Explore every episode of the podcast Human Restoration Project
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
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| Parenting with Purpose w/ Steven Shapiro & Nancy Shapiro-Rapport | 07 Jun 2025 | 00:44:27 | |
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. Founder’s Discount: FOUNDER | |||
| Teaching Contentious Topics in a Divided Nation w/ Ryan Sprott | 24 May 2025 | 01:14:05 | |
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. | |||
| A Danish Perspective on American Education w/ Pernille Ripp | 25 Jan 2025 | 00:53:01 | |
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. | |||
| 86: Developing Anti Racist UDL w/ Tesha Fritzgerald | 14 Feb 2021 | 00:33:32 | |
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:
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 RESOURCES
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| 85: Combatting Adultism to Create a Flourishing Democracy w/ Dr. Tanu Biswas & Dr. John Wall | 16 Jan 2021 | 00:40:50 | |
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. GUESTSDr. 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 RESOURCES
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| 84: In Defense of Public Education w/ Dr. Jennifer Berkshire & Dr. Jack Schneider | 25 Dec 2020 | 00:51:27 | |
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. GUESTSDr. 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 RESOURCES
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| 83: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning w/ Dr. Susan Blum | 05 Dec 2020 | 00:43:07 | |
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. GUESTSDr. Susan Blum, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame and active author, with a recent focus on ungrading. RESOURCES
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| 82: Build a New Future: Teaching Action and Coalition Building w/ Dr. Kevin Gannon | 20 Nov 2020 | 00:45:03 | |
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? GUESTSDr. 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. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| 81: One Teacher Can't Save the World | 31 Oct 2020 | 00:46:12 | |
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? RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| 80: Pandemic Pods, School Choice, and Combating Inequity w/ Dr. Jon Hale | 17 Oct 2020 | 00:55:01 | |
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. GUESTSDr. 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) RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| 79: Reimagine the System w/ REENVISIONED (Dr. Erin Raab) | 03 Oct 2020 | 00:42:52 | |
Today we're joined by Dr. Erin Lynn Raab. Erin is the Co-founder of REENVISIONED, a movement to redefine the purpose of school. REENVISIONED aims to change the conversation of school away from standards, norms, and improving the status quo, toward human flourishing, community, democracy, and collective liberation. Erin and her co-founder, Nicole Hensel, both graduates of the Stanford Graduate School of Education, aim to collect 10,000 stories of students, teachers, and community members to develop a shared vision of what school could, and should be. The organization works with schools and individuals to catalyze new conversations and create new visions. They provide a tried and true process for opening space for truly eye-opening conversations between young people, educators, and other adults in their community about what we all really want out of our education system and for our live. You can read some of these interviews at REENVISIONED.org. In our conversation together, Erin talks about systems-based thinking and transforming the system, rather than upholding the status quo. It's a deep, complex discussion centering on history, psychology, and more. I hope you enjoy! GUESTSDr. Erin Lynn Raab, who earned her Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University, where her scholarship pertained to the question of how we can transform education systems so they foster individual flourishing and thriving democracy, and is the co-founder of REENVISIONED. RESOURCES
Shorter, broad audience pieces by Erin: FURTHER LISTENING | |||
| 78: A Way to Ungrade, Floop w/ Christine Witcher | 19 Sep 2020 | 00:20:47 | |
Today we're talking about ungrading with the EdTech tool, Floop, short for feedback loop, found over at FloopEdu.com. Now, we don't normally talk about specific tools and strategies at HRP - we get into the theory and pedagogy of progressive systems...but the most common question we're asked is: okay well, is it even possible to do any of these things? It seems like a ton of work and it'll be overwhelming, and everyone is against me! Well, one potential solution is Floop! In summary, Floop allows you to easily provide feedback to your students. You create dropboxes on the platform, students upload their assignments, and then you are given audio and text-based tools to comment on what they've done. You can assign feedback visually, through comment banks, see growth over past revisions, and you can see if students have read what you've said. I personally love that Floop is committed to ungrading - and you don't need to enter in any grade whatsoever. The company actively promote practices to distance ourselves from grades altogether. I, myself, started using Floop this year and I'm excited to share it. I think it's a great example of an ed tech company using their tools for actual education as opposed to maintaining the status quo, and it's affordable and ethical as you'll soon find out. Christine Witcher, a current middle school STEM educator and co-founder of Floop, founded in 2017. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| 77: Normalizing Teacher Self-Care (in a Pandemic) w/ Evan Whitehead | 29 Aug 2020 | 00:24:32 | |
Today we are joined by Evan Whitehead, a veteran educator who is the director of special services at a K-8 school in Illinois. Evan has served in a variety of roles, from crisis and behavior interventionist to Latino parent outreach coordinator to Title 1 director. Further, Evan actively presents on reaching at-risk youth, leadership, and self-care for everyone in education, and is a national consultant for the Aha! Process. We discuss how educators can best prepare for self-care, especially now within remote and hybrid contexts. Further, we focus on conversation on two themes: 1) how can we build systems (e.g. breaks, SEL check-ins) to ensure teachers are supported by administration, and 2) how can we ensure that toxic positivity doesn’t ignore equity and social justice in the “name of” self-care? GUESTSEvan Whitehead, a leader in social-emotional learning, leadership, and self-care, and director of special services at a K-8 school. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| The Privateers: How Billionaires Creates a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers w/ Josh Cowen | 11 Jan 2025 | 00:40:56 | |
