, every day. My mom would spend all day with them, just about and she'd been over there with them that day and they would go check on them that night. And that particular night they went by and the lights were off like they were already gone to bed, and so they said, well, we'll come back in the morning. For whatever reason, that night, she did not take her nightmns and so she did not have her one hundred milligram oxy cotton that night. And so what we know now, you know, hindsight is twenty twenty. What we know now is that she probably woke up in those terrible withdrawal symptoms, which.
Is pain, very much pain with also doing with lung cancer, yep, and so she.
She chose to end her life.
Wow.
Yeah, So that was you know, dealing with the death of a parent and a grandparent, it's one thing, but then the suicide makes it it's another layer, you know, it's it's more of a tragic You asked all the questions, why, how did we not know? How how did we not see this coming? What was she feeling? How did why did she not talk to us? You know? So and a lot of it's a guessing game and it's hard.
Yeah, okay, tough, tough.
Hear then to make it worse the next may, I lose my job at Mississippi Power.
Why you don't seem like the person do something to lose their job.
I wouldn't think so either, But I did, And you know, just reflecting on it, I think I just was not in a good head space and may not have been handling things the best way that maybe I should. And I didn't do anything outright, I didn't, you know, I didn't steal money or do I mean? I didn't do anything.
Did you go outside and throw a bunch of tacos off somebody?
I did not do that either, Well, I don't. I think it was more of a I do think that there was some of it was Roger was kind of stalker ish calling up.
There or wondering about that actually.
And I was working with an older lady who was very easily She was probably shared and we didn't she didn't understand me. I didn't understand her, and I think that probably and she had been there for twenty five years, and you know, so you're out, I'm out, so now, So.
Now that's your trauma daughter.
Yep.
No income, yep.
So I find jobs the best I could with an associate business crap degree, right, I'm using your words. Yeah, So I had a really good job. I was working at the casino. I was a credit supervisor up there, and I learned all the inner workings of the casinos. Don't like, they don't build those things from people winning a bunch of money.
Yeah, that's kind of how it works, right.
So Okay, So I learned a lot there, but I really learned that I knew it was time for me to leave there. Whenever they raised a little man that he had a credit limit of like two hundred dollars because it was his play money. He was on so security, but that was his play money and he could do that. And so I came back one Monday and someone had raised it to like fifteen hundred dollars and like he could never repay that, And so I knew, like, were why why would you do that? So I knew it was time for me to go.
Just wasn't comfortable for you.
That's just not good practice. I just didn't. That went against my gut, Like, you can't do that to people.
So unfortunately you can.
Yeah, you can, should we.
Shouldn't should we should and can are two different things.
Maybe there are lots of other people that can and do. I couldn't do it.
I get it.
It's not for me, right, It made me feel really yucky inside.
So but if you're like a credit manager at a casino, you're working in the back office, so you probably are making a nice living. And okay, you figured it out. I was doing all right, but now you're gonna quit because some little man got his pay money raised.
I know, I know that's right. Yeah, so yeah, So of course, you know, Caitlyn's dad rogers in and out like wanting to see her. You'll have periods of sobriety and Okay, I decided to move to Hattiesburg. So I find a job law from I was still a Meridian.
Some Meridian got it, yep.
So I decide to move to Hattiesburg. So I called my old mentor, the old teacher that taught me junior college right when I got my associate's degree, and I said, Ms McQueen, do you know of anybody that's hiring around Hattiesburg or Laurel, Because I really want to come back she said, as a matter of fact, we need somebody here in my department. Would you come? And I said yes, and she said, okay, but it only pays eight dollars an hour nikes, And I said, okay, okay.
When you were in the credit apartment, did you hearn anything about math? I?
Oh, math is horrible. I don't ask me what six times nine is because I don't know. I don't know. Social workers don't do math. So I took eight dollars an hour working at the junior college. So I think it was New Year's Day, two thousand and four. I'm at my parents. My landlord calls and he says, Rohnda, there is a brown truck down here in the woods. And I don't know if this guy is down here like he's going to kill himself or he's waiting to hurt you. But somebody needs to come down here and see what's going on. So me and dad call the sheriff's department and we go from his house to where I had just rented this house. And I'm like, I'm going to get kicked out of this place. And so we get there and Roger is there at my house. He had already been inside my house, and I don't think he had been in my house yet. No, he we were afraid he was going in the house. So he's there at the house. He tries to come in the house. When we get there, Dad, instead of punching him in the face, he just pushed him down the stairs in front of the sheriff's deputy, and the deputy was okay with it because he kind of knew the backstory. And so Dad finally says, Roger, how much money would it take to get you out of Mississippi. He says, I don't know, Robert, what you got. And Dad pulls out his wallet and handed him whatever cash he had in his wallet. It was a couple hundred dollars. Roger said, all right, and that's the last time I saw him.
