PAM: Hi everyone! I’m Pam Laricchia from Livingjoyfully.ca, and today I’m here with Carlo Ricci. Hi Carlo!
CARLO: Hi Pam!
PAM: It’s great to have you on the show!
As a bit of an introduction, Carlo teaches graduate students at the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University in Ontario, Canada. His research focus in teaching includes unschooling, self-directed learning, reading, freeschooling, and democratic education. He and his wife have also unschooled their own daughters over the years. He founded and edits the “Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning”, is the author of “The Willed Curriculum: Unschooling and Self-Direction: What Do love Trust, Respect, Care and Compassion have to do with learning” and And he co-edited both the “The Legacy of John Holt” and Natural Born Learners. So, let’s dive in Carlo!
Can you share with us a bit about your background and your family?
CARLO: Sure. I’m happy to be here and look forward to our conversation.
PAM: Oh, me too!
CARLO: So, my wife, and two girls, who are currently 11 and 13, have always had the freedom to live their life, and they get to make decisions about what to eat and how to dress and so on, and we like to give them as much freedom as possible.
Pam: That’s awesome.
So, how did you discover unschooling then?
Carlo: I was never a fan of schooling itself, and in searching for alternatives, I just stumbled upon it, and it resonated with me immediately.
Pam: Did you find it before you had kids? Or, was that through your education or your teacher’s college and stuff?
Carlo: Well no, I didn’t’ learn any of this while I was at the faculties of education, or when I was doing my masters and my PhD. Actually, I learned it on my own parallel to all of those things. People might assume that I have some type of degree in alternative learning and that I studied John Holt in a university kind of thing. But the truth is that everything I’m interested in now and am sharing with you is something that I learned on my own and in my own time, so in a sense it’s really come from unschooling myself.
PAM: That’s awesome.
A few years ago, you spoke at the Toronto Unschooling Conference about learning to read naturally, and I loved your talk there. Can you share some of your thoughts behind how people learn to read on their own at different ages?
CARLO: Sure. I think everyone is different and they learn in their own ways. Young people are capable of creating their own curriculum, which is something I strongly believe in, and they can figure out what it is they need to do to learn to read.
One of my students recently shared with me in one of my courses how his daughters wanted to go to a reptile facility, for example. And what she would do is, she would go to this particular facility—she wanted to go there on a daily basis—and she asked the person who worked there the same questions over and over again. And my point is that this young person, by doing this, was really in tune with what she needed to do in order to learn what she was interested in learning about. She knows what she needed, perhaps repetition in this case, which is a good way to learn something. And similar things happen with reading.
For example, each of my daughters did different things to learn, when they wanted to learn how to read. Some of the things I was able to grasp, and others were much more private and invisible for me as to make out exactly what it is that they were doing. So for example, they read on their own and they asked us from the other room what this particular word spells, and would tell us the letters. They would learn to read as they write things down. They observed print all around us in our home, and we went out and walked around our neighborhood.
So they really learned to read in their own way, and while they were in charge of deciding and determining how that would look for them, and each of them picked their own path, and as I said before, some of the things I could grasp and try to figure out what they were doing, but other things were just invisible to me and perhaps even invisible to them as they were just living their life and trying to figure out what all of this print means in the world and so on.
There is no one program that fits everyone, and we have to trust and respect their process and the time that they need in order to figure out what it means to read and how they could learn to read. They create a much more rigorous curriculum for themselves than anything we could actually create for them—it doesn’t have to be top down.
So as humans I think that we are learners and we can naturally learn things in our own way, and in the process, we learn about learning and we learn about what works for us, which are both very important things I think for everyone to sort of tune into. So rather than waiting for others to teach us, I think they just figure out that they can learn on their own, and they can figure out what it is that they need to learn, which I think is extremely powerful.
For example, I often hear my own students sometimes say “Well, no one ever taught me that, so how am I supposed to know that? They didn’t teach me that in teacher’s college!” Rather than that, they should say, and I think it would be more powerful and prudent, if they could just say that they wanted to know, and so went out and learned it in their own way. So if you don’t know it, don’t blame others for not teaching, go out and learn it in your own way. I think everyone is capable of using these particular skills. So when it comes to reading, everyone is capable of creating their own very individual program. The can determine what it is that they need in the moment in order to learn how to read, and every human being would learn how to do that in slightly different ways.