There are any number of narratives that emerged from the 2024 election and that will be hotly debated over the next four years. However, one of those is not up for debate: that vouchers and school choice lost everywhere they were on the ballot in 2024. In Colorado, voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would’ve added “a right to school choice.” And in red-state Kentucky and Nebraska, voucher programs failed by nearly the same proportion that Donald Trump won. On this show we've focused a lot on culture war issues as they directly impact what and how classroom teachers can teach, and I suspect the culture war will come up in this conversation. But we've never actually dug into the specific issue of voucher programs, which also impact educators, parents, schools, and kids in over a dozen states, with even more to come in an explicit push for a national universal voucher program as a long-term federal policy goal. My guest today is Josh Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University. He’s written extensively about education politics, school choice, and culture wars in the United States, and you should definitely give him a follow on BlueSky @joshcowenmsu as he is very persistent in addressing the topic of his latest book, titled The Privateers: How BIllionaires Created A Culture War and Sold School Vouchers. I wanted to have Josh Cowen on to better understand, as we head into a new year and the next administration, how, like unsinkable rubber ducks, vouchers continue to fail to deliver on their promises and continue to be rejected by voters, and yet, we find ourselves on the verge of a nationwide voucher and school choice program. | |||
| 76: "Return to Learn": Voices and Perspectives on School Reopening | 08 Aug 2020 | 00:50:00 | |
In this podcast, Nick Covington (of HRP) and I, Chris, discuss the "return to learn” plans of school and what we must think about as we reopen. We call upon other educators to hear their thoughts, including Dr. Jessica Zeller, Rachel Lawrence, Shane MacLeod, and an anonymous caller. Three key themes emerge in our conversation:
Also, we experimented with a new recording set up so I apologize for the decrease in quality…always attempting to do better! Show Notes | |||
| Summit: Endorsing Student Voice Through Virtual/Hybrid Activism | 01 Aug 2020 | 01:43:50 | |
This is an audio version of our Summit on August 1st, 2020. Here's the video! Inspire Citizens is an innovative organization focusing on active, informed civics through social justice, sustainable development, collective well-being, SEL, and ethical media literacy. Out of the Blocks is an NPR program focused on capturing the sounds on the street of Baltimore, formed on the idea of interviewing every single person on a given block. And Evan Whitehead is a school leader and educator of over 20 years with a focus on social-emotional well-being. Check out this podcast between Inspire Citizens and Out of the Blocks on how this work can involve students. Further, this Padlet has a huge collection of ideas shared today. Further, check out our write-up on writing.humanrestorationproject.org. Our Summit focused on endorsing student voice through activism in a hybrid/virtual setting. How can we help students become involved in their community when it's difficult or impossible to actually walk around the community? How can we use technology (e.g. podcasts, photography, interviews) to help connect others? How can we promote social justice when it's difficult to build interpersonal connections? Look out for future Summits via Human Restoration Project’s website and social media. | |||
| 75: Refuse to Teach: Anxiety, Organizing, and well, Death | 13 Jul 2020 | 00:27:41 | |
Let’s put this into perspective: the United States is planning on the mass reopening of schools when COVID-19 has still not ended its first wave. Millions of people have been diagnosed, and the CDC has issued little concrete guidance on how schools will actually reopen next month. The US Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has essentially ignored questioning of even the notion of remote learning and does not believe that this is a serious issue that will effect children (flat out refusing to acknowledge the adults in the room too.) This podcast addresses the anxiety and real chance of death due to COVID-19 in the classroom. It calls upon teachers to organize and demand remote learning. Let’s face it, there’s two options: 1) We go back to school, cases increase, and more students, teachers, and faculty members die. This isn’t a hypothesis. There are ample facts presented in this podcast on why this is the case. 2) Teachers stand up to districts, using their extreme leverage during the pandemic, to stay remote and minimize destruction. I encourage you to listen in. - Chris Show Notes
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| 74: The Research on Assessment w/ Dr. Astrid Poorthuis | 04 Jul 2020 | 00:23:14 | |
Our podcast today features Dr. Astrid Poorthuis, an assistant professor at the developmental psychology program at Utrecht University, Netherlands, whose work focuses on performance, school, and its relationship to social/emotional learning. Dr. Poorthuis has researched and published a variety of works concerning grades, student/teacher emotional well-being, student/teacher relationships, and peer relationships. Dr. Poorthuis and I talk about her research and its applications for the classroom, notably how ungrading and its benefits of engagement, well-being, and participation are backed by substantial amounts of research - referencing a variety of studies. It's incredibly interesting how universal these results are and the commonalities that US and Netherlands schools share. Attached in the show notes are the studies that Dr. Poorthuis has been involved with, as well as recommendations she makes during this episode. GUESTSDr. Astrid Poorthuis, a leader in researching practices that demonstrate the importance and implementation of practices that bolster student social and emotional well-being, who serves as an assistant professor in the developmental psychology program at Utrecht University, Netherlands RESOURCES
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| 73: School and the Carceral Network w/ Dr. Connie Wun | 20 Jun 2020 | 00:34:03 | |
