Read Transcript:

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Kevin Stoller: well welcome to 2026.

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This is The Better Learning Podcast.

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My name’s Kevin Stoller.

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I’m joined today with Matt Rogers.

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Matt, how’s it going?

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Matt Rogers: Good.

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How about you?

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Kevin Stoller: We have a lot going on in 2026.

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I know we’re both excited about recording this because it is, uh, I think we’re, we’re excited more of like letting everyone know what we’re working on.

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but we gotta keep it kind of secretive until it happens, right.

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Matt Rogers: I know what, two, two more weeks of keeping quiet and then we can, we can finally start talking more about this.

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Kevin Stoller: I know, so.

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Yeah, exactly.

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We’re, we’re recording here.

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It’s, it’s January 16th.

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Um, so this will come out here in, you know, in January, but the big date is February 2nd, Groundhog Day.

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We’ve had a lot of discussion even about Groundhog Day.

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Um, the more we talk about, people keep calling it Groundhogs Day.

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Groundhog Day, if it’s singular, plural.

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Matt Rogers: I, I had no idea that that was, I, I thought it was Groundhogs Day.

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I thought there

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Kevin Stoller: Oh, really?

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Okay.

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Matt Rogers: I, I did, I did.

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So I was surprised when I learned it’s, it’s not so, um, yeah, I guess it’s, it’s one groundhog that we, we celebrate,

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Kevin Stoller: That’s right.

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That, that’s it.

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Just one.

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Yeah.

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So.

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So February 2nd, for anyone who is involved in this industry of designing, working on schools, school leaders in the construction process.

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You are gonna want to be there.

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It, it is February 2nd at two o’clock Eastern.

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We are doing a live stream event that, uh, that I, I’m just so excited about.

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I don’t even, uh, I, I don’t want give away too much other than you just need to be there.

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Matt Rogers: Yeah, it, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s gonna be, the stage has been set.

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It’s gonna be something that, um, if you’re not there, you’re gonna be kind of behind a little bit on some of the.

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Kevin Stoller: they’re, they’re gonna miss out.

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This is like one of those things like, uh, yeah, where, where I feel like, um, yeah, we’ve already been doing a little bit of, uh, promoting and just the number of people that are signing up we’re like, wow, this is gonna be fun.

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Like, it, it is really gonna be like our whole industry, all kind of seeing it all at once.

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and, uh, and it’s not gonna be what I think anyone is gonna expect, which is, which is why I think I’m.

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I’m so anxious to just like be like, oh, I wanna share this with everyone else.

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Matt Rogers: I know.

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I, I was thinking about this.

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It, it would’ve been so awesome.

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I mean, I love that we’re doing this on Groundhogs Day, but,

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Kevin Stoller: Groundhog Day.

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Matt Rogers: Groundhog Day.

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Groundhog Day.

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But, but man, wouldn’t it have been fun to do this, like in person to see everybody’s reaction?

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I think it’s gonna be so fun.

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I think there’s gonna be a lot of conversations that are gonna come up after the fact just of, of, of, uh, reaction.

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So, um, if you are listening to this, um, I definitely want you to reach out and gimme your, um, thoughts on, on what the day was like.

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So I’m looking forward to it.

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Kevin Stoller: Yeah, yeah.

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We’ll, we’ll definitely get the feedback afterward, um, and, and see, see how it is received.

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But I, I’m just, yeah, I, I’m just really excited about, I think it’s gonna be fun, entertaining.

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Um, just really, you know, like a lot of, I, I feel like how we’ve been trying to, uh, serve the market and the space that we, we play in here, we, we just, uh, have this really cool, unique.

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Um, opportunity to connect with the people that we connect with here between the architects and the school leaders and, um, the interiors.

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It’s, it’s just a lot of fun, the space we do in and being able to do this podcast and some of the other things that we do.

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yeah.

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To me this is, this is the, this is our community and I love that we get to do it in a really fun way.

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Matt Rogers: Yeah.

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And I was gonna, I was gonna, you hinted at something that, um, you know, these are, are conversations and things we’ve been doing kind of for the last, last year, and these are what you’re gonna see.

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On February 2nd, Groundhog Day is is, I mean, it’s things that we’ve hinted at, uh, over the last year and now I’m super excited.

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We’ve done a lot of podcast planning for 2026, and one of the things that we’re talking about is bringing a lot of the ideas and concepts that are gonna happen on that day to the podcast next year.

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So, um, you know, if you are listening to this, um.

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Please reach out.

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Um, we’re looking for guests in 2026 right now to kind of, to hit on some of those things we’re gonna, we’re gonna be talking about in a couple weeks.

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Um, but I’m super excited about the conversations that are happening, you know, for the podcast,

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Kevin Stoller: Yeah, I mean, it is been, I mean, we’ve been doing this podcast since 2017, and if you look back at the evolution of it.