PAM: Yeah, you had some great points in there, how individuals will have their own program. And the thing is, like you said, it’s not like they even really recognize it, it’s just what they are doing, just what they are drawn to do at the particular time. It’s not like they say, “Okay, I’m going to focus now on learning to read,” or something, it’s totally part of life for them, right?
CARLO: Yeah, it could be something conscious sometimes or it could be something more or less at that point, something that they are not really mindful of in the moment. They are just living their life and they just kind of learn it.
I think there are all kinds of different ways to learn things and we shouldn’t create particular hierarchies where we say that “this way of learning is much better than that way of learning” and so “If you learn it in this way we will applaud you, and if you learn it in a different way and at a different time, then we aren’t going to value it as much.”
PAM: Yeah that’s a big piece, a big piece of it.
In your answer there you used a phrase a couple of times that I’ve heard you use regularly over the years, and it’s one I love and it’s “Children are capable.” I love how it so concisely conveys that children aren’t blank slates that need to be taught things, but that they are born creative and curious and they are already able to learn. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the inspiration you had behind that phrase.
CARLO: Just by noticing what my own children do and noticing what we all do in the world, and to just pay particular attention to young people, and it’s pretty obvious that they are capable of determining their own life, of making substantive decisions that are valuable, worthwhile and helpful for them. As they live, they learn all about these different types of things, so they are capable of learning about living and learning about learning.
My children for example have shown me over and over again how important this is. From a very early age, they want to and can contribute to our world and our family in very meaningful ways, and they aren’t helpless, they are very capable of living a meaningful life where they contribute to the world that they live in.
PAM: So true. Once you give them the space to actually think for themselves and make choices it’s amazing what they can come up with, right? I mean, I go to my kids, even when they were younger for real, real input into our situations, and that’s so helpful.
CARLO: Absolutely.
PAM:
One of the unexpected but wonderful things about unschooling wider perspective on life long learning is how often we ourselves, oh wow, that lead nicely, learn from our children. I was hoping you could share a couple of things that you’ve learned over the years from your children.
CARLO: I’m constantly learning from my children, from the time they were younger to now. It’s a constant, very wonderful thing to witness. For example, learning about how capable they are is something that shouldn’t be surprising to so many of us, but once we give them the space and the place to live authentic, genuine, freedom, democracy, authenticity as I said, all of these types of ways, with love and trust and trust and care and compassion, and we can quickly grasp how they could just thrive.
So in terms of things I’ve learned from them, I’ve learned how capable young people actually are. The myth of course is that they’re not, and that they really need adults to do all kinds of things to support them. We don’t give them the trust and respect that they actually need. I’ve learned from them for sure how capable young people are.
And just by noticing the different types of things that they do I learn a lot about learning, and how people learn things, because that’s something I’m interested in, so just by looking at them and just being with them and just learning about how they learn about things gives me insights into learning in general and it also gives me insights into how I could better in my own life learn about things.
I’ve also learned about how, they taught me, basically, how to eat more nutritionally just by me observing them. When I was younger, like many of us, I was force fed for example, so you had to sit at the table, you had to eat everything on your plate. You weren’t able to leave until everything was finished and so on. Well, it wasn’t like that ever for my young people, for my children. They always had the freedom to decide what to eat, when to eat, where to eat. So they taught me about how naturally that type of transition can happen, and so, for example, instead of eating everything on their plate, they always leave things, and when they’re full, they’re full! So they taught me the importance of being really in tuned and trying to listen to our own bodies. And trying to become healthier eaters.
You would think that if young people had the option of eating cookies and chocolates and all the things we consider junk foods, that that’s all they would consume, and of course my children have the freedom of having any of those things anytime they like. But what’s really interesting in this whole process and which is eye opening for me and maybe for others, is that even though they have the option of eating just those things, they actually create a very nutritious plan for themselves. So it’s not that they are constantly eating junk foods, even though they can do that. they eat nutritious foods. They prefer sometimes to have legumes and a lot of beans and a lot of things that they want to have that are very nutritional over food that isn’t as nutritional. And because they’ve always had the freedom to make these type of choices, it’s really interesting for me to watch how they learn about their own bodies, they learn about nutrition, they learn about what types of food make them feel one way and what makes them feel another.