Our podcast today features Dr. Connie Wun, the founder and director of Transformative Research: An Institute for Social Transformation and AAPI Women Lead. Connie is an educator, activist, and researcher whose work centers on race and gender equity, community-centered research, women's empowerment, school discipline and punishment, and anti-Blackness in education. Connie and I talk about school and its relation to the carceral network, or how school is intertwined in producing delinquency, inequity, and power structures in the United States. Our discussion talks not only about the issues facing US schools, but how we can utilize the "winds of change" of the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as the COVID crisis, to revolutionize the education system to best serve Students of Color and marginalized students. Briefly, to provide some context to the carceral network and schools - we're referring to not only the "school to prison pipeline", but the commonplace day-to-day discrimination that Students of Color face, including but not limited to a white-centric curriculum, dress codes, the tardy system, and racial stereotyping/discrimination (for example, sending a student out of class for "laughing too loud" or "chewing gum", which effectively hurts a students' education as well as simply their humanity.) Dr. Connie Wun provides an incredibly clear overview to the carceral state and continuum between schooling and carceral pedagogies. GUESTSDr. Connie Wun, researcher, speaker, and educator, and founder/director of Transformative Research: An Institute for Social Transformation and co-founder/director of AAPI Women Lead. RESOURCES
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| Introduction: Human Restoration Project | 11 Jun 2020 | 00:24:58 | |
What is Human Restoration Project? This introductory podcast provides an overview to our organization, what we do, and the goals of progressive education. Listen in to learn about the pedagogy and join the cause!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| 72: Revolutionizing Equitable College Admissions w/ ACCEPT Group (Marie Bigham) | 06 Jun 2020 | 00:37:24 | |
Today I'm joined by Marie Bigham, founder and co-leader of ACCEPT Group, or Admissions Community Cultivating Equity & Peace Today. Marie has spent over 20 years in college admissions, most recently at an independent school in New Orleans, and serves full-time as ACCEPT Group's leader. ACCEPT coordinates support for equitable college admissions, such as staging walkouts and organizing like-minded voices for change. In this podcast, Marie and I discuss the actions we can take to radicalize the college admissions process in an era of uncertainty. The horrific actions of the past few months, from the growth of a global pandemic to yet another murder of a person of color by the police, George Floyd, has led way to some glimmers of hope in organizing, protest, and growth as a society. What actions can K-college educators take to build an equitable higher education experience, when revolution seems more and more tangible? GUESTSMarie Bigham, former college admissions counselor and co-leader and founder of the ACCEPT Group (Admissions Community Cultivating Equity & Peace Today.) RESOURCES
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| 71: Post-Standardization: Schools for a Free and Democratic Society w/ Dr. William Ayers | 23 May 2020 | 00:32:38 | |
Today I am joined by Dr. William Ayers, a retired education professor at the University of Chicago whose work is rooted in progressive ideology. Ayers was heavily involved in the free school movement in the 1960s, and his work reflects a focus on democratic schooling and building a more free society. Ayers is a prolific author, including writing On the Side of the Child: Summerhill Revisited, Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom, To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher, and the recently released "You Can't Fire the Bad Ones!": And 18 Other Myths about Teachers, Teachers Unions, and Public Education. In this podcast, Ayers and I talk about the opportunity that COVID-19 provides teachers to throw out standardized testing and build a better system. We discuss the College Board, the connection between testing and the financial industry, how testing impacts the culture of a school, and what a classroom without these tests could mean. GUESTSDr. William Ayers, professor of education at the University of Chicago, elementary education expert, education reform activist, author, and researcher. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| 70: Taking Charge with Teacher Action Research w/ Etta Kralovec | 16 May 2020 | 00:25:21 | |
Today I am joined by Dr. Etta Kralovec, a professor of education at The University of Arizona, who focuses on context, research gathering, and teacher preparation, specifically with a focus on US/Mexico border communities. Dr. Kralovec is a widely accomplished author and researcher, with works such as The End of Homework and Schools That Do Too Much, a Fulbright Scholar, school leader and founder, and international expert. In this podcast, we talk about the practice of teacher action research, where educators perform qualitative studies of what they're doing - essentially to figure out if it works. As you'll soon hear, the power of teacher action research lies in the process of reflecting and analyzing the information. Further, teacher action research is the cornerstone of Human Restoration Project's upcoming microcredentialing program. GUESTSDr. Etta Kralovec, professor of education at The University of Arizona, author, researcher, Fulbright Scholar, and expert on teacher action research with a specific focus on US/Mexico border communities. RESOURCES
*Dr. Kralovec has graciously provided her author email, endhomework@gmail.com - to answer any questions about teacher action research and how it can work for you! FURTHER LISTENING | |||
| 69: Social Justice, Gender Identity, and Liberatory Pedagogy w/ sj Miller | 09 May 2020 | 00:28:39 | |
Today I am joined by Dr. sj Miller, an associate professor of teacher education at Sante Fe Community College. sj is an expert on social justice and challenges the gender and gender identity binary (e.g. trans*+, gender dynamic/fluid youth.) sj is an award-winning and well-published author, including writing for The International Journal of Transgenderism, International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, and the Teachers College Record. You can view sj's speech on gender identities and young people via TEDMED. In this podcast, we talk about how schools can best serve nonconforming gender identities, how classrooms can be liberated for social justice, and the mistakes we make in professional development and addressing the complex topic of gender in schools. GUESTSDr. sj Miller, associate professor of teacher education, expert on gender identity justice and social justice, and published author/researcher. RESOURCES
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| The Landscape Model of Learning w/ Dr. Kapono Ciotti | 07 Dec 2024 | 00:44:29 | |
