Human Restoration Project – Détails, épisodes et analyse

For as much as schools are a necessary collaboration of communities and families, we haven’t spent much time, if any at all, on this podcast focused on parenting itself. Well that changes today, as I’m joined by Steve Shapiro and Nancy Shapiro-Rapport, siblings, and co-founders of Our Family Culture.

Our Family Culture is a platform dedicated to helping families build strong, intentional cultures rooted in shared values, traditions, and meaningful connections. Through stories, guides, and community support, it empowers families to create lasting legacies centered on purpose and togetherness.

https://ourfamilyculture.org/

Founder’s Discount: FOUNDER

Our conversation today is with educator, author, and Director of National Faculty at PBLWorks, Ryan Sprott, about one of the most contentious topics in education today, that is Teaching Contentious Topics in a Divided Nation: A Memoir and Primer for Pedagogical Transformation, which is also the title of his self-published book. In this conversation we be talk about his experience teaching an inquiry approach to teaching contentious topics. In part time project-based inquiry, his students in Texas, of all places, engaged with some of the most difficult open-ended, wicked questions around, as Ryan refers to them, “A question to open hearts and minds”–

What is the purpose of a border and what has shaped your answer to this question? 

How can we improve energy policy and what has shaped your answer to this question? 

And what is the purpose of school and what has shaped your answer to this question? 

Students visited the Texas border with Mexico, worked with immigrant aid organizations and hosted dialogue with Border Patrol agents. They visited Texas oil fields to speak with oilmen on the ground, engaged in interviews, documented their experiences in field journals, created collaborative community art projects, and so much more. You’ll hear student testimonials about how they came away transformed forever by the experience. 

Ryan Sprott @ PBLWorks

Teaching Contentious Topics in a Divided Nation (Amazon)

I’m thrilled to be joined today by Pernille Ripp — a passionate educator, author, and literacy advocate. She is the author of Passionate Readers: The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child, Passionate Learners: How to Engage and Empower Your Students, and Reimagining Literacy Through Global Collaboration. She’s also the founder of the Global Read Aloud, a program that has connected millions of students and teachers around the world through the shared joy of reading.

And for all of our benefit, Pernille is also a prolific sharer. After teaching in Wisconsin for over a decade, In her BlueSky re-introduction she noted she was “back living in Denmark because she needed to breathe a bit easier.” And she frequently posts about her experience in the Danish education system, “Fun fact about teaching at my Danish school,” she writes, “when we are sick, we’re not required to write sub plans because we’re sick.” 

And by most measures, Danes are among the happiest in the world, despite having among the highest tax rates. Healthcare and PreK-College education is free. Hygge conjures cozy seasonal vibes. Denmark has some of the highest public education participation and teacher pay and some of the lowest student:teacher ratios and class sizes among their OECD peers, including the United States. On a more grim note of comparison, the Wikipedia page for “school shootings in Denmark” contains a single entry from 1994, the only school shooting in Danish history. However, as a PDF, the list of school shootings in the United States since 2000 is 169 pages long with footnotes.

Regular listeners of this show will know just how immediately all of this grabbed my attention. In the past we’ve had guests talk about their experiences with everything from the education system in Trinidad & Tobago to the national Chinese college entrance exam, so I am thrilled at the opportunity to dig into both American and Danish society and education systems with someone who has knowledge and experience in both.

Pernille Ripp Bluesky

Transcripts can be found via our website, humanrestorationproject.org.

In today's conversation we're joined by Tesha Fritzgerald,. Tesha is an urban education expert who currently serves as a district level leader in an urban school district in Ohio. She is a Martha Holding Jennings Foundation Scholar who has a passion for UDL and culturally responsive teaching, which has led her to publishing her recent book, Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success.