And the other interesting thing is that sometimes, just like everybody, they want to have food that is less nutritious for dinner and what I’ve noticed is that because they have the freedom to have just that, if that’s what they choose to have, they don’t overeat. Because when I look at other examples of children that I witness or instances that I witness, I see that before they can have their dessert, for example, they have to consume all their food first, and then they can have their dessert, which results in them to have their dessert after they are already full, so it leads to this cycle of overeating and so on and so forth. But with my children, I notice that since they can have just dessert, they can have just a little piece of dessert since that’s what they want, and then they just go off, and then they can have their fruit, their vegetables, whatever it is.
It really creates a very interesting, and for me, in their case, and of course all people are different so not everyone will follow this particular plan, but for my children, that is definitely something that I’ve noticed and have been able to take away from. So I’ve actually implemented that in my own life, trying very hard to implement what they do so naturally and it’s worked out really well for me as well.
PAM: Yeah, that’s awesome. I’ve read your book about eating and weight. That was really interesting.
Your point about how from watching our kids, we learn about how people actually learn. I didn’t know that would be so interesting but it’s really completely fascinating. And, as you say, it really helped me even just in ways to more joyfully approach my day because I saw that when they were having fun and enjoying what they were doing, how intense the experience and the learning and everything was, and the whole dichotomy that I grew up with of play versus work, right, it just really doesn’t apply, when you’re playing and engaged and in the flow, there’s just so much awesome stuff going on there.
CARLO: And even this whole notion of play gets co opted in so many ways. Just the other day I met with someone who was instrumental in creating the new play-based learning document for kindergarten in Ontario. And you know, she and I were having a conversation. A lot of people I hear saying, you know that I talk to, my students and so on, they talk about how there’s play in Ontario, that’s the whole basis of the kindergarten program is play, and of course the first thing I wanted to make clear to her and to see if she and I were in agreement to make sure we were on the same page, and fortunately we were: there is a huge difference between play and play-based learning.
So in Ontario we don’t have play, but we have what’s called play-based learning, which is very different. So play to me is authentic, it’s genuine, it’s something that you do through freedom, and it’s very open. And play-based learning—with play, of course there’s learning, but the focus isn’t learning, the focus is always the play part, right? In Ontario, and as I said of course she agreed clearly with me, when you talk about play-based learning, it’s not so much about that. The curriculum comes first, so play-based learning in kindergarten in Ontario is exactly that.
In 2006 when the document came out they called it ‘learning based play’. And so you know, people, I think, get confused, between authentic, genuine free play, and this whole notion of play-based learning that’s within the kindergarten in Ontario. And again, that play-based learning is very much focused on the learning component of it, which is externally imposed, which is top down, which is everything we know about what mainstream schooling is about.
PAM: Yeah, that’s a great distinction. It reminds me of video games and educational computer games. “They should enjoy it because it’s on the computer!” But no, the way the games are organized, it’s learning first, right?
I was wondering, too, what, I know that one of your daughters has chosen to go to school, and I was wondering that choice looked like and how you continue to bring your unschooling perspective on living and learning into your days with school in the mix.
CARLO: For me it’s very simple. The fact that they choose to go to school is in my mind consistent with the world view and the spirit of unschooling. In a number of places, Pat Farenga and I are in the process of bringing out all 141 issues of “Growing Without Schooling”, and it will amount to a whole bunch of volumes. So the first volume is almost ready, which will have between issues one and nineteen or twenty, and in doing that, I just finished reading every single word of “Growing Without Schooling” magazine, from the first issue through the 20th again, in the last week, just as a final proofread for this.
In a number of places Holt shares the same sentiment, that with this whole notion of schooling and so-on, and I’ll read you a bit. For example, in issue 13 of Growing Without Schooling in an article titled “Going Back”, Holt writes
“A number of parents, perhaps half a dozen or so, have written to me to say that their one or more of their children have chosen to go back to school. They sound a little apologetic in this, as if they thought they had betrayed ‘the cause.’ But there is nothing at all to feel apologetic about. In the first place, unschooling is not a ‘cause.’ Our interest is not in causes, but in children, and their growth, their learning and happiness.”