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Uh, of where it’s gone and where it’s going.

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You know, like, it’s always been, um, so focused like on our industry and about learning spaces and how we improve education, but in the, in the different ways we’ve done that.

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We had a lot of fun last year of really doing it around the, the mo the school related movies.

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Um, and, um, and this year we’re gonna get a little deeper into, um, solving real problems without, without losing the fun.

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That we’d had last year, but I felt like last year we went, we went maybe a little, a little too fun without making it real enough.

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And I, and we’re gonna try to balance it out a little bit more this year.

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but either way, it, it is just such a cool way and fun way to connect with everyone.

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so our big message is February 2nd.

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There will be a link here, sign up.

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You’re gonna want to be there on this live stream to see what it is that we’ve been talking about and, uh, and I promise you it will not be what you expect.

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Matt Rogers: Yeah, absolutely.

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I gotta close with this ’cause I, I actually haven’t heard this and I, I want it to be on, on air too.

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Is, um, out of all the movies we discussed last year, which one was your favorite?

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Kevin Stoller: So, all right.

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So good question.

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Um, I mean, wrapping up with Live Billy Madison, I mean, that, that was my movie.

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Um, so that was a ton of fun of doing that.

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But I, I would say the surprise one, um, for me was super bad.

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Um,

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Matt Rogers: Oh wow.

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Kevin Stoller: That one, that one was just a lot of fun to do.

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I mean, I liked that movie a lot, but I didn’t really, um, but it was one that I had always seen in pieces maybe ’cause it would kinda came out when I was a little, little older.

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and watching that through that movie is just so funny.

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but also like, so real and it, it, that one was a blast going through.

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I, and I want to hear your answer in here too, but actually I’m not gonna, I wanna hear your answer.

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What, which one was the most fun for you?

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Matt Rogers: Oh my gosh.

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Um, well.

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Well, um, I wasn’t on as many this past year, but the one I was on that I really enjoyed was School of Rock.

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I had to be on that one.

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I had a lot of fun with it.

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Um, Mason, Pasha, he brought a lot of awesome energy and we even had like a live, um, guitar session with Mason.

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So that, that one was awesome and one of my favorite movies.

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And he just brought a really unique and cool energy and perspective to it.

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out of ones that I listened to though.

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Man, that’s hard.

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Um, I would probably, uh, I was trying to kind of go back.

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There were some really awesome ones we had at the beginning.

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I’m actually gonna go Ted Lasso and I, I don’t, I don’t know if it’s because it was different from like a different movie perspective.

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We kind of talked about the series in general and if you heard, you know, if you go back to that episode, we had just done a lot of training around Ted Lasso.

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So there was a lot of awesome things that just really connected.

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So, um, and I really like, um, our guests on that one, Heidi.

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Um, so that, that was a, that was a really good one too.

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So I, I could go on with, with multiple different ones from the past

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Kevin Stoller: I, I think my amazement on here is how many movies that we did not do, even though we did like over 50 episodes on movies last year.

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They’re like, the list of ones that we have not done is so long that, yeah.

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Well, we’ll see.

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Maybe, maybe it will be ways we, we work that in, um, over the years coming up.

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Matt Rogers: Yeah, I was about to say I was surprised by that and I was also equally surprised by I can, I can name probably two, um, two movies that we did do that were not on my radar.

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Um, actually I haven’t even seen two, two of ’em too.

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Um, I’m not gonna call out which ones those are, but there were a few of ’em that I was a little shocked that did get picked out of some of the ones that got left on the table.

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But like you said, hope we can mix some of those things in, uh, in the new year in a fun way, um, while still bringing this, uh, new concept that we’re talking about.

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Um, here in a couple weeks as well,

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Kevin Stoller: Yeah.

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All right.

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Well, if you’re not already a subscriber of the podcast, hit subscribe wherever, but most importantly, February 2nd.

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Go to the link here, register, register through that, you’re, you’re gonna want to be there.

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Um, experiencing it live is, uh, is gonna be the best way to experience it.

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So please try to make sure, um, get that calendar blocked off as soon as possible.

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’cause we know how quickly everyone’s calendar will fill up in the middle of the day.

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Um, but excited to hear that.

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Excited for 2026.

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Matt, thank you for all the work you’ve been doing on the podcast.

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Um, I, I think, uh, I don’t know how many people get to see how much work and how much organization and connections and things that you’re doing, and it’s just really appreciated.

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So thank you.

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Matt Rogers: Absolutely.

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And I’m, I’m gonna call out the rest of the team on it too ’cause it’s a team effort and there’s a lot of people outside of just myself that, that, um, that help with this too.

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So, um, yeah.

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Thank, thank you for the whole team, anybody that has come on, um, previously thank you too.

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Um, you guys definitely helped make the conversations fun.

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Kevin Stoller: See you all.

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February 2nd, Groundhog Day.