I invited Tesha on to talk about pairing UDL and antiracist teaching, with a specific focus on:

• Demanding excellence in progressive, human-centered classrooms.
• Clarifying what UDL actually is.
• Clarifying how UDL and antiracism can coexist, when UDL has been critiqued for upholding a traditionalist lens.
• And actions we can take to build anti-racist, UDL-driven classrooms.

Tesha Fritzgerald, an urban education expert who focuses on UDL, culturally responsive teaching, anti-racist teaching, and author of Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success

• Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success by Tesha Fritzgerald
• Building Blocks of Brilliance (Tesha Fritzgerald's website)
• Follow Tesha on Twitter!
• Article: Making Room for Asset Pedagogies by Benjamin Doxtdator

• Planning Period Podcast - Episode 147: Tesha Fritzgerald
• 73: School and the Carceral Network w/ Dr. Connie Wun

Transcripts can be found via our website, humanrestorationproject.org.

Today we're joined by Dr. Tanu Biswas and Dr. John Wall. Dr. Biswas is a doctorate of pedagogy who focuses her research on children's civil disobedience for climate justice, and showcasing the richness that children and childhood have to offer adults. Dr. Wall is a theoretical ethicist who focuses on the idea of a moral life centered on language, power, culture, and childhood. His upcoming book, Give Children the Vote: How to Democratize Democracy argues for voting rights regardless of age.

Our conversation centers on combatting adultism, or the power adults have over children and the discrimination of young people, which is more than present in society but in my opinion, amplified in the classroom. We talk about what adultism and childism mean, how to promote democracy, and the importance of civil disobedience.

Dr. Tanu Biswas, doctorate of pedagogy and researcher focused on civil disobedience, children, and the intersection of climate justice

Dr. John Wall, theoretical ethicist centered on language, power, culture, and childhood

• The Childism Institute (Rutgers)
• Children's Voting Colloquium
• Upcoming Event!: Exploring Children Across Disciplines by  (Jan 22, 2021 @ 8AM ET)
• Children’s Civil Disobedience in the Minority World & its Potential for Re-imagining the Educational by Tanu Biswas
• Why Children Should Have the Right to Vote: An Argument for Proxy-Claim Suffrage by John Wall

• 34: Restoring Humanity to Education (Critical Pedagogy)

Transcripts can be found via our website, humanrestorationproject.org.

Today we are joined by Dr. Jennifer Berkshire and Dr. Jack Schneider. Dr. Berkshire is a journalist and educator who focuses on podcasting and labor organizing at Boston College and Umass Amherst respectively, and Dr. Schneider is an education historian focused on reform and school accountability. Jennifer and Jack co-host the wonderful Have You Heard Podcast, which is focused on hot button issues in educational policy and current events, and both Chris and I highly recommend checking it out if you aren’t listening already. 

Our discussion today is going to cover a lot of ground but center on education reform, innovation, labor rights, unions, and change. There’s an odd dichotomy between progressive education and the assault on public education: a cognitive dissonance between the necessity for systemic reform while ensuring a free and accessible public education for the future and recognizing the need for organized labor as a path to a strong working class, that teacher unions are among the largest and most powerful in the country. Yet, there is a narrative - real or not - that unions are resistant to the change that many progressive educators want, and more recently, the notion that they have become the major roadblock to school reopenings in 2020.

Dr. Jennifer Berkshire, journalist and educator focused on podcasting and labor organizing at Boston College & UMass Amherst

Dr. Jack Schneider, education historian centered on reform and school accountability

• A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door by Dr. Berkshire & Dr. Schneider
• Review: A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door by Nick Covington
• Have You Heard Blog/Podcast

• 80: Pandemic Pods, School Choice, and Combating Inequity w/ Dr. Jon Hale
• This Podcast Will Kill You: COVID-19 Chapter 10: Schools
• This is Hell!: 1263: The end of public school / Jack Schneider + Jennifer Berkshire

Transcripts can be found via our website, humanrestorationproject.org.