So, as a loving father, of course I support the decision my children make. Also, they go to school, but they are very aware of the hypocrisy of what goes on there. We talk a lot about it and they share a lot about the absurdity of it. My daughter and I joke that one day we will coauthor a paper about the ways that she and her friends use mechanisms of resistance to gain some sanity within the system, how they try and subvert the absurd rules and regulations that are placed upon them.
I’m not sure why my children go, I have asked them, but in the end, there must be enough there to keep them going. They don’t find it, schoolwork that is, you know, difficult. So that part alone is not enough to keep them away from the benefits they gain, perhaps in relationships and friendships and so on. Maybe they like the praise they get since they are “good at schooling.” I’m not sure.
They do have insightful observations and complaints about what does NOT work for them there. As for me, I wish they did not go. But again, as a loving father, I support their choice. I also try to mitigate the damage that I perceive the schools impose do to them, you know, the anxiety, the absurdity of it, where they’re being told what to do top-down. The time it takes them, wanting to do what really matters to them, you know, because they are in school so can’t do these particular things.
I’ve always stayed away from their schooling, you know, I don’t read or look at their reports. I tell them that I know them and I love them. I don’t need strangers formally telling me about my children. Regardless of what the schools say, I know them intimately, and so I trust and respect everything they choose to do as human beings.
PAM: Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that Carlo. The unschooling lifestyle supports so much more than just the actual school, right? It’s just a whole perspective on the way you live. And I love the way you talk about that. And they get the opportunity, as you said, to talk to you about that so much. As you’re saying, you’re mitigating a lot of the more negative influences.
CARLO: To me, unschooling is a world view, it’s a way of life, it’s a way you approach everything, and so you could learn about anything any way you like. Some people go to YouTube, and some want to talk to other people, and some people might want to take a course about how to learn about a particular thing.
PAM:
Over the years I’ve seen democratic schools described as unschooling schools a number of times, and yet I think there are some distinct differences between the two environments. I was wondering what some of the differences are that you see.
CARLO: Yeah, I agree. I think that those democratic schools are better than mainstream schools, but in the end, they are still schools, in the sense that they separate children from other learning places and spaces.
For example, if someone wants to be a medical doctor, many people’s dreams for themselves and their children, then I would suggest they get themselves into places and spaces where they can learn what that means, what it means to be in that particular profession.
I was at a conference recently, and heard a statistic that 17% of Canadian adults are happy with the line of work, and that includes all professionals, including doctors and so on. So this is telling and very troubling for me, that only 17% of Canadian adults are happy with the type of work they are in.
And so, you have to ask yourself, is there a systemic reason for this? Would things be different if young people had opportunities to experience these professions earlier, so if we adopted this whole unschooling model. For example, if you wanted to be a doctor, then spend your time learning what that means as soon as you determine that that is an area you might want to go into. And then once you’ve determined that this is an area as a career, then learn everything you can about it first, and then go off and get credentialed.
You see, I think we do everything backwards, you go into the school first, in the world that we live in, and then after that you choose a profession, you go into the schooling for that, and then after you go into the profession and you realize “Oh wow this is nothing that I thought it would be and I don’t like it at all!”
It would be, in my mind, better if we didn’t do it in this backwards way but instead we would spend a whole bunch of time immersed in this as soon as we think it’s something we are interested in, and then move forward that way.
PAM: Yeah, I think that’s a great piece. Another one that I notice is, yes you have the choice to do what you do when you’re there, but you don’t have as much choice, there is still compulsory attendance, you still have to get up, get out and get there, first off. So there’s that aspect that I think is very different.
CARLO: And of course, there is nothing that replicates learning in the world itself, right? So learning about being a doctor or a tax broker in an institution or in a closed environment is very different than actually going to a hospital and spending time there and learning about what that means there. And same with any other profession, right?
So, if you want to learn to be a carpenter, is it better to be out in the field with people who are doing that and watching and learning and participating and immersing yourself in it that way, rather than going to an institution where you are going to get credentialed. As John Holt said, more and more, the professions that used to be done without credentialing, are now credentialed, credentialing is now required to do them.
PAM: We seem to have moved in that direction where they want to set up professional organizations and give certificates for just about anything that they can try and commoditize.
CARLO: Yep.
PAM: There was one other difference that I wanted to chat with you about. It’s the idea that—because when I think about learning and I watch my kids over the years—one of the things that I find that they love, is when they get into the flow, which Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about in his book Finding Flow as “the joy of complete engagement.” That’s something that we see in our kids pretty regularly.