Today we are joined by Dr. Kapono Ciotti. Dr. Ciotti is the Executive Director of What School Could Be, an organization offering a whole host of things: free resources, a flourishing community, coaching services, graduate coursework, and more; plus WSCB is one of Human Restoration Project’s partners. Prior to this work, Dr. Ciotti grew up in Honolulu, Hawai’i in a progressive, constructivist school and taught in the same area, then in Senegal, and then became a school leader in the United States and internationally. He’s worked in over one hundred schools across four continents, including as national faculty for the National Association of Independent Schools in diversity, equity, and justice. Dr. Kapono Ciotti @ Solution Tree | |||
| Bonus: Summit: Teacher Powered Schools w/ Amy Junge, Liz Seubert, and Taryn Synder | 30 Apr 2020 | 00:58:28 | |
Interested in using this opportunity for professional development credit? See our template for administrators. Consider running this event past your administrative team prior to completing. In this interactive professional development session, we will talk about how teachers can create their own public, private, and charter schools through the Teacher Powered Schools organizational structure. We are joined by three amazing guests: Amy Junge, Director of the Teacher Powered Schools initiative, co-author and researcher of Trusting Teachers with School Success: What Happens When Teachers Call the Shots with Kim Farris-Berg and Ed Dirkswager. Liz Seubert, a co-founding teacher at Wildlands School, a public tuition-free, PBL-based charter high/middle school in Wisconsin, 2016 Teacher Ambassador for Teacher Powered Schools, and co-author of An Improbable School: Transforming How Teachers Teacher & Students Learn. Taryn Snyder, a 3rd grade teacher at Boston Teacher Union Pilot School, a public tuition-free K-8 school in Massachusetts, founded as a partnership between the Boston teacher’s union and local schools. This discussion will span across K-12, directing educators on the Teacher Powered Schools movement, how to get involved, and clarifying questions to start teachers on their journey to potentially envision their own schools! | |||
| 68: Grassroots, Teacher Powered Schools w/ Liz Seubert | 25 Apr 2020 | 00:31:05 | |
Today I am joined by Liz Seubert, a teacher at the teacher run and operated school, Wildlands in Fall Creek, Wisconsin. Wildlands is a small, tuition free 7-12 public charter school, which is affiliated with the Teacher Powered Schools movement. Liz, along with her coworkers, operate the entire school without an administrative body. In this podcast, we will delve into the operation of Wildlands, how it was founded, and what teachers can do to become involved in Teacher Powered Schools. If you're listening to this podcast before April 29th, make sure you sign up for our Summit with Liz and two other experts from Teacher Powered. There, they'll be able to answer your questions and start your own journey to a grassroots revolution in education. In our opinion, teachers being treated as professionals, and being able to connect with students in small school environments, is a realistic and pragmatic way to organize progressive education for all students. I highly recommend you visit Teacher Powered Schools at teacherpowered.org. Their network supplies a ridiculous amount of resources, materials, and help channels to help teachers navigate starting their own school. GUESTSLiz Seubert, co-founding teacher at Wildlands School, a 2016 Teacher Ambassador for the Teacher Powered Schools Initiative, and co-author of An Improbable School: Transforming how Teachers Teach & Students Learn. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| 67: Learning From Unschooling During Isolation w/ Tiersa McQueen | 11 Apr 2020 | 00:29:53 | |
Our podcast today features Tiersa McQueen, an avid homeschooler who raises her four children in an unschooling philosophy. Tiersa and her husband both work opposing shifts to allow this to occur. Tiersa frequently posts on her Twitter and Instagram handles as MotherBae, critiquing traditional education, offering support as an unschooler, and demonstrating how we can adopt unschooling among our children. I invited Tiersa to talk about this pedagogy and offer advice for educators who are now supporting their students in their home environments, as well as many who are raising their own children alongside this. GUESTSTiersa McQueen, avid homeschooler and unschooler who posts under the handle @MotherBae to critique traditional education and represent Black married moms who unschool RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| Bonus: Summit: Play and Outdoor Learning w/ Abe Moore | 29 Mar 2020 | 01:01:12 | |
Interested in using this opportunity for professional development credit? See our template for administrators. Consider running this event past your administrative team prior to completing This discussion will talk about how we can bring about play-based learning in and out of classroom. This conversation will center on experiential learning and student voice, with some credence to how this can integrate to the COVID-19 crisis. Abe Moore is a primary teacher in Adelaide, Australia, and has worked on brilliant projects, including building an entire play space with his students. How can we build spaces and co-create curriculum with our students to encourage play, especially in the outdoors? What activities, games, and/or projects can we undertake with individuals or small groups of students? What does a play-based outdoor curriculum, classroom, and community look like? Resources mentioned in this episode can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qgePI6nTaD2ihJdYHCJuhPgsg38q3RD4MhIyRbp1qW4/edit?usp=sharing | |||
| 66: Humane Education w/ Zoe Weil | 28 Mar 2020 | 00:32:31 | |
Today I'm joined by Nick Covington and Zoe Weil, where we're exploring the work of the Institute of Humane Education, which is led by Zoe. Zoe has been teaching "humane education" for over thirty years, and is an established author, speaker, and workshop leader on the topic. The Institute of Humane Education is an accredited program offering robust graduate and doctoral coursework in "humane education", which centers on promoting social good and minimizing harm to people, animals, and the environment. The Institute offers incredible resources on its website, including the in-depth "Solutionary Guidebook" - which is part humane education overview, part PBL guidebook, and part student activity booklet. I highly recommend checking it out, it's free! In our discussion, Zoe, Nick, and I talk about the purpose of humane education, how it can be incorporated into schools, and its relationship to the growing Sustainable Development Goals movement. GUESTSZoe Weil, the co-founder and president of IHE, who has led the humane education movement over the last thirty years; an accomplished author, speaker, and presenter. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| Bonus: Summit: Teaching and COVID-19 | 19 Mar 2020 | 01:05:50 | |