Today we are joined by Dr. Susan Blum, Dr. Blum is a professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, and the author of many works and articles, including her recently released: Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead), which features fifteen different educators, such as Arthur Chiaravalli, Jesse Stommel, Aflie Kohn, and Laura Gibbs, speaking on their ideas and implementation of the practice. And as an interesting side note, more than half of the educators in the book have appeared on our podcast! 

In this conversation we'll be talking about ungrading, framed on the ideas found in the book - the “how” of the practice, and particularly how ungrading fits within COVID-19 and promoting equity as a whole.

Dr. Susan Blum, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame and active author, with a recent focus on ungrading.

• Ungrading Book Club (assembled by David Buck)
• West Virginia University Press: Ungrading, edited by Dr. Susan Blum
• Human Restoration Project Ungrading Handbook
• Human Restoration Project Ungrading Course

• 78: A Way to Ungrade, Floop w/ Christine Witcher
• 74: The Research on Assessment w/ Dr. Astrid Poorthuis
• 54: Making the Switch to Ungrading feat. Abigail French, Dr. Susan Blum, and Dr. Laura Gibbs
• 47: Redefining Assessment by Implementing Gradeless Learning feat. Jeffery Frieden, Aaron Blackwelder, & Nick Covington

Transcripts can be found via our website, humanrestorationproject.org.

Our conversation today will center on teaching organization and collective activism. Essentially, we find ourselves at an important crossroads, as the administration shifts to new policies - teachers will be at the whim of new federal (and likely, state) policies that will have massive ramifications on classrooms, especially during COVID-19. And I hope out of this conversation, we’ll be able to address - what should I be concerned about? What problems may exist? And then, okay...what can I do to actually mitigate these problems and demand an equitable education system?

Dr. Kevin Gannon, the Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and a Professor of History at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, and author of Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto. Further, Gannon actively writes and teaches on the science of learning, racism and race in education, and building inclusivity online and offline. You can learn more on his website, TheTattooedProf.com and on Twitter @TheTattooedProf.

• The Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire
• Pedagogy of Hope by Paulo Freire
• Radical Hope by Kevin Gannon
• HRP Book Review: Radical Hope

• ThinkUDL with Kevin Gannon: Radical Hope for Online Teaching

This is a recording of our Teacher Powered Schools Virtual Conference 2020 presentation: Sharing Power with Students: Reframing Systems Toward a Liberatory Pedagogy. This session dives into why reform doesn't work, how teachers can use collective action to change systems, and what really, is the point of us working against inhumane structures if not much is actually changing?

• One Teacher Can't Save the World by Nick Covington and Chris McNutt

• Introduction: Human Restoration Project

Today, Chris and I (Nick) are joined by John Hale, whose biography you will hear at the beginning of the interview. John was recently the guest of a Soho Forum debate on the topic of pandemic pods, which you heard excerpts of at the beginning of this episode and confined in its entirety on YouTube.

Since the Human Restoration Project has primarily been focused on pedagogy and changing the structures of school, I wanted to have John on to talk more about the history and ramifications of education policy and help us unpack what's really going on in our current conversations about pandemic pods, voucher programs and the recently announced Bezos Academy. How can we simultaneously acknowledge that schools need to change while being critical advocates for the need for public institutions and employee unions? How have market oriented takes on so-called school choice actually subverted the original intent of independent and charter schools? It's a really interesting conversation and it was great to talk to John. I'm sure we'll have him on again to talk education policy, history and organization in the future.

Dr. Joe Hale, professor of educational policy, organization, and leadership at the University of Illinois, Urban-Champaign, and author of the forthcoming book, "The Choice We Face" (working title)

• Jeff Bezos is opening a tuition-free preschool for underserved children (CNN)
• Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol
• Small Schools and Choice Revisited by Deborah Meier

• Are ‘Pandemic Pods’ a Symptom of the Public School Monopoly? A Soho Forum Debate (YouTube)