And the interesting thing is, when he talks about it, he says “when goals are clear, feedback relevant, and challenges and skills are in balance, attention becomes ordered and fully invested. Because of the total demand on psychic energy, a person in flow is completely focused, learn more at HeraldNet.com. There is no space for consciousness, for distracting thoughts, irrelevant feelings. Self-consciousness disappears, yet one feels stronger than usual, and a sense of time is distorted.”
I think one of the key aspects, you know, from watching my kids and myself, is that disappearance of self-consciousness when you’re getting into the flow. You drop that layer of internal analysis and just get right into it, feel freer to experiment, to think outside the box, to ask seemingly dumb questions that are on the tip of our tongue. Because we know those answers are really gonna bring us the most clarity right in that moment.
But to get to that space of lack of self-consciousness, you really need to have a space where they feel safe. He goes on to write about how “the family seems to act as a protective environment where a child can experiment in relative security, without having to be self-conscious, and worry about being defensive or competitive.”
For me I think this is another way that unschooling shines because unschooling parents are there with them in that environment. They are focused on creating that emotionally safe place to explore and learn.
CARLO: Yeah, I think that knowledge that Mihaly is a very good example, the way he writes about those things that you just mentioned, that is transferrable to what it is we are interested in when we talk about this whole notion of unschooling and authenticity and self-determination, what I call willed learning. I think it all comes together in a very nice clear way, along with notions of mindfulness and so on. It’s very holistic.
PAM: Yeah yeah, I love that. Next question! You are the founder and editor of the Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Education which is published through Nipissing University, and It’s coming up on it’s 10th Anniversary. Congratulations!
CARLO: Thank you.
PAM: Through it, you’ve published a wide range of peer reviewed articles from around the world.
I was wondering, what’s been your favorite part of that experience, and what kind of feedback you get from your readers?
CARLO: Well, it’s really been more than what I could have anticipated it being, and it’s just such a wonderful experience, and it’s put me in a position where I get to meet and connect with other scholars who have very similar interests.
And it also opens up the community for me and I get very, very positive reviews from around the world and emails from people from around the world, and people have started book clubs, even where homeschooling wasn’t legal, they used the Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning as a way of bringing people into the community and to open up conversations about what can be done.
It’s really been a wonderful experience, it helped me form relationships, build community. I feel very, very fortunate to be part of it, and to have founded and to continue to edit The Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning. It’s been going for ten years, and there is no slowing down.
PAM: Oh that’s awesome. I’m so glad that it’s been going well. I really enjoy when I see that there is a new issue out. Last question.
I was wondering, if you had a magic wand, how would you re-envision childhood in our society?
CARLO: That’s a good question. I think what I’d focus on is this whole notion of love, trust, respect, care, compassion, freedom, democracy, authentic experiences, genuine experiences. Determine, you know, to have young people determine what, where, how they want to learn. And I think all of those terms coming together would create a space and a place for young people where they could live and thrive and to really become who they know they can become and want to become.
PAM: That’s awesome. Those really are the words that encompass the whole environment, you know, that we’re trying to create with unschooling. Could you dig a little bit deeper if we were to try and transition from where we are now into that? Like, would you come up with community spaces and stuff that people could, children could come to during the day, or would you try to come up with ways for it to be more family based or, what do you think?
CARLO: I think it has to come from within. Rather that re-envisioning the world from the outside, we have to re-envision how we see the world from the inside. It’s a very simple thing for us to do, to change the world. And I think that if you think about it this way, we are all part of the world we live in. If we change our own minds, spirits, emotions, and bodies, and we are all a part of the world, by doing that, we will change the world.
I think that what we need to do is start small. We don’t have to envision this huge shift that needs to happen before anything can happen. All we need to do is to shift our own worldviews, shift how we see the world, shift our own philosophical perspectives, and if each of us does this then we could have already made the shift in order for our world to be a lot gentler, a lot friendlier for young people, a lot gentler for young people, a lot more loving for young people.