Interested in using this opportunity for professional development credit? See our template for administrators. Consider running this event past your administrative team prior to completing. In this interactive discussion, we will discuss what teaching is like during the COVID-19 crisis. Participants will be posed with these questions, but the conversation will take us on a journey of its own:
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| 65: Virtual Learning and COVID-19 w/ Jesse Stommel PhD | 13 Mar 2020 | 00:31:55 | |
Today we're covering COVID-19 and how it impacts the education system. Depending on when you're listening to this podcast, you're likely facing your school's physical environment shut down, or soon to be doing so. In Ohio, all schools are now expected to have at least three weeks out starting on Tuesday - and schools are frantically trying to prepare how they'll tackle this shift. Most districts across the United States are continuing the expectation of academic coursework across this disruption - and we have no idea how long it will last. Most teachers do not have formal training in adapting their class to a virtual environment, nor does everyone have even close to a 1:1 environment. This episode will assume that educators are dealing with a virtual shift, and looking for a place to start, further resources will be posted in the show notes concerning paper-based methods. GUESTSJesse Stommel, a leading expert on digital critical pedagogy, hybrid pedagogy, and assessment. He is the Digital Learning Fellow and Senior Lecturer of Digital Studies at University of Mary Washington. Further, Jesse is the co-author of An Urgency of Teachers: the Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy, and a documentary filmmaker. RESOURCES
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| 64: Disrupting the "Same Old, Same Old" with Peter Verdin and Bruce Mansfield | 07 Mar 2020 | 01:06:35 | |
Today we are joined by two fantastic educators. First, I will be speaking with Peter Verdin, who is a "movement engineer" at Future Public School in Garden City, Idaho, which is a tuition free, progressively minded lottery-based school. Essentially, Peter is redoing the way we look at physical education with elementary students, and designing curriculum as these students grow older and the school expands. Then, we have Bruce Mansfield, is an instructional coach in the Bellingham School District in Bellingham, Washington. Bruce has operated a gradeless system in a traditional environment, and showcases the structure of his course, as well as how he has used portfolios and student letters to obtain evidence of learning. It's a great look at how we can spread the practice of gradeless learning to even more educators. GUESTSPeter Verdin, the Movement Engineer at Future Public School in Garden City, Idaho, who incorporates place-based and environmentally-focused learning into physical education; host of The Other Literacies; founder of Movement Engineering Project. Bruce Mansfield, an instructional coach in the Bellingham School District in Bellingham, Washington; former US history teacher of 14 years; a pusher for radical change in assessment via portfolio and student letters. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| Bonus: Summit: Experiential Learning and the SDGs w/ Dr. Jennifer Williams | 01 Mar 2020 | 00:50:29 | |
Interested in using this opportunity for professional development credit? See our template for administrators. Consider running this event past your administrative team prior to completing. Dr. Jennifer Williams, is the co-founder and executive director of Take Action Global, co-founder of TeachSDGs, professor at Saint Leo University in the College of Education and Graduate Education, and author of Teach Boldly. In this interactive discussion, we will discuss connecting the UN Sustainable Development Goals to authentic projects in the classroom. Participants will be posed with these questions, but the conversation will take us on a journey of its own:
Please see the attached Google Document for all the notes from this conversation, as well as a variety of external links. | |||
| 63: Building a No Test Future w/ Dr. Yong Zhao | 22 Feb 2020 | 00:23:53 | |
In this podcast, we are joined by Dr. Yong Zhao, the Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education. Dr. Zhao and I talk about building a movement that ends standardized testing in the United States and how to build classrooms that invoke a student's innate desire to learn. Perhaps the grueling, “rigorous” standardized testing system is actually harming students, not helping? Most teachers seem to understand this, and a recent analysis by Harvard University seems to confirm it. Dr. Zhao has written and spoken extensively on how testing and test scores harm students. And he’s done the research and work to back up everything he states. It’s up to teachers - those in the field - to actually make change in this endeavor. There’s a lot we’re up against! It makes all the difference. GUESTSDr. Yong Zhao, the Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas. Zhao was the Presidential Chair and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education at University of Oregon, and a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. Further, he's served as the founding director of the Confucius Institute and US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| A Measure of Intelligence: One Mother's Reckoning with the IQ Test w/ Dr. Pepper Stetler | 16 Nov 2024 | 00:38:07 | |
Today we are joined by Dr. Pepper Stetler. Pepper’s recently released book, A Measure of Intelligence: One Mother’s Reckoning with the IQ Test documents her journey alongside her daughter, Louisa, who was diagnosed with Down syndrome. It dives into the history and ongoing problematic issues with measuring intelligence, specifically how school and society uphold and reinforce misused and misappropriated labels. Pepper’s work on disability advocacy has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, and The Washington Post, and she’s also an Art History professor at Miami University. Book: A Measure of Intelligence: One Mother's Reckoning with the IQ Test | |||
| 62: Creating Worlds, Game Design & Education w/ Seth Coster | 08 Feb 2020 | 01:10:48 | |
In this podcast, we are joined by Seth Coster, the CEO and game programmer at Butterscotch Shenanigans, who have seen incredibly success on their video and mobile games. Best known for titles Crashlands and Levelhead, Butterscotch Shenanigans was founded by three brothers with no explicit academic background in video game creation. Seth studied to become a Certified Financial Analyst, started a law graduate program, but soon realized he enjoyed the games he created in his free time much more. Brothers Sam, Seth, and Adam Coster also host their own podcast, Coffee with Butterscotch. The reason we invited Seth was because we see an inherent connection between video game design and education, as well as his own story connecting to a lot of our work at the Human Restoration Project. (And it was awesome to have a connection through Nick, who he went to college with.) I actually introduce the concept of learning by doing by showcasing a clip from Indie Game: The Movie, where developers of Super Meat Boy explain that teaching a player to run and jump through a pop up that shows them how to do it, is not nearly as effective as just presenting a large gap and having the player keep trying until they ultimately succeed (see the show notes!) Enjoy this array of topics from game design to grading to chaotic science experiments. GUESTSSeth Coster, the CEO and game programmer at Butterscotch Shenanigans, who have seen incredibly success on their video and mobile games Crashlands and Levelhead. Nick Covington, Creative Director of Human Restoration Project, advocate of equitable gradeless learning and realignment of assessment. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| 61: How to Teach Us, Authentic PBL w/ Brooke Tobia and Students | 25 Jan 2020 | 00:35:00 | |
In this podcast, we are joined by Brooke Tobia and her two students, Olivia and Avery. Together, they've co-developed and written the book How to Teach Us: A Guide for Teachers Written by Students. Working in a PBL environment, roughly 60 6th grade students between Brooke and her co-teacher researched, wrote, and published this work which is available via Amazon. Within, you'll find slews of information, gathered from interviews with students, that explains how different students learn and effective teaching methods. It can’t be stressed enough how authentically this work demonstrates the power of experiential learning. These students are engaged, motivated, curious, and acting purposefully. They see the power in their work and want to share it. They’re working cooperatively to help each other. And ultimately, they’ve built something together that can have a lasting impact. Maybe this podcast will spawn a wave of collaborative book publishing? GUESTSBrooke Tobia, a 6th grade STEM educator at High Tech Middle North County, who masterfully incorporates experiential learning into her courses. She’s joined by two of her 6th grade students, Olivia and Avery. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| Bonus: Summit: Changing the Status Quo Through Effective Research w/ Dr. Susan Engel | 18 Jan 2020 | 01:01:20 | |
Interested in using this opportunity for professional development credit? See our template for administrators. Consider running this event past your administrative team prior to completing. Dr. Susan Engel is a professor of developmental psychology at Williams College, with a focus on curiosity, school reform, and educational research. Her many works include The Hungry Mind: The Origins of Curiosity in Childhood and The End of the Rainbow: How Educating for Happiness, Not Money, Would Transform Our Schools. Further, Dr. Engel is co-founder and educational advisor to the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, NY. In this interactive discussion, we’ll talk the importance of research and dissect how to analyze research results as well as revamping teacher professional development models. *Apologies for the relatively low audio quality. First time we’ve recorded on Jitsi! | |||
| 60: Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals to the Classroom with Dr. Jennifer Williams, Julia Fliss, and Nick Covington | 22 Dec 2019 | 00:43:03 | |
This episode is all about the Sustainable Development Goals, with some specific questions surrounding their implementation. If you're not familiar, the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015 and consist of 17 major problems the world aims to solve by 2030. Countries are working in partnership to solve issues such as ending world hunger, establishing gender equality, taking climate action, and reducing inequality. Each of these goals has many organizations working with the indicators - or specific tasks - within each goal. During our panel discussion, we talk about motivating students to reach the SDGs in spite of their gigantic nature, as well as how to implement these ideas in our ever politicized world. GUESTSDr. Jennifer Williams, co-founder and executive director of Take Action Global, co-founder of TeachSDGs, professor at Saint Leo University in the College of Education and Graduate Education, and author of Teach Boldly. Julia Fliss, a language arts educator at Evergreen Middle School in Evergreen, CO and TeachSDGs ambassador. Nick Covington, a social studies educator at Ankeny High School in Ankeny, IO (and Creative Director at Human Restoration Project.) RESOURCES
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| 59: What's Up With School Lunch? w/ Jennifer E. Gaddis | 29 Nov 2019 | 00:48:09 | |
I’ve always been perplexed by school lunch. It’s sort of taken as a part of school: a fairly bland looking, processed, mess that students deal with during the school day. Michael Moore in Where to Invade Next how ridiculous it was that the United States spends, on average, much more than other countries lunch programs, while not even serving fresh food. It’s not uncommon to view any school’s lunch menu and see the same questionable offerings: chicken nuggets, french toast sticks, chicken sandwiches, hamburgers. And when I saw an ad for a new book, The Labor of Lunch by Jennifer E. Gaddis - I was thrilled to see an in-depth discussion on why school lunch is the way it is. It’s a chronicle of the history, social issues, and modern movement toward lunch reform. Gaddis offers an incredibly detailed work. You can read our “book of the month” review here. GUESTJennifer E. Gaddis, an assistant professor of Civil Society and Community Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Gaddis focuses on a feminist perspective of food politics, with a special focus on school lunch programs. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| Bonus: Summit: Connecting with Students for Greater Well-Being w/ Monte Syrie | 23 Nov 2019 | 00:53:58 | |
Join Monte Syrie - a proponent of student relationships who operates a daily educational reflective blog at LetsChangeEducation.com. Monte serves as an adjunct professor of education at Eastern Washington University, and as a high school English teacher and department chair at Cheney High School in Cheney, Washington. In this interactive discussion, we will discuss connecting and relating with students to improve well-being, both from a resource and systemic perspective. Participants will be posed with these questions, but the conversation will take us on a journey of its own: What are some practices or systems that get in the way of connecting, or are disconnecting, students and educators? How can we foster a class/school culture where students listen, learn, and support one another? How can we systemically change our class/school to support learners and their social/emotional well-being? | |||
| 58: Student Government and a Democratic Education w/ Carla Marschall & StuVoice, Merrit Jones | 02 Nov 2019 | 00:36:35 | |
We often think of democratic education as student government - where students are sadly often pigeon-held into a glorified party planning committee with very little power. But what if things could be different? First, we could establish democratic norms in our classroom, where students are on equal footing with us to discussion curriculum and classroom changes - where the topics we discuss in class and the assignments that are given are a contract between the two of us, and our job is educators is to support, rather than tell what to do. Then, what if we build student governments that operated in the school as an actual government? As in, they have a place at the school board. If they don't get what they want, they protest. And they demand things that every human being as the right to....often to the dismay of legacy administrators. Phones? It's their property, let them be used. Dress code? It's part of the first amendment. Emotional well-being? Who cares about grades when people are stressed and anxious? This issues matter deeply to students, and they should matter to us as well. The people in our classrooms are well - people, they're human beings. And they deserve the same respect that any individual has. Sometimes ,yes, they're students and they may push boundaries or get on our nerves, but they still demand the rights they're beholden to - especially when these rights are needed to navigate our ever-changing world. Further, the state of democracy in the modern world is dismal, to say the least. No matter the political party, people are unhappy with their representatives. Money corrupts the system and people aren't having their most basic needs met in some of the richest countries on Earth. Despite social studies being taught to every student, voting in the United States is still relatively uncommon and people rarely demand change. Yes, we're seeing an influx of young people taking a stand - but imagine if all our young people were given the opportunity to express themselves and recognize their voice was heard? The world would be radically different - and for the better. GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCECarla Marschall, who has worked in various IB programs across Switzerland, Germany, and Hong Kong, and is currently the Head of Curriculum Development and Research at United World College South East Asia in Singapore. Co-author of Concept-Based Inquiry in Action, Carla is an expert at preparing students for a flourishing democracy. Merrit Jones, who is the executive director of the student-led organization, Student Voice, which in my opinion is the most interesting and exciting organization currently in development. Not only is it run by students, it provides a beautiful website full of exciting resources, amazing student-written articles, and materials for supporting student-led chapters that honestly disrupt the flow of traditional schooling. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| Bonus: Summit: Self-Assessment, Gradeless Learning, and Teacher Well-Being w/ Starr Sackstein | 27 Oct 2019 | 01:07:44 | |
This is an audio version of our Summit on October 27th,, 2019. Starr Sackstein, NBCT is author of many titles including Hacking Assessment, Peer Feedback in the Classroom: Empowering Students to Be the Experts, and From Teacher to Leader: Finding Your Way as a First-Time Leader without Losing Your Mind, as well as an English nationally board certified teacher. In this interactive discussion, we will discuss how these principles not only are paramount for our students' success, but our own longevity and joy as educators. How does gradeless learning change the teacher’s role in the classroom? How can we use self-assessment to not only change our classrooms for student well-being, but for teachers? How do student agency and voice and choice lend themselves to teacher empowerment and work/life balance? What other ways can we foster teacher well-being while simultaneously promoting the well-being of students? Look out for future Summits via Human Restoration Project’s website and social media. Our goal is to host free, quality PD at least once a month! | |||
| 56: Listen to Students (feat. Ayush Chopra, Cody Lees, & Meghan Kestner) | 28 Sep 2019 | 00:32:50 | |
In this podcast, we're focused on student voice: how to engage students, what it means to share power with students, and the possibilities that can occur when we truly let students speak. It's obvious that this true, just a quick glance at the news and Greta Thunberg demonstrates how powerful young people can be if given the opportunities to be successful. Our job as educators to not hamper that motivation to learn and change the world, and help open up new experiences for students to be interested and engage in. And it's just just Thunberg or Malala or any young person doing amazing things - it's small scale success and purpose as well. The more people we unite with their purpose, the better society we will build. Sometimes those purposes aren't global reaching, but building a happy, motivated world is a giant, yet legitimate goal we can reach. What else really matters in the end? However, we all know that school is not a place where many students are engaged in this kind of work. Sure, there are pockets of teachers doing amazing things - and they're often doing these things in spite of the systems and structures they find themselves in. We need to engage students in conversation and take their ideas legitimately, leaving out judgment aside, to truly find ways to transform our classrooms and schools. GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCEAyush Chopra, a 17-year-old student out to change the world with his organization, SDGs for Children. Ayush has written Shaping a Fairer World with SDGs and Human Rights and hosts the podcast, Shaping a Fairer World. Cody Lees, a recent high school graduate who was actively involved in leadership activities in school, who highlights his 3rd grade experience in “Action Club.” Meghan Kestner, a special education educator and Upward Bound advisor whose students share their stories, and who reflects on the need for more human-focused approaches to the classroom. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| Bonus: Summit: Humanizing Mathematics w/ Sunil Singh | 22 Sep 2019 | 01:00:17 | |
This is an audio version of our Summit on September 22nd, 2019. Sunil Singh is author of Pi of Life and co-author of Math Recess: Playful Learning in an Age of Disruption, whose expert focus is on revolutionizing the math curriculum through philosophical conversation, decolonizing the content, and redefining the narrative. In this interactive discussion, we discussed revolutionary thinking of mathematics education and how to instill a humanized mathematics curriculum into our schools.