You're kidding me. Two hundred bucks.
About two hundred bucks.
Best two hundred bucks ever spelt, I think so.
So. But before he left town, we left. We left before because we were scared. We went back because Caitlyn was at Mom and Dad. That's how so while we were gone, he broke into my house, destroyed, you know, broke the washer and dryer, the stove, wrote little hateful notes and hid everywhere, put a bullet in my shower, wrote notes in a magic marker on the mirror. Vengeance is mine, just little reminders that he was going to get me. Always be looking over my shoulder. I never saw him again until I got a call. Well through the years. He called a few times, and when he called, when I got a call from Texas, because I knew he was going to Texas. When I got a call from Texas, I answered it because I wanted to make sure where he was. I want to make sure you're not here, You're not in Mississippi. Where are you? So I would talk to him, what are you up to? And he was usually waiting for the liquor store to open. A couple times he asked me to help him find a rehab facility, and I would look up numbers and give him numbers. But that's about as far as it would go. He ended up living in a homeless shelter in San Antonio, Texas, and around the middle of June of twenty sixteen, we got a phone call from the Medical Examiner's office looking for his next of ken and so he had. He passed away on Father's Day twenty sixteen.
On the one hand, sadly that had to have been a little bit of a relief because the truth as you were being stalked after everything else. On another hand, addictions of beast and the god, what's it?
He was very sick. And those are the conversations that I've had with my daughter over the years. She hasn't seen her dad since she was four.
And again, on the one hand, that's probably great. On the other hand, taking it from a guy whose stab left when he was four, you always wonder, and it's easier when you can reconcile it against a disease. But I mean, that has a long time to deal with that stuff. But you're an asperg. Yeah, you're working for eight bucks an hour. Yeah, and you're trying to find a future. Yeah, so how'd that work?
So after about six months of living on my own, someone at the college came to me. You know, I'm struggling. I'm a single mom and like eight bucks and Bill's eight dollars an hour, car note, rent all that stuff, daycare. Someone comes up and they say, hey, Rhonda, how would you like to come live in the dorm and be a dorm mom. You can live here in this three bedroom, dorm room for free. The electricity is free, the phone is free, cable is free. I'm like, okay, how long do I have to get there? And so I moved into the dorm like it was like it just fell from the sky, like it was great. And it was good for my daughter too, because she was on campus with all the girls and she got to do hair and dress up and all that good stuff. So it was really fun for her. So I did that for about a year, and that's about all I could take because we had nightly fire drills.
Because of hair spray.
And burnt toast and you name it, you know. So it was hard on one hand, but it certainly gave me the time to get my stuff together and figure out what I was going to do next. Yes, very much so, so then we were able to move out of there into a house. But while I was working there, those same mentors, the people in my department, you know, they said, you know, you really need to go back to school. I'm like, for what, Like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And you know, they saw potential in me that I did not see in myself at that point. And so the only thing I could think of to do was to try to figure out why people do the things they do. That was my motivation for going back.
This is where the connection to the past starts with the future right here.
Yeah, why do people? Why would a man who had everything give it up for a drug? And so that was my mission to figure that out. And so I enrolled at the University of Southern Mississippi to go to night classes in psychology because I thought, I mean, I didn't really know much about you know, what I could do with that job, but I just wanted to figure that out. I wanted to knowledge. And so I went to night classes and I got my bachelor's degree in psychology. And so did that at night while I was working full time. And I mean, you just do what you gotta do. And then and then I went to work for community mental health and that's where I found my people. So I started working with individuals who struggle with severe mental illness, So people that have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, people who may be suicidal, people who struggle with depression, anxiety, women who have been through abusive relationships, people who deal with addictions, like all of those people. Those are my people who people I get. I don't know. I guess I can relate on some level. I don't know. There's so much empathy, and I don't know. I just I see, I see the hope maybe when other people don't. I think there's always hope. There is always, always, always hope.
I'm being redundant because I use this phrase very recently in another interview, but I'm going to say it again because it's appropriate. I don't think people care at all how much you know, until they know how much you care.
Yeah, And.
I get why those are your people, because you know either through your own experience through women who are in abusive relationships and all of that, or you know through your experience with Roger what addiction and mental illness can look like. You've experienced all of it, and because you understand and experience it, you can relate to it, relate to it. You have the ability to help.