It’s nothing that’s impossible, but it’s very possible, and it’s nothing that’s overly complicated, where you have to rebuild the whole city. We just have to think and change our own world view, change our own perspectives. It’s all about relationships. What we’re talking about now, it’s not just about unschooling, and it’s not just about young people. It’s about community. It’s about how we interact with each other, how we treat each other, how we help each other. How we take the time to notice somebody needs our help or needs our care or needs our compassion, and then we just move in that particular direction. So it’s not big things that have to happen, but a whole bunch of little things that, and the more people who choose to do that, the closer we are to imagining a world that’s a lot gentler and a lot friendlier, so that’s what I think needs to happen.
PAM: I think that’s a great point, because when I first took the kids out of school, when I was talking to people, I would get the feedback that “Oh, you should try to stay in the system and try to change it from within” and that kind of stuff. But no, it felt much better to do what works well for us and treat our children the way we want people to be treated, and then we are just a living example of a different way that’s possible.
CARLO: Not only that, but I think it’s also wonderful that you did that because actually it gives real life examples of how and what can happen, so that’s why it’s really wonderful that we do have these alternative schools, these democratic schools and free schools, and we do have people who are unschooling. We have examples of all these different approaches and different models, these different approaches that are working, and even when I’m talking to my own students I constantly remind them that of what you what I’m talking about isn’t just theoretical, so when I’m saying “Unschooling is a good option! It works! It creates wonderful adults who participate in our society,” it’s not just theory, it’s actually happening. All we have to do is look at examples of people that are unschooling, people that are in free schools and democratic schools, and we also have to look at our own lives, right, because each and every one of us learns about things, and without going to school.
Like things that we learn are things that we learn without going to school, so each of in a sense, every single person on the planet is unschooling. They’ve all learned about things without going to school. They’ve all learned about things that are very meaningful, that are self-determined or self-willed from their perspective, and so when I talk to my students, it’s very empowering to say that.
Imagine how much more difficult it would be to say “Oh, there’s this alternative.” “Do you know anybody who’s ever done it?” “No, no! But in theory it works.” But really, every single person on the planet is doing this in some form. There are people who do it more focused, like unschoolers, and there are people who go to free schools and democratic schools and do it at Sudbury schools and so on. It really allows for a different level of conversation to happen, because you can point to it and say “This is exactly what I’m talking about, and all of these people, I mean there are 2.5 million homeschoolers in the US” and who knows, the number in Canada go from 40,000 to 100,000. These are all guesstimates, but there are a lot of people who are doing this, and it’s great to be able to point to it and say look, this is the vision I’m talking about, and these are the people who are doing it.
The fact that you’ve taken this initiative, like John Holt says, make a hole in the fence and allow anyone who’s wanting to escape, to escape! And so the fact that you and your family have escaped, is a testament to how successful it is when people do escape, It’s nothing to fear, something to embrace.
PAM: That’s really one of the big pieces, right? Just letting people know there are valid choices in their child’s education, because, I mean, I didn’t know there were any choices when I put my first child in school, so just like you say when you are sharing with your students that there are valid choices that people are doing out there. So even just knowing that more generally, that will help a lot I think.
CARLO: Absolutely. And what really was a pleasant surprise for me is that I’ve been doing this for a long number of years, since 2002 I’ve been teaching to graduate students, what’s really interesting is that a lot of them, when they initially come in, know very little if anything about homeschooling and these other options. And as they come in and as they learn about a lot of these other opportunities and other options that are there, because as I said, a lot of them knew very little about what homeschooling means, and so, they didn’t know, I mean “Do you have to test?” and “Is it legal?” and “What do you have to do? Do you have to be a certified teacher in order to homeschool?” and so on and so on. And so once they learned more about it, then they readily adopted it and over the years I’ve had dozens of students who’ve actually have taken that as an option, and I’ve also had students that are homeschoolers in my program. I just had a student finish her master’s thesis on her homeschooling experience, I have another PhD student who’s unschooling her children and writing about that.
It’s really wonderful to see that once people learn about it, it becomes very normalized, and it becomes a very good other option, and it really is hopeful that the more exposure people get to it, the more they recognize how good of an opportunity it is.
PAM: That’s fascinating Carlo! I wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. It’s been a fascinating conversation.
CARLO: No problem. I always enjoy talking with you, Pam. Thank you.
PAM: Before you go, I was just wondering where is the best place to connect with you online?
CARLO: The best is probably my email address which is carlor at nipissingu dot ca.
PAM: That’s awesome! Thanks again!
CARLO: You’re very welcome! Thanks very much!