Welcome to The Cog Podcast, where we talk about all things public education. My name is Megg Acquilano and we call our podcast The Cog for a couple of reasons. Reason #1 is that I believe teaching is the profession that allows all other professions to exist. It's the cog or the center from which the spokes of our democracy originate. Reason #2 is that we're recording from the granite state, otherwise known as New Hampshire. NH is the home of the cog railway that climbs Mt. Washington — which is the world's first mountain-climbing cog railway and has been in operation since 1869.