Yep.
But you're not a doctor yet, not yet, So how's that happening?
So I'm working at the community Mental Health Center as a case manager, and so that means that I'm going out to people's houses. I'm picking them up for doctor's appointments, making sure that they have their.
Medication full on social work, full on.
Social work, but I just have a degree in psychology, Like I don't know, I don't even know what social work is at this point. But I was working for a social worker. His name is Scott Ratcliffe, and he tells people that he raised me as a baby social worker. He had been a social worker since nineteen seventy two. Wow, And so he has seen it all and he is my cheerleader, my mentor. One of the reasons that I am a doctor in social work because he said, do you want to He just came back in my office one day and said, do you want to be a case manager your whole life? And I'm like, I don't know, Scott, Like what else is there to do, because you know, I'm still kind of ignorant to the profession itself. I'm just doing my job. I'm trying to raise a kid by myself. I'm trying to pay my bills, you know. I'm just doing the best I can, dealing with my own trauma, dealing with my own stuff too at the same time. And so but I'm getting it. I'm getting there, you know. And so he says, why don't you go back to school for social work that USM has a great graduate degree program. I'm like, oh, I don't know if I can do it, like a master's degree. I don't know. I'm like, you can do a master's degree, you need to go do it. So I call USM, what do I have to do to get in this program? And I'm accepted into the program. Oddly enough, I am able to go to classes like in the middle of the day they arrand they let me go like during hours, like it is supernatural. Like how I was able to get this done. I got internships at the place that I work, so it was kind of paid internships. We don't get to do that anymore. Like that was back before I guess before they caught on what we were doing. So I was able to do my internships there. As soon as I finished. I got my graduate degree, Scott did my You have to have two years of clinical supervision after you get your graduate degree to get your clinical license. We started that immediately, so Scott was my clinical supervisor for two years postgraduate. Then while I was doing that, I was working at an inpatient psychiatric facility and so that was very interesting because it's a different day every day because you just don't know. And that's when I really really learned about people are really really it's an illness, Like people are really sick. And when we see people that we say are homeless on the street, I know because I've seen them in the hospital. You know, it's not always what people think. And so I have such.
A big that the demographics of the homelesses that over eighty percent are have a clinically diagnosed mental illness and or substance abuse problem, and most have both. Absolutely, So when you look down on that homeless person on the sidewalk acting crazier, looking nuts or whatever, and they are scary and not particularly attractive most times, we really got to check ourselves and remember they're sick. Those are no different than a person with cancer, except their sickness is just a lot more socially unacceptately.
Those are my people, Bill, those are your people.
We'll be right back. So after two years this impatient thing, you decide to be doc.
Yeah, well, yes, so I get a job offer. After I get my LCSW, I get a job offer to go LCSW licensed Certified social Worker, got it? Okay, that's the highest licensure that you can get as a social worker. And so I get a job offer to go work in a clinic for our community hospital that's in Laurel South Central Regional Medical Center. And so I'm working at the clinic there and just doing one on one therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, whatever people need. And so for about three years, I was the only therapist in the clinic. Wow, and certainly the only one in our area that took Medicaid medicare other than the community Mental Health center that is like governed by the Department of Mental Health.
That have to have been an enormous workload.
It's forty hours a week, forty people a week, eight hours a day. And my dad brought it up at dinner last night. He said that I came to his house one day with tears in my eyes, and I sat down and said, can you imagine having a job where every single person that you talk to cries for a whole hour in front of you? And sometimes those were the days. Can't imagine that, right, Sometimes I.
Can't imagine that in going home and being able to put a smile on your face and be normal.
Yeah. Sometimes, yeah, Well, we have to take care of ourselves, right, right, And so that's a full time job to you do that. You have to learn how to separate what's going on in someone else's life and what I have control over. And so there's an art to that. It's a it's a skill that we have to as clinicians, as a therapist, that's what we have to do. We have to figure out how to do that for ourselves. And so I did that for about eight and a half years, and very interesting, very rewarding work. For sure. You grow very attached to the people that tell you everything about their lives that they have never told anyone ever before.
Yeah, like the stuff that you wouldn't tell anybody. Yeah, absolutely, the same exact dynamic.
Same thing, yep. And so I got it and I could tell the men and a woman would walk in my office abuse I knew what it was. Wow, Yeah, and I would tell her.
Don't you think those people could also tell that you why you empathized? Think?
So there were a few occasions, you know, they teach us there are boundaries you don't tell. Done a lot a lot of self disclosure, you know. There were times that I said, I'm going to tell you how I know and this is what this is what has to happen.
I get that, But I'm going to tell you something I think everybody has experienced, even in just a medical doctor, the difference and an anhiseptic professional approach and an empathetic approach that illustrates, I know what you're going through. You don't even you don't even have to tell somebody often for someone to feel that empathy and that and that connection. Yeah, so I got to believe many of the people you worked with. Okay, so eight years.
Eight years, and during that time, when I first started that job, there were some cases that walked in the door and I was like, ugh, I don't know how to help this person, Like I don't know, I didn't know the clinical approach.
Did you ever look at him and say, sir, you're messed up as a soup sandwich? No, I don't know if.
I was shaped it like I just and then I looked. I did some research when I got home, and so that I knew what to do the next time they came.
Okay, so you never say that to I'm kidding Roder obviously, Okay, so got it.
Never knew Yeah, But so I said to myself, you need more knowledge, you need to go back to school, and so I enrolled at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
At what age at that time?
Well, I graduated when I was forty eight, so I was about forty five.
That is incredible that you are still yearning for more and advancing yourself long after most people have said, all right, I'm just cruising here.
Well, I wanted to. I want to help people the best that I could. I did not want to halfway do it.
Right, That's the same fabric of the same person who with crusted blood on their ears and dried up blood on their T shirt, looked at their parents and was more concerned about how their heart hurt. That is the same fabric, it is.
Well, so that's how I got to be a doctor. So I graduated with a near four point zero with my doctorate at University of Tennessee. And so what did I do next? Well, I finished working at South Central for that eight and a half years, and then I just kind of thought, am I really doing as much as I can for the most people? Am I getting the most bang from a book? You know, it was one at a time. How can I how can I help the most? How can I do the most good, and I thought, we really need to change the system. The systems are what's broken because I see all the same problems over and over and over.
Is just say, Alex, is that not deja vous all over again? I don't know whose episode is going to air first, so I don't even know how to tease this, but okay. So Trina with One Hour Give an Hour, Given Hour said that their entire approach to improving mental health is recognizing that the system as it is can't do enough and we have to break it down and be more creative and reach more people. Yes, yes, it is, I swear. I feel like I'm listening to the same conversation this part the same conversation, and what they are doing is fascinating. But in a microcosm of that, you're thinking that in your head. So what's the answer for you?
Well, I just thought, to reach more people, we have to have more people, more boots on the ground, we have to have more people that are equipped to help more people.
I should just interviewed you and train it together. That is incredible, That's exactly what she says.
So I applied for a job as a professor at the university where I got my master's degree. I started actually doing some adjunct teaching work at Tennessee first, just to test the waters to see if it was what I really wanted to do. And I loved it, and so I did adjunct teaching at Tennessee for a couple of years.
And so when did you become a professor at.
This is my second year.
So twenty twenty two. So at the ripe age of somewhere around.
Fifty fifty one or two.
You decided I'm going to start a new career. I'm going to be a professor of social work and some other stuff. I guess, yes. So what do you teach?
So I teach in the Bachelor of Social Work program and the Master of Social Work program. So I think next year I will just be teaching in the graduate school.
All right, But what are the classes?
Okay? So I teach policy classes, social welfare policy.
I e.
Systems, systems, social entrepreneurship.
That's an interesting what is that.
Is one of my favorites. So these students are graduate students, and at the beginning of the semester, I asked them to what is your passion? What are you passionate about? What's the population that you want to work with, who are they and why? And so we spend the first few classes talking about that, and then okay, how are you going to help them? Give me an idea outside of government programs, because we know how well that's working out for us, right if we were all to come up with an idea kind of like what they do on the Army of normal folks?
Right, nice plug, Thanks.
Well, I use that in my class.
Well, we're going to talk about that, so ironically enough, and I'm not pitching Triena to you, but that's also what they look for is creative entrepreneur outside of the box system breaking ideas to reach more people, and theirs is in creating sort of five peer group leaders and all this other thing. What you're doing is trying to train their first level, which is therapist, that's right.
Just social workers that may work in the systems themselves.
Right right, But you are also challenging them to be creative and think outside the construct of even their own curriculum. Absolutely, which is cool. We'll be right back. So here we go. Yes, all of that to get to this point, and now we're going to set the table. So your dad, through a bunch of tacos on the ground and you move to Mississippi, White Picket Fens, wonderful family. You get into a really toxic relationship that is controlled by alcohol and drug abuse while you're trying to be a mother and you're trying to deal with your own demons. You finally get out of it after a near death experience. You were stalked, and through all of it you bounce around from power and Light to a casino, to mentors telling you you've got more to give, get educated, move on up, and you help people and all the while using your experience and your empathy to help folks. To then become a doctor because you decide I can help people one on one every hour, where I can take classes of these people to go out and do exponentially more than I could do by myself. And that's where you end up.
That's right.
And one day you're screwing around and you hear an episode of an army and normal folks.
That's correct.
Where did you first hear an army in normal folks?
Well, that's kind of a weird story too. I met Ryan with Iron Light.
Ryan is the president of Iron Lights, who is who Alex our producer works with and for to put together all of the production, the music, the artwork, the social media and everything else. They are our production arm right Lights out of Chicago. Yes, So how do you meet Ryan?
So? I met Ryan in New York last year at a songwriting workshop slash retreat in New York. Got it with our favorite band, Blue October. Like I love Blue October, Love Love Love. So we're up there. It's spend a week up there. No, it didn't really talk to him, didn't know much about him. And then my daughter and I decide the next month or so to go to Knoxville to a Blue October concert and there's Ryan and his wife and we run into him again there and I'm like, oh my gosh, Ryan, so dere in the middle of the set. We're like, what do you do for a living? Oh? Well, and if you know Ryan, you know, He's like, well, I have this little thing and we do this policy stuff. And I'm like, oh my god, I teach policy. And so we hit it off and we start talking about all these things. I said, I need you to come talk to my classes. Oh, that'd be great. And so we get to talking about all the things that we do, and so he invites me to the summit in Nashville, which is where I heard your voice. Well, let me back up a little bit. After I had met Ryan at that con. You know, after the concert, he tells me about iron Light. So I'm like, what is iron Light? So I started looking around and then I stumbled across army and normal folks. I start listening to it. I'm like, oh, this is what I'm talking about. This is exactly what I'm talking about.
I want to be a part of this.
I love this, this is what I'm talking about.
Did you know then you'd be interviewed for No I'm.
Wondering, now what am I doing here?
Well, we're about to tell everybody.
Oh my gosh. And so at the summit, I hear your voice across the room. I'm like, that's Bill Courtney. Oh my gosh, that's Bill Courtney. So that's when I go over to you and I'm like, you're Bill Courtney, aren't you.
Yep? And that's when you tell me that you made an army normal folks part of your teaching curriculum. Yes, which is at the top of the show. I said, I have been complimenting. Look this is not me. But I've got a national bestseller book, Academy Award winning film, and all kinds of stuff, and I've been overrun with complimentary things, and you know, you always want to be gracious, but I don't. I really do not take myself that seriously. And most all of this just kind of happened. And I'm still not sure why. But when I heard that you were using our podcast as part of your curriculum to teach people, that mattered to me. That really meant something that what we're doing can actually do exactly what we sought out to do. We want an army normal folks to be entertaining. We want people to laugh, we want people to cry, we want people to think, much like you have done in this interview so far, that is what we want. It has to be entertaining or else people aren't going to listen every week. But wrapped up in all of that as a greater purpose, and I'm not going to say it's a movement, I'm going to call it just something that matters, you know, And if the stuff we're producing can be used in a way that matters to young people and their education, is they go out to help the masses. Then we've succeeded. Yes, And so when you've told me that I really mean this forbab my heart, I was so humbled by that and really honored. And so why you here is to share with our audience, to say, look at this normal person who came from a great, normal middle class, upper middle class family, went through her own trauma, came out the backside, redeemed and doing amazing things. But in the process, through a weird sort of circumstances, found an army and normal folks and is now using it. And we just couldn't be more honored. So what does using it look like? And I'm going to let you go because you got some paper in front of you. Girl.
I am a professor and I always have paper in.
Front of it. Yeah, your doctor teach school, You're going to have paper.
Yes, I've brought the assignment with me just so you would know kind of what it looks like.
Well, I want everybody to know.
In the policy classes that I teach, we spend a lot of time talking about how broken everything is because we a lot of our systems are broken, and so there's a lot of bleakness, a lot of dreariness, a lot of depression, a lot of and so the students are sometimes very disillusioned and they're just not feeling great about what are we going into in this profession, right because well, at this at the point in the semester that we're talking about how terrible the systems are, they don't see that just yet.
The systems include our politics. Yes, so we're talking about a broad policy discussed, not just mental health policy, but all of the policy that.
Affects me on it's healthcare, racism, U In events, I have them like you need to find a current event and write about it. Things in state, in the state government, in the area, like what's going on right now? The Jackson water crisis, Like what is it that's going on that effects our people? Got it right? And so there's a lot of yuck for a while, and so I could tell that they were getting a little bit ugh, and so I thought, you know what, they need to hear that change is possible. They need to hear that people can really do some things.
That normal folks can make a.
Different normal people because they're normal.
They see themselves as do we all see ourselves as normal people?
Right? And I think there's a sense of hopelessness when you are standing in the middle of all of this and it seems so big. What can I do to fix this?
Right? That's the challenge.
Yes, and so I needed them to see that people are doing even little things to change it. And this was the perfect example, because you're talking every week about people that are doing things to help people every single day. And so I have them go and listen to an episode of Army of Normal Folks.
Do you choose it or one of their chooses?
No, they choose it. So I tell them here's the assignment. Listen to an episode of the podcast An Army of Normal Folks and choose an episode that is meaningful to you, and I give them a list and a synopsis of all of the episodes. Do not choose the first one on the playlist. I have to tell them that because if I don't know, they will, I said, unless it's particularly meaningful to you. And then I want them to give me a synopsis so that I know that they really listened. Describe the population that they serve, what they did, and why, how did their actions affect issues on the micro and the macro level, like as an individual and systemic, like at the bigger level and be specific. And then I asked them to explain why they chose that particular episode. Was it meaningful to them? What made it meaningful to them? Explain the importance of everyday citizens taking action in their communities and how this action affects change in society as a whole on a systemic level. And what are some ways to encourage each other to model what these normal folks have done. How do we encourage action that will help populations on a greater level. So the goal of this assignment is to get them thinking about how do they do that? How can I be thinking about affecting change just as a normal person in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
We'll be right back, so tell me what happened.
So they turned in some very very thoughtful answers, and I'm extremely proud I can this person chose Luke Michelson.
Always one of my favorite. Oh shoot, I shouldn't say that, y'all are my favorite, but Luke Michelson is particularly interesting. Sleep in Heavenly Peace right. I can't believe I remember that, Luke? I remember you? Go ahead.
This person chose this particular episode because many of my friends were resorting to using two or three blankets on the Florida find comfort.
For the night because they didn't have a bat as a.
Jeft experience yep. And she said it indeed starts with ordinary people living their everyday lives, setting off a domino effect of positive change. And so this person chose Jessica. Several people chose Jessica Lamb's et.
Jessica Lamb is pretty cool.
Yep. I think it's important for everyday citizens to do their best to help people around them. This goes from working with a certain population to just giving others in your community a helping hand or resource to someone who can help them better.
Jessca Lamb another person who was through some unbelievable trauma.
Yes she did. She said it can become something bigger and help a wide range of people. I think a good way to encourage people model the podcast or those on it would be just to speak up. Speak up in your community about what you believe in and find a population that you want to help. So just speak up, make connections as a future social worker. This was very ee opening episode. This was Tiani Shoemaker Clyde.
Yeah, she is in Salt Lake, and they go and basically give an unwed mother with a bunch of kids a day out to be normal while they go clean and fix up their house.
And how simple of a concept is that?
How hard is it?
How hard is that? Right? So she chose this. She said it was very eye opening because most communities are very welcoming and willing to support other people. It shows why community engagement matters. When the community is engaged, it brings out other ideas and it improves people's knowledge and makes the community more aware. That put a star by this one. This one was Aaron Smith advocating for Thomas because he was an Old Myths student.
So Aaron Smith is from Oxford and Thomas was somebody that was in foster care that she helped. Thomas was whipped, sexually assaulted, abused from childhood all the way into college and was basically dropped off at Ole Miss had great grades, great act scores, basically dropped off at college with no love, no sport. And he found an advocate in Aaron Smith and he is now wanting to go into social work and psychology. Yay, Yeah, what they say about that?
She said, by knowing that it took one person and a lot of hard work to get this done. It encourages me to put something in the works for my community one day just by listening to this one episode. Some way we can encourage other people to model normal folks by spreading awareness, advocating, and holding each other accountable and connecting with each other. Sometimes thinking about acting for the bigger population can seem daunting, but there have been so many times that encouraging smaller action plans lead to huge organizations and much bigger action because of the growth and connection they affect on the world. This was a Jessica Lamb.
I love that one because it's true. So many of the people we've interviewed just started out with a small thing they never expected to be something, and now they're helping hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. And the point is, so many people say, I want to help, but where do I start? We start with the people closest to you and help five, help ten who knows where?
Yep, this one was Troy and Erica Andrews. Yeah they adopted. Yeah. Let's see. If we do not take action on our communities and just wait for everything to be done for us, nothing will likely be.
Done that emulates the somebody out to do something about that, And the question is who's somebody, right.
Amy Crenshaw.
Amy Crenshaw is awesome.
I chose this episode because community based work is what I've always wanted to do. I think the best way to start change is by getting involved in the community and helping anyone in need. I like the unique fact that everyone is treated equally and with respect. This organization is important because they take donations that allow them to give back to the community. They also allow anyone to volunteer and help out.
Community cafe, which is you go and eat and that's a first class meal, and you pay what you can afford to pay, and if you can afford to pay more, you do, and if you can afford to pay less, you do. Everybody eats, and if you can afford to pay nothing, you still eat a great meal, but you owe an hour and they'll kitchen to wash dishes, whatever, And so the entire community can go to a place and eat. And the irony of that is you will have homeless people sitting next to lawyers eating lung munch and they interact and learn about each other. Community Cafe.
So this one is about Deb Ellinger, who works with women who are trafficked right.
Which is an intense podcast.
She said, I chose this topic because of the population. Professors often ask what population we want to work with, and I'm too nervous to say because I don't have a population. I only know that I have a purpose. My purpose is to be that person that made me feel worthy in deserving of the life that I want to achieve. Maybe that's why this story hit home.
Wow, that's awesome.
This story meant so much to me. I also learned something from it that showed me how to take action in a community the way that I was wanting to do when you mentioned it in class, but didn't know how to start it. I thought it had to have a big outcome first. Her story shifted my focus to one action and way of life rather than the outcome, because we cannot control the outcome.
Wow, that is so awesome.
And it goes on and on and on. Give me one more and one more, Guoddy, Tianni Schoemaker Clyde, So there's two more for her, Lissie. I chose this episode because I'm a single mom and I love the idea of helping other single mom. No one understands how stressful it is except for someone who's going through it too.
Well.
There were three of them that mentioned her. Some of them are I mean, they're probably in their thirties. I chose this episode for two reasons. The first reason is because I was raised by a single mother. I did not truly understand how hard it must have been for my mom until I had my own daughter and realized how blessed I am to have her father to be an active part of her life. The second reason I chose this episode is because at one point in my life I wanted to open a shelter that provided services for single mothers and children. And so I think by doing this assignment, it helps them to really see that you can do these things that because several of these have said I've wanted to do it but didn't know how well.
And that's part of the whole idea is we want to encourage people to listen long enough to find a place where they're passion and their discipline, their passion and their abilities meet at opportunity. And if you have the ability and you're passionate about it, and you see an opportunity, and then you have the temerity, Yes, to simply do it, then we can change our society. And to hear your students say, I'm encouraged by this person because it shows me I can. That's the nexus of the show.
Yes, And.
To see a person who's wound through life to get where you are now using the show to encourage her students to become a part of the army of normal folks, which I maintain is the only thing that's really going to have a significant effect on changing our society. Is so humbling and rewarding all at once. What's next, Well.
I hope I will teach the social entrepreneurship class again because this last.
Is that what this class came from.
Oh, I think this class was in my policy class.
Got it, but it could certainly be used in social entrepreneurship.
I did use it, but I used They had to listen to a podcast, but they an episode of the podcast. But they didn't necessarily have to do this assignment because that class is more about coming up with.
Your own Yeah, but the creativity of many of our guests is a way for them to.
So they have to watch clips. So they watched a clip of Cherry Garcia.
She's hilarious, hilarious.
Yes, I told you when I first listened to her. When I listened to her episode, I sobbed like a baby because it just hit me somewhere, just the whole just the whole thing just got me. And I told her that as you met her, Yes, I did, Yes, And I told her. I told her that. But they have to watch Let's see, they watched Cherry Garcia, they watched Chad Howser. Yes, Oh my goodness, I wish I could remember them all. But there were several they have been on this podcast that I had them watch, you know, YouTube videos or whatever on them to get ideas about what is your if your passion is this population, Here are some ideas of what people have done. Call them, listen to the podcast. They give you their number and their email address. Get some ideas, find out how you can start this in Mississippi. Why can't we right?
Which is always the question we should be asking, not how can I? But why can't I?
Yes, I had a student in this last semester whose name is Joe. He was a corrections officer in Harrison County Jail System or I guess Sheriff's department. And then got into social work. He is originally from Liberia, Africa, immigrated here when he was a child and had to spend I think two years in a I'm telling his story for him, but I don't think he would mind two years in a refugee camp before they actually got to the United States. Came over here, became a citizen, joined the Air Force, then became a sheriff's deputy. Now he's becoming a social work getting his master's degree in social work. Just graduated. Listen to the podcast, Listen to Cherry Garcia's podcast, watched her video. His idea because he's worked in the prison system, was to help bridge the gap between people coming out of the jail system and into the job market and wants to also do similar to what.
Arry davisous time.
Yes, and that's where his passion is. So we have an a part of the business school at USM is an incubator and they put into small businesses, like they help you develop business ideas and things like that. They have a Golden Pitch Idea every year that you can pitch your idea to them and they help you develop it. But it's a competition and so I announced it. Hey here's money for your idea. In my entrepreneurship class, Joe was the only one that entered the competition. He made it to the final round.
Wow.
Out of I don't know thirty people in the college that entered, he made it to the top eight. And so I went and listened. Of course, you know, there's no return on investment with social entrepreneurship with it, you know, So he didn't win because apps, you know what I mean.
Still vetting and learning and going through it.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
It was honest, this guy starting a refugee camp in Iberia and at least presenting to a bunch of people at Southern Minister ideas on how to help curb purcidivism.
Yes, wow, I am so proud.
You should be.
Yes, I was so proud. So he is going to do great things.
I cannot tell you how honored I am that our little experiment show here one has grown the way it's grown and has the listenership it does, and we are killing ourselves to continue to grow it. Not because of its feathers in our hat, but because the more listeners, the more impact, and the more impact, the more things that can change. But to know that it's being used in a curriculum, especially with someone with your perspective and your life story and your background, trying to help students see a better way is just so encouraging because your goal of how can I help the most one on one in an hour or teach an army of people to go on and do one on one an hour. The exponential growth of your efforts through teaching and then to be even a small part of that effort is Ronda is such an honor and it is such a cool story. And I just I don't know. Maybe you're gonna go into physics when you're sixty three. I don't know what I can promise that is no, no, no, no, no, Ronda. If they are educators listening, because this could be done in.
High school, oh absolutely, This.
Could be done in community colleges, This could be done outside of social work, This could work in leadership classes, This could work in all kinds of stuff. But if someone wants to get your perspective on it, that's an educator. How do they get in touch with you?
My email address is d R as in doctor d R. R. Smith S, M I T H seven zero at gmail.
Dot com and you'll answer an email.
Absolutely. I watched my email every minute.
Rhonda, Thanks for coming to Memphis, Thanks for sharing this, Thanks for sharing, first of all, being so transparent and the only word that's coming to my mind emotionally neked about what you went through to be able to get where you are, because I think the redemption is I don't think you'd be as good as what you are right now had you not suffered the measure you suffered. I agree, So that's got to be the silver lining and the blessing and all of it. Yeah, but thanks for that you're coming to Memphis and sharing all of that, because I do think that's got to be encouraging to somebody listening to this. But the other thing is, thanks very much for encouraging me. You know, I've got a business to run, I've got four kids, two of which you're getting married. I've got all kinds of things going on in my life, and this is encouraging to me because maybe what we're doing is making a little bit of a difference and at least helping in some corners of the world. And I'm humbled, honored again, I'm being redundant, but I'm humbled honored and really encouraged by it. And I hope you keep using it every year, and I hope kids keep growing from it. Maybe one day I can get to Hattisburg when school's in and visit your students with you. I would really like to do that one day. So certainly there's got to be a way we could do that.
Absolutely, we're going to make that happen. Yes, And I want you to know if I can. If I'm counting correctly, I teach four classes a semester, I have about twenty twenty five. If I use this in every class, I'm teaching one hundred students a semester. How many is that? In two years? Four hundred people have already had these assignments.
That's amazing, that's awesome. I hope they're still listening. For goodness, I hope.
They're regular college students.
You know. Odds are of the four hundred, one hundred and twenty five are so that's great. Maybe we will pay you a side fee as a pomation. You should you should do that.
I will do it. Yes, I think it's worth it. I really do.
Mom, Dad, thanks for joining, Thanks for thanks for hanging out with us, and thanks for coming up to Memphis. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here, and Rohnda we will meet again, I hope.
So thank you, thanks so much for having me, thank.
You so much for being here, and thank you for joining us this week. If Ronda Smith or other guests have inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by using an army of normal folks in your classroom, your place of worship, with your family, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us, and I swear to you I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and on social y'all subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it, become a premium member at normalfolks dot us. All of these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. Thanks to our producer, Ironlight Laves, I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week. Every don't dunking Bom