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| Meritocracy, Anxiety, & the Chinese College Entrance Exam w/ Zachary Howlett | 02 Nov 2024 | 00:52:59 | |
I was not familiar at all with China’s national college exam, the gaokao, until reading about it in Susan Blum’s book, Schoolishness, and talking with her about it on a podcast episode we released in August – episode 152, you should check it out – and I’m incredibly grateful to Susan for making the connection with my guest today. Zachary Howlett is associate professor of Anthropology at the National University of Singapore, joining me from Singapore, and author of the book, Meritocracy and Its Discontents: Anxiety and the National College Exam in China. I thought at first ah, sure, every country has its school gatekeepers and methods of rationing secondary & post-secondary education – the SAT & ACT in the US, or the GCSE’s in the UK, for example – so how is this any different? But what I was not prepared for in Zachary’s work was the sheer magnitude of the gaokao as a deeply Chinese cultural, economic, political, and even a magical and religious phenomenon that touches every aspect of life, and for which there really is no American equivalent. The blurb on the back of the book from Karrie Koesel captures it so well, “Zachary M Howlett opens the black box of the gaokao to reveal that it is not only a fateful rite of passage, but also a complex social phenomenon laid in with ritual, magic, dark horses, examination champions, latent, potential, luck, character building, social inequity, and the possibility of changing one's fate.” | |||
| 54: Making the Switch to Ungrading (feat. Abigail French, Dr. Susan Blum, and Dr. Laura Gibbs) | 31 Aug 2019 | 01:23:16 | |
Today, we're deep diving into ungrading. In episode 5, we looked at the gradeless movement and the pedagogy that surrounds it, and now we're looking at how it's incorporated, and the non-academic benefits of implementing it. To be clear, when I say "ungrading" - I'm referring to the movement away from grades. This doesn't necessarily mean that the class does not issue at grade at all. Typically, this means that grades are as limited as possible, as in one final grade at the end of a year, with opportunities to redo assignments or reach that goal in multiple ways. Almost every classroom one visits today will have a chart on the syllabus which breaks down grades.
First, I don't blame educators for setting things up this way - it's the way it's almost always done. It's the dominant way of thinking about grading. But there are a litany of issues with categorical grades. Does a student who never completes homework really not understand the content, or are they just disobeying instructions to do work at home? If a student never passes a test, but does great in their classwork, are we grading their content knowledge or their anxiety levels? GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCEAbigail French, a veteran public school teacher focusing on sixth grade, whose beginning her journey into ungrading after unrest with the traditional system. Dr. Susan Blum, an anthropology professor at the University of Notre Dame, author of I Love Learning; I Hate School": An Anthropology of College, who utilizes ungrading in the classroom and is soon publishing a work on gradeless learning. Dr. Laura Gibbs, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, who teaches mythology and folklore and epics of ancient India . Laura has been teaching these classes online since 2002 which have always been ungraded. RESOURCES
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| 53: Teaching as a Nerdy Introvert w/ Jessamyn Neuhaus (Geeky Pedagogy) | 10 Aug 2019 | 00:50:23 | |
Dr. Jessamyn Neuhaus is author of Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers, which releases on September 1st, 2019. Jessamyn is a full-time professor at SUNY Plattsburgh, teaching US history, pop culture history, history methodology, as well as “Superheroes in US Culture” and “The Apocalypse in USU Pop Culture.” It’s only fitting that I recorded this episode with a D.C. Comics shirt, just after watching an episode of The Boys. Jessamyn and I speak about what introverted teachers bring to the classroom, how we can engage introverted students, the problems with the loud and “inspiring superteacher narrative”, and how embracing nerdom/being authentic is paramount to success. As an introvert, I struggled in professional development, specifically motivational speakers, who made me believe that the best teachers had “Robin Williams” moments (which we discuss on this podcast!) Certainly, this isn’t to berate those who are loud, inspiring, and engaging - but us “nerdy folks” would not do well in a profession that requires that skill-set. I worry that many educators who choose this path and read certain teaching strategy books will come to believe that teaching isn’t for them - solely because of the false narrative of what “good teaching” can look like. Jessamyn and I dive into this and what we can do to change the narrative. RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||
| 52: Shifting Mindsets: Entrepreneurial Education and the Battle Against White Supremacy w/ Kenrya Rankin | 20 Jul 2019 | 00:25:51 | |
In this episode, we discuss Start It Up: The Complete Teen Business Guide to Turning Your Passions into Pay and How We Fight White Supremacy with author Kenrya Rankin. A graduate of Howard University and New York University, Kenrya is an award winning author and speaker whose work has been featured in Fast Company, Ebony, and Glamour. She’s the editorial director for Colorlines. Further, she’s host of the new podcast,The Turn On (NSFW.) I contacted Kenrya initially while researching entrepreneurship education books for an upcoming class project, and I was impressed by Start It Up and the message it sends. It’s not just a “business plan book” - it features students from all backgrounds starting business in their teenage years. It’s an easy read and perfect for one’s classroom. However, I was more excited when I learned Kenrya has an extensive repertoire of anti-racist advocacy works, and this connections between the two are fascinating. Listen in and enjoy! RESOURCESFURTHER LISTENING